Mailbag for June 26, 2026

The legend Susan Lucci, on covering Gwyneth Paltrow, will Heated Rivalry's fandom intensity soften, talk to Jennifer Lopez’s insured ass, and Sally Choi's Obsession gripe, and Mark Lee's statement

George Pimentel/ Anthony Harvey/ Gregory Pace/ Andrew H. Walker/ AdMedia/MediaPunch/ Shutterstock

Dear Gossips,

I interviewed an underappreciated legend this week: Erica Kane aka THE Susan Lucci. Is that an oxymoron? How can a legend be underappreciated? She can if she comes from soap operas. I mean, even within her own artform she was Emmy-rejected how many times?

Susan Lucci was on All My Children for 41 (FORTY-ONE) years! Like, the entire time it was on the air. We are never going to see that happen again – not on any television show, and probably not with any actor in any one role. But the fact that it was on a soap opera, that’s in part where the underappreciation is happening because most people simply don’t understand the grind of American soap opera work, how hard it is, how much more endurance soap opera actors have over their other television and film counterparts. It’s not just that they film continuously – for decades, before cord-cutting and streaming took over, they worked through the summer, no hiatus, only short breaks for holidays and maybe big events like the Olympics – it’s what they film continuously: pages and pages of dialogue.

For comparison, on average, when it’s a movie, they shoot five pages of script per day. On primetime, on average, it’s between five and ten pages a day and the industry standard is that one episode is filmed over eight days. This may vary depending on the series – like Pluribus – but if it does, it’s almost always longer, not shorter.

On a soap opera? They go through at least 50 PAGES A DAY, on the low side! And if you’ve ever watched a soap opera, you know they’re not doing elaborate action sequences; it’s a lot of three-quarter or waist-up shots, and close-ups – all they do is talk! And sometimes slap each other. So, imagine the memorisation required, Every Single Day.

Susan Lucci did that for 41 years. In a genre that is not considered prestige, which is also why she’s underappreciated, since daytime TV has never been as revered as film or primetime TV.

Susan Lucci attends 'La Lucci'- Susan Lucci in Conversation with Joan Lunden at 92NY in NYC on February 3, 2026 (Andrew H. Walker/Shutterstock)

On top of that, Susan would sometimes for funsies do a Broadway show while also continuing with All My Children. We talked about that during the interview – how she was committed on Broadway when she was also filming Erica’s scenes with her daughter Bianca, the first lesbian character on American daytime television. The conversation was about how those scenes required extra scheduling because of the sensitivity of the storyline, and that it was tricky to schedule because her time was so tight doing both shows.

So, just to reiterate, Susan Lucci was doing all that acting and memorisation on All My Children and also EIGHT shows a week on Broadway! She’s not just underappreciated, she’s underrated. And when she came in our building the other day, it truly was a visit from a queen in the business, a total fucking pro. No fuss, on point the whole day as she made it through an intense media carwash, not a hint of a slouch, never an exhale or a faltering smile. By the way, she’s 79 years old. And still a babe.

Because of the discipline required, and the rigorous workload, soap operas are an excellent training ground for young actors. This is why Michael B. Jordan, often unprompted, talks about how vital being on All My Children was for his career. I asked Susan about this, about all the stars who’ve come through the soap opera Hogwarts and she remembered MBJ for how well he met expectations, how quickly he understood that he was to be punctual and prepared, since that train is leaving the station whether you’re ready or not, and if you want to look like an asshole when the episode airs, and it affects your career, go ahead, but you’re the one who’ll have to eat it.

All these years later, even during his Oscar campaign, MBJ made sure to get the message across that he’s been through the program, that he picked up on the basics from the experts in daytime. And that, on top of adding to his skillsets and respect for the ensemble, being on AMC also exposed him to an influential audience. Studio executives and other industry players would tell him that their mothers, fathers, wives, aunts, uncles, daughters, and nephews knew him from daytime – and that it was an advantage.

This is not unlike Mariska Hargitay and Jalen Brunson. He was watching her from when he was a kid, with his family, multiple generations in the audience bonded together over Olivia Benson’s integrity and courage. And that’s why she’s his #1 celebrity. The same is true, for sure, in Susan Lucci’s case. You can’t be on television for over 40 years and not take up space in people’s memories, from right inside their homes. They don’t make them like her anymore.

Let’s get to the mail…

First up, a question and then a related comment.

Question from Betts:

How do you handle a problem like Gwynocide at the Squawk? She’s been a frequent flyer at LaineyGossip for a long time, but it’s been getting increasingly hard to cover her without getting the grime of her snake oil all over the place. Editorially, when do you cut your coverage?

Comment from Monika T:

Piggy backing 🐖off this question, isn’t the short answer…never? Entertainment analysis and news always covers even the disgusting topics like homophobia, controversy, tone-deafness and ofc all the positive news as well. That’s like asking Lainey to stop covering Sydney Sweeney after the AE Ad. Like sure it’s disgusting, but the disgust is an opportunity for Lainey Gossip to write about it as a learning lesson on how NOT to be OR at least gives us a playbook on what led to the demise of a celebrity, and how their star power dims out after their financial demise or potential demise. We are always drawn to these types of stories. If we weren’t, the David and Goliath story wouldn’t have been popular, and um here we are, time after time these stories continue to be written whether it be Gwyneth, Sydney etc. If Gwyneth wasn’t covered, wouldn’t Lainey Gossip have to avoid covering all other celebrities as well? She isn’t the only problem child in Hollywood. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Idk if lainey gossip is in the business to baby proof her words or omit content for us. Gwynocide is just part of the story.

Lainey’s Answer:

I think you’re both right. It’s true what Monika is saying in that we try to tease out the bigger social implications out of a celebrity story so I don’t know if we can put an indefinite pause on Gwyneth Paltrow coverage. But you’re right, Betts, when you refer to the snake oil and the grime, because Gwyneth is more of an entrepreneur now than she is an actor. She delivered a strong performance in Marty Supreme recently but since then she’s pretty much gone straight back to being a tone-deaf asshole and any talk of her, even if it’s disparaging, only gives more shine to whatever bullshit she’s selling. You could argue that the Kardashian-Jenners fall into the same category and, well, look how that turned out.

The comparison doesn’t end there. The Kardashian-Jenners and Gwyneth are kinda like Trump in that way with their flood-the-zone approach; it’s controversy after controversy, mess after mess, and they all seem to benefit from it because of the distraction and the short attention spans; plus they all seem impervious to scandal. Is this the one that brings Gwyneth down? Honestly, I doubt it. Remember a few weeks ago when I was raging about the white women selling those fuckass mahjong sets? Business hasn’t slowed down for them, and there’s a lot of consumer crossover between those people and Goop. They both appeal to a demographic that simply doesn’t care.

To go back to what to report and the choices we have made and the ones we could make going forward, not sure if you noticed but Sarah and I made a choice about a big movie last summer, intentionally avoiding most, though not all, of the press tour. We couldn’t entirely ignore it, but for a movie of its size, our coverage was rather minimal. We’ve done that with a couple of blockbusters over the last few years.

Gwyneth Paltrow attends the 46th Annual Muse Awards Presented by New York Women In Film & Television NYWIFT in NYC on March 20, 2026 (Gregory Pace/Shutterstock)

Gwyneth isn’t a movie, she’s a person, a celebrity, so it’s not an exact apple to apple comp, but the point is, as an editorial team we are thinking about these individuals, and she’s the most notable one right now. I’m reminded of a profile Taffy Brodesser-Akner wrote about GP back in 2018 (worth a re-read), reporting on Gwyneth’s visit to Harvard Business School, where she said that she has been able to exploit her “cultural firestorms” and bragged about being able to “monetize those eyeballs”. Since 2020, though, business seems to have dropped off, maybe because we got numb to the vagina eggs and vagina candles. But guess what? Her recent controversies have coincided with Goop Kitchen’s latest expansion, built on the ghost kitchen or dark kitchen model, even though this bitch claims to be one of the poster girls for “clean” eating. What’s depressing is that this aggressive expansion has been a massive success. Because people care more about gluten-free food than the fuckery she is upholding and endorsing. So, the dilemma isn’t just whether or not to call her out but also whether or not to have the conversations with the people in our communities who are her customers. There are a lot of them.

Question from SB via DM:

Mailbag posting shy, but since the topic of Heated Rivalry’s toxic fandom has come up multiple times this week, would love to see that all unpacked some - particularly expanding on the lack of media literacy…and also the vigilante aspect - fans feeling the responsibility to the very publicly defend the actors online or, now, physically (!?!). What is creating and feeding this mess?? Is this normal in fandom spaces now? Also interested in this from the actor/publicist/career perspective. Is there a best way to navigate all of this? All four of the main guys, but especially Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, have had such different experiences of it and reactions to it all (of course). And how do you think Heated Rivalry could deal with all of this during season 2 promo? Do we really think the fandom intensity will die off before then? (I also feel like these questions can’t be asked or addressed without acknowledging the Hudson Williams mess a few weeks ago - a direct result of the toxic fandom, but also of teenaged idiocy…this is probably a whole topic of its own to unpack, but it obviously factors into all of the above as well!)

Lainey’s Answer:

It is a lot to unpack, and I don’t know if I can get to all of it here, so I’ll start with Hudson and that awful photo that was shared a couple of weeks ago. The image was disgusting, a reflection of the ignorance and the deplorable behaviour and attitude of everyone depicted in that picture. Two things can true here – their actions were reprehensible and also the people who dug it up and disseminated it had nefarious motives. Like, do we seriously believe that the primary motivation of the person who found that photo and then posted it was to crusade against antisemitism?

If you trace it back, it looks like the image came from the toxic corner of the HR fandom that has been targeting Hudson for whatever fucked up reason and often engages in anti-Asian racism when they comment on him. And yes, in my experience, it is increasingly “normal” in fandom spaces now. But maybe that isn’t exactly an accurate description because it suggests that this is new-ish and I, personally, don’t think it is.

There was some fucking unhinged behaviour during Twilight but over 15 years ago, when it was only just Twitter and Instagram was still on the rise, and TikTok wasn’t around yet and pop culture “experts” analysing everything without qualification on YouTube were just getting started. So, there weren’t as many pipelines for the toxicity to leak into. In these times, there are that many more veins in which to inject the poison. I can tell you, from what I’ve seen, it was happening much earlier in East Asia with their social media and their fandoms being a lot more developed than their western counterparts. The west is now catching up.

Some of the Heated Rivalry fanbase is young, raised entirely on social media, and it’s true that they simply don’t have the literacy. What’s more sinister to me are the ones who are like the fangirl formerly known as Club Chalamet who is apparently well into her 50s. Because youth, in this case, and so many other cases, is no excuse. But I’m not just singling her out, I’m citing her in this context as I recently had a front row seat, like I could not have been closer to the action, since I was part of the action, to a situation where proper grownups completely misinterpreted a viral situation with their whole chest – and like Club Chalamet, they sounded like an authority on the issue, claiming they knew for sure, for sure, what was going down and who was to blame. They spoke with conviction, and they were convincing, like an insider.

Hudson Williams on stage at the 2026 Canadian Screen Awards in Toronto on May 31, 2026 (George Pimentel/Shutterstock)

But I was the real insider, SINCE I WAS THERE, and there was so much basic, fundamental show business 101 they had overlooked, so much context they were unaware of, that they could not have been more wrong. And yet, their faulty analysis was shared all over the fandom. The people I’m talking about are not overtly disturbing, like Club Chalamet. In fact, they present as reasonable and rational adults, NOT teenagers, which, to me, might even be scarier. Because they are so uninformed but they’re out here on these streets filming in vertical giving the illusion that they know everything – and people are actually believing it.

I’ll continue this, as it’s somewhat related, in the next question.

Question from MK (from one of the daily chats this week):

I don’t know what a story analyst is. I have no idea if this is true but it’s about J Lo and I believe it and I want better for our girl… What can be done?

Lainey’s Answer:

MK is referring to a TikTok that she linked to in one of the daily chats this week that I do not want to amplify. The person claims to have been Jennifer Lopez’s “story analyst” for two or three years and also says they were “Hollywood’s Best Story Analyst ten years in a row”, then proceeds to talk about how they tried to suggest so many better scripts and roles for JLo but that she never listened and in particular there was a movie that would have been great for her when she was in her 30s, but she turned it down.

I’m not here to dump on anyone, and this isn’t personal, but there are so many parts of this account that aren’t believable to me…even though this person is speaking authoritatively and, therefore to some, believably.

First of all, how is “Hollywood’s Best Story Analyst” even determined? I have worked with many screenwriters and story editors and showrunners in the business, including one of my closest friends who is also a longtime contributor to LaineyGossip and here at The Squawk. (You will hear from her in a minute on what story analysts and/or “readers” do in industry.) None of them have ever heard of whatever this title is and how one becomes “Hollywood’s Best Story Analyst”.

But for the purposes of my part of this question, let me focus on this specific example that they’re citing as “evidence” of JLo’s shitty film selection. According to their story, they found a great script for JLo when JLo was in her 30s, about a woman with colon cancer. JLo was born in 1969 so we’re dealing with a three-ish year period, allegedly, between 1999-2009, which also happens to be the decade when JLo released her most successful albums. Her debut album, On the 6, came out in 1999; “Waiting for Tonight” is on this album. Her next album, J.Lo, dropped two years later in 2001 and included some of her biggest hits, like “Love Don’t Cost a Thing”, “I’m Real”, and “Ain’t It Funny”.

Then came the album that now belongs in the Gossip Hall of Fame, This Is Me… Then, in 2002. So, to keep this in context, at this point, she’s in her mid-30s, and with three back-to-back smash albums, she’s a huuuuuge popstar. But also, a movie star.

Because these are the movies she’s in during this time:

The Cell (2000)

The Wedding Planner (2001)

Enough (2002)

Maid in Manhattan (2002)

With the Wedding Planner, JLo became the first woman to have the #1 movie at the box office and the #1 album on the charts in the same week.

After that hot streak in her early 30s, she made a shitty movie with Ben Affleck, almost got married to him, broke up with him (for the first time); married Marc Anthony, and released another album, Rebirth, not as culturally popular as the other three albums but it went platinum, meaning it sold a million copies, and it included “Get Right”, a major track in her catalogue, in part because of the video, which was in constant rotation on MTV and MuchMusic. It’s the one where she’s dancing with the cane. In the crop top with the silver harem pants. If you know gossip, you should know the look.

That was 2005. So now she’s in her mid-30s, and on the movie side she had Monster-In-Law with Jane Fonda, and An Unfinished Life with Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman (!!!). The following year she and Marc co-starred in El Cantante. Then in 2007, they went on tour together, at the end of which they announced she was pregnant. In 2008, she gave birth to the twins. So that pretty much takes up all of her 30s, a decade where she was one of the top pop girlies in the game, and while she definitely had some flops, she also made some movies that were seen, in addition to prestige and passion projects that she could not have possibly turned down.

Where would she have had the time in this era, in her 30s? What would be the compelling rationale to do an indie film in which she plays a woman with colon cancer? Anyone advising her during this decade would have been like, uh, no, this is not the look we’re going for right now. Especially when, if you recall, nobody could stop talking about her ass. I just laughed out loud. Her ass was literally a pop culture preoccupation during those years – and this person is suggesting she do a movie about ass cancer? This is so unserious, are we sure they’re not trolling?

JLo’s career has been fine, more than fine. Her movies, particularly the Netflix ones, may not be Oscar-worthy, but they do well on the platform, the viewership numbers are strong. Otherwise, Netflix wouldn’t stay in business with her, she has a multi-year production deal with them. Her career is not in crisis, far from it.

But to bring it back to where this all started, with that TikTok and so much of the content on TikTok, by people who speak confidently so that it reads as authoritative – that’s our reality right now, when we watch a piece of content on social media and it’s presented in a certain way, with certain claims, it becomes factual, even though when you look deeper into the timeline and also the circumstances of the situation, it doesn’t quite add up.

And then there’s the mechanics of how the business works. For that, I’ll turn it over to Duana.

Duana’s Answer:

I don’t want to imply that there’s no such thing as a story analyst, because entertainment makes up titles all the time. In fact, this is now an accepted title that’s even in the IATSE (film & TV workers) union. But historically, this job was called a “reader”.

As job titles go, that’s unglamorous, but crystal clear: readers, in their most fundamental job description, are relatively low-paid contract or freelance workers, hired to analyze the constant influx of scripts in any particular company’s inbox. They do this via a pretty standardized process called writing “coverage”, basically, script-based CliffsNotes: 3-5 pages on story, character, big iconic plot moments or special effects, great moments for any particular character (especially important if you’re reading for a star who wants to portray a certain image) and then, crucially, whether they rank the script as a “Recommend”, “Consider”, or “Pass”, depending on whatever their company’s/boss’s mandate is.

Of note – agents’ and managers’ assistants also write plenty of coverage as part of their job, too, but there’s often too much for them, which is where freelance readers or, okay, story analysts, come in. They may also be asked to highlight which writers the company likes would be suitable for a rewrite, or in the case of a novel, who’d be great for the adaptation. And then, that’s the end of the job, often, at least for that script. Onto the next.

Script coverage is often seen as an excellent but entry-level job to get a foot in the door, and that means lots of people have done it. Not that that makes it unimportant; if a trusted reader slaps a “recommend” on a script, it’s at least making it one more rung up the ladder. But because the volume and pace of coverage is high, and because the Hollywood pipeline is designed such that most scripts, even the good ones, don’t and won’t get made, it means the name of the game for a reader is going through a lot of material, fast, and hoping your good taste gets noticed. Also, for the most part this is a transaction; the TikTok in question mentioned picking up (physical) scripts and then returning them with coverage, which was the case back in the pre-digital days. So, for the vast majority of story analysts, there would be no long, wheedling conversations about what star should pick up which project. That’s what the coverage is for.

Now, of course, some highly-regarded story analysts (who would probably quickly be re-titled “creative executive” or something, but that’s beside the point) are hired by stars’ own companies to seek things out for their A-Listers, which tracks. When you’re even tangentially in the, say, Reese Witherspoon or Julia Roberts or Meryl Streep business, you want to make sure you’re not wasting their time, so by the time you recommend they look at a script, it better be good. So, it tracks that if you are someone who’s sitting down with, say, Denzel Washington or George Clooney every few weeks or so to tell them what really stood out on your reading list in the past few weeks, I believe that truly great scripts would stick in the mind.

But because Lainey jogged our memories with the time period, I want to remind us of something else happening when Jennifer Lopez was in her 30s. That was the era of the persistent rumor that she had insured her famous ass for up to $300 million dollars. You remember this! You probably thought it was ridiculous but also maybe true, like we all did. Now consider how powerful that rumour and that ass were - they were part of her empire! Built the brand we’re still here talking about!

Jennifer Lopez attends the ‘Office Romance’ UK film premiere in London on June 3, 2026 (Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock)

...and you’re telling me you recommended the most famous ass in the business to star in a movie about colon cancer?!? In earnest?? I don’t mean to internalize the bad behaviour I heard in the business back in the day, but I guarantee this would have been a HARD no and a firing, with some colourful language about how it was gonna kill the boner of every guy who lusted after her. That would be crass and rude and diminishing, but also somewhat understandable, because clearly the person who is recommending this script doesn’t get the Jennifer Lopez brand at all (I also think it strains credibility because the movie this person described was incredibly, incredibly generic and those are not usually the scripts that stick in the mind, but that’s another story for another day). There’s no way this person would continue reading scripts for Jennifer Lopez after that, I’m fairly certain.

By contrast, a story analyst who DID do their job is the person who managed to partner Jennifer Lopez with The Fosters, the mid 2010s underrated-as-hell ABC Family show about a multiracial blended foster family with a distinct Latinx element. Now obviously she was an Executive Producer on this one (along with Benny Medina), which has different requirements than a starring role – and I’m not under the impression JLo was sitting up late at night giving script notes…but…as this Extra interview below shows, it dovetails with things that were her brand: “Family = Love” and “tough times bring us together” and other tonally fitting themes for the person, and the brand, JLo was and is.

She can sell it and look smart and thoughtful and of the moment, which buys her more, and broader, capital. The Fosters ran for five seasons and then launched a spinoff, Good Trouble, that ran for five more; that’s the platonic ideal for the reader, or story analyst, who placed that first script in her hands, and I bet they launched a nice career out of it. I have no doubt there may be highly in-demand story analysts who make magical connections, bringing the right script to the right talent, but I don’t know if they’re marketing their brands the way this person did.

Question from Vitally Useless:

The talk about Obsession‘s art director, Sally Choi speaking out about how she will not get to partake in the film’s immense box office has reignited the debate about real profit participation for the cast and crew of independent films since they usually work for very low pay. Could real equity be achieved? Artistic labors of love still involve labor and when they pay off, should the below-the-line workers get a taste of that success?

Sarah’s answer:

For reference, here is Sally Choi’s original post about being paid $300/day to work as the art director on Obsession, a film which has now made $339 million and counting (it is still playing very well in theaters, will probably end up around $400 million worldwide). Obsession was made for $750,000; it sold to distributor Focus/Universal for around $14 million. Director Curry Barker said that the people who usually make money on independent films are the people who “took on some sort of risk”, meaning, I presume, investors putting money into the project, distributor/buyers, himself as the creative who developed/wrote the film as unpaid labor until he could sell the script, etc. He is definitely NOT referring to the production crew.

Personally, yes, I believe when a film is as wildly successful as Obsession, when we’re talking about a distributor bringing in hundreds of millions—even splitting box office with theaters, Focus/Universal is going to pull in around $200 million when all is said and done—that everyone should benefit. A rising tide lifts all boats. At the very least, when a film is this successful, I think there should be some kind of profit-sharing ladder, and everyone, even the lowliest assistant, should get a slice of pie. There is plenty of pie to go around.

Curry Barker attends the ‘Obsession’ premiere in LA on May 11, 2026 (AdMedia/MediaPunch/Shutterstock)

But almost nobody does, it is not industry standard, and no one expects it. It’s very much like middle/working class voters voting against their interests, people uphold the status quo hoping to someday be on the winning side of it. The internet is nitpicking Sally Choi to death, saying she signed on knowing the pay, that she only had one feature film credit before Obsession and wouldn’t warrant a higher salary, blah blah. Yes, welcome to how exploitation works. People just starting out, people lower on the ladder, take shit jobs with shit pay to build their reputations and resumés and people higher on the ladder take advantage of that. It’s a tale as old as time.

And it doesn’t have to be this way. In 2020, John David Washington and Zendaya took a unique, profit-sharing deal for Malcom & Marie that shared equity with key crew members, such as department heads like art directors. It’s estimated those crew members each made around $300,000 when the film sold to Netflix.

Filmmaking is risky, and especially in the indie sector, where films like Obsession are made on absolute shoe-string budgets, which often means paying people the bare minimum. But when a film succeeds, everyone who worked on it should succeed, too. It’s actually embarrassing for Curry Barker to say, Well, no, I don’t think the people who worked long, physically demanding hours, had to fight to be reimbursed for their promised gas money, and took the risk of working below living wages don’t deserve to share in this film’s success. The more successful Obsession becomes, the worse it looks.

Question from Cherie:

Any thoughts on the Mark Lee Confederate flag t shirt controversy? His record label issued a statement, but I’m not sure the reason holds up?

Lainey’s Answer:

Trigger Warning: this section contains references to sexual assault.

I agree, the reason does not hold up. Here’s the full statement that his label, Upper Room, which he founded recently, posted on IG Stories.

Upper Room’s IG Story

Mark Lee was born in Canada and spent time in New York and Vancouver until he was a teen, when he was discovered at a K-pop audition and moved to Korea. He would have had opportunities for exposure to that flag and what it symbolises. But even if you expand the limits of plausibility and allow, generously, for his ignorance and awareness, this is not the first time he’s been exposed to a controversy about this flag and wearing it.

Mark, until recently, was a member of NCT and its sub-units alongside another member, Taeil, who is currently serving a three-year prison sentence for aggravated rape. His name is dirt in the industry but as K-pop fans have been pointing out this week, even before the crime, Taeil was already a problem because he wore a t-shirt with that flag. I won’t share the photo here but if you want to see it, here’s a link to a tweet and a Reddit thread where someone posts it in the comments.

It’s impossible that Mark wouldn’t have been aware of the reaction to that shirt when his teammate wore it, so how another one ended up on his body is sus as fuck.

Racism is a problem everywhere, so of course it’s a problem in K-pop. And in Korea in particular, not unlike in the west, right-wing influence has been escalating for years, especially among young men. When I was in Seoul last year, it was during weeks of protests and rallies in response to the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, a hard-line conservative who won the election in 2022 on a misogynistic platform that activated the Korean manosphere. Many of the people that I clocked who were marching and chanting in support of the disgraced president were holding MAGA signs, adopting MAGA techniques, following the MAGA playbook. There were American flags all over the pro-Yoon side of street.

Just as it is in the United States, where 56% of the vote among men ages 18 to 29 went to Trump, voting followed a similar pattern in South Korea where there is a deep political divide between young men and women. The birth rate in Korea has been dropping steadily, in part specifically because young women are discouraged by toxic masculinity and rape and incel culture that has been disturbingly on the rise in the country.

I’m not saying that Mark Lee has ties to any of these groups, what I’m saying is that he very easily could be around people, or connected to people who are because of the dramatic shift of young Korean men in their 20s and 30s to the right. He wasn’t alone when he put on that t-shirt and posed for a photo in it.

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Thank you for making it to the end of this long mailbag. And thanks for all that you do to keep this community such a fun and thoughtful place.

Keep squawking and keep gossiping,

Lainey, Sarah, and Duana