Quick rundown of the week in popkultur, as this Open Thread also features some Exciting Announcements:
First up, Matthew Wrather’s favorite entertainer, Taylor Swift, won four awards at the Country Music Awards. She allegedly celebrated with a “cereal party” with her parents in her kitchen at home. She chose Frosted Mini-Wheats, the only cereal big enough for her to see through her perpetual squint.
Question: if you won any sort of entertainment award – a Grammy, a BAFTA Award, the Palme d’Or – before you could legally drink, what family-friendly way would you pick to celebrate?
In other squinty rock star news, Steven Tyler either is or is not leaving Aerosmith. We don’t know! Guitarist Joe Perry announced on Twitter that Tyler was leaving last week. But Tyler had no comment on the subject until appearing on stage – to Joe Perry’s shock – at a concert on Tuesday night. He declared into the mic that he wasn’t leaving Aerosmith, leading the audience to wild cheers and sighs of relief. The two of them then played a 30-year-old song.
Question: which element of this story did you miss when it first aired – the fact that Steven Tyler had apparently left Aerosmith, or the fact that he apparently hasn’t? Or both? Or neither?
And finally, our own Mark Lee’s article on the Peak Theory of Rock was linked by BoingBoing, Good.is and made the front page of Digg yesterday. Nice work, Mark!
Question: is covering Overthinking It’s marginal gains in Internet popularity as if they were pop culture news?
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But don’t stop now! We have Three Announcements, each of which offers you a rare opportunity to plunge your hand elbow-deep in the ectoplasm of OTI’s backstage.
- The week of American Thanksgiving (I specify American for our large international readership) will be the next of our legendary theme weeks (a la Ghostbusters Week Karate Kid Week, and Back to the Future Week. So what next?Clear your calendar for OTI’s sexiest and most violent theme week yet: Paul Verhoeven Week.
As you’d expect, we will be offering a plethora of articles examining his oeuvre from many perspectives, but we also want to put the call out to our readers, many of whom are professional overthinkers themselves.
Do you have what it takes to overthink the work of the man who directed Robocop and Starship Troopers? Drop us a line and pitch an article—we’ll ask for drafts of ideas we like, and you might just join our august gallery of guest writers (a couple of whom are now regulars).
- We’re re-doing the theme music for our podcast, and because we are so savvy with the internets, we are “crowd-sourcing” one particular part. We need you to record yourself saying the last four words of the OTI tagline, “it probably doesn’t deserve.”Call the podcast voicemail at 203-285-6401 and leave us those four words in a message or record a WAV or MP3 and email it to us. Everlasting internet fame awaits.
- Finally, we are starting a redesign to launch at the beginning of 2010. It’s nothing major, just a complete rethinking of the navigation, layout, typography, identity system, colors, and such. Right now it’s just…all…pretty grey.Concerning the site’s design and usability, do you have pet peeves that you want us to fix? Do you love something and want to make sure we don’t throw it out with the bathwater? Do you have many suggestions for improvements? Are you a designer or usability expert who wants to volunteer a little help? Let us know!
Also, you may talk about movies, TV, music, comics, videogames, and culture. It’s your open thread!