Tallahassee, Florida – In the grand casino of global culture, where nations gamble on oil futures, semiconductor supremacy, and the next TikTok dance, the release of a college-football schedule might appear as charmingly parochial as a parish bake sale. Yet when Florida State University—those garnet-and-gold merchants of controlled violence—dropped its 2024 slate last week, the…
Ohio State vs Washington: When a College Football Game Pretends to Matter to the World HOUSTON—In a cavernous stadium the size of a small principality, two American collegiate armies will collide Monday night while the rest of Earth politely pretends to watch. The “College Football Playoff National Championship” pits the Ohio State Buckeyes against the…
Kahleah Copper, Export-Grade Swagger: Why a 6’1″ Guard From North Philly Now Dictates Exchange Rates in Istanbul and Mood Swings in São Paulo By Dave’s Locker Global Bureau I. Passport Noir In the grand, slightly mildewed ledger of American cultural exports—sandwiched between KFC and drone diplomacy—women’s basketball occupies a quiet, subversive footnote. Enter Kahleah Copper,…
Tony Hawk, the man whose name now serves as a shorthand for everything from skateboards to NFTs to the existential dread of being recognized but not *really* recognized, has quietly become one of America’s most successful cultural exports since the invention of the blues and the accidental global domination of Starbucks. While diplomats haggle over…
Puebla vs. Guadalajara: A Rivalry That Makes the World Wonder Why It Cares Dave’s Locker | International Bureau MEXICO CITY—Somewhere between the smog that hugs the Valley of Mexico and the agave-scented breezes of Jalisco, two cities nurse a grudge so ancient it predates TikTok, NAFTA, and the concept of low-cost airfares. Puebla and Guadalajara—one…
Noah Kahan and the Global Business of Feeling Homesick By Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk Somewhere between the maple syrup aisle of a Berlin supermarket and a Spotify playlist titled “Sad Hiking,” a 27-year-old from Strafford, Vermont (population: 1,089, two general stores, and an existential dread per household) has become the unofficial troubadour of planetary weltschmerz….
Jade Cargill and the New American Gladiator: How a Floridian Fitness Coach Became an Accidental Geopolitical Weapon PARIS—On a rain-slick evening along the Seine, diplomats still arguing over submarine contracts and grain corridors took a brief, collective pause last week. The reason? A 1.75-second clip of a statuesque American woman in rhinestone armor power-bombing a…
Robin Roberts, the woman who has spent more than two decades coaxing pre-caffeinated Americans into facing the day, is not a head of state, a Nobel laureate, or even—remarkably—someone with a verified TikTok dance. Yet from Lagos to Lisbon, her name has quietly slipped into the global vernacular as shorthand for unflappable optimism and, more…
The Curious Case of Guy Fieri: How a Frost-Tipped American Became the Planet’s Last Unifying Meme By Dave’s International Desk In the grand bazaar of global pop culture—where K-Pop choreographies are studied like Cold War intercepts and Netflix subtitles decide tomorrow’s idioms—Guy Fieri has improbably emerged as the one export even the WTO can’t tariff….
Randy Pittman, a name that sounds like it belongs on the back of a bowling shirt in a forgotten Wisconsin league, has improbably become the Zelig of our late-capitalist fever dream. From a basement server farm in suburban Omaha to the marble lobbies of the Gulf’s petro-princes, the 37-year-old former SEO consultant has spent the…
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…
Jenna Johnson and the Quiet Globalization of the American Ballroom By the time Jenna Johnson Chmerkovskiy lifted her second mirror-ball trophy on Dancing with the Stars last fall, the confetti cannons had already gone off in eleven time zones. Not because the show itself travels that well—frankly, most of the planet would rather watch paint…
