Friday Five: June 6, 2025
Stay Fresh, Cheese Bags
Happy Friday, Consumers. Eid Mubarak to those who are celebrating! This didn’t occur to me until now but as a Muslim, every Friday is lowkey a happy Friday. A holy Friday, even.
I’m writing this newsletter wrapped in a blanket not unlike this pug who was posted to Reddit with the caption: “Obi loves being wrapped in his blanket that is the same color as his fur making him look like a pile of goo with a face.” I think ‘pile of goo' with a face’ would make a great insult and will be storing it in my mental bank alongside Goo Goo Clusters and ‘Stay Fresh, Cheese Bags.’
Relatedly, we’re going to start your Friday Five, your weekly round-up of catharsis and joy with an iconic insult. I love inventing new categories for this series and this one includes a brief art history lesson. Do you know Barbara Kruger? She’s most famous for her series of found photographs paired with word art. Here’s a sample of her artwork:
Streetwear brand Supreme hijacked Kruger’s aesthetic. In 1994, their founder gave his design team one of Kruger’s books and that blocky red logo was born. He didn’t admit to it for quite some time — he didn’t need to, the blatant copying was obvious enough. However, he then sued a brand which my fellow millennials will remember — ‘Married to the Mob’ (the 2000s were… a strange time)— for ripping off the Supreme logo and wordmark on a shirt. Supreme won the suit and settled out of court, but perhaps the true winner here is Miss Kruger. When asked for comment on the litigation, she sent a blank email with the following Word doc attached:
‘What a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers’ has to be one of the greatest insults of all time. It’s even more uncool that Supreme continues to have lines down the block and a certain type of manchild obsessing over it, but goodness. I think about this Word doc all the time. I’d love to respond in this manner when someone asks for my thoughts on something: blank email with a terse but incredibly powerful statement attached in on-brand bold italic Futura Sans.
Next, we’re moving into another unprecedented category — a Reddit thread that inspires some gratitude.
I’m writing this coming off of seeing Beyoncé at Tottenham Stadium last night — incredible show, incredible performer, very rare to make me feel proud to be both American and Iranian (especially in this moment) but somehow the show and a tiny Rumi poem featured (I know you’re wondering how Iran has anything to do with this concert) did just that. Maybe there will be more for me to say on that, but in the interim: I just love the curiosity behind this question and I love the earnest responses (some from fellow babies though):
Recent Read: I just finished Sanam Mahloudji’s The Persians and it is a chaotic, fun, and wild ride. Add it to your summer reading lists if you like dark humor, gaudy families, and stories with more than one narrator. One particular detail I love is a ridiculous auntie figure consistently saying ‘Vamanos’ to rally a group together which is so specifically Iranian in nature for reasons I cannot explain.
Recent Email (another arbitrary, new category!): Every year, my friend Chris organizes a series of birthday celebrations for himself, mainly to get everyone he loves together. I’ve only been to one of these celebrations but I look forward to the email about them every single year because there’s just… so much material in there. Sharing some bits with Chris’s consent in here. It’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s incredibly well-organized with multiple options, and is the only birthday correspondence I can’t get out of my head.
I think my favorite bit of the entire thing this year is the parenthetical ‘very weird coffee scene and I’m gonna spill on myself!’ Most of the emails I get are not funny, personal, and chaotic and I would love to give and receive more of this energy.
Joyful Internet Content: I’m at the email length limit for this issue so I’m just going to share one little bit of joy here, Bun B doing International Players Anthem - including Pimp C’s verse, RIP! - with a live band. I walked to my seat at last night’s show with this playing throughout the arena, rapping along to myself, and trying to find Brits who knew the song and failing (light trauma).
Stay Fresh, Cheese Bags,
Roya
Just here to say that the mention Fievel in this newsletter made my day. Kassan and I often reference Fievel in our home. It’s usually when someone is wearing a floppy flat cap. “Why do they look like Fievel? Are they going West?”