If there was ever the equivalent of write and see where the wind takes you, this week’s issue is exactly that. As I write this, it’s the first time all week that I’m sitting on a chair using my laptop, as opposed to lying on my bed whist burning up from a fever alongside aches and pains - I know you know the feeling.

As a kid in the 90’s, when you stay home from school sick you’re stuck watching daytime television aka the forgotten wasteland of TV. You’re lucky if you can catch a few good episodes of The Price is Right or Jenny Jones but after about 12PM, it was basically random infomercials, lumberjack competitions (TSN always played super random things in the early afternoon), or soap operas.

I got bored of YouTube this week.

Between YouTube and Netflix this week, I just got tired of watching internet content. It’s already difficult as is to find something to watch but when you just want to have something on that isn’t going to annoy you, it’s actually a lot harder than one would think. Eventually I remembered our Samsung TV had these free channels built in though.

Cheesy game shows are the antidote to any extended period of being home sick.

Samsung has a channel that loops Supermarket Sweep 24/7 - a late 80’s/early 90’s game show where contestants run around a studio made to look like a supermarket, picking up products in exchange for points. At the end of the show they do this race through the aisles of the store trying to fill their shopping cart up with as many products as possible where the winner gets to keep the total dollar amount they accumulated from “sweeping” the supermarket.

The irony here is the winning team at the end of the show tended to win around $1000 which seems like it would just barely cover a month of groceries for a family of 4 today.

And yes, I’m aware there was probably a good 10 shows I could’ve just put on from Netflix that would’ve had the same impact. But if I hate searching through Netflix when I’m healthy, you can only imagine the feeling when trying to search with a fever.

This week's issue is a 5 minute read:

💄 Someone come get their damn kids

💸 My HOTTEST TAKE ever

👟 All-Star Game Classics

Kids Looking for Skin Care Products(??)

Surprise, surprise, another TikTok trend that isn’t doing any good for younger TikTok users. One of the latest trends involves “Sephora kids”, who learn from an influencer on Tiktok about how helpful certain skincare products are for their skin, and who then go to Sephora looking for said products to then use for themselves. The problem is these kids tend to be around 9-13 years old!

Bruh - where are the parents???

There are videos crawling all over social media of these kids buying up the store in Sephora for products their damn skin doesn’t even need. To make matters worse, a lot of these products have retinols and acids that are actually harmful for skin at their age. Wtf are retinols and acids? I wouldn’t put that on my skin and I’m a grown man!

Meanwhile my wife is standing in the shadows of 1AM aka skincare witching hour shaking her head over my curled-up-in-bed self.  

In one particular instance, a Sephora employee talks about her experience with two young girls who bring $500 and $900 worth of skin care products to the cash and the mom has to talk down the one girl from $900 to $500.

@natsodrizzy

these kids need to go touch some grass #sephora #fyp #sephorakids #preteens #ipadkids #ipadkidsarescary

Bruh - where are the parents???

We need Robert Munsch to hand this book out at Sephora’s around the world.

If You Smell What Netflix Is Cooking

Netflix just picked up arguably the longest running male soap opera in the history of cable TV adding WWE’s Monday Night Raw to their streaming library. Starting in 2025, Netflix subscribers will be able to stream Monday Night Raw as well as all the other weekly shows the WWE puts on. On top of that, which I thought was pretty cool but I have a whole theory I’ll get into in a second, you’ll also be able to watch Wrestlemania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, as well as a bunch of other exclusive WWE programming, all with your Netflix subscription.

Now here’s the fun part. We’ve been seeing all over the news for the past year or so streaming services having to make cuts as that pandemic bubble of subscribers started to deflate. So, what do you do when you start making less money and have shareholders to appease? You charge more! And create new plans. And you definitely crack down on anyone who is trying to share an account - although they still somehow haven’t found me and my shared account 🤷‍♂️

What does it all really mean?

So by adding the WWE content, which arguably is worth much more than a lot of the current content on Netflix, the streaming service just gave itself the rights to increase prices (again). However, what it also did was it said, “Hmm I could become a new-age television package.” You see, by adding the WWE content to its arsenal, if it added a few more additions of similar nature (IE NBA broadcast rights in 2025) all of the sudden how you pay for Netflix starts to become eerily similar to how you used to pay for cable television - remember that thing called cable?

With enough diverse offerings under one roof, (geez even that sounds like a cable package) Netflix will have the ability to have its subscriber base pick and choose the package that makes the most sense for them whereby pricing goes up to accommodate higher tiers, unlocking all kinds of other Netflix exclusive content, that people actually would pay to watch. And with rumours of Disney wanting to sell a stake of ESPN, we could see the exact same thing happen all over again over at Amazon, Apple, etc.

This is all speculation, of course. But I’m standing by my hot take here until I’m proven otherwise 😤 

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like NBA All-Star Weekend

If you’ve been following Dulture for a year now then you know NBA All-Star Weekend is a BIG deal. This past week Nike and LeBron unveiled his All-Star Game shoe, the LeBron 21 “All-Star”. Initially I just kept scrolling when I saw this but then realized, whoa, we’re only 3 weekends away from my favourite weekend of the year. And so, in honour of LeBron unveiling his All-Star game shoes this year I thought we could go down memory lane to some of the best / worst / unique shoes to be worn at the NBA All-Star Game.

Nike Air Jordan Black Cement 3’s

We’re starting in 1988 with MJ rocking the black version of a pair that he was occasionally seen wearing in white in 1987. In a classic “what are those!” moment, MJ would go on to score 40 points and grab the game’s MVP award leading the East to an All-Star win.

Reebok Omni Zone Pumps

In 1991, Dee Brown, a rookie guard from the Boston Celtics, forever solidified himself and the Reebok Pumps for his no-look dunk that won him the slam dunk competition. What made it so much more of a spectacle at the time was that before every dunk Brown would “pump” his shoes back up.

Air Jordan 13 White/Royal

In what was his last All-Star Game, Michael Jordan debuted the AJ XIII’s in White/Royal matching up against Kobe Bryant most of the game, who played in AJ 3’s “True Blue” in honour of MJ’s legacy. For some reason I just thought of Jordan’s tribute to Kobe at his funeral - holy sad memory…MOVING ON.

Dada Supreme Cdubbz

In what could only be described as tin foil shoes, Chris Webber wore the Dada Supreme Cdubbz in the 2001 All Star Game, effectively blinding the crowd with this feet anytime light reflected off his shoes (lol).

Shaq Shoe Phone

This was actually the first shoe that came to mind when I thought of writing this. It’s never a dull moment when Shaq is doing something other than playing basketball during All-Star weekend. Where do you even get the idea to put a phone in a shoe?