Help! My culture has been canceled and I cannot get up

From children’s medleys to funeral mixes, no shared playlist is safe from Pesukone and its labelmates

For the past few months, Spotify users around the world have been finding their carefully curated mixes thrown into havoc by an obscure Finnish EDM musical act called Pesukone (translated into English: “Washing Machine”). Songs by the self-described “global artists collective” are ending up on unsuspecting users’ shared playlists, interrupting streams of sleepy-time lullabies, holiday tunes, and wedding music with blaring, synth-heavy, Euro-trance Darude knock-offs.

One Spotify user told Gawker that while listening to a playlist she made for her children in the car one day, she suddenly heard “weird random music” that she wasn’t able to skip past. It turns out this playlist wasn’t the only one of hers to be hijacked: “I had another playlist I put together for my mother’s funeral several years ago,” she said. “It was only shared among family so they could add songs if they wanted. After I discovered that our family playlist had been compromised, I went through my others and found the funeral playlist was affected, too.”

Another user, Drew, noticed a hostile takeover of the Japanese acoustic-pop playlist he uses for the Utah restaurant where he works. “It’s a custom work playlist, and since I work in a restaurant, I don’t want trash music to play,” he told Gawker. He found that the playlist, which had previously only been shared between him and a coworker, suddenly had a third, unfamiliar collaborator and included titles like “Wicked Sparkle” and the ironically titled “Done With You.” Now, in order to prevent the definition of “trash music” from blasting the eardrums of customers settling in for all-you-can-eat yakiniku, he has to remember to quickly check the playlist each time before hitting “play.”

Literally

Supermodel sisters Gigi and Bella Hadid, the daughters of real estate developer Mohamed Hadid, are arguably the most famous Palestinians in the English speaking world. They are also extremely vocal about their beliefs that Palestine should be free of illegal occupation.

In an Instagram post on Sunday, Gigi Hadid posted that she would be donating her earnings from Fashion Month to Ukranian and Palestinian causes, stating, “I am pledging to donate my earnings from the Fall 2022 shows to aid those suffering from the war in Ukraine, as well as continuing to support those experiencing the same in Palestine.”

Vogue covered Hadid’s announcement in an article titled “Gigi Hadid Is Donating Her Fashion Month Earnings to Ukrainian Relief,” which quoted her caption almost in full. Vogue promoted the article on its official Instagram with a post whose caption originally started as follows:

Today, @Gigihadid announced that she will be donating all of her fashion month earnings towards relief efforts in Ukraine, “as well as continuing to support those experiencing the same in Palestine.”

A day after the photo was posted, its caption was edited to omit the quote from Hadid’s original statement mentioning Palestine. Beyond Instagram, the actual Vogue story was also edited to remove one of the two original instances of Palestine being mentioned — specifically a quote of the final line of Hadid’s post, reading “HANDS OFF UKRAINE. HANDS OFF PALESTINE. PEACE. PEACE. PEACE.”

Before Vogue’s caption was edited, the post was bombarded with comments from luminaries like Entourage’s Emmanuelle Chriqui, accusing Vogue of “fanning the flames of anti Semitism [sic].” Vogue has not released a statement on exactly why the caption was changed — again they were merely directly quoting Hadid herself, whose Instagram post they were reporting on. But if anything, this is a perfect example of how merely saying the words “Palestine” or “Palestinian” is considered inherently political and dangerous.

By Jove, she's done it

People said this day would never happen. For decades, naysayers were all around us, saying it was downright impossible. These are the same people who wouldn’t believe that Jesus himself moved the stone and emerged from his own tomb. Well they’re looking pretty dumb right now, because after years of being relegated to the side, Khloé Kardashian is in the middle now.

Notice how your eye is drawn to her immediately. Is Kim even in this photo? I didn’t notice.

For comparison’s sake, here is where Khloé usually is in a group photo, dating back to 1993.

And now here she is, the focal point of the Kardashians’ Variety cover story promoting their upcoming Hulu show, which is different from their other show, which recently ended after 75 seasons. Both on the cover and inside the story, our tall girl takes center stage.

Never mind the fact that the meat of the actual story is about Kim’s flourishing relationship with Pete Davidson and Kris Jenner’s legendary money moves. If the Kardashians have taught us anything in the last 15 years, it’s that image is more important than the actual content. And these images? Are all about Khloé.

Good for you, girlie. Can’t wait to watch you go through heart wrenching emotional turmoil on the new show — you’ve earned it.

Oh, how we’ll miss these days …

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for since the last episode, when we were made aware that the show is currently taking place in, presumably, last November: Thanksgiving. Each character goes to great lengths to remind us that this family’s Thanksgivings are always dramatic, and indeed, Mother and the gang are like Gossip Girl that way. Now, is Serena back to her old bad habits, or has Georgina drugged her? Let’s see.

HAS MOTHER DIED?

No, but end-of-life care was discussed.

HOW ABOUT SISTER … HAS SHE GOTTEN HER DIVORCE?

Not yet, but she’s close. Sister and Sister’s Husband are fighting, and they’re fighting in front of everyone. At Thanksgiving! Sister wants Baby to eat whatever food he wants (due to Sister’s issues with food) and Sister’s Husband wants Baby to limit his eating and not become “the fat kid” (due to Sister’s Husband’s issues with food). And they’re both mad about Sister’s Husband’s faraway job, but for different reasons. Seems complicated for Sister, and we do not envy her. Nor do we envy Sister’s Husband with the faraway job, who we now hate!

America wins again: Russia is obsessed with the culture wars

Apparently, nothing can stop the culture war, not even a real war. As the first cruise missiles and bombs rained on Ukraine last month, the takes kept coming. One prominent and tireless culture-war poster offered the notion that “Putin’s war on ‘Nazis’ is the inevitable reductio ad adsurdum of the bad faith stick-figure that U.S. and Canadian politicians have relied on since 2017 to morally launder repressive policies.” Nevermind the long history of Imperial Russia, nor the Soviet Union’s experience of World War II, that still forms a major ideological pillar of the Russian state, nor even the shrewd and cynical calculations of great powers; no, the war flowed logically, “inevitably” out of American cultural politics.

The power of wokeness must be truly limitless, because when it’s not producing Putin’s wars, it’s also weakening the West, making us decadent and vulnerable to his attacks. And on the far right, Putin’s supposed opposition to wokeness has made him a cause celebre. It’s tempting to blame this all on the parochial focus of Western commentators and their total lack of intellectual curiosity about other parts of the word. Or it might be the result of their political and professional need to continually bang the same drum. But they are right that America’s culture war missiles are being deployed around the world.

Last week, Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s SVR — its rough equivalent to the CIA — said, "The masks are off. The West isn't simply trying to close off Russia behind a new iron curtain. This is about an attempt to ruin our government — to ‘cancel’ it.” Is the crafty spy master trying to introduce cracks in the West with this propaganda appeal to its “cancel culture” obsessed right-wing? Maybe, or maybe not. It seems like this discourse is also taken seriously in Russia.