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They won't stop crying in Beast Games

Reddit will tell you where to travel for Christmas

Author

Andrew Safranko
December 20, 2024

This Week in Dulture…

Approx 4 minute read:

📣 A doom scrolling story

💰️ MrBeast’s dramafest

🎄 Reddit’s holiday travel suggestions

🇨🇦 Trump’s dream state

You ever see a name and then the next thing you know you’re lying in bed at 12:47am scrolling through those websites where you can’t even find the article because of all the ads?

I need to tell you about the rabbit hole I went down this week.

Firstly, did you know Tae Bo is actually an acronym??

Total
Awareness
Excellence

Body
Obedience

People Magazine (this is where I ended up at 12:47am) recently did an article on Billy Blanks, Mr. Tae Bo himself. TLDR: he’s still teaching Tae Bo and is still in great shape.

And then I found a film he did earlier this year that also starred Bolo Yeung’s son, David '“Bolo Jr” Yeung. Well, I found the trailer…it’s one of those films that doesn’t even have any reviews on Rotten Tomatoes so good luck watching it for real.

It looks so bad that it might actually be a good watch though…if you can find it.

The thing about doom scrolling is you never know when you’re going to be done - unless you fall asleep and the phone hits you in the face.

In this case I was finished when I came across the trailer for the new Karate Kid movie, Karate Kid: Legends. Man, talk about beating a dead horse. The film comes out in May but I can tell you what it’s about simply from the trailer:

  1. Boy gets bullied

  2. Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) tries and struggles at training him to compete in a kung fu competition

  3. Mr Han looks for Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) because he too was had to train at one point as a young kid

  4. Daniel trains the kid in the new-age style of kung fu

  5. Dramatic conflict, reconciliation, montage

  6. Boy wins kung-fu competition and all is right in the world

And here’s the trailer to prove it:

***Throws phone down complaining that I can write a better movie***

Beast Obnoxious Games

Remember when Survivor first came out and the world was glued to their television every Wednesday night at 8PM. The season finale featuring Robert beating Kelly was the most watched season finale in Survivor history, where 125 million people watched at least some part of the finale.

It was not without its controversy though.

Original Survivor contestant Stacey Stillman sued the show for claims that the producers influenced the outcomes. Knowing what we know about reality TV now, it’s safe to say producers tend to have their hand in shaping the “reality” of the show.

Which leads me to Beast Games, MrBeast’s long awaited game show on Prime. If you’ve ever watched any of his YouTube videos then you already know how over the top they can get, most of the time in a fun way, I might add.

Beast Games is essentially the extension of his YouTube channel if Amazon gave MrBeast $100M to do whatever kind of videos he wanted.

The show starts with 1000 contestants vying for the $5M final prize. The first goal for everyone is to make the top 500 so that they can live in the “city” MrBeast has built for them to stay in for the next month (if they survive that long). Cue the theatrics.

No for real, people are overly dramatic on this show. Everything Jimmy says is met with a cheer, a yell, or someone crying. I mean, I get it - they all have a chance to win an insane amount of money, alongside the random MrBeast-esk brief cases full of money that continue to come out throughout the challenges. But c’mon, there’s so much crying!

@xtraw0c

This is sad 💔 #mrbeast #beastgames #fyp #trending @MrBeast

We’re only two episodes in after yesterday’s debut but it’s obvious the producers have told these people to hang their hearts on their sleeves and turn their emotions into overdrive.

As much as it can be fun to watch a MrBeast video, for some odd reason my gut feeling is telling me this first season (I’m assuming there will be more given dude’s reach in the world) will climax with the $5M prize but end like a Japanese novel.

(I’ll let you Google what that means)

Holiday Travel Suggestions by Reddit

I don’t want to hear any excuses about why you aren’t travelling during the holiday season…except if you’re poor. If the McCallisters can haul their 15 person unit to Paris, running through O’Hare Airport at Christmas, so can you.

With that said, Reddit has all kinds of suggestions on where to go over the Christmas holiday. Here are the destinations that kept popping up as I browsed the depths of Reddit.

Tokyo

NGL..this looks like a decent Xmas dinner alternative

At this point if you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you either love it more because of the Japan references or you legit just keep scrolling. I know Dan doesn’t care and he keeps scrolling, good thing Dan isn’t my only reader!

In the Western world we have our turkey’s and prime ribs for Christmas dinner. In Japan they have KFC, so much so that a third of KFC’s sales in Japan happens during Christmas. Also Col. Sanders kinda looks like Santa Claus and Japanese culture isn’t much of a Christian society so I guess it all makes sense.

Jamaica

Jamaica is an obvious Christmas destination for its beaches, food, and warm island vibez but what you might not have known is they do up their night markets through December with lights, food, activities, bustling people, you name it. They call it Gran’ Market and it takes place Christmas eve across the island in the major cities and towns where streets are shut down and transformed into open air markets, lined with vendors selling things for the holidays as well as anything else you’d find in a Jamaican market.

Bruges, Belgium

I mean, look at it, it just looks like Christmas. It also looks mad cold, but that’s nothing some warm mulled wine and a Belgian waffle or Belgian fries can’t fix. Burges is also known for their Christmas markets (sense a theme here?). From food to historic tours, to just having a good ol fashioned Belgian beer, if you’re into night markets you’d probably be into Bruges.

NYC (because Reddit is so cliché)

I don’t need to explain much here. Go watch Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and that will explain everything you need to know about Christmas in NYC. There’s probably better examples but again, it’s so cliché, yet so nice (lol).

The 51st State

This one’s for all my non-Canadian readers. I know y’all have been wondering wtf has been going on in Canada. Frankly, us Canadians have been wondering too.

But as I’ve said before, we don’t get political in this newsletter. But we do cover funny things and whether you like the guy or not, Trump calling Justin Trudeau, “Governor Trudeau” is pretty hilarious.

And no, Canada isn’t becoming the 51st state of the US. Although technically with a few constitutional and legal changes in Canada and the US, this isn’t impossible - I’m over simplifying this of course.

But for a split second, what would this mean if Canada became the 51st state in the US?

Pros

  • An immediate bolstered Canadian economy from the already juggernaut that is the US economy

  • A stronger currency

  • Protection from the US miitary

Cons

  • Loss of Canadian identity in some regard

  • Most likely a whole new set of regional tensions - Quebec, Aboriginals, etc.

  • Super weird government set up - we’d have to vote for a president now?

Okay, there you go, it’s been thought through. It’s all just a joke though - perhaps one you don’t find that funny or perhaps you do. But as I’ve learned from people who argue with me about nonsense on Threads, not all jokes are funny.

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