Mailbag for June 19, 2026
A South Korean media scandal, hockey needs more Zaynes and fewer 'pucks in deep', why critique of 'The Pitt' (and other shows) is fair game and necessary, the TCA/CCA overlap, and Alexa Demie's career
Dear Squawkers,
It feels like it’s been the most high-key celebrity and sports pop culture crossover year we’ve had in years. And across a variety of different sports, starting at the Olympics and also Formula 1, the relentless reporting on the TNT wedding, and then of course most recently with both the NBA playoffs and the ongoing World Cup. And where the World Cup is concerned, I’m not just talking about all the famous people who are showing up at the games or the artists who performed at the kickoff games and will perform at halftime during the final next month. This week there’s been a huge media scandal that intersects athletes and idols from South Korea. I am obsessed with this story, and not just because I love K-pop.
A brief primer: the captain of the South Korean national team is Son Heung-min, aka Sonny, already a legend in his country, and arguably the most successful Korean footballer of all time when you consider his achievements with Tottenham Hotspur FC, where he became the first and only Asian player to win the Premier League Golden Boot and has more goals and assists than any Asian player in Premier League history. He is currently representing South Korea in his FOURTH World Cup, which means he has the most caps of any Korean footballer in history, by a huge margin. And in this tournament, he is aiming for the Korean scoring record in international play. Needless to say, in Korea he is an icon, a very, very, very big deal.
In 2018, Sonny led South Korea to a gold medal in men’s football at the Asian Games, which earned the entire team an exemption from mandatory military service. The exemption for athletic international excellence (like the Asian Games and the Olympics) has been in place since the 1970s, so Sonny and his teammates are not the first to have received the pass. Instead of serving the 18 months that is the standard expectation for all men in Korea by the time they turn 28, he instead completed basic training for three weeks in 2020 during COVID. He was just about to turn 28. And then, two years later, in 2022, he won the Golden Boot (shared with Mo Salah), scoring the most goals in the Premier League that’s season. So, you can see why the exemption was critical – the Golden Boot would not have happened without it. And also why there is a strong argument to be made in cases like his, since time and age are such major factors for athletes at that level.
So now back to the scandal…
During a training session ahead of the World Cup, as Korean journalists were observing the team practice, two reporters could be heard on a hot mic talking shit about Sonny and the exemption. The clip, with that audio, was then broadcast on South Korean television. The players, understandably, are outraged – outraged to the point where they are boycotting their own domestic media, a blackout has been declared; it’s being called a civil war, where the South Korean team is basically telling the South Korean press to go fuck themselves. The Korean Football Association has also publicly and privately reprimanded the South Korean press corps.
And what’s even more interesting is that one of the reasons this has erupted into such big news internationally is because of the Mexican media and Mexican fans. The South Korean national team is playing their group stage matches in Mexico. As we saw a few weeks ago when BTS was on tour in Mexico City, “South Korean fervor in Mexico has been years in the making, growing into a mass movement that has seen President Claudia Sheinbaum share a balcony with K-pop royalty BTS, and visiting World Cup fans greeted with the chant: “Korean, my brother, you’re now Mexican.” (Source)
It was the Mexican media and public that assisted in amplifying this story to the next level, to the point where it’s become a major World Cup storyline, triggering the rage valve of K-culture fans everywhere – because there’s so much history here. K-drama and K-pop fans have long been familiar with the fuckassness of the Korean media, how selectively cruel and irresponsible they’ve been, for years, where celebrities are concerned, sometimes with devastating consequences. In 2024, Bong Joon Ho was joined by several of the most acclaimed artists in South Korea at a press conference to condemn the actions of the media and the police sources leaking to the media for their actions after Lee Sun-kyun, who Director Bong directed in Parasite, died by suicide following weeks of relentless misinformation. The public feeding frenzy, of course, contributes to tragedies like Lee’s and other public figures who’ve succumbed to the same fate, but the media in South Korea in these cases has not shown any restraint, instead inflaming potentially catastrophic situations.
BTS fans, ARMY, are too familiar with this behaviour. Over the last 13 years since their debut, RM, Jin, Suga, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook have been regularly dismissed, disrespected, and lied about in the Korean press. While they haven’t openly thrown down against Korean media, it’s been pretty obvious that well before the South Korean national football team boycotted domestic outlets, BTS had already arrived there, bypassing most of the traditional Korean media outlets during the last several album cycles.
BTS is Korea’s most popular artistic export, with a massive fanbase in Mexico and beyond. So, when the news about Sonny and the hot mic got out the other day, it released a simmering rage in the fandom that has been waiting to explode for years – and when you add national pride and athletic stakes to the equation, well, it’s been a karmic detonation. That’s a direct line between music and entertainment and sport, the most pop culture of pop culture scandals. The Korean media has now managed to make an enemy out of BTS and the South Korean national football team DURING THE WORLD CUP, basically alienating the two most powerful cultural groups in their country.
Let’s get to the mailbag…
Question from Hannah M:
I’ve seen people mention that Canada doesn’t have the same paparazzi/celebrity sighting culture you see in LA, but I’m curious, does that extend to hockey players and/or other pro athletes? I know how big a deal hockey is (especially in Montreal and Toronto) and the NHL finals have me wondering if, idk, Conner McDavid has the same profile as Lewis Hamilton, but just for Canada. All the talk of East Asian media and celebrities in the daily chat has me thinking about how fame is relative.
Lainey’s Answer:
I am only one Canadian, so I can’t speak for all the people in this country. What I can say on behalf of me, myself, and I, is that in my experience, yes that does extend to hockey players…but maybe not other pro athletes. Because I don’t care about hockey, so I barely know who any hockey players are. Jacek can attest to the fact that up until maybe last year, I could never get Connor McDavid’s name right, I always mixed up the Connor and the David. And I still don’t know what he looks like. I don’t know what any of them look like. Here’s another example: a couple of years ago, Jacek and I stayed at a hotel downtown because I was hosting an event. We were in the elevator with a man. When we got out of the elevator, Jacek said, “That was X from the Y” where X = hockey player and Y = his hockey team. The details left my brain the moment they entered it.
Note from Jacek:
X = Andrei Vasilevskiy
Y = Tampa Bay Lightning
A few weeks after that, I was at a restaurant with some friends and there was a whole table of hockey players from a visiting team playing the Toronto Maple Leafs, including one of their top stars. Nobody paid them any attention, it wasn’t just me. The only reason I know this, though, is because when they got up to leave, I could see that they were all wearing or holding something (a t-shirt/hat/backpack) with the team logo. You can ask me what Nicole Kidman wore to almost any award show and I could tell you, but I can’t tell you what the team or the logo was because I have hockey blindness. I also have a theory about this that I’d appreciate your thoughts on, if you think it’s dumbass, please tell me in the comments.
The theory is related to both appearance and personality. On appearance, if I were sitting across a restaurant from Connor McDavid, it would never register. If I was sitting across a restaurant from Luka Dončić? I’d clock him right away. Hockey players are hard to see! Like, they’re under all that equipment and they’re wearing helmets, I find it more difficult to distinguish their features. As opposed to other team sports, like basketball or football, where the players can showcase that much more flair on the court and the pitch and you can see their hair, their body shapes, their expressions are that much more pronounced. And then off the ice, sorry, but hockey player style is boring, the hockey tunnel has never been a fashion show. It hasn’t been a year since the league relaxed its dress code, so maybe I’ll have a different assessment in the future but right now, pro hockey players, in that department, are still catching up to the athletes in other sports.
That lack of flair also applies to their demeanor. Is there a player in the NHL who can even come close to the entertainment value of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in a press conference? Is there a player in the NHL who is as quotable as Anthony Edwards? No – and the reason is because hockey culture demands uniformity. “We’re just gonna take it shift by shift, get pucks in deep”, that’s the joke but it’s also the truth. We just had an example of this six months ago at the World Juniors. Jacek told me about this because he knows how I feel about how dullness is imposed on hockey players, much to the sport’s detriment. So when he forwarded the story to me, he was like, here, more for your arsenal.
Calgary Flames rookie defenceman Zayne Parekh was representing Canada at the World Juniors and he performed really well. He is – or was – known for his smile and fun attitude and he was asked “why he’s so comfortable baring his soul to the media”. His response:
“I think it’s more watching NHL guys be robots and not having any personality. I think you need some personality, and it’s the best way to grow the game. I don’t want to come in here and be a robot. When I’m in Calgary, I definitely have a lot of guys that are telling me to give really simple answers. But here I could kind of do what I want.”
If you know anything about hockey, I’m sure you can imagine the blowback. He was spoken to about being so outspoken. And he ended up apologising. If my middle-aged husband, who grew up playing hockey, was and still is immersed in hockey culture, watches almost every Vancouver Canuck game all season, and obsessively texts his friends about hockey gossip through the winter, if even Jacek rolled his eyes at hockey culture’s reaction to this then 19-year-old kid actually giving the sport someone interesting to root for, then the sport needs more Zaynes than robots.
So, to go back to my theory, and your question, robots don’t stand out in a crowd.
Sarah’s answer:
Heated Rivalry’s greatest trick is making people think hockey players are interesting.
Question from Andrea2:
Sarah, I have thought you did not think that “feedback” from the audience was a reason to change casting, plot (what audience wants, vs. needs, etc.). From all your comments regarding The Pitt, that seems to have changed. Is it not the writers’ vision that should guide the show and not outside forces? You may not like the product, but it’s not “our” product. I feel as if the folks that are up in arms really want the show to change its course given Robby’s annoying and male driven personality, but does that really mean it will be a better show? - we aren’t writing it. I do not get the lack of respect for allowing a show/series creators to do what they want. Don’t like it, don’t watch it, and it will fail. Ted Lasso, Game of Thrones, The Bear anyone? I guess my question is, when does it become piling on after an opinion is given regarding the above? I think your movie reviews are wonderful, totally spot on and you are a gifted writer. … I just read my question, and if it sounds angry - that’s not my intent. I am truly curious how/when it’s ok to question a writers’ room for their choice in storyline. If we believe that said room is stupid, myopic, etc. that’s cool. But again, do you think that calling them out will result in better vision?
Sarah’s answer:
No, I don’t think calling them out will result in a better vision, but also, that’s my actual job as a critic. In my original post about this, I brought up bias, and how the show directly addresses biases in many forms, yet the writers/producers might be dealing with a bias problem of their own. This is a critique of the show I have had since two women of color were written off the show, one of which had no narrative reason to depart the story at this juncture. Dr. Mohan will still be in her final year of residency during season three. Depending on time jumps, season three or four would be her “natural” exit point, completing her residency and moving on.
My issue with The Pitt’s storytelling is that from season one, it felt like they were setting Samira Mohan up to be a fulcrum for a specific story point (which seemed to be pointing toward Robby’s internal misogyny. He SAYS the right things regarding female patients, but rarely DOES the right things for his female residents). However, in writing Mohan off the show, she ended up leaving with a whimper, not a bang. The storyline (semi)resolved in a very unsatisfying way, which I find to be poor writing. My job as a critic is to highlight things like this. Does the show have an internal bias problem? I feel at this point, this is a fair question to ask, given the show’s own themes and creative decisions that seem to clash with those themes.
I don’t think it’s piling on for the audience of a show to express disappointment in storylines, etc. It’s how we engage with the media we consume. What’s the alternative? Never engage, never think critically? It’s not a lack of respect for viewers of a show to say, “I don’t like how that went.” A lack of respect is people harassing creatives online or at live events (and some people are doing that, and that does suck), but just sharing an opinion, as a fan or a professional critic, that is just floating in the ether with no one forced to read/listen to it, isn’t disrespectful or harassing. People are allowed to have and share opinions; critics are engaged in a project of assessing and critiquing media and art.
Season two of The Pitt was widely lauded, including by me. By the end of the season, though, a key creative decision—writing off Mohan—potentially highlights a trouble spot brewing under the surface of the show. A bunch of people noticed it, including me. The writers are not obligated to do anything about it. But we as the audience are also not obligated to ignore it. In literal millennia of criticism existing, no one has ever “solved” this gap. It’s the inherent tension of criticism, no one is required to respond but critics don’t have to shut up, either.
Question from Jessica:
Question for Sarah, why are there both TCA (Television Critics Association) awards and Critics’ Choice Awards for TV? Are these not the same critics? Heated Rivalry recently got TCA nominations and I was like, why are the Critic’s Choice awards happening outside of awards season?? Confusing!
Sarah’s answer:
Yes, there is some membership overlap between the Television Critics Association (TCA) and the Critics Choice Association (CCA). But the key difference is that CCA (of which I am a member) is a critics’ organization and TCA is a TRADE organization. There are critics in TCA, and they vote on the TCA Awards, but the TCA also hosts the biannual “upfronts” at which television networks and streamers pitch their upcoming slates for advertisers. There is a trade element of TCA that CCA does not have.
Also, CCA includes film critics and the Critics Choice Awards honor film and television. TCA is an organization strictly dedicated to television. There is a lot of overlap, but that is also a key difference.
Question from Patty:
Is there a reason that Alexa Demie’s career seems to have stalled? I know that she felt filming Euphoria after season 2 was overwhelming, and paraphrasing a bit here, and she needed a break, but 4 years? A side note I don’t think she is a very good interviewee, just seems a little bland. Just my opinion. She was the only one to do a major interview for Euphoria, besides Sam.
Lainey’s Answer:
Alexa Demie may have answered your question herself. She was profiled a few weeks ago in The Hollywood Reporter. Here’s the passage that might address it:
“Sometimes Demie’s friends will send her takes from the internet about her relative lack of fame. “It’s like, did you ever think that I don’t want it?” she says. “People really take the authority out of your hands. What happened to my ability to choose? I like my life like this, and I wouldn’t change it.”
What she’s saying is that it’s not that she needed a break, but that she wasn’t pursuing conventional markers for success. Once in a while, there are actors who don’t want to be capital letter Movie Stars. And she just might be one of them. Before the third and final season of Euphoria, Alexa hadn’t posted on Instagram in almost three years. Three years in these times is practically a century. This makes her an outlier, so I might actually believe her when she says that she’s chosen a low-key level of celebrity.
The other passage in that THR piece that popped for me relates to why social media is so fixated on this issue:
“Fans of ‘Euphoria’ often wonder why Demie didn’t follow the career trajectory of her co-stars. Traditional Hollywood logic reasons that, since Maddy Perez has been the critical and cultural favorite…”
A list started forming in my mind, made up of other actresses in young adult ensembles from previous generations – The O.C. and Gossip Girl. In those series, “the critical and cultural favorite[s]” were Summer Roberts and Blair Waldorf played respectively by Rachel Bilson and Leighton Meester, both of whom were more popular and interesting during their show runs than the intended “It girls” of those stories but less famous, at least in the moment, than Mischa Barton and Blake Lively. Alexa is the Leighton to Sydney Sweeney’s Blake. (Because Zendaya is in her own solar system.) I have never been a believer in Sydney Sweeney, even before she became MAGA Barbie – I honestly don’t get the hype, her acting annoys me, I find her performances utterly forgettable. Alexa, on the other hand, always surprises me with her choices, so I get why it’s been such a mystery why she hasn’t made the climb.
But maybe that explains what you describe as “bland”. Maybe it’s just that her ambition looks different. What I take away from her recent interview isn’t so much that she’s bland but that she’s kinda…woo-woo. Not even kinda, she is totally woo-woo, but not performatively woo-woo. She’s not woo-wooing on a podcast or on TikTok, she’s not woo-woo selling crystals and vitamins. She’s woo-woo off-camera, a majority of the time – and given what a dirty and fake business Hollywood can be, talking to the trees is probably a better way to spend her time than talking to executives and agents and influencers who just want to game the algorithm.
The chats were so buzzy this week – thank you for checking in every day and nurturing this community. And thanks also for your questions and giving us so much to think and write about.
Keep squawking and keep gossiping,
Lainey and Sarah
This was a great mailbag. I hadn't heard anything about the Sonny/World Cup/Korean media kerfuffle and this is the kind of pop culture stories I love that Lainey provides. I'm not a huge follower of Asian pop culture so my algorithms don't give me the goods but I love insights into the wild cultural ecosystems that most North Americans are unaware about.
Also, hockey players don't deserve to be recognized in the wild.
Just leaving a comment to say THANK YOU to Lainey, Sarah, and everyone involved with LG and the Squawk for consistently great, well researched, reviews, goss, and opinion reporting. Super long time web reader who finally subscribed and so glad I did. Long time coming - thank you for making my lunch hour reading entertaining for so long <3