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- Is Baby Gronk the New Drip King
I’m sure you’ve all heard the big news: Baby Gronk rizzed up Livvy, and they started dating. Is Baby Gronk the new Drip King, or is Livvy just using him for clout? To find out, I’m currently hitting the Griddy for Ukraine. But Who is Baby Gronk Dad?
In less important media news, yesterday Max Tani reported that CNN’s PR department will no longer report to Chris Licht, and the first thing CNN’s PR department did under its new boss David Leavy was confirm Dylan Byers’ story that the rest of CNN will also no longer report to Chris Licht. Licht was last seen hitting the Griddy out the door after a meeting with David Zaslav, who has since rizzed up Amy Entelis, Virginia Moseley and Eric Sherling to take over CNN temporarily. I’d love to take credit for predicting this on Monday, but I was just another guy pointing at the Hindenburg and saying “well that doesn’t look good.”
HamNo on the GOP primary: “IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN.”
Another way to look at it is “you are starting out 35 points in the hole.” Another way to look at it is, “ten of us will fight like dogs over two-thirds of the electorate, each huddling in our corners with a small percentage in our mouths, while Donald Trump luxuriates in a series of 35/17/17/15/9/7 victories.” DeSantis’s straight-faced pitch to donors sounds like a losing football coach telling his team at halftime, “We may be down by four touchdowns but there are potentially dozens of touchdowns left to be scored, so we are actually ahead.” If you suspected that major Ron DeSantis donors are dumb, you are onto something.
This post is a lot of fun to read, and you should definitely read it. But there were only ever three ways the Republican primary could have gone this year:
Donald Trump runs unopposed, and wins easily.
Donald Trump runs opposed by Ron DeSantis, and wins easily.
Donald Trump runs against Ron DeSantis and a field of 27 other halfwits, racists, buffoons, and weirdos and wins easily.
Looks like we’re gonna get scenario three (“The Aristocrats!”), but don’t let its familiarity fool you into thinking the outcome was ever in doubt, because the one thing Hamilton has wrong is the idea that Trump only controls 35% of the Republican primary vote. He’s polled over 50% since April, and the only thing that will stop him from being the Republican Presidential nominee in 2024 is if he gets rizzed up by the Grim Reaper.
![Tweet by Sam Rudykoff: “Your honor these allegations are” [screenshot from nytcooking headlined] “Straight-Up Rhubarb Pie”](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/8a67fa6a-70eb-4886-b6f0-83f085188f4a/38754d3d-c090-40fb-83fa-cb0c94fb5bcb_1178x1444.png?t=1703005442)
Every generation and every subculture gets its own chance to Post Through It, and right now one author on BookTok is putting on a masterclass in what not to do. Intern Mariam has the story of…
Babe wake up, new BookTok drama just dropped.
Last week, first-time author Sarah Stusek got the first four-star (as opposed to five-star) review of her forthcoming YA novel Three Rivers. So, naturally, she made a TikTok calling the reviewer Karleigh Kebartas a “bitch” for ruining her “perfect average.” Normal stuff! The video was removed but the drama lives on.
Rather than apologize, Stusek claimed “babe I’m literally a comedian” (she is literally not a comedian) and insisted that some people think she’s funny, a thing funny people are always doing. Surely the pile-on prompted her to apologize?...WRONG! She dug her heels in, arguing with commenters and thanking “haters” for helping get her book adapted. “Are we delulu?” wonder the comments. “We may be delulu.”
Meanwhile BookTok buried the Three Rivers GoodReads in one-star reviews, causing the site to turn off the review function and lock in a 1.11⭐️ rating. That same day, Stusek’s publisher announced they were dropping her, which she told Gizmodo was a “blessing” she somehow felt “great” about, despite it being a vanity press.
She eventually DM’d Kebartas a voice memo apology but has otherwise been acting aggressively not-mad online. In a jovial TikTok posted on Sunday she alleged, “I hit 100K on this app, made 35K in two days, upgraded my publisher and now have TWO books coming out this year.” A top comment reads “I’ve never been so invested in seeing the downfall of a person.”
Stusek’s insouciance is, predictably, only ratcheting up the ongoing hatefest, much of it fairly wretched. Review-bombing is bullying, and so are the hundreds of cruel comments across her TikToks. Stusek is far from the first to think that rage-baiting and posting through it is the way to get past an online pile-on, but I can’t imagine this venom doesn’t affect her. Authors attacking GoodReads users over genuine reviews of their books has been a problematic trend on BookTok for some time, and Stusek’s adamant refusal to publicly apologize renders her private apology to Kebartas insincere. Real 1⭐️ behavior.
—Mariam Sharia has a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ average
How much of a mess do you have to be to get dropped by a vanity press? I am agog.
A conspiracy theory from Joel Johnson: to prepare us for simulated human avatars, Apple’s execs and video content have been simulated for years. “Funds are #SAFU” tweeted CZ after the SEC filed to freeze Binance’s assets yesterday. Historically, the head of a crypo exchange tweeting “no worries!” indicates that you should actually have many worries. Here is an endless.horse. I linked to Insider yesterday, having forgotten that the Insider Union is on strike, so please accept my apology for that, and enjoy their strike publication Business Outsider.
Today’s Song: Hooray For Earth, “Never”