The Latest on "Reputation (Taylor's Version)"
Plus, the Labubu invasion, Sesame Street's new partnership with Netflix, and more on this week's edition of The Bullet
Welcome to The Bullet: a Get Rec’d column that rounds up all the latest consumer news, including product drops, fashion team-ups, film launches, entertainment happenings, niche Internet news, and more.
Taylor Swift finally teased Reputation (Taylor’s Version) in an episode of The Handmaid’s Tale. After a year of Swifties religiously watching grainy concert livestreams and searching for Easter eggs hinting at the status of her 2017 Reputation re-recording, Taylor Swift finally gave her fans a bone. Any Taylor Swift diehard reclining on their couch readying to watch Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale this past Monday likely shot forward in their seat when the first few keys to the album’s headlining single, “Look What You Made Me Do,” rang out through their speakers to open the penultimate episode of show’s final season. This is like when The Summer I Turned Pretty used Swift’s re-recording of the dreamy ballad “This Love” off the 1989 album in their second season trailer, but for people with severe anxiety. The cameo sparked a flurry of theories on whether the music mogul will finally announce the release date for her Reputation re-record, and signs point to tomorrow night, May 26, at the American Music Awards. Swift doesn’t do anything without a reason in this (ahem) era of her career. Everything move she makes, every nugget of information she gives, is done with a clear purpose—precisely timed to create a maelstrom of press and intrigue that keeps the pop star front and center in our minds. So even if we don’t get the announcement tomorrow, watch this space.
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Sesame Street gets a second home on Netflix. According to press releases from both Netflix and Sesame Workshop—the nonprofit behind Sesame Street—the children’s program will continue airing its 56th season for free on PBS Kids for all cable users, and on demand to any Netflix subscriber. Netflix will also host 90 hours of previous Sesame Street episodes. This new deal offers something of a lifeboat to the iconic show, which ended its previous streaming partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery's Max late last year and has currently found itself in hot water financially amid public broadcasting budget cuts courtesy of the Trump administration. While the show isn’t entirely disappearing from cable, the looming threat posed by these budget cuts, along with this new streaming deal, feels like a pivotal point in the cable-to-streaming timeline.
Hailey Bieber was on the cover of Vogue magazine—her husband, Justin Bieber, had some things to say. In a now removed caption, Bieber reposted his wife’s cover to his own Instagram, saying, “Yo this reminds me when Hailey and I got into a huge fight, I told hails that she would never be on the cover of vogue. Yikes I know, so mean, For some reason because I felt so disrespected I thought I gotta get even…I think as we mature we realize that we’re not helping anything by getting even, we’re honestly just prolonging what we really want which is intimacy and connection. So baby u already know but forgive me for saying u wouldn’t get a vogue cover cuz clearly i was sadly mistaken.” …Comment below if you think it’s too late now for Justin to say sorry.
Steve Madden’s appearance on The Cutting Room Floor podcast single-handedly revived the brand. The popular footwear designer owned up to “taking inspiration” for his shoes from various luxury brands like Hermes, Chanel, and Alaïa with a nonchalant shoulder shrug, and rebranded his “dupes” as far more affordable alternatives for “his girls.”
Welcome to the Labubu invasion—it’s mildly terrifying. I first met Labubu, the Gremlin-reminiscent key ring doll from the Hong Kong art toy brand The Monsters, about a week ago at a closet sale in the West Village, and I simply haven’t been able to escape them since. You might take one look at the vaguely threatening toothy grins on these fuzzy Nordic elves, scoff, and move on with your life—but these impish tchotchkes have actually charmed their way into the high-end street fashion scene as the latest gimmicky “designer toy.” Mostly found affixed to the designer bags of celebrities like BLACKPINK singer Lisa, Rihanna, Dua Lipa, and Dillion Brooks, Labubu offers a more whimsical extension of the bag charm fad, giving people the opportunity to dress down their luxury pieces while simultaneously injecting them with a bit of personality. Labubus provide yet another way for you to silently say: “don’t worry, I may own a Birkin, but I don’t take myself too seriously.”
