At Long Last, Hyperfixate
The not-so-awaited return of this newsletter in the month of December.
Welcome to Hyperfixate, a newsletter chronicling pop culture and media fixations by yours truly. This may become a weekend affair. Sign up here to never miss a beat.
Apologies for the near-radio silence, beloved readers—I was on holiday and I got sick immediately after. I still am sick, so Hyperfixate in the month of December will be few and far between. I’ve been trying to write one of these for ages and could not figure out for the life of me why I couldn’t. I think I need to re-evaluate this newsletter and what will be in it. This is a Sunday affair as the references below will be outdated by the time next week hits. We’re playing catch up whilst the sinusitis flare-up from hell is decimating me.
For now, in the immortal words of a group of teachers cyberbullying their students now streaming on HBOMax: Did you miss me?
The Assassination of Julien Calloway by the Coward Kate Keller
Gossip Girl is back and I could not be more elated. Three episodes over the course of a Thursday has been a real treat. I feel like this half of the season is a lot stronger, no? The stakes feel a bit higher.
Veering away from the minutiae of “your ex is dating my sister drama”, the gang has rallied behind Julien ahead of the allegations against her father, whilst the titular Gossip Girl has lost control of the Gossip Girl account.
I care very little for Kate or Julien outside of the fact that they’re both the most clueless to the fact that the world does not revolve around them. What I do care about, however, is what the rest of the gang are up to.
Love the way this season’s a little more complicated for Audrey, Max, and Aki; Monet seems to be planning her next moves to become, in her words, It, Pennywise notwithstanding. Zoya has made a new friend outside of her sister’s circle and she is way cooler than anyone else on the show. And my beloved Luna La apparently has new man candy! Luna has a love interest! But it’s not me? How tragic. But super cute! As for Obie, I also do not care for him, but he does stand up for himself (finally!) towards the end of the series so yay!
Aki gets more and more me-coded every day. He is a filmbro that plays point guard for his high school basketball team. Whilst he is in a happy relationship with cute white people, I am deeply involved with chronic sinusitis. We can’t all be Aki.
I really enjoyed this half of the season and can’t wait to see if those teachers ever get federally indicted for cyberbullying these minors. XOXO.
Kenfest: Roman Reloaded
I don’t think I’ve ever written about Succession itself on here. I feel like if you want to read anything about Succession, there are way better places to go like Hung Up or the Vulture feature Hunter also wrote. I don’t really have anything new to add other than that I think if TomGreg entered the stratosphere when Tumblr was in its heyday, there would be enough Larry Stylinson Waystar Two AUs to give me an aneurism.
Too Much Birthday is probably my favourite episode this season and it was directed by none other than Hustlers mastermind Lorene Scafaria. I am famously pro-Hustlers, starring Lili Reinhart. I was half-expecting Ken to swing in from the rafters to another track from Fiona Apple’s Tidal but alas. The Billy Joel cover was pretty good too. Also, Big Conspiracy by J Hus is on Kendall’s Birthday Mix so I am 100% sold. All bangers, all the time.
Ken’s party is definitely the culmination of everything he’s experienced this season; he’s recedding into his old childhood comforts with a douchbaggery twist. But this episode as much as it is Jeremy Strong’s Emmy nomination clip is a pretty intense Roman episode, too. Roman’s playing the game Logan’s kicked off and making it personal is just part of the game. He’s playing the game the way it was meant to be played, even if he does take it a smidge too far. Self-proclaimed Walking Rainbow Band Roman Roy is letting a guy pee on his family’s own streaming service via his own phone! A textbook classic from the Lukas Matsson School of Flirting with the Enemy! I know Matsson is going to be thee messiest bitch, somehow undermining Roman in the eyes of his father later on in the show.
Like, Roman thinks he’s got it in the bag, and will win a kiss from Daddy but he doesn’t realise that there’s no prize in this game. Not even the actual prize they’ve all been promised: succession. Being next in line. As much as Logan is playing the game to find a worthy heir to his throne, he’s playing the game because he wants to win the game, still. A Game of Thrones but with Kerry’s bangs, if you will. It’s not about being worthy or ass-kissing to Dad, it’s somehow more than that and none at all. All the Roy siblings are too incompetent to takeover. Logan can’t find his perfect replica because his flaws are being spat back at him via his children.
I’m not ready for Season 3 to end, I haven’t seen enough Stewy this season. But I’m so, so ready to see the Roys in Italy. Greg and Tom can finally get their South of France Call Me By Your Name on. But instead of Sufjan Stevens, it’s Taylor Swift’s Cruel Summer.
SPOTTED: White Guys at a Knicks Game
As a closeted NBA fan, I love finding out which celebrities I happen to be a tiny bit invested in are sitting courtside. I haven’t cared this much since Ethan Hawke made his son switch seats with him to be next to Rihanna. At the Knicks-Bulls game the other night were Nicholas Braun of Sky High fame and the elusive Andrew Lincoln, Rick Grimes himself. As much as I would love to speculate Walking Dead related reasons as to why Lincoln is Stateside for the first time since COVID hit, I’m pretty sure it’s to do with the new Guillermo del Toro anthology series. I can dream, can’t I? When will Rick Grimes return to his children? Scott Gimple, I am under your bed!
The Nostalgia Job
Nostalgia is one hell of a drug and it is competing with my prescribed medications, neck and neck. I took a massive toke of said Nostalgia by revisiting TNT’s Leverage and it’s subsequent revival, Leverage: Redemption.
Leverage is a great show about Aldis Hodge singlehandedly demonstrating the 2010s desire to make “smart is the new sexy” happen. They couldn’t do it with gay little Shelock Holmes, but they did it so well with Aldis Hodge. That is a man right there. The iconic The Scheherazade Job episode from Season 3 features Hodge performing a violin solo and I think about it all the time. I love watching the slow and awkward courtship between his and Beth Reisgraf’s character. Hardison and Parker just had that je ne sais quois! That Jenny Say Kuah!
The reboot is pretty sweet too; Hodge is in it for three episodes as a Special Guest Star and T*m*thy H*tt*n does not return to reprise his role as mastermind Nathan Ford. They actually killed off Ford on the show! I would usually be worried but they’ve done a great job moving on without him. Redemption actually manages to tackle some interesting ideas and doesn’t shy away from how much the world has changed (or hasn’t, even) since the show first aired in 2008. There’s one episode that made me giggle, and I enjoyed it overall, where the Leverage team take down an influencer and a crypto magnate in one fell swoop. There’s one where LeVar Burton, not on a boat with Troy Barnes, plays a run-of-the-mill librarian who turns out to be a dormant super spy protecting a floppy disk of all things. It doesn’t have to be grounded in reality to have something to say about it and that’s okay! It airs on IMDbTV which is why it took me forever to track down but that’s fine too!
Have you seen Leverage, besties? Or was this just another one of those procedurals that became super popular across Asia? Let me know.
That’s a Wrapped, Folks
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. A time where public shaming of Apple Music users is, for the most part, socially acceptable.
Spotify Wrapped is a peculiar little piece of data aggregation. The graphics are more often than not atrocious, our habits are laid out to us in misplaced AAVE, and there’s always that one song emblematic of the state of your mental health (at the time.)
Some say it’s Gay Christmas, others an Annoying People International Holiday, and obviously so, it’s free marketing for Spotify. We fucking looove to be told who we are—or rather, to have something external confirm who we are. Do I really need an algorithm to tell me that despite my endless loops of Kali Uchis’ Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios), the feelings I project onto a Taylor Swift song will always win? It’s a fun thing we can all share! Show and tell at the asylum for the Pharbz and Succession fans! We are one nation under HAIM’s Gasoline (feat. Taylor Swift)!
Being in the 1% of Taylor Swift listeners is deeply embarrassing for me, but I’m glad at least this year I wasn’t in the 1% of One Direction listeners. Compared to last year’s Wrapped, I’m a lot more, dare I say, sane? There’s a lot less Harry Styles and a lot more Bree Runway. I call that progress.
All jokes aside, I think it’s really that taste has become such a prevalent social currency. It may have a pretty useless exchange rate, but you can’t deny that our personal tastes make up a sizeable chunk of our self-identity. I’ve written on here before that sometimes I feel like I either don’t have anything to say or that I worry I’ve hidden my actual personality away underneath my predilection for bad movies and comfort nostalgia. Spotify Wrapped is the overlap between wanting to belong whilst wanting to stand apart.
But then again, it really isn’t that deep. I love seeing what my friends have been listening to. I love finding out that my most listened-to podcast is Oh, Hello the P’dcast for the second year in a row. It’s not really the kind of data you can use for any change unless that change is to actively avoid certain genres or artists for some reason. Like tracking calories on a diet except it’s making sure you don’t listen to Peaches by Justin Bieber It’s just a bit of fun. I feel like everything I end up writing on here can just be succinctly summarised into: “it’s been a rough year but have a little fun.”
Sometimes I wish I have something smarter to say. I feel like one of the white guys in my class at uni; saying “something smart” has become so warped in my identity—being smart too—that when I’m not or have nothing to say I feel a bit worthless. It’s a recent discovery I’ve made: I need to find validation from myself separate from achievements, accomplishments, or even just being busy. I’ve grown up believing my self-worth lies in all sorts of goal posts, which it doesn’t, so changing that in order to simply have self-worth without the need for a reason why has been quite the journey. Quite the ongoing journey.
Perhaps that’s what this newsletter been for me for a while. As much as it is an outlet for me to get my silly little thoughts out to you, my lovely reader, it’s been something I’ve used to try and prove myself to myself. That I can write something every week or other week and follow through. I’m famous for my lack of follow-through. And I think I’m getting better at not letting that get the better of me.
I’m always worried that what ever it is I pursue in my life, it won’t ever be good enough or right. It’s so melodramatic, I know, but I met someone recently that doesn’t watch TV, whereas TV has felt like my whole life. Which is lame but I’m lame and that’s fine. There’s still more to my life than TV, duh, but TV has been a big, important part of it.
I love TV and I love talking about TV. I don’t think I’m ever going to stop consuming, talking, or obsessing over TV. I hope to someday write and make good TV, that’s all I’ve ever wanted really. But I’m going to do this thing where I’m going to commit to not worrying about where I’m going and just be as present as possible where I’m at, to quote this hot guy right here:
I think Hyperfixate will keep overanalysing my own thirst for an assorted roster of celebrity crushes, but it might pivot to talking more in-depth about television I love. I watched a lot of Charmed whilst I was on holiday. It was all they had at the hotel that wasn’t Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip. Hope you’ll stick around for some nicer essays about TV. And maybe movies sometimes. I wish this little experiment would have taken a better shape quicker but alas, that’s what experiments are for. Trial and error.
Thanks for reading!
All my love,
Ari.