Happy Monday!

I saw all The Drama discourse and had to see it. I thought it had high highs and (very) low lows. It’s a 3/5 for me. There are a lot of flaws in this film. Much has been said about the lack of consideration for race in this movie, which is stark. But since this is an internet culture-forward newsletter, I want to talk about radicalization.

Another observation I had: What happened to Coachella’s cultural cache? It feels quiet on the festival front this year. Have you guys seen any hype around it? I hardly have.

All of this and more below.

[SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE DRAMA!!!]

The big twist in The Drama is that bride-to-be Emma (Zendaya) confesses to her fiancé Charlie (Robert Pattinson) and their married friends Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (a very frustrating Alana Haim) that the worst thing she has ever done is plan a school shooting that she did not go through with. Emma later suggests that she was drawn to the online iconography around school shooters who seemed “cool” to her at 15. Writer-director Kristoffer Borgli presents this shocking revelation as both a thought experiment (Are you a morally reprehensible, irredeemable person for simply considering something so heinous?) and a symptom of a greater illness in American culture.

Bizarrely, the movie is built off of a premise perfect for online discourse while simultaneously misunderstanding the internet entirely. I think it’s difficult to write a film that essentially hinges on how Zillenials/Gen Zers become radicalized if you do not understand the culture in which they are raised. Indeed, America is a country filled with and fueled by gun violence. We are overrepresented when it comes to mass shootings worldwide and have done very little as a country to curb this. That much is, and has long been, very obvious. But the radicalization pipeline is now global. Young people across the world are increasingly isolated and lonely, making them susceptible to extremist pipelines — and, as the movie very lightly suggests, this is not necessarily exclusive to white men anymore.

Emma ultimately doesn’t go through with her plans after another mass shooting in her town takes place and her classmate is killed. Because she has demonstrated her knowledge about mass shooters (through her planning process unbeknownst to her classmates) during a school meeting, she is approached to join a teen gun safety group à la March for Our Lives. There, she finds community and friends, completely changing her life trajectory and essentially saving her life (and those of others).

This part actually presents an interesting thesis, suggesting that connection can help catch kids from falling into the violence of the alt-right pipeline (an idea also explored in the recent Our Hero, Balthazar, which I haven’t seen yet but seems more satirical, bro-y, and explicitly about manospheric spaces). Yet, The Drama seems to take every opportunity to undermine its own exploration of moral greyness by having its other characters flatten the conversation around this issue. Charlie asks Emma if she felt like a fraud for being in the gun safety organization and she responds that she did not. Instead, Emma said finding that group was like “waking up from a bad dream,” but he doesn’t understand. The film seems almost disinterested in one of the most interesting ideas it presents: Are people who have been radicalized allowed to change? 

This is a question I have been interrogating for several years now as we’ve seen people along the radicalization spectrum, from former edgelord trolls (idubbbz, Doja Cat) to alt-right figureheads (Peter Cytanovic VI from the Unite the Right Rally), seek redemption. Many (many) people understandably have not forgiven these people for their old behavior or posts. Still, I am empathetic to their desire to atone for the hatred and/or violence they have perpetuated. It is certainly better than the alternative. I think more people are starting to understand this, especially as we all develop a better understanding around why people fall into these ideologies, which is not an excuse but rather an opportunity for continued understanding of the issue (and possible prevention). I just wish The Drama was smart enough to explore this topic in any meaningful way.

It feels like kind of a weird year for Coachella. I haven’t really been seeing much hype for the festival, which kicks off later this week. Is it my algorithm or are people not interested this year? Or rather, is it just that very specific and activated fandoms were targeted with the lineup (smart, to be fair) while the general population doesn’t care?

Empirically speaking, this year’s festival is doing better than the previous year. Tickets for this year’s Coachella sold out within a week of going on sale last September. It took until February 2025 for last year’s tickets to sell out.

But for a lineup with some of the biggest contemporary superstars across the globe (Karol G! Sabrina Carpenter! Justin Bieber!), I would expect more people to be hyped about it. Even the billboards, which always serve to build excitement around the festival, are quite lackluster this year. What’s going on? 

It could be that people are more concerned about other things, namely their pocketbooks and the state of the world. Unfortunately, every year that passes feels like the festival has lost its dominance as pop cultural trendsetter. Last year, I suggested that a large part of Coachella’s current success is from what music fans online clip and circulate. Yet, I’ve hardly heard a peep from Stan Twitter about what sets people are excited for.

I’ve only seen Beliebers online talking about Coachella, although it’s nice to see the fandom so excited again. While it doesn’t look like Justin Bieber is going to perform much of his old stuff, his fans are busting out their old merch and upcycling the garments into festival-chic fits. Also, I always adore when former teen fangirls get to celebrate their lifelong love for an artist. 

The only other pre-Coachella content I’ve seen are from seasoned Coachella campers and people who apparently got the rug pulled out from under them with their festival Airbnb reservations. So if any of you are Coachella attendees, stay vigilant about those accommodations!

Every Monday letter gets a playlist. It’s been a bit of a gloomy spring so far. These are tunes for a rainy day.

In this week’s playlist:

Other things I want to share with you.