Happy Monday and first day of fall! 

I’m returning to the grind after a long weekend of being outside. Last night, I went to Jade’s album release celebration at 3 Dollar Bill in Brooklyn and it was life affirming. For any of my New York-based Jade fans/Mixers out there, she announced a show in Brooklyn this February. My guess is she’s playing Brooklyn Steel, but details are TBD.

Today, we’re talking about RaptureTok, Jimmy Kimmel updates, the cost of going out, and lots of other links. Plus, a playlist to start autumn off right.

RaptureTok is prepping for the end

@jubileedawns

Rapture 2025???👀 #rapture #exvangelical #religioustrauma #deconstruction #stitch

Every decade, we need rapture speculation. In the 2010s, May 21, 2011 was the day. Apparently, this decade’s rapture is coming tomorrow! 

There is a particular subsect of evangelical TikTok right now preaching about the impending rapture and what to expect when one gets called up to heaven. The rapture typically refers to the moment Christ calls all of his believers back to Him (🙏), which in many of the TikTokers’ retellings involves them literally getting sucked up to the sky.

It seems quite amusing from the outsiders’ perspective but these mass panic events always push some people to make drastic decisions. One man already said he sold his car last month in preparation for the event. He is Australian — where it is already technically rapture time — and he posted a photo saying the “next 24-48 hours will change the world forever.”

This most recent rapture date comes from a South African pastor Joshua Mhlakela’s sermon from about three months ago. He speculated that the world would end on September 23 or 24, around Rosh Hashanah, after Jesus came to him in a vision.

Don’t make any rash decisions, folks. I’ll check back on Thursday to see which of y’all got raptured!

Jimmy Kimmel is back tomorrow

It has been a whirlwind week following ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! amid pressure from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.

Since then, people have called for a boycott on Disney+, owned by ABC parent company Disney, due to Disney’s refusal to defend free speech and Kimmel. Over 400 celebrities signed an open letter condemning Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension. 

Disney announced Kimmel will be back on the air tomorrow. It issued the following statement to various media outlets: “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”

I’m very curious how Kimmel will address last week’s events in his first monologue back on air. I do feel like the damage was done when Disney allowed itself to be easily influenced by government pressure. It set a bad precedent that I’m not totally sure could be undone.

Prior to the suspension, ABC broadcast affiliate groups Nexstar and Sinclair had also agreed to preempt Kimmel’s show. (Nexstar is seeking FCC approval for a proposed merger with Tegna.) So it’s unclear whether the show will appear on those stations.

Keeping up with the cost of live events 

Today, I got a notification that the lineup for next year’s Primavera Sound music festival in Barcelona would be announced this week. This is about a month earlier than last year’s reveal, following in the footsteps of Coachella’s much-discussed early lineup drop last week. 

When the Coachella lineup was announced, many took it as a recession indicator. While it might not be exactly true, it’s definitely the case that event organizers have to give people more time to save and decide to spend hundreds — if not thousands — for a festival.

“Coachella is still the biggest festival in the world and a massive platform for the biggest artists in the world, but there’s just a lot more competition for consumer dollars,” a source told Billboard. 

The demand for concerts is still at an all-time high, but it’s an unsustainable expense. Many young people (over half of Gen Zers, according to CashApp) have utilized Buy Now, Pay Later plans to fund their live event experiences. But with the cost of living rising, others have tightened their budgets to keep up. Nearly two-thirds are cutting back on extraneous expenses, according to a recent Bank of America study.

While concerts are booming, I’ve been thinking a lot about the uncertain future of night clubs recently. A couple weeks ago, I saw a YouTube package from German news site DW News titled Why so many famous Berlin clubs are closing and was surprised. Berlin is a club capital! If it’s happening there, what is the fate of nightlife globally? 

Larger artists, venues, and events have a bit more cushion from consumer spending changes compared to these places. However, smaller clubs and venues are struggling because people aren’t going out as much. This impacts emerging artists and performers who rely on those places.

In 2023, I spoke to LBC in the UK about Gen Z nightlife habits after I wrote a story about 2000s clubbing nostalgia. At the time, the UK was similarly experiencing a nightlife crisis because young people simply weren’t going out. Why? Because it’s too expensive and they don’t drink that much.

Whether it’s a big concert or a small night club, these are both valuable and critical spaces for community and camaraderie at a time when people are still quite socially stunted from pandemic isolation. However, it is getting more expensive and untenable to go to (or in the case of club owners, maintain) these places. There is a lot, I believe, that’s at stake when people can’t experience these things. 

The landscape is adapting with the rise of wellness-focused soft clubbing, which according to Eventbrite, decenters alcohol and substances while presenting a more economical form of socialization. Still, I do think there needs to be some solutions for preserving nightlife institutions and the concertgoing experience.

Every Monday letter gets a playlist. This week’s a chill one that feels like fall to me <3

In this week’s playlist:

• Chasing Pavements - Adele

• Sunday Morning - Maroon 5

• Just Friends - Amy Winehouse

• Piledriver Waltz - Arctic Monkeys

• Kiss Me - Ed Sheeran

• Linger - The Cranberries

• Landslide - Fleetwood Mac

• Skinny Love - Bon Iver

Other things I want to share with you.

• Zayn announced a January 2026 Las Vegas residency.

• Some decent responses from Marlon Wayans and Cardi B to professional criticism lately. Other artists and entertainers take note! 

• YouTuber Dasia Sade made this fascinating video about Eminem’s role in directing disillusioned white American men away from the far right pipeline in the 2000s. 

• Freddie Wong is back on YouTube!

• Tom Holland was injured with a mild concussion on set of the new Spider-Man movie and was hospitalized.

• The new Steve Burns Alive podcast kind of feels like Blues Clues for adults. It’s crazy after over 20 years that he can have such a calming and disarming effect!

• I said Ticketmaster would be dealt with… and the FTC heard me. The agency alleged that the service allowed brokers to exceed the amount of tickets they are allowed to purchase, encouraging scalpers to relist them on Ticketmaster’s resale market for higher prices. 

• There is now a database to see the YouTube videos that have been used to train generative AI. 

• I really resonate with this Miley Cyrus quote about her career from her recent interview with Pamela Anderson in CR Fashion Book: “I made a decision at 11, and I’ve never stopped. I made this deep commitment, and I never questioned it or reexamined it. It wasn’t until my late 20s and early 30s that I started reevaluating: ‘Is this still what I want?’ So far, the answer has been yes, but I’m not afraid of the day it’s no.”