If the Simulation Is Real, It's Run by Publicists
Plus: Comedy gold in 'Hacks' and 'Overcompensating'
In this newsletter: The Tony Awards; an investigation into the timing of Sabrina Carpenter’s song of the summer and how it connects to Steve Carell’s movie Mountainhead; my four-year favorite comedy, Hacks; my current comedy obsession, Overcompensating; and Mike Birbiglia’s newest comedy special.
I’m gonna start this newsletter strong with a mood-killer: This weekend felt heavy.
Despite the fact I INCREDULOUSLY enjoyed the French Open men’s singles final [that, at 5.5 hours long, was longer than the BBC “Pride and Prejudice” miniseries and had volleys so improbable I would’ve dubbed the match “too far-fetched” for a fictional show on The CW], reality was tinged with Everything in The News. The National Guard escalated protests in Los Angeles. It’s Pride month, and a friend of mine had glass thrown at them while lined up at a gay bar. So, I want to start by acknowledging that many of us are living in real fear, and I hope you are doing OK.
On a personal front, my mom is headed to start treatment this week for her third recurrence of cancer. Thus, as I told my therapist on Friday, “I’ve been doing a lot of what I think you folks in the biz call ‘Avoidance’???”
[Tragically, she did not laugh, despite the fact that I did little jazz hands!]
Anyways, if you are the kind of person who focuses on “looking for the helpers” and also tries to be the helper, here are three organizations that do good work across several areas of need, that I’m familiar with directly from my time working in nonprofits: ACACIA, the Trevor Project, and World Central Kitchen.
Readers: I’d love to hear about any resources you love, or even just the things you do when the news gets to be too much. 💜
The Tony Awards
The Tonys1 were last night! The Super Bowl for musical theater kids! Dare I say, a gay extravaganza! [The most thrilling kind of extravaganza, other than homeschoolers doing a weekend binge of the aforementioned 5.5-hour BBC “Pride and Prejudice.”]
My TikTok algorithm is essentially a mix of funny gays + kittens getting rescued + face sculpting scams + drag queens explaining makeup + a woman named Katie in Kentucky + Riverdance + musical theater gays doing harmonies.2 So yeah, you could say I’m musical-theater adjacent, despite the fact that I get my Broadway info the way people in olden times got the news: By village crier, otherwise known as a group chat titled “Cheap Broadway Tickets Chat” and my two best friends named Laura.
They did a whole “Hamilton” medley for the 10-year anniversary ➡️ which made me feel very old ➡️ which makes me the perfect demographic to get excited about “Hamilton” again.
Do We Live in a Simulation? An Investigation
The least surprising thing that happened last week was Donald Trump and Elon Musk having a Bravo-TV-level break-up.
The most surprising thing was that within hours of that very public crash-out, Sabrina Carpenter dropped her single “Manchild” — a title so perfectly encapsulating the adolescent feud unraveling in the White House that I immediately voice-messaged the group chat:
“The Simulation Hypothesis is real!!”
“Explain to me,” I voiced to my long-suffering group chats, “how Sabrina Carpenter knew to drop a song titled ‘Manchild’ on the very day that the two most powerful men in the world decided to be man-children?? Explain to me also how Steve Carell’s tech-billionaires-turning-on-each-other satire movie “Mountainhead”3 debuted on HBO Max mere DAYS before the two most powerful bros in America turned on each other IN REAL LIFE??!?!?”
“Isn’t this the simplest explanation?” I posited to my friends in an effort to make reality feel a bit lighter.
Aren’t these the signs of intelligent design?? Where the “Intelligence” is just a publicist programming an algorithm to sell us stuff while muttering to herself, “All press is good press” as she releases the “Manchild” merch with those t-shirt guns at a baseball game that somehow Taylor Swift is attending????
[Stick with me here, I promise I’ll land this plane well outside of conspiracy-theory territory.]
It made me think of this monologue in Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” where Mr. Usher reframes “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” into a blueprint for building a capitalist empire:
“First, you roll out a multimedia campaign to convince people lemons are incredibly scarce, which only works if you stockpile lemons, control the supply. Then a media blitz…. You get a Kardashian to suck a lemon wedge in a leaked sex tape … Timothée Chalamet wears lemon shoes at Cannes ... You get Doctor Oz to recommend four lemons a day and a lemon suppository supplement.”
It’s heavy-handed — quite preachy, even! — in its messaging. Flanagan probably sees himself as a prophet on the roadside, waving a sign emblazoned with the message: “Late-State Capitalism = BAD!”
My Simulation Theory looks exactly like Mr. Usher’s “lem-pire.” Simulation Theory, usually played for comedy, is a conspiracy theory that we are in a Matrix-like simulation so powerful that we’re distracted from the fact that we aren’t actually living in reality. But, then, joking about a Simulation is also a form of distraction. My empathetic side recognizes that even the worst conspiracy theorists are largely just people who are scared, and who are trying to make sense of the nonsensical: that life is often unfair, wretched, cruel, illogical.
So yes, I occasionally find it cathartic to joke about us all being plugged into the “Manchild” Matrix. If I joke that we live in a simulation run by billionaires and their publicists, I can momentarily make light of a world programmed with haves and have-nots. It doesn’t have to be political, either — as I told my therapist last week, I would prefer to avoid the idea that I will ever lose my mom; I would prefer to be distracted by my enthusiasm over Sabrina Carpenter dropping the most apt anthem possible for Summer 2025.
The jokes ease the real truth: That’s it’s not a simulation; it’s the real world. The memes, the posts, the jokes — while fun — are ultimately a distraction from actually going out and writing the script ourselves.
Three Comedies I Love
Because comedy is essential! Here are a few things giving me joy this month.
1. “Hacks” — Final Season on HBO Max
CORRECTION!!! IT HAS BEEN RENEWED FOR A FIFTH SEASON!!!!!!!!!
One of my favorite shows of ALL! TIME! Behind “Parks & Rec,” ahead of “New Girl”?
I reviewed Season 1 of “Hacks” way back in 2021 and picked it as one of my favorite shows of that year. Now, four years later, each consecutive season has achieved an equivalent — or better — level of excellence.
Seasons 2 and 3 were my favorites: They were kinder than Season 1, developing the characters into people you deeply rooted for. Season 4 started wobbly for me, a bit back to the bleaker comedy of the first season. BUT, once it really got rolling, it GOT ROLLING. Whew! So good! So hilarious! I wish it never ended!4 But I’m glad they knew to go out on a high.
Dare I say, life-changing!? I’m going to miss Ava and Deborah and Jimmy and Kayla.
2. “Overcompensating” on Prime
Strap in [on?] for a delightful time!! “Overcompensating,” the show from Benito Skinner, the guy I formerly knew as TikTok’s bennydrama7, is a comedy about college, coming of age, coming out, and perhaps most of all, friendship. It’s sweet. It’s kind. It’s hilarious.
Oh, and the soundtrack is 10/10. When he raps the verses of Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass,” I DIED. My junior year of college, my friend Natalie printed out hard copies of those lyrics for me and her so we could learn the verses over the summer and come back to college COOLER. So yeah, you could say this show hit for me.
3. Mike Birbiglia’s new standup special “The Good Life”
Birbiglia, you son of a b*tch: You did it again. Mike Birbiglia is one of the crafters of the “new” trend in comedy where a standup routine isn’t just a series of jokes but rather a narrative arc that plumbs darkness and grief. His special, “The Old Man & the Pool,” is perhaps the crowning achievement of that genre. He helped produce Alex Edelman’s “Just for Us,” which is another standout.
Birbiglia’s new show is a bit pricklier and cruder than “The Old Man & the Pool” — but it has an irreverence for human folly that sharpens its reverence for human existence. I was up and down on the first half, but man: The final 20 minutes are a tightrope act blending humor, irreverence, grief, and the meaning of life.
That’s all for this week! Thanks so much for reading, and please let me know your thoughts, questions, opinions, reactions, or recommendations in the comments! Drop a heart if you enjoyed the ride. :)
To me, “Tonys” is a universal spice that goes on nearly all foods.
I think TikTok thinks I am a gay man? Which is a great algorithm in which to live.
I’d give “Mountainhead” a 6/10. It was like a mid SNL “Weekend Update” where you’re like “Ha. Ha.” but it’s not as groundbreaking as it seems to intend.
LMAO @ TikTok thinking you're a gay man.
I've honestly been in survival mode but raising money for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund through my custom t-shirts (shameless plug) and helping people create things (often protest signs or pins or shirts) at work every day fills my soul.
Agh I love Mike Birbiglia but idk if my heart could take a dark grief narrative rn. Okay, you've convinced me to watch Hacks, although I think I saw they're doing another season?? Perhaps it was a joke on Twitter so my sources are not confirmed.
Also your Hacks, P&R, New Girl holy trinity is my holy trinity get out of my head please and ty!