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Since the early days of the pandemic, the engines of mass culture have attempted to churn forward.
But by mid-March, it had already become clear they were ill-equipped to meet the COVID moment.
Big-budget movies, plays, and concert tours were canceled.
Daytime TV started beaming virtual audiences into physical studios, and the result couldnt help but appear unhinged.
The audience faces loomed, their laughs in permanent lag.
The rules for what worked had changed.
And it meant leaning way into gallows humor, nonsense, and camp.
With so many limits on our real lives, we were finally ready to move to the Uncanny Valley.
(Cut to Joy Behar, reaching for the Purell on the table.)
and seemingly easy ones like Qualitatively, what do you like about Black people?
The brilliance came from watching it live, cringing in real time.
Ziwe kept summer interesting with this weekly crash and burn.
As the series branches out, it has sought out legends and attempted to work out historical misunderstandings.
(Solange created aTwitter poll, and pants won by a narrow margin.)
Even in isolation, we must always find new ways to show off.
(Translated versions appeared at Indiewire and Sight & Sound.)
It also suggested Almodovar has a great memoir in him.
But just how aware is she?
The more you watch her, the harder it is to tell, which feels like her whole point.
You about to lose yo job, she repeats, asking the cameraperson to get this dance.
The joke is the episode itself, because its almost unimaginably ridiculous.
Kathryn VanArendonk
BestBreakdowninMusicalForm:
Taylor SwiftsFolklore
Quarantine nights are long and unnervingly quiet.
Loneliness was the great equalizer in 2020, andFolklorespoke profoundly to that.
The more climb-up-the-walls crazy some of us feel in isolation, the more Stalter resonates.
The conversation stirs up decades of drama, which proves to be an emotional task.
A distraught Williams leaves the livestream, no closer to reconciliation.
It was the meme that spanned our 2020 emotions, from exuberant to unhinged.
the mogul asked the NBA player, who had recently contracted COVID) or call out Drakes thirst?
Getting Dylan OBrien to eyebrow-scream-moan as Andrew GarfieldasEduardo Saverin in a scene fromThe Social web connection.
Like many of these actors, hes someone you might better know from franchise work.
JM
BestUseofMicrosoftOffice:
Cuomos Powerpoints
Its Saturday.
Wear a Mask.pic.twitter.com/9dvJ0Gxu4z
We know.
Youre sick of this guy, but listen:These were absurd.
The surreal humor of that fact made them an internet sensation.
Long live daytime TVs most intriguing new series.
Yeah, I am.
“pic.twitter.com/wcj7KUrjkX
How did Fiona Apple know that wed need this exact album at this exact time?
Part of the loose, freewheeling spirit of ErykahsApocalypsehinges on the setting her bedroom.
(You wouldnt see that on anyone elses stream, either.
Badus sense of humor is unmatched few livestream concerts were as playful.)
By the third show, it looked like a dispatch from a moon colony.
Mary Neelys are different.
Like others, she uses elaborate editing to create full scenes with multiple characters using only her one-person production.
Rather than lip-syncing along to news of the day, though, Neely takes on musicals.
Her videos are feats of editing, involving makeshift costume and set design and a flair for caricature.
Dont worry; they took precautions.
Production values eased up.
Elaborate warehouse sets were out, candid videos were in.
Tyga had a minor hit with what looked like FaceTime footage.
Drake and Kehlani filmed in and around their homes.
Nothing since has lived up to it.
The genius of the episode is in how unlabored it feels.
If you didnt catch the Zoom calls, you could watch recaps of them on YouTube.
Her face becomes a window into his imagined inner life, bored but also groping desperately for his lines.
Then she turns into Trumps interlocutor, and her face is an exquisite, mute, often baffled plea.
What does he mean?
How can any of this possibly be real?
Constraint truly is the house mother of invention.
E. Alex Jung
BestDocumentaryofaGoodMarriage:
Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody
Who makes these up!?
Its the first hybrid of its punch in, and certainly not the last.
If anyone was capable of disrupting this nostalgically paced workflow, it wasZadie Smith.
It is utterly specific to this moment in time and destined to be read for decades to come.
Republicans gave time to the couple who waved guns at Black Lives Matter protesters in St. Louis.
Democrats bored us to tears with sentimentality.
If youd been drifting off at the end of the evening, you werent anymore.
Were they deliberately trying to razz us?
A perfect30 Rockparody of itself.
CJ
BestStar-MakingSupercut:
Sohla, Do You Have a Minute?
Want to temper chocolate?
Make a giant tortilla?
Madison Malone Kircher
BestCollectivePsychosis:
Is It Cake?
Some imagined the end of the coronavirus only leading to thedawn of cake.
Ben Schwartz penned aCreepypasta-worthy taleof his mother turning into cake.
You, too, could be cake.
ZH
BestBedroomSerenade:
Bad Bunnys Three Hour Instagram Live Stream
Bad Bunny is special.
Somehow, Benito still beams star power even while curled up on the couch staring at his phone.
The greatest entertainers dont need a stage.
Some take it seriously, while others are just looking for company while they get drunk.
Sure, we made fun of the idea at the time (ferrying a performer out to Staten Island?
), but it allowed for a show that reflected our tech-tethered year.
Justin Curto
BestUseofanEmptyTheater:
The Old Vic
A vacant theater is poignant.
Its a space filled up with ghosts, haunted the moment the audience files out.
How sad, you say?
HS
BestPostmodernMystery:
TheAvengersElection Video
America Assembled!
Strange, Kamala Harris was Falcon, Hunter Biden was a disheveled Thor, and on and on.
It just … it just … it just was so stupid.
All over Twitter, people said it made them cry.
But what kind of tears?
Some saw it as a hilarious parody of naive political memes.
Others took it in earnestly and were moved accordingly.
A third group both assumed it was earnest and thought it was funny.
Eventually, Brooklyn filmmaker John H. Piette announced he had made it with pure intentions.
Thats the internet for you you cant control how your work is perceived.
What better way to foster a real sense of togetherness than by ruthlessly accusing each other of being sus?
For the rest of us, celebrity gossip has provided a much-needed balm the dumber, the better.
Which is where@deuxmoicomes in.
Since March, the private Instagram account has dropped daily dispatches on all manner of celebrity behavior.
(Some name names, others are blind items.)
(it’s possible for you to now buy a Travis Scott Chicken McNugget pillow.)
As usual with Travis, he didnt invent this practice so much as attach a notable pop-star face.
But after Travis got onboard, Diplo, BTS, and J Balvin all made special content forFortnitetoo.
CJ
BestRaidonVideoGameTechnology:
Seagull on The Sims 4
Writing a play is a lonely process.
It also resulted in a mass engagement with crucial Chekhovian questions.
Howdoyou drive a man to grief?
Do the conditions exist for romance, in the absence of true friendship?
Its not because the other works of art created during this year arent worthy of study.
But what other medium truly nailed the essence of 2020s mania?
