Weekly Internet Roundup: Cargo Pant Proposals, Barbie Oscars Discourse, and Disturbances at the Rat Hole

Hiiii! It's roundup time once again, and as usual, we have an array of ridiculous and baffling topics to get through. Subjects include historic landmarks, Zoomers, and how 2024 seems to be undoing everything feminism has worked for in the dumbest of ways. Let's begin!

The Taylor Swiftification of Society and its Consequences

Barbie (2023), we thank you for your services to internet culture. We are eternally grateful for the countless silly memes that you spawned, and for being one half of the Barbenheimer epidemic. You even gave us a couple of semi-interesting talking points, but it's time to pack it up now. 

I regret to inform you that people are being annoying about last year's highest-grossing movie again. This year's Oscars nominations were announced on Tuesday, and fans of the glorified toy advert were up in arms about what they saw as an egregious snub. While Barbie was given eight separate nominations, Margot Robbie failed to feature in the Best Actress category, and director Greta Gerwig didn't get a look in for Best Director.  Meanwhile, lead Ken Ryan Gosling was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. 

Never mind the fact that Robbie and Gerwig both got other nominations, for Best Production Design and Best Adapted Screenplay respectively. Never mind the fact that America Ferrera got a nod for Best Supporting Actress, or that one of the Best Actress nominees (Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon) has already made history as the first Native American woman to ever be in the category. The pitchforks were out for the Oscars committee, with accusations of misogyny so numerous that Hillary Clinton got involved. Even Ryan Gosling felt like he had to release a statement defending his female co-workers. Of all the gender-based battles to pick, this is a particularly fruitless one.

No Aging Filter Needed

Good news for millennials, who often feel shot at from both sides when it comes to the battle of the generational pecking order. Those annoying youths who laugh at your skinny jeans and coined a whole new word to bully you now look like hideous old hags (according to certain strains of internet discourse). 

Recent months have seen theories that Zoomers have been aging like milk, with some blaming a screen-led obsession with appearances making the whole ordeal worse. While it might be bad news for the cohort who would prefer to stay delulu, at least we got this hilarious tale about how Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson fits into all this. 

Instagram Announcement = Ruined

Is there any modern-day milestone more pressurized by social media than an engagement? These days, the measure of every married-couple-to-be seems to start with how they present their proposal to Instagram and beyond. It offers nosy and uncharitable people the perfect chance to overanalyze their relationship dynamic (guilty as charged), as proven in one engagement story that went viral this week.

A TikToker celebrated her proposal on the platform recently, but she had an ‘embarrassing’ story to go with it. Her boyfriend had dropped a hint that she might want to dress up a little for the picnic he had planned, and she took offense at him telling her what to wear. She wore cargo pants instead, and the rest is history.

This story caused no end of controversy with the love experts on Twitter, with many claiming the couple was “doomed” thanks to her apparently obstinate attitude. Thankfully there were also voices of reason who suggested this was just a mildly amusing relationship anecdote.

All Hail the Rat Hole

Many have speculated about what replaces the role of organized religion as it declines in popularity in Western society. Once upon a time, that blasphemous entity was rock and roll; now, it seems like the go-to objects of worship are weird viral internet phenomena. Right now, nowhere encapsulates this better than the Chicago Rat Hole, the famous imprint of a rodent on a sidewalk in the Windy City.

It's hard to overemphasize just how hard people go for the Rat Hole. Admirers frequently leave offerings of coins, and one couple even got married there earlier this week. There was a brief panic when somebody filled the Hole with plaster, but a community effort successfully excavated it.

According to reports, local residents are less than impressed with the frenzied level of attention being drawn by this landmark. It's not like that's going to stop the overly online from taking a pilgrimage there, however.

That's everything for this week. Take a moment to digest, there will no doubt be plenty more where that came from. Until next time!