Real life & reel life Superheroes

Vol. 1 Issue 19 – 3rd August 2024

Aug 03, 2024

Game changers

The Olympic Games in Paris are in full swing as China leads the medal tally with 31 medals including 13 golds, followed by host nation France with 36 medals but 11 golds and Australia securing 22 medals until now. Coming in fourth, the USA has actually won more medals than the top 3, with a total of 43, but with a majority of these being silver and bronze, they rank lower.
More importantly, the breakthrough stars have been those who have created a stir online. There’s an apparent difference in this year’s Olympics than the previous ones as athletes are offering a unique perspective of the Games by sharing lighthearted content on TikTok & Instagram, that separates their personalities from the otherwise tough and serious competition. Gen Z is also watching and taking an interest in the events as grown-ups for the first time, so naturally the Internet is abreast with memes and viral Tweets. Here’s a run-down on the best moments from this week.

The flag bearer from Italy, Gianmarco Tamberi, lost his engagement ring in the Seine River and wrote a heartwarming post to his partner on Instagram. “But if it was meant to happen, if I'm really going to lose this faith, I couldn't imagine a better place. It will stay forever in the riverbed of the city of love” 🥹😭
The Men’s Gymnastics team from America included an athlete who only specialised in the Pommel Horse bit of the routine. He seemed to be asleep and stoic while his teammates did their thing, only to take off his glasses and crush his performance when it was his turn, leading the team to win their first even Gold! And now the Internet is in love with the nerdy-looking ‘pommel horse guy’, Stephen Nedoroscik.
A swimmer from Norway is the muffin man of the Olympics. Henrik Christiansen is obsessed with the chocolate muffins at the Olympic Village, calling them “the single greatest thing about the Olympic Village so far”. Since then, creating multiple TikToks walking around with, and stealing handfuls of them.
The Olympics has therapy dogs for the athletes!
Great Britain diver, Tom Daley was famously passing time at the Tokyo Olympics by knitting, and he’s continuing the tradition this time around as well.
Italian gymnast, Giorgia Villa is sponsored by… Parmesan. The Internet discovered that the silver medalist is sponsored by Parmigiano-Reggiano and regularly posts pictures of herself with big wheels of cheese!
Badminton player, Lakshya Sen from India played an unbelievable no-look, backhand shot in a fast-paced rally against Indonesia.
The pistol shooting events were quite popular as the shooter from Turkey, Yusuf Dikec competed without using any additional equipment to aid his performance. Dikec with no eye gear other than his prescription glasses, both eyes wide open, hand in pocket, took home the silver medal and the Internet is convinced he is a trained assassin because of his nonchalance. Similarly, everyone’s also in love with Kem Yeji of South Korea for looking like the coolest shooter ever. In her form-fitting black outfit, white cap and wire-rimmed shooting glasses, she looks like she’s stepped straight out of an action movie.
This photo of a Brazilian surfer, Gabriel Medina, is one of the best ever.
Egyptian fencer Nada Hafez is competing while being seven months pregnant!
The horses competing at the Olympics were transported to Paris in a special aircraft called the AIR HORSE ONE (a pun on Air Force One)!
China's Huang Yaqiong got an Olympic gold medal and a marriage proposal from her teammate after winning her badminton match.
The women’s gymnastics team from the USA secured gold, then why did Simone Biles caption her photo “lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions ❤️🥇🇺🇸”? Well, in a now-deleted video, a former teammate MyKayla Skinner, criticised the team for not being hard-working along with the SafeSport organization that has been put into place following the sexual misconduct cases for disabling coaches from being “aggressive and intense”. Skinner then blocked Biles online. You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes 🤷🏻‍♀️ Post-win, the gold medalists were seen planning the TikToks they would film with their medals!

Marvellous time

In the wake of having the number 1 movie in the world, Marvel made some pretty big announcements at the San Diego Comic-Con.

Trailer footage was shown from Captain America: A Brave New World, Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps. You can watch my Instagram reel to learn what exactly was in the footage.
In addition, there was no clarification provided about why there is an asterisk in the Thunderbolts movie title but for Fantastic Four, director Matt Shakman confirmed that the movie is not an origin story and is set in a different timeline than the ‘sacred timeline’ MCU we’ve been following up until now. Fantastic Four is famously deemed the “First Family of Marvel”. Marvel Entertainment sold its rights to Fox, which is how we got the failed 2005 and 2015 iterations. But now that Marvel’s parent company Disney bought Fox, it’s a homecoming you need to look forward to!
As reported in Hyperlinked Issue 17, the Russo brothers have returned to direct the next two Avengers movies. The fifth Avengers movie has now been changed to Avengers: Doomsday. Previously this was supposed to be The Kang Dynasty, but following Marvel’s Kang, Jonathan Majors’ harassment cases, the actor was dropped and the future of the MCU reworked. The sixth movie remains Avengers: Secret Wars.
As for the biggest and most talked about surprise reveal, Robert Downey Jr. is back at Marvel playing Victor Von Doom. One of the most dangerous villains from the Fantastic Four comics, the casting has garnered mixed reviews but I’m thoroughly excited! Downey’s previous castmates too had varying reactions.

The rest of Marvel’s film and TV lineup with further details will probably be announced at Disney’s D23 Expo the coming weekend. To read more of my thoughts on RDJ’s casting as Doctor Doom and my review of Deadpool and Wolverine, and Marvel at large, head to Medium!

Haven’t you heard

At SDCC, the Abbott Elementary cast announced that Season 4 will have 22 episodes including a crossover with another TV show and the Internet is having a field day speculating which one it’s going to be.
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour shows in Munich were attended by 75,000 fans in the stadium and an ADDITIONAL 50,000 outside on the hillside which surrounds the venue. While the spectators on the greens couldn’t see the show, they still joined in to listen on both nights and made for quite a sight, especially when everyone held up their phone lights during Swift’s performance of Marjorie.
Dexter will be back on our TV screens in Dexter: Resurrection.
A Korean stage production of Macbeth is going viral for their posters.
Charli XCX and Billie Eilish have collaborated on the remix of ‘Guess’.
Shawn Mendes’ new album ‘Shawn’, dropping on October 18th. The runtime of the record is 27 minutes and I’m begging artists to PLEASE stop making their projects shorter and shorter!
Lollapalooza is in Chicago at the moment, all performances streaming on Hulu.
Andy Murray has retired from Tennis.
Chef Roberto Linguanotto, the inventor of Tiramisu, has died.
Emily Henry’s bestselling romance novel, People We Meet on Vacation has found its Poppy Wright and Alex Nilsen for the movie adaptation! Emily Bader of My Lady Jane, and Tom Blyth of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, are set to star in the Netflix movie.
Speaking on Hunger Games, The Challengers’ star, Mike Faist is rumoured to star in the next Hunger Games prequel movie, Sunrise on the Reaping.

Short form trends

These TikTok/Reel ideas are currently trending:

The audio “let’s be financially responsible!” followed by a shot of something that is bound to empty your wallets.
DJ Johnrey - EMERGENCY Budots Remix is being used to do an outfit try-on.
An audio of chomping sounds accompanied by text about something you “ate”. Like the American Women’s Gymnastic team!