Obsession/Oat Milk
When Lana Del Rey said, “I’m not that smart, but I’ve got things to say”
Love Island is finally over, which means I am in the process of reclaiming my life. I realize I’ve discussed the reality TV franchise more than anything else here, so I am prepared to give it a rest. Unless anyone here wants to discuss, then my DMs are open.
Is it me, or did summer peak in June? Anyway, vamos!
UPSTAIRS - OBSESSION 💔
I watched Obsession. Horror is not really my genre of choice, and I’m only now getting around to some of the classics. Last summer I went through several Hitchcock films, and those damn birds really pissed me off.
Obsession was surely entertaining. Some of the dialogue made me raise an eyebrow, but I was never bored. And what a run it has had. It has already broken an impressive record, becoming the highest grossing film with a budget under $1 million… ever. $400 million at the box office nowadays is not a joke; this is an industry desperate for lightning in a bottle right now.
Horror movies come out all the time, it’s an insanely popular genre. So what exactly resonated with people about Obsession?
First, I do think people are really hungry for new stars. There is something very special about actors emerging seemingly from thin air, especially if they didn’t arrive on the nepotism chariot. This is part of the reason Heated Rivalry was so successful. We had two leading men who were talented, handsome, and new. Their stories were compelling, inspiring, even. And now we have Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston from Obsession. They worked their way here, and in the process, got insanely lucky with a film that, honestly, defied the odds. There’s something very American about that.
The other glaring factor is that the heart of the film is love and dating. Rejection, incel culture, toxic relationships, and tainted romance in a modern world are all the foundational themes of the movie, all of which are major and ongoing disasters in real life. Modern love is a horror story in 2026, so I’m not surprised that it made for a compelling (and successful) movie. There was no boogeyman, no werewolf, or blood sucking vampire. There was, however, a young man who couldn’t handle rejection and a young woman who had to deal with the repercussions of it.
The clever thing about Obsession is the technology of modern dating is nowhere to be found. There are no dating apps or red-pilled podcasts, there isn’t any social media foreplay or FaceTime calls. The movie relies on characters and stories that capture the types of people we’re running into in our love lives nowadays. These are stories we’re telling each other at happy hour, at the gym in between sets, on walks with our best friends and in group chats. We gasp and shudder at the scary things we hear about first dates, the first three months, or in the burn following a breakup. The modern horror story is dating.
And onwards, Downstairs!
DOWNSTAIRS - OAT MILK 🥛
I’m breaking up with oat milk… I think.
It started off with a simple tweet about the mainstream downfall of the dairy alternative, and then a slew of replies that only seemed to agree. “There will be documentaries on the devilish drink known as OAT MILK”, the tweet reads. Okay, I thought, Now what’s all this about?
The tweet suggests oat milk is responsible for a rise in Type 2 diabetes amongst women in their 20s. It’s just a tweet, we don’t actually know, I thought. Except that I started to get more on my feed about oat milk, a beverage I drink daily. I began to assess the situation. Then the downfall of oat milk hit my TikTok algorithm, and I started to learn more about the drink, how it spikes your glucose and all this other medical jargon I can’t even spell. It’s just TikTok, except the additives I learned about are real. What the hell am I drinking?
To feel betrayed by a giant marketing campaign is ridiculous, and I wasn’t born yesterday, but here we are. For years I fell into the oat milk trap, thinking I evaded the almond milk PR stunt (It’s so bad for the environment!) and the cow milk scheme (Think of the cows! Dairy breaks me out!), only for more information to come out about a dietary decision I thought I was making in good faith.
Isn’t this just the new American life, though? Everything, and I mean everything, starts to be found out if it’s on a shelf. The microplastics in our shitty clothes are building up under our skin, Chobani is facing a class action lawsuit for chemicals found in their yogurt, lettuce is causing explosive diarrhea. There is quite literally a new health crisis at every turn. To be American nowadays is to enjoy a product, and then find out five or ten years later it’s probably what is going to give you colon cancer. Remember when Gwyneth Paltrow said she will not eat M&Ms if they’re from the US? Well…
Corporations, which pretty much own every product we consume, trade our health for a buck and then hire a savvy PR squad to sell us the idea that we’re eating well.
I was extremely lucky to be raised by a mother who taught me how to eat whole foods and cook everything from scratch. Organic is not a marketing word as much as it is a way of life, and I try to go out of my way to eat well. It just feels like it doesn’t even matter anymore. There will always be another shoe ready to drop. Everything is just another cigarette.
BONUS: Look at this hamster 🥹
1. sue me i didn't like obsession!!
2. i quit oat milk last year-ish you got this
Are we get an Amber Heard level smear campaign against oat milk?