pop culture ruminations

troye sivan's music video, bravo happenings, & ariana grande's new beau

Welcome back to our weekly pop culture segment! Let’s get into it:

Troye Sivan

Fresh off humiliating himself on The Idol, pop singer Troye Sivan has released the music video for his single Rush, which basically features him and lots of skinny men in their 20s dancing around a Bushwick loft or something (he clearly wants to be Jocelyn). To the surprise of few, Twitter went ablaze with people upset about the lack of representation of different body types. Troye apologized in an interview, but responses were mixed:

My main take on this is who the f*** cares. First of all, this is what people do in music videos: they hire hot people to be extras, back up dancers, etc. Second, stop foisting your chronically online standards onto celebrities who never pretended to be like that. Troye Sivan loves being a skinny mini; it’s like his whole shtick. Have we forgotten HIS MET GALA OUTFIT?

You can’t expect every project from someone who pertains to a disenfranchised group to be all empowering and brave and making a statement. God knows if every Taylor Swift song was like The Man, I’d probably shoot myself in the face. 

I’ll close this segment by adding that I don’t look like Troye Sivan or like the people in his music video, but the video still doesn’t bother me. And why? Because I already have a boyfriend so I got mine I’m a normal human being.

^When you’re a Yemeni peasant about to get executed for homosexual activity but then you find out that Troye Sivan hired mostly skinny people to be in his music video.

Raquel & the Vanderpump Return

The (bravo-obsessed portion of the) internet has been abuzz now that it’s been pretty much confirmed that Raquel Leviss is returning to Season 11 of Vanderpump Rules after Scandal AKA The Cheating Scandal Heard Round The World.

I think my opinion on this might actually be controversial in that I not only accept Raquel’s return, I welcome it. My reasons are the following: first of all, I don’t believe that people should be fired from reality TV for doing bad things (as in bad things in their PERSONAL LIFE — I’m not talking about you, Jen Shah…), but rather that they should be fired when they bring nothing to the show. Racquel is largely responsible for the entire show’s resurgence, so to me it’s a no-brainer that she should return.

Also, what is this selective memory? Literally everyone on this show is a terrible person (minus Scheana, argue with the wall!), so no one really has the moral high ground here. The additional caveat — that Raquel cheated with her best friend’s boyfriend — is really neither here nor there, especially when you consider that Kristen also cheated with her best friend’s boyfriend and everyone’s excited for her comeback (now that was a cheating scandal). Everyone’s cheated on everyone on this show lmao.

(Also, a little bit unrelated but, I can’t stand James’ shtick of pretending he’s the champion of scorned women everywhere when he’s also a serial cheater and used to always brag about cheating on Kristen in his first couple of seasons…)

The Return of RHONY

Continuing on this Bravo note…Real Housewives of New York has returned! As y’all know, after the last season flopped spectacularly (I hate you Leah), they’ve recast the entire show. I will say I feel like there was little bit of throwing the baby out with the bathwater there — like was there really no bandwidth to give the original RHONY one more shot? But I digress. The new cast is obviously younger than the old (no pun intended) cast, which has its ups and downs — on the bright side, they have more energy, but on the other hand, I feel like younger people on reality TV are always hyper-aware that they’re on camera and feel terrified to say something that will get them in trouble.