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Friday Fun Thread for April 24, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Candidates for most agonizing recent song?

I submit for your consideration Lucinda Williams’ World Gone Wrong, a shambling eulogy for the Current Moment. Naturally, it’s seeing a lot of airtime on my local radio.

While I could provide any number of objections to its lyricism or production, I’d rather take a page from Clench Racing’s lesser-known cousin: Complete the Poem. Use your skill and judgment to complete the following lines.

A lot of people getting put on the street
It’s getting harder ___
He comes home every night ___
And wonders how much longer ___

If you need a hint, imagine the most drawn-out warble possible. The relevant rhymes should jump right into your brain.

I really can't come up with a clear answer to this. Pretty much anything by Tate McCrae or Sabrina Carpenter or virtually anybody else in this new generation of pop artists is about as aggressively painful as it gets, to be honest. After a while everything melts away into the same homogenised corpus of liquidised shit that is modern pop music. It's virtually all irredeemable, there's no sense talking about "worse" or "better" in such a context.

At least stuff that's unintentionally but parodically bad such as Liz Phair's lyrical and musical masterpieces (Bollywood, U Hate It) are fun to listen to, these songs can't even aspire to that.

Tate McRae's voice is so annoying. She's lucky she's hot.

I watched one video, and I'm still not sure how much of that is her voice. I know I should have gotten inured to modern over-AutoTuned production over the decades, but 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 I really don't think I'm strong enough! 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

She's got great taste in underwear, though.

She's got great taste in underwear, though.

Citation requested.

(I apologise, that was rather Reddit of me.)

My second YouTube search came up with the same top result, and far be it from me to refuse a polite request.

But I'm not making a third search. My kids occasionally use my YouTube account on our living room computer, and at some point I'd worry about the algorithm deciding that my current math/science/art balance needs more "art" and that my "artists" need fewer clothes.

Why did women get into F1 racing all of a sudden in the past ten years? Feels like a psyop but if you asked me if you could psyop women into give a shit about dudes driving around in circles for an hour and a half I'd say no. I could at least understand if they got women driving the cars, but they don't.

Formula 1 teamed up with Netflix to repackage the sport as a reality TV show.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_1:_Drive_to_Survive

The show has received recognition for the additional insight it offers fans, and is credited with attracting new audiences (particularly American) to the sport. The condensing of season-long themes into single-episode narratives has drawn praise for adapting "the natural drama of a racing season into a narrative that can encourage a fan to tune into the real thing."

However, Drive to Survive has been criticized for including fake or misplaced commentary and team radios, staging certain scenes, placing undue importance on test and practice sessions, and over-dramatizing or misrepresenting certain events and relationships within the Formula One paddock. The continued criticism from both audiences and drivers led to discussions between Netflix and team managers, as well as between Formula One and the drivers.

Max Verstappen refused to participate in interviews for seasons 3 and 4 as he believed that the show dramatized some drivers by portraying them as villains and manufactured fake rivalries.

It's funny how well the psyop worked in F1, when there have been so many efforts over the years to get women into gaming and none of it ever stuck. It seems like such an obvious formula too.