In the geopolitical cafeteria of global pop culture, the dish labeled “Lady Gaga” is no mere canapé. It is a full-course, multi-sensory banquet that has been passed from Seoul’s Gangnam clubs to Lagos’s Afro-fusion parties, from Berlin’s Berghain basement to a yacht off Monaco where oligarchs pretend they still care about music. One decade and…
When historians of late-capitalist decadence need a single face to explain how a Manchester United right-midfielder metastasized into a planetary lifestyle brand, they’ll probably pick David Beckham: the haircut that launched a thousand visa stamps. From a cramped East London terrace to the gilded benches of Qatar’s World Cup, Beckham has become the first footballer…
Priscilla Presley and the Global Alchemy of Tragedy Chic By Marisol Vega, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker If you want to understand how the world metabolises American heartbreak, watch Priscilla Presley doing press in Seoul, Tokyo, or—God help us—Dubai. At 78, she glides through luxury-hotel lobbies like a diplomat from the sovereign nation of Nostalgia, flanked…
SUKI WATERHOUSE AND THE GLOBAL SOFT-POWER SYNDROME A Dispatch from the Frontlines of Manufactured Relevance Dateline: Everywhere Wi-Fi reaches and self-regard outruns bandwidth In 2024, the phrase “international incident” no longer requires embassies, trade tariffs, or even a stray missile. All it takes is a British model-actress-singer-entrepreneur-candle-magnate named Suki Waterhouse posting a grainy Polaroid of…
From Lagos boardrooms to Laotian noodle stalls, the name Katie Maloney is now muttered with the same hushed awe once reserved for off-shore tax shelters and FIFA’s travel per diems. How, you ask, did a 37-year-old Californian who spent most of her screen time arguing about sangria-stained sofas become a geopolitical barometer? Welcome to the…
PARIS — Somewhere along the Seine, a Senegalese street vendor hawks bootleg NFL jerseys that read “OBJ 13” in Comic Sans. Two blocks away, a Korean tourist live-streams the transaction to 40,000 followers on TikTok, tagging it #GlobalIcon. In this moment, Odell Beckham Jr.—a man whose most memorable NFL play is now almost a decade…
Demi Lovato and the Global Soft-Power Industrial Complex By Dave’s Locker, International Desk It is 03:14 a.m. in Jakarta and a ride-hailing driver named Bayu is blasting “Sorry Not Sorry” through a cracked Samsung while ferrying a diplomat to the airport. At the exact same second, a teenager in Lagos is lip-syncing the same track…
**Nina Dobrev and the Global Passport of Manufactured Stardom** *By Our Correspondent Who Once Tried to Enter Canada with a Vampire Bite Still Fresh* SOFIA, BULGARIA – In a former bread-factory-turned-co-working-space, teenagers who’ve never seen an episode of *The Vampire Diaries* are buying Nina Dobrev-branded lip kits with crypto they mined on their gaming rigs….
