Culture

The Mac is Back

by

The first fight in years that had me feeling butterflies before the action started has ended abruptly after Conor McGregor appears to have torn his ACL almost immediately upon the start of the fight.

“The most anticipated comeback in years lasted just 69 seconds before a devastating knee injury brought it to an abrupt end.”

– Reuters

While I expected Conor McGregor to have limited success early before ultimately getting outclassed by Max Holloway for as long as he could stay on his feet through the remaining rounds, my concern pre-fight was for Conor the human being—not Conor the box-office draw. In the past year he has gotten married, seems to have kicked what many (allegedly) interpreted as a persistent drug habit, and has been the most clear-headed and present we have seen him since before the Mayweather bout.

He had two remaining fights on his UFC contract before becoming a free agent. After that, he’ll have $100 million paydays waiting for him against the likes of Jake Paul, Floyd Mayweather, or whichever celebrity or retired boxer Netflix or Saudi Arabia’s PIF decides to throw enough money at him to face.

TKO, the parent company of the UFC and WWE, has recently drawn criticism after awarding massive compensation packages to CEO Ari Emanuel and President Mark Shapiro while reportedly asking some WWE talent to accept pay cuts. I don’t like the way they do business, and I hope they eventually sell TKO to an owner who treats both the talent and the fans better.

That being said, it’s why I’m happy Conor McGregor fulfilled another obligation, collected an estimated $30 million payday, and is now looking at just one final Octagon appearance before his indentured servitude to TKO is complete.

The Self-Immolation of Christopher Nolan

by

When the Academy rolled out its Representation and Inclusion Standards in 2020, it assured us Hollywood would be making more films like this. That wasn’t surprising. I believe that is also the reason 1917 wasn’t given its obvious Best Picture win in 2019. It simply didn’t rise to the level of “inclusive” Hollywood now required, even though it hadn’t been made official.

“Director Christopher Nolan’s new film adaptation of The Odyssey… has already prompted a torrent of division and negative backlash for its casting, which some have framed as a modern affront to a foundational text of Western literature.”

— Christian Post

What is somewhat surprising is Christopher Nolan’s willingness to go along with it to such extremes. He seems to have gone in with reckless abandon, and he is going to learn just how much our shared reality has shifted as the rejection of this film grows louder. Sure, it will sell some tickets to the normies. It may even turn a profit. But it is an absolute PR disaster for the Christopher Nolan brand. At the time of writing, the trailer is estimated to have accumulated roughly 700,000 dislikes on YouTube.

The backlash is so fervent because people felt that Nolan was still a filmmaker first. That he hadn’t dug into this level of modernist deconstruction at any time before. I had my doubts when the film was announced, the color palette itself felt off, earthy and brutalist in a way that signaled a “reimagining for a new and diverse audience.”

This was filmed in 2025, well past the point when mainstream audiences would accept such a subversive interpretation of a classic. This isn’t a timing issue. It’s either the director’s indifference to his former broad spectrum appeal, a gross miscalculation or a humiliation ritual.

Goon Squad

by

What do you call PornHub being blocked in 25 states?

A good start.

The explicit tube site Pornhub is now blocked in 25 U.S. states.

This is due to age-verification laws. These laws vary state by state, but typically require visitors of a site with over a third of explicit content to submit a government ID or other form of age authentication. Louisiana was the first state to enact such a bill a couple of years ago, and now others have followed suit. In June, the Supreme Court deemed Texas’s age-verification law constitutional, setting a precedent for such bills that come before and after.

— Source: Mashable

Introducing Mr. & Priestess Kelce-Swift

by

Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift eloped this past Friday at a celebrity-filled ceremony in Madison Square Garden. The happy couple announced they plan to start a family.

This finally answers one of the biggest questions of the twenty-first century:

When will the Antichrist be born?