Being a Traitor? All the rage.
Reality TV’s final boss + the latest from LEGO + Fashion Week marketing stunts + the next four years
Kaley On The Traitors & Its Genius Formula For Cultural Relevance
No show on TV makes me feel like The Traitors, back for season 3 on Peacock and better than ever.
For the uninitiated… the murder mystery game places a variety of reality TV personalities in a Scottish castle, where host Alan Cummings, absolutely slaying tartan lewks left and right, divides the players into “Traitors” and “Faithfuls.” From there, the Traitors attempt to inconspicuously “murder” and sabotage while the Faithful try to suss out and banish the traitorous among them. If you love games like Mafia or One Night Ultimate Werewolf, you’ll immediately understand why the format of The Traitors is compelling. But why is everyone else so bought in?
Trail mix casting invites & unites fandoms
At this point, it’s not up for debate that popular culture is extremely fragmented. There’s too much content across too many media types to consume or even stay vaguely aware of it all. But what makes The Traitors so fun is that it throws a bunch of personalities from a bunch of long running reality franchises into one show. This season’s contestants come from Survivor, Housewives, Bachelor nation, Selling Sunset, Vanderpump Rules, The Challenge, Big Brother, RuPaul’s Drag Race and more. Plus Zach Efron’s brother is there for some reason.
Whether you’ve consumed one episode or every season of one or more of those shows doesn’t really have any bearing on how much you’ll enjoy The Traitors. But the trail mix approach to casting results in some of the dumbest, savviest, most entertaining and most confidently wrong game play you’ve ever seen and some of the best TV I’ve seen in years.
Another result of the show’s casting of fan faves and villains from long running reality franchises is that the players come with built-in devoted fan bases, ready to introduce you to the lore of players like Survivor’s Boston Rob and national treasures like Gabby Windey, all served up to me on TikTok after watching just one teaser from the only cast member I was already a fan of: Bob the Drag Queen.
If I haven’t convinced you to watch already, and without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that in the four episodes that’ve been released so far, Bob the Drag Queen has solidified his spot on the Mount Rushmore of Traitors players and is the uncontested #1 in my heart.
This week in Cool Shiny Culture:
🧱 Megan’s Cool: While the TikTok FYP that I built brick by brick was collapsing, I was deciding which of my IRL hobbies would receive the time I spent scrolling. I landed on LEGO and found that there’s been lots of movement in the brick building space. Specifically, the Botanical Collection (that I happen to collect) has new additions! Just in time for Valentine's Day, they added a new pink bouquet, a mini orchid, a lucky bamboo, and there’s a fancy floral arrangement available for pre-order. While my collection is limited to the botanicals, I also highly recommend checking out the Cullen House, Trevi Fountain, and Panda Family sets.
🍿 Kaley’s Cool: Dear Movies, I Love You. I’ve been eagerly anticipating this new podcast from the producers of My Favorite Murder for roughly 20 years. But Kaley, you say, haven’t podcasts only been popular for like a decade? Yes, but I’ve known since high school that my dear friend Casey O’Brien was destined to be seen and heard by the world. I’m thrilled he’s gotten the chance to be creative at this level and that it’s on his favorite topic: movies! 🥹 Check out the trailer and subscribe today!
💄 Megan’s Shiny: Gloss Charms are the latest fad I’m loving. Combining quite a few existing trends (DIY crafting, beads/charms, and lip gloss), people are decorating their lip gloss tubes with charms. This is an accessible way into a larger charm fixation that’s seen people “jane birkinifying” their bags with accessories in an effort to showcase their unique style through a curated set of baubles. Gloss charms are a way to bring this same idea to your lip gloss, which, thanks to the popularity of brands like Rhode Beauty, Laneige, and Summer Fridays, are having a major cultural moment. Gloss charms are an especially ripe opportunity for beauty brands to collab with jewelry brands on limited edition collabs 👀
Marketing of note: Jacquemus x Shot on iPhone
Paris Fashion Week is upon us and we’re intrigued by Jacquemus’ recently announced partnership with Apple. Jacquemus has pledged that they'll be using Apple’s latest iPhone model–the 16 Pro Max–to livestream, capture, and record their PFW presentation slated for the 26th. This simple yet clever activation builds off Apple’s decade’s long “Shot on iPhone” campaign (notably one of the early instances of a brand harnessing UGC or user generated content) to show off its professional-grade prowess.
The fashion sector has long struggled with how to integrate social media, so we’re giving special props to this elegant partnership, for leaning into social’s primary mechanism for content capturing without going full Influencer campaign. Because fair or not, the inclusion of creators remains a polarizing fashion week tactic. Here, you could say the iPhone itself is the influencer.
The Opposite of Cynical: Kaley on getting through Trump 2.0
Time for sincerity. It’s been a difficult week for many of us who understand the dangers ahead for Trump’s second presidency. I’ve been using my time off X and disengaged from day to day politics to do more long form reading and contemplation. One thing I keep going back to is a simple but strong desire to plant deeper roots in my real community. If the wider world is going to culturally regress, I am going to do everything I can to create my smaller world according to the ideal values I hold in my head. Where diversity is appreciated, people are empathetic and supportive of each other, and corporations aren’t valued over human beings.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Harlem Renaissance and the Cassandra role Bernie Sanders has been forced to play for the majority of his career. For me, they’re examples of what it looks like to stay steadfast in what you believe regardless of whether it appears out of step with culture and to intentionally work to create areas of safe refuge for people who are seen as a danger to the hegemony.
While I’m choosing to be less politically engaged in the day to day of this administration, I’m not softening or compromising on my values. And I’m not forgetting who appears to be.
Must See TT: RaeShanda Lias’ pep talk for the next four years
Lock in,
Megan & Kaley
P.S. How are you coping? What are your strategies for engaging or disengaging in round 2? And how can we help?