Strega Nona kicks off the fall meme season, one writer reconsiders the phrase “defending the faith,” and teens are talking about Diddy on TikTok. But first:
“It’s ok I’m ok” by Tate McRae
McRae’s new single features lyrics about girls getting over ex-boyfriends and her aggressive, fast, and synthetic style of pop. The Gen Z singer and dancer recently made some waves with a risqué, Britney Spears-inspired look at this year’s MTV VMAs. Perhaps this buzzed-about look helped “It’s ok I’m ok” gain some traction on the charts, but the song itself seems to be missing some of the cleverness we’ve come to expect from today’s female pop stars, including Sabrina Carpenter and even McRae herself. For the full lyrics, click here [language].
Three Conversations
1. Soup Season
What it is: A character called Strega Nona is the internet’s new favorite fall mascot.
Why people like her: Strega Nona is the title character from a children’s book published in 1975. The character, whose name translates to “grandma witch,” spends her days hunched over a cauldron stirring magic pasta. Her character embodies generosity, simplicity, and a friendly “spookiness”—themes of gentleness and comfort that have defined the autumn season for generations. The Strega Nona series is actually banned from several children’s libraries in the United States for depicting witchcraft in a positive light. The main character’s signature incantation is, again, about the desire for pasta: “Bubble, bubble, pasta pot/Boil me some pasta, nice and hot/I’m hungry and it’s time to sup/Boil enough pasta to fill me up.”
Continue the conversation: Have you seen any Strega Nona memes? What do you think about them?
2. The Best Offense
What it is: An article in Christianity Today reflects on the fears—and hopes—that come with launching young adult Christians into a world that feels hostile to their faith.
Why it’s encouraging: As Gretchen Ronnevik points out, “Our hope comes from Christ, and Christ alone. Our hope is not in the strength of our faith but the object of our faith. There is nothing more certain we can give our kids.” We can prepare our teens to give an answer to what they believe and why they believe it. This is true even when Barna projects that 80% of those who grew up in Christian churches will be “disengaged” by age 29. Numbers like these deserve our attention, to be sure—but we can also assure our teens that we serve a God who is in pursuit of our souls—and that our faith can be as sustaining and durable as God Himself.
Continue the conversation: What do you think it means to have strong faith? Can doubt and faith coexist?
3. Bad Boy Gets Life?
What it is: One might assume that Gen Z and Gen Alpha wouldn’t be terribly interested in the fate of Sean “Diddy” Combs (who peaked decades before they were born)—but one would be wrong.
Why teens care: This case revolves around lots and lots of famous people behaving badly. It appears to tie into a larger conspiracy that takes more criminals down, and might play into some of the most high-profile unsolved murders of the 1990s. But maybe most relevant for a generation of true crime enthusiasts, there is enough publicly available digital media “evidence” to keep armchair detectives churning out theories for months. Diddy is now being held while awaiting trial after a federal indictment for racketeering and sexual abuse. Old clips showing Sean Combs with his alleged victims, grainy interview footage in which he describes his partying in his own words, and photos of sad-looking young celebrities in his orbit are enough to make the case against Combs an internet sensation.
Let’s translate this one further…
When accusations of domestic abuse and sex trafficking against the rapper and business mogul began to hit the headlines, the phrase “Nice try, Diddy” became a way to refer to any failed attempt to use influence to initiate a transaction, be it an ad from a brand on Instagram or a vaguely flirtatious comment. Sean Combs has yet to have his day in court, but as far as public opinion goes, the rapper’s name is already forever tarnished.
As this saga plays out online, it echoes other dramatically charged cultural moments in recent memory, like the implosion of the Titan submersible and the Depp v. Heard libel trial. There’s the readily available trail of “evidence,” even if that equates to recycled interview clips from Ellen, publicly broadcast courtroom footage, or photos beamed back from the bottom of the sea. And there’s a cast of powerful characters—a dragnet of celebrities and wealthy people in the uppermost echelons. In this case, everyone from J.Lo to Leo seems to have become entangled at the intersection of Combs’ alleged violence, fame, and abuse.
Ultimately, these are stories of hubris—a subject that’s endlessly captivating for moral philosophers and couch conspiracists alike. But while Combs’ fall from grace may read like something out of Greek myth or a work of Shakespeare, there appear to have been very real victims. It’s a sobering reminder that the sins of pride, lust, temptation, and envy aren’t just abstract concepts, but elements of evil that destroy hopes and dreams.
For a full “translation” of everything in this issue, check out our Monday Roundtable podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. In the meantime, here are three questions to spark conversation with your teens:
Continue the conversation:
- Why do you think certain celebrity dramas go viral?
- Why do you think crime and evil are so fascinating to people?
- How often are people just using celebrity sins to feel better about their own?
Parenting together,
The Axis Team
PS: This week we posted our podcast interview with Elliot Campbell on “Heresy, Hospitality, and Meeting Gen Z Where They Are.” Check it out here!