The Daily: Sunday Special – "This Summer in Culture"

Episode Date: August 31, 2025
Host: Gilbert Cruz (with guests Jon Caramanica & Madison Malone Kircher)

Episode Overview

The inaugural "Sunday Special" of The Daily launches a new pop culture-focused series hosted by Gilbert Cruz, former NYT Culture Editor and current Editor of the Book Review. Each week, Gilbert gathers Times journalists covering arts, lifestyle, and Internet culture to discuss the "fun stuff" in the news – from music and TV to viral memes and movies. In this episode, with music critic Jon Caramanica and internet culture reporter Madison Malone Kircher, they recount the defining cultural moments of Summer 2025: celebrity engagements, viral songs, internet oddities, and movies that sparked discourse.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce Engagement

• Announcement:
  Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's engagement broke the Internet and group chats everywhere.

  • How it dropped: A joint Instagram post featuring elaborate garden photos, Travis proposing on one knee (in shorts, which sparked internal debate), and a stick of dynamite emoji ("tnt").
  • Madison: Described the online “shock” and how even her newsroom experience was upended:
    “My group chats began blowing up, and I was sitting in the cafeteria here at the office... then going, oh, no, this is my job, and just running towards the elevators.” [04:14]
  • Jon: Teased the cultural mashup: “As someone who hasn’t been to the gym in two plus years, I’m just going with English teacher, respectfully.” [03:20]
  • The symbolism: The caption was “your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” with a dynamite emoji alluding to “tnt.”

• Shorts Discourse:
  Gilbert objects to Travis proposing in shorts for an “iconic” moment.

  • “I don’t care how warm it is. These are engagement photos ... the guy is freaking wearing shorts.” [06:58]
  • Jon and Madison counter with the athletic/casual vibe, poking fun at more important issues ("shorts discourse").

2. Taylor Swift’s “Life of the Showgirl” Album Announcement

• Podcast Crossover:
  Taylor’s album announcement made via an appearance on her fiancé's (Travis Kelce) podcast, New Heights.
  • Meta-commentary:
    Madison: “I can’t believe this is the moment I finally had to watch a boy podcast.” [09:01]
    • She describes watching the podcast as an "event," feeling it was “the first time since Miss Americana” fans got a detailed look at Taylor—acknowledging the content is “highly manipulated” and “the sell.”
    • Jon: Notes that Travis and Jason Kelsey were more roughhousing than “podcasting,” and Taylor was there simply “to sell.”
    • Even the set design is picked apart, with Taylor expertly staged while Jason is “trapped in a basement.”

3. Song of the Summer: Is It Even Real?

• Jon’s Take:
  Argues “song of the summer” is a “farce” given the decline of the monoculture and algorithm-driven listenership.
  • “You have declining monoculture, deeply fragmented... it’s very, very hard for one song to really appeal broadly.” [14:40]
  • Charts say "Ordinary" by Alex Warren was #1 for 10 weeks, but Jon calls it “heinous” and “unbearable.”
    “It makes me physically uncomfortable.” [15:23]
• Algorithm Fatigue:
  Madison notes she was “force-fed” Ordinary on TikTok and Spotify, questioning if algorithms, not real listeners, propelled its success. [15:58]
• Alternative Songs of Summer (Personal Picks):
  • Jon: “Can’t Go Broke (remix)” by Zeddi Will — a comedic viral TikTok rap that’s “youthful… performed, comic, light-hearted.” [17:28]
  • Madison: Ben Platt’s live performance of Addison Rae’s “Diet Pepsi” at Los Culturistas’ fake awards show — lightning-rod meme crossover. [18:48]
    • “I have worn it out. My boy’s a winner. He loves the game.” [18:53]
  • Gilbert: “Golden” from Netflix’s K-Pop Demon Hunter — this children’s movie soundtrack took over his house via his child’s school bus and is “very catchy.” [22:02]
    • Jon, K-Pop critic, is less impressed, calling it “denuded, desiccated,” noting that it “feels like, what if we just made it smile” compared to classic, “chaotic, nuclear-powered” K-Pop. [25:13]

4. Internet Moments & Viral Memes

• ColdplayGate:
  • Two people caught canoodling on the concert Jumbotron turned into a viral meme and IRL scandal—because they were not married to each other.
    • “And we all knew who they were by the following morning, thanks to the magic that is the surveillance state we currently live in.” [29:04]
  • The discussion turns to privacy, publicness, and the perils of digital omnipresence.
    • Jon: “You shouldn’t be cheating on your wife. You shouldn’t be doing it in a public place.” [30:04]
• Jet2 Holiday Meme:
  • An innocuous UK travel agency ad (“Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday”) became the summer’s most ironically deployed TikTok reference for moments of humiliation or disappointment.
    • “You have a lightly funny thing that anybody can participate in. Everybody has been humiliated... you can be like, trauma with funny audio—viral champion.” [33:28]
• Benson Boone’s Crumbl Cookie Collab:
  • Pop star Benson Boone’s “Moonbeam ice cream” Crumbl cookie generated lines around the block, despite the panel’s consensus: Crumbl cookies are “gross.”
    • Madison: “If you’re listening to this podcast and not watching it... I’m scraping my teeth against the top of my tongue as though to remove some film that is still there from this cookie that I ate six weeks ago.” [36:21]
    • Jon compares Crumbl to “Alex Warren of cookies.” [34:02]

5. Movies of the Summer

• Materialist (Celine Song):
  • Described as "not a rom com but a rom dram"; it stars Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal.
  • Madison loves the lush NYC setting but questions the dialogue and realism—especially Johnson’s character being a “matchmaker making $80K a year” but living a wildly lavish lifestyle. [38:13]
    • “She’s out here wearing Kate and Proenza and Bottega. And that drove me nuts!” [39:44]
  • Jon finds the “business deal” handshake device funny but laments the movie’s lack of true comedic tone. [41:11]
    • “It is fundamentally a funny film. But no one there knows how to laugh.” [42:46]

6. Pop Culture Quiz: The Gilby

• The episode closes with a spirited trivia contest, featuring summer’s defining facts and oddities.
  • Jon wins “The Gilby”—a trophy with Gilbert’s face—after correctly answering questions on Marc Maron, Labubu, and Taylor Swift’s favorite sourdough (“Cinnamon Swirl”). [47:54]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On pop stardom and authenticity:
  Jon: “Taylor is not there to pod, as podcasters say. She was there to sell.” [10:44]
• On viral culture:
  Jon: “You have a lightly funny thing that anybody can participate in... trauma with funny audio—viral champion.” [33:28]
• On taste and privilege:
  Jon (quoting Addison Rae): “Taste is a privilege... you can only have taste once you have the means to escape your current circumstances.” [20:38]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro & Project Explanation: [00:31–01:25]
• Taylor/Travis Engagement: [02:50–07:41]
• Album Announcement on Podcast: [08:18–12:27]
• Song of the Summer Debate: [14:07–17:58]
• Internet Memes – Jet2, Crumbl, ColdplayGate: [28:26–36:52]
• K Pop Demon Hunter / Movie Music: [22:02–27:10]
• Movies (Materialist): [37:18–42:46]
• Pop Culture Quiz & ‘Gilby’: [43:03–49:05]

Tone & Style

The episode is fast, witty, and affectionate toward the oddities of digital culture, with plenty of inside jokes and meta-commentary that capture both the delightful and ridiculous aspects of Summer 2025 pop culture.

Summary for New Listeners

If you missed the summer’s biggest pop culture moments, this irreverent, deeply knowledgeable conversation brings you up to speed—full of insider detail, critical takes, and an infectious joy for the ways our culture now splinters, multiplies, and sometimes unites us through a meme, a song, or even a viral blunder at a Coldplay concert. Whether you love or hate the “song of the summer,” Jon and Madison’s banter and Gilbert’s steady moderation offer a probing, fun look at what actually mattered online, on air, and in group chats these past few months.