The Josh fight, what the heck is a 'cheugy,' some media drama
Hi everyone! Here are three things from this week to catch up on:
The Josh Fight
I don’t condone large gatherings while there’s still a raging pandemic going on. … But I do condone the idea of a bunch of guys named Josh fighting in a giant field in Nebraska.
Last Saturday, hundreds of people gathered at Air Park in Lincoln, Nebraska, armed with pool noodles, to determine one of the most important questions of the 21st century: Who is the greatest person alive named Josh?
All of this started when a 22-year-old named Josh Swain Facebook messaged every person he could find with the same name as his, challenging them to a fight. While it was initially a joke, the Josh Fight obviously turned into a huge event, drawing out a ton of Josh fighters and non-Josh spectators, and raised $12,000 for the Children’s Hospital & Medical Center Foundation in Omaha.
The winner, was a 5-year-old, appropriately dubbed Little Josh.
The key to his win? “I like fighting,” said Little Josh in an interview after. A true king.
“Cheugy”? I don’t know her
The all-knowing higher power of internet culture (NYT reporter Taylor Lorenz) has officially canonized a new word in online discourse: “cheugy” (pronounced chew-gee).
What does “cheugy” mean: “It’s not quite “basic,” which can describe someone who is a conformist or perhaps generic in their tastes, and it’s not quite “uncool.” It’s not embarrassing or even always negative.”
Often associated with millenial women, “cheugy” is kind of that “I’m getting married at 24 and celebrate GirlBosses unironically and still use eos lip balm in 2021 and stan Pinterest and use a curling iron like 13 -year-old girls do when it’s their birthday.”
It’s not cringy per se, but just a tadddd out of touch. If you identify with any of these cheugy things or activities, don’t feel bad!! It’s not an outright negative signifier, just a new way of classifying things. Just keep living, laughing and loving (or whatever), you’ll be fine.
My boomer tendencies are willing me into rejecting this new internet slang; I don’t want to learn new words, what am I, a child? But who knows, maybe “cheugy” is here to stay.
The Gannett Ratio
To all my non-journalism friends reading this, feel free to check out now, because I’m pretty sure there’s nothing worse than reading about journalism drama when you do not care about journalism drama.
But for anyone who does care, or at least appreciates a good Twitter dogpile: On Thursday everyone’s second-least favorite media conglomerate took to Twitter, in an attempt to quell circulating information regarding the company’s huge pay disparities in women and people of color.
Where do I even begin to describe how ridiculous this was… Not only were they trying to discredit their OWN reporters who put together the initial report, but their own findings show that they employ 73% white people, as if that is completely acceptable and fine in 2021. And the sheer RATIO on this bad boy, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
Gannett also faults this on the fact that they’re “on a journey” (a very cheugy thing to say, lmao). I’m sorry, you’re on a what?? Gannett, you are a multi-million dollar corporation, not like, Julia Roberts in “Eat, Pray, Love.”
God, just pay your employees better.