Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
media, the creator economy, and the digital space.
Every Monday through Thursday. I'm your host, Lauren Meissner,
the founder of the youth digital media brand Centennial World.
Welcome back to Mini Scroll, everyone.
You guys, this is the third time, the third time that I have
recorded this friggin episode. Oh my God.
OK. The first time I don't even
remember what happened anyways. And then I got into the second
time, finished the entire episode, like went to a meeting,
recorded the deep dive like I've done so much.
And then I went back to the episode and I realized that my
Rd. settings for like our microphone were wrong because we
took all of our equipment to the binge offices yesterday here in
Sydney to do an interview with some of the Real Housewives,
which is very exciting. But their sound person in their
studio space, which was really cool.
It was really cool to get set up there, but he changed the
settings on the road. And anyways, the whole episode,
like there was sound, but it was like in and out.
So it's like if I wasn't like speaking directly into
microphone, it would like fade out.
If I like went like this and it didn't sound natural at all and
I was like oh that's going to piss people off so much.
So anyways, here I am rerecording again.
OK, so we are doing a big Grammys recap today.
I was going to add other stories to this episode, but as I was
writing the recap, I was like, you know what?
Let's just do like a mini Grammys recap.
And then any other stories that I had, I think I only had one
will go Thursday. Yesterday was the 2025 Grammys.
Obviously, I have a lot to cover.
Overall, I'd say that the award show felt really culturally
relevant in a way that it hasn't in years.
I feel like they really tried to take into account like, what's
happening online, like discussions in fan communities,
what happens behind the scenes with artists, what's happening
around the world politically and socially.
And this did seem to be like the general consensus.
So Justin Crudo wrote for Vulture quote, who are these
people and what have they done with the Recording Academy?
It definitely wasn't a perfect show, but we'll give credit
where it's due. And the Academy deserves a lot
After tonight. I'm going to go over some of the
highlights before I get into more serious elements of the
show. So there were performances from
all of the main pop girlies that dominated 2024, like Chapel
Roan, Charli XCX, Billy Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter.
They all killed it as we knew they would.
And of course, the Taylor Swift is like dancing and partying to
every single performance. And many of them, she's the only
one. Like the audience is filled with
people who are just seated and watching the show.
And she's like standing up like champagne in her hand, like
going crazy, dancing, singing. And I love it.
Like, I love that she is showing that support.
I know a lot of people think it's just her trying to like be
the center of attention and get the cameras to film her and
stuff. And like, sure, it could be
that, I don't know. But I think it doesn't really
matter at the end of the day. The audience for so many of the
performances literally does nothing.
So I love to see that energy, that fangirl energy from Taylor.
Some of the most notable wins. OK, let's get into this.
Kendrick Lamar won all 5 Grammys.
He was nominated for for Not Like Us.
He won record of the year, song of the year, best rap
performance, best rap song and best music video.
You guys, this is crazy because we know that this song is a diss
track on Drake. That's why I'm saying it feels
like the Academy really just like let loose and like decided,
you know what we're going to like lean in to like what is
going on behind the scenes in fan communities online.
Like they considered, it feels like they considered a lot of
that in these awards. One of the key lyrics in this
song is trying to strike a chord, and it's probably A
minor, like A minor, if you know the Drake lore, you know, So
everyone's like, first of all, someone check on Drake, and
second of all, someone checked Drake into a psychiatric
hospital after this because this is so embarrassing.
I don't even think Drake nominated himself or whatever.
You have to like, submit yourself to be nominated for the
Grammys. And I read somewhere that he did
not do that. OK Chapel, my queen, she won
best new artist. And in her acceptance speech,
she spoke about fair pay for emerging artists.
Now, I'm not well versed in, like, the insurance and outs of
the music industry, but we all know that record labels are
notoriously pretty predatory. And I guess it's really hard for
up and coming artists to like, survive, you know, and they seem
quite trapped in a lot of these contracts and things like that.
Like, we know just from like, peripherally we have heard
things like this. So Chapel really spoke out about
that for everything she went through last year.
I really love that Chapel hasn't let like, the Internet scrutiny,
the media scrutiny, all of the like, fodder around her and her
speaking up. Like, I'm glad she hasn't let
any of that stop her from voicing things like this.
I love that she's an artist that stands for something bigger.
I hope that this continues. And I think even if the way
she's delivering the message doesn't feel super palatable to
you, the fact that she does have this bigger message to her
celebrity, I feel like it's so important and it's inspiring.
I just love Chapel. OK Beyoncé.
She became the first black woman to win a Grammy for country
music for Cowboy Carter since The Pointer Sisters won in 1975,
and Taylor Swift presented the award to her.
Some people said that they seemed awkward in this exchange.
I don't know. I didn't really notice that.
What I could not stop, like being obsessed with was
Beyoncé's reaction to winning this.
She seemed so genuinely shocked and excited.
And I feel like it was a moment that we don't get to see a lot
from Beyoncé because she's so polished, right?
She's so polished in public. So to see her have this, really,
I don't know, it was like really sincere.
It was almost like childlike in such like a cute, sincere,
excitable way to see that reaction.
I just loved that. And of course, she also won
album of the year, which is the first time she has ever won
that. So that kind of leads into the
more negative stuff. I wanted to start out by calling
out the blatant racism in some of the reactions to Beyoncé.
He's win, especially her win in the country category.
Now this is always a problem for Beyoncé.
Like she is always compared. Her success is always compared.
She's always called overrated and things in that similar vein.
And now with Cowboy Carter winning in the country category,
like the judgement, it's real. Look, there's always going to be
heated opinions about any. I mean, I was going to say album
of the year, but like any category, right, Like music is
subjective. It can be based on opinion.
However, I think while that type of like judgment or opinion
isn't exclusive to Beyoncé, I think the undertones of what
people were saying and like the blatant, like ignorance, like
the, it's felt like intentional ignorance that feels exclusive
to Beyoncé and that feels quite targeted.
I think a lot of people are missing context and I think
that's on purpose, which is why it does feel like racism to me.
So there's a lot of people saying that Beyoncé shouldn't
have won in the country category because it's her first country
album. A lot of the songs on the album
don't necessarily fit quote UN quote into that like country
genre. She's not immersed in that
genre. She hasn't been like, slogging
it out in that genre like whatever country music is
directly derived from black Southern Americans.
This is a quote from the Harvard Crimson quote.
Early country music was often rebranded or stolen from the
hymns and field songs of Southern enslaved people, as
well as from professional black musicians.
And while people might not have always known that part of what
Cowboy Carter did culturally for us was it opened up that
conversation about country music and its history, its origins
within black culture. And so that to me, is also why I
think Cowboy Carter was a perfect winner for Album of the
Year, right? Like, I think Album of the Year
should hold cultural significance.
And it obviously held significance for Beyoncé.
We know that it was kind of like her first entrance back into the
country sphere since 2016. In 2016, she performed with the
Dixie Chicks at the Cmas, and she received tons of racist
backlash for that performance. And she said Cowboy Carter was
kind of like her saying kind of like fuck you or to everyone who
said she didn't belong. So this album holds significance
to Beyoncé, which I think is important in album of the year
because if you think about. So this is just me like going on
a tantrum. But if you think about Beyoncé
as an artist, right? Like, I think anything that is
significant to Beyoncé, he's career, which Cowboy Carter very
much is, he's a contender or should be a contender.
Then if it's a good album, which obviously it is for something
like album of the year, because Beyoncé herself is one of the
most culturally impactful, influential artists of our time.
So anything that is significant to Beyoncé's career is
significant to music in 2025. Like full stop.
So I think that is just like 1 little point there.
But then I think the other point is that like I said before, this
album opened up bigger conversations around the world
and open people's eyes to different histories and origins
of music and just like things that like honestly, the Grammys
should be awarding. So that is why I think Cowboy
Carter, whether you liked the album or not, like whether it's
your taste in music or not, I think it stood for something
bigger and that is why it should have won, which it did.
Album of the year and also best country album.
OK, OK. Next, The Associated Press was
doing red carpet interviews at the Grammys, and interviewers
are now facing backlash for interrupting their own interview
with Babyface to call over Chapel Roan.
So there's two interviewers. One of them, she sees Chapel.
She kind of like, makes eyes with her publicist or whoever
is, like, on the carpet with Chapel, like, escorting her.
And obviously Chapel's going to wait for this interview.
And then it looks like they're about to walk away, I guess.
And so the interviewer is like, oh, wait, Chapel in the middle
of Babyface, like, quite literally giving his answer.
Like, they had asked him a question and he is in the middle
of answering. And she's like, yells, oh,
Chapel, Chapel. Which is just like,
unprofessional, right? So the interviewer has issued an
apology. She issued it on air first.
I wanted to say that I'm really sorry about interrupting
Babyface. Earlier, Chapel Roan had come up
and there was a lot of commotion, as there is on these
carpets. But I'm a big Babyface fan and
as are we all. And so I just wanted to say that
that I really apologize. But people are like, this
interviewer is never being asked to do a red carpet for The
Associated Press again. OK, The other kind of shitty
thing to come out of the Grammys is Chris Brown was unfortunately
awarded a Grammy. This is from the same Vulture
piece by Justin Trudeau, he said, just months after a
documentary explored new allegations of sexual assault
and abuse against the singer. He won his first award in over a
decade for best R&B album, and Chris Brown has never been fully
shunned from the industry. But this is just so
disappointing. This shows that, yeah, he is
well on his way to like a proper comeback if he is being awarded
a Grammy like this. And finally, I wanted to discuss
briefly the Kanye West Bianca Sensori red carpet.
Look, I'm not going to post the photos on the video, but I did
want to say my opinion. I don't think we should be
analyzing this. Look, I don't think we should be
making jokes, making this into memes.
I don't even know if we should be creating think pieces with
this. I know there are something
pieces that are trying to take more of like an ethical stance.
I don't, I don't know how I feel about that really.
Maybe if it kind of opens people's eyes to what could be
happening. But I think in general it is
very clear that something is very wrong in this relationship.
I know a lot of people are concerned for Bianca and I think
for good reason and all the fodder around it.
Like obviously this was for shock value but like was this
Bianca's decision? Like what is going on behind the
scenes? Is she OK?
That should be like the only conversation in my opinion
around this situation. Also I know people were like oh
they weren't even invited and they crashed.
Apparently that's also not true. So I'm going to read a blue sky
post from my friend Crystal who runs Z feed and this is kind of
like sums up how I feel about it.
She wrote, I have no idea what's going on in Bianca's sensory and
Ye's relationship, but I reckon any women's publication that a
published on the gendered violence epidemic should be very
careful about whether slash how they post about Bianca's Grammys
red carpet look. And I completely agree.
We have seen a lot of publications that publish things
that are very pro feminist, pro women's reproductive rights, you
know, all of that great stuff that are covering this in kind
of I think an inappropriate way and I think we need to think
about that. Anyways, guys, hopefully third
time's a charm with this. I love you guys.
Thank you so much for listening to Mini Scroll.
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will talk to you tomorrow and I will talk to you on Thursday.
Bye.