End Times Update 5/15/2021: SNL, the Gas Crisis, and Courtney Stodden
One clone's perspective on pop culture.
Each week one of Popdust's disposable clones — grown in a vault deep beneath the Mojave desert — is exposed to the outside world through a relentless feed of news, pop culture, and social media.
The arduous process accelerates their dissolution back into an amorphous clone slurry. But before they go, they leave behind a document of what they've absorbed and what they've learned — a time capsule preserving a single moment in the slow-motion collapse of civilization. We call these End Times Updates...
Transcript: Oh hi! Welcome to another End Times Update, presented by Popdust. I'll be your clone-host for this week, Pelvis Wrestley.
[Elvis Presley]: You ain't nothin' but a hound dog. C-cryin' all the time.
As always, we'll be looking through the news, pop culture, and social media from the last week, for the latest forebodings of societal doom.
This week has been a real show-stopper when it comes to signs of the imminent demise of the human race. For a start, second richest man on Earth Elon Musk became the first ever second richest man on earth to host Saturday Night Live. Musk also made history with his monologue, in which he revealed that he's been diagnosed with Asperger's, an autism spectrum disorder.
[Elon Musk]: I'm actually making history tonight, as the first person with Asperger's to host SNL... Or at least the first to admit it.
The Mother's Day episode then proceeded, with lots of references to Musk's business ventures —
[Elon Musk]: I reinvented electric cars and I'm sending people to Mars in a rocket ship — I'm in charge of the whole Mars colonization project — Sure, I do like electric horses, and self-driving horses -- which are just horses -- but I've also built a machine that can dig a tunnel ten times faster than a gopher.
— and and his online presence —
[Elon Musk]: But I also write things like "69 days after 4/20 again haha." People are so mean online. — Okay, for a while I thought masks were dumb, but now I admit masks make sense.
— and also a weird amount of references to cousins being into each other.
[Mikey Day]: How many times have you found out too late that your lover is your cousin?
[Ego Nwodim]: What are you doing?
[Chris Redd]: What?
[Ego Nwodim]: You're my cousin.
[Chris Redd]: What? Oh no, I totally forgot. (Silently) Almost got away with it.
[Elon Musk]: Ooli, I think of all the good times we could have, eating fermented shark in the nude
[Chloe Fineman]: Oh my gosh. Okay, Ragnarok, stop. Cousin Check told us we were cousins.
[Elon Musk]: Exaclty, we have so much in common!
Speaking of electric cars, this was not a great week for for the other kind of cars, with the average gas price in the US topping $3 a gallon for the first time in years and hundreds of gas stations along the east coast running dry with some truly wild panic buying.
The panic was brought on by the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, which typically delivers hundreds of millions of gallons of fuel from refineries in Texas all the way up to New York and all along the eastern seaboard. But after being attacked by the corporate ransomware outfit known as "DarkSide," the Colonial Pipeline Company lost access to their billing software, so they just stopped delivering altogether, causing a federally declared state of emergency in 17 states.
Thankfully, service was restored on Wednesday night, though the company says it will take a few more days to get back to 100%.
It was also a big week for Ellen DeGeneres, who announced that the 19th season of her daytime talk show will be the last.
[Elen DeGeneres]: This show has been the greatest experience of my life, and I owe it all to you — The truth is, I always trust my instincts. Uh, my instinct told me it's time. As a comedian I've always understood the importance of...timing. And — recently I had a dream that a bird, a beautiful bird with bright red feathers, came to my window and whispered, "You can still do stuff on Netflix." And that was the sign I was looking for.
Beginning in 2003, the show made "Be Kind" its mantra, while — behind the scenes — the host earned a reputation as one of the meanest bosses in Hollywood.
[Hedda Muskat]: Toxic, phony, hypocrite liar, that's what she is. — We were told from the very beginning, "Don't talk to Ellen, don't do this, you can't, you know, go into her office." It was very nerve-wracking, very stressful, we all walked on eggshells all the time.
Speaking of hypocrisy —
[Courtney Stodden]: Hypo-Chrissy Teigen
— this week former child-bride Courtney Stodden came after model Chrissy Teigen for hurtful comments that the so-called "Mayor of Twitter" made about them when they was just a teenager — including wishing for the young celebrity to take a, quote, "dirt nap."
[Courtney Stodden]: It's ironic because, right, because she left, you know, social media, complaining about bullying. She has sent me so many different tweets, private DMs, um, up to a couple years ago.
Stodden, who identifies as non-binary, first came to the world's attention in 2011 when, at the age of 16, they married 51 year old Green Mile actor Doug Hutchinson. The "Don't Put it on Me" singer —
[Courtney Stodden]: Don't put it on me, girl. D-d-d-d-d-d-d-don't
— quickly became the target of ridicule and commentary, despite the fact that — as they've since recognized — they were clearly the victim of a predatory grooming relationship.
In response to Stodden calling her out, Teigen issued an apology on Twitter, saying, quote, "I was an insecure, attention-seeking troll. I am ashamed and completely embarrassed at my behavior."
In other news, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have reunited to once again form Bennifer Afflepez for the first time in 17 years. And actress Kat Dennings and singer Andrew W.K. announced that they're engaged this week.
But what else... Oh, right. Violence in Israel and Gaza reached new heights this week in the decades-long conflict between a powerful military ethnostate with nuclear weapons, and a group of displaced and disenfranchised people living under martial law.
But according to President Biden, when it comes to killing protestors and toppling 13-story residential buildings —
[Joe Biden]: Israel has right to defend itself.
Well, that does it for this week. If the world survives longer than I do, we'll send another clone with more updates. Until then...byyye!