Sorry for the late post!! But here we go friends:
James Corden is at the terrible intersection of Ellen and Lin-Manuel Miranda
*sniff* *sniff* Sorry, I just smell… a rat.
Wait, no, actually, it’s James Corden. The British comedian/actor/singer/talk show host has become the recent target of online vitriol following this video of him, along with Camila Cabello, Billy Porter and Idina Menzel filming one of his regular segments, Crosswalk the Musical, posted to Twitter last week.
If you’re not a very online person, you might be thinking, “What’s wrong with James Corden? He makes his lil jokes and has his lil talk show, he seems harmless, no?” Well… it’s complicated.
Let’s rewind a few months back: Earlier this year, I explained the rise of the “meme villain.” They’re typically middle-aged men, have some sort of musical abilities and are eagerly earnest. But maybe that’s the problem, they’re too earnest? They’re easy to dunk on and quickly become the target of online mockery.
James Corden seems to fall directly under this description, making him the perfect target for people all around the internet to hate on him. It also really does not help that he seems to regularly choose terribly cringey projects to star in, including the CGI hellhole “Cats” movie, “The Emoji Movie” and Amazon’s Girlbossified “Cinderella” (hence the crosswalk musical with Camila Cabello).
So now you’re probably thinking, “Wow people are just mean, and for what?” Butttt it gets even more dicey! Apparently, allegedly, James Corden is also straight up a dick. It’s been documented in the British tabloids, in the American tabloids, even in a whole fricking New Yorker profile on him; Corden himself has admitted he does not have a good track record of being great to people.
And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg! For years, rumors have been swirling around the entertainment industry that he treats his staff terribly, a la Ellen Degeneres.
He’s also recently come under fire for one of his show segments called “Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts,” in which celebrities have to answer tough questions or be forced to eat a random “disgusting food.” But here’s the thing… the so-called horrifying foods are often things like chicken feet, cow tongues or various insects, things that are considered extremely normal foods in literally any non-Western country. To regularly go on national television and make a big stink about how disgusted you are by foods considered delicacies in other cultures… sheesh, a lot to unpack there.
As an evergreen reminder, I do not condone cyberbullying. I don’t know why anyone on Jennifer Lopez’s internet is wasting their time yapping away about how “cringe” James Corden is. And also, a ton of the criticisms I see of Corden love to throw in jokes about his weight: body shaming is not cool at all (especially when there are 2874632490 other valid things you can call someone out for instead), cut that shit out.
Butttttt if the rumor’s about his workplace behavior are true, let’s get this dude outta here. (Although I apologize in advance I will literally never not watch the BTS Carpool Karaoke, it’s too good, sorry.)
This is Twitter
See the below tweets.
There’s really not much more to say because, I think the quote tweets summed things up nicely.
So much of Twitter is people acting like they’re some sort of 21st century anthropologists, discovering new aspects of the human psyche when they’re literally just talking about wildly normal activities.
I swear I can tweet something like “Does anyone else find it really attractive when guys like, remember things about you?” and get at least 10k likes.
Maybe it stems from the desire to feel unique, or connect with others over shared experiences, but it always comes off like people on Twitter have never spoken to other human beings before.
I don’t even know what to title this section
If you have not watched the above video, let me recap it for you.
A random 22-year-old man from Ohio decided to quit his job, because he decided that it’s his dream to work for Logan Paul (yes, the blueprint obnoxious vlogger, probably a sex offender, got cancelled for filming a dead body in the woods Logan Paul).
He claims he was making $100k a year at said job, and starts to cry, I suppose implying that it was not enough money. May I remind everyone that he is from OHIO and 22 FUCKING years old.
He essentially stalks Logan Paul at some sort of fan event, and gives his spiel, begging for a job.
Logan Paul responds with some relevant questions, “Did you sneak in here?” (“No,” he says. (He did.)) “What are you good at?” (He nervously replies, “dances.” Any dances? All dances? He doesn’t really specify.) “Do you have any friends that can help you out?” (No, apparently he has zero friends.)
Logan Paul proceeds to walk away.
And after all this, this man, this 22-year-old, unemployed man decides to post a video about it on TikTok.com.
Where to begin… I’ll say first off: I DESPISE this man specifically because he’s forced me to side with Logan Paul. You’re telling me that you can be standing next to Logan “I once tasered two dead rats for YouTube views” Paul, and still be the least self-aware person in the room?
Videos like this make me think, “Who raised you?” … I really don’t think I need to break down the rest of this guy’s choices, because it seems very obvious why truly everything he did in this situation was wack.
But the real icing on the cake is that he decided to post about it online. As I mentioned last week, I’m hesitant to accept any sort of online vulnerability as genuine, because the looming presence of an audience implies that the poster can/likely has ulterior motives. In this case, I wonder if this guy just deeply miscalculated what the online response would be.
Was he hoping to gain sympathy/support? Did he think a kind internet stranger would offer him a job? Did he think that a viral plea would change Logan’s mind? Well, joke’s on him because none of those things happened, even to the point that Logan’s brother, Jake, mocked him online.
I’m happy for people to quit their jobs and pursue their dreams, but yikes, not like this.
Rick! Rick! Rick! Rick!
Soulja Boy released a song earlier this summer titled “Rick & Morty,” as a pseudo tribute to the Adult Swim cartoon of the same name.
The show itself is already sort of a meme (recommended reading, the Szechuan Sauce incident, toxic fandom culture) because of both its content and the generally weird energy/community surrounding it.
So of course this Soulja Boy song, whose chorus literally just says “Rick and Morty / Rick and Morty / Rick and Morty / Rick and Morty / Rick Rick Rick Rick…” is also now… a meme. See the linked videos here and below.
A palate cleanser
In case you were unaware, New York Times Opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie has a recurring video series with Serious Eats where he reviews cereals. It’s wonderful.
This past week he reviewed JoJo Siwa’s cereal (TIL JoJo Siwa has a cereal.) called Strawberry Bop.
I know NYT is a big deal or whatever, but these cereal reviews really are Bouie’s magnum opus.