Flashback Friday: This deranged Bleacher Report illustration
Also: The biphobic IKEA couch can't hurt you
I’m back from another two-week hiatus, let’s get into it people!
What the heck is this
Welcome to a new segment called: Old internet things that I think about at least once a month. Today I will be discussing this illustration that Bleacher Report posted on Twitter after the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team won the World Cup in 2019.
I encourage everyone to spend a good minute looking at this graphic. Upon initial look you might think, “Sure, it’s the UWNT standing in front of an American flag and a handful of other notable athletes representing the U.S.”
But then you start to notice… Ok why is Kendrick Lamar there? Why are the casts of “Modern Family” and “Friends” there? Why is Andy Samberg dressed as Jake Peralta there??? Who’s that white guy next to Jay-Z? What the heck is going on?
This is literally the visual definition of that TikTok audio, That’s good, okay that’s…. good, alright, okay, that’s… okay, that’s ENOUGH!!”
(Who do you think is the most random person in this illustration? My vote is the fully suited Iron Man. Yes, it’s not even Robert Downey Jr. It’s Iron Man.)
After much scrutiny and questioning, Bleacher Report took the tweet down, but never followed up with any explanation whatsoever.
Who created this artwork? Who signed off on it? How much time and money was spent on it? Who decided that two of the kids from “Stranger Things” should be in it? Truly what was the point of it? It wasn’t even attached to a story? I need to know.
Love to be gaslit by a couch
As Pride month came to a close, corporations were winding down on their annual profiting off of half-assed attempts to show that they care about the LGBTQ+ community. But no!! Capitalism prevails, and thus we were left with IKEA’s line of “Love Seats,” 10 couches “inspired by different Pride flags.”
Three of the four designers on this campaign are queer, so props to IKEA for uplifting LGBTQ+ creators. But people on Twitter immediately expressed confusion about the couch that appeared to represent the bisexual flag.
Covered in pink, purple and blue handprints, the couch reads “When you change OR to AND, nobody believes you.” Rather than being uplifting, the couch seems to echo a common biphobic talking point that belittles and delegitimizes bisexuality.
One of the designers of the couch hopped on to Twitter to explain that the phrase came from a poem he wrote about bisexual erasure.
And I respect that my guy but like…. who needs to get bullied by their couch in 2021? Perhaps furniture is not the ideal vessel for making nuanced critiques of biphobia.
The Venmo apocalypse
Have you or a loved one been bombarded by an avalanche of Venmo logos across Instagram and Twitter? You could be compensated with this very short explanation of what’s going on.
On Monday, Venmo launched a campaign essentially saying that if you retweeted them or reposted their IG story, you could win $500. So naturally everyone reposted, free money why not? I don’t blame anyone for that.
But I find this whole charade to be…. icky. Venmo, a multi-billion dollar corporation is dangling (what to them is) pocket change in front of its users, making us all do a silly little dance in desperate hopes of acquiring what could be a life-changing amount of money for some people. And on top of that, this coincides with Venmo’s quiet announcement that they’ll be increasing fees for small businesses that use their services. Yuck.
More recommended reading
Megan Thee Stallion’s latest song “Thot Shit” was ripe for a viral TikTok dance. But Black creators have gone on strike, demanding credit for their work, which is often ripped by and then attributed to white TikTokers.
And since their strike started a few weeks ago, it has become glaringly obvious that dance TikTok is nothing without Black creators. Read more below from the LA Times.