Don’t Call it a Comeback.

Anyone fancy a rave in IKEA? Or, as the Swedes call it, a ‘yra’. Funnily enough, trying to say ‘yra’ contorts one’s face in such a manner as to accurately replicate the gurns of the people who frequent such venues (raves, not IKEAs).

When it was revealed that Printworks would be closing and turned into flats, it felt like another potentially fatal dagger through the heart of the British nightlife industry. But the team who brought you Printworks are back, better and bigger, announcing this week that they will be taking over the 608,000 sq ft disused IKEA in Tottenham and turning it into Drumsheds, a 15,000-capacity events space.

Printworks walked so Drumsheds could run. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, NIMBYs of London who couldn’t take the untz untz. Actually, maybe don’t smoke anything offered to you around here. But definitely take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror. And we mean a mirror on a wall, not a living room table at 3am.

Scouting For Goals.

Wayne Rooney revealed this week that he uses Football Manager to scout and sign players for D.C. United. Sounds like a great way to ease recruitment headaches, must be how he maintains his eternally youthful vigour. Doesn’t look a day over Neolithic.

Football Manager is a game known for discovering wonderkids, so Rooney decided he wanted a piece of that action. Wazza explained: “A lot of the market is South America and we’ve done a deal with Football Manager where we give them some advertising and they give us access to the scouts”. You scratch Wayne Rooney’s back, he’ll scratch yours. I’ll leave you to linger on that mental image for a moment.

FM must be absolutely buzzing with this endorsement from one of England’s greatest ever products, though. And who knows, he might even unearth the next Wayne Rooney. Maybe even without all the granny stuff this time.

Life Saver.

Not to one-up Football Manager’s co-sign from Wayne Rooney, but this week a brand was credited with literally saving a person’s life – and that is arguably more important than scouting a Peruvian 15-year-old with a wand of a left foot.

A TikTok went viral in which Angelina Wiley shared her story of getting shot four times (all at the same time – getting shot at all is pretty unfortunate but getting shot on four separate occasions would be extremely unlucky). Wiley begins the video by proclaiming “Kim Kardashian saved my life”, as she was wearing a SKIMS bodysuit at the time, which she claims acted like a tourniquet to prevent her from bleeding out. That is a #Ad and a half. ‘Wear SKIMS, or you will die.’

She even went as far as claiming that the bodysuits are “like body armour for women”. Although in today’s cultural climate I feel I ought to point out that body armour for women is also probably just body armour. You would feel a bit miffed as a woman on your first day at the police academy when all the blokes are receiving their flak jackets and you’re handed a protective lederhosen.

Cue the conspiracy theories that this whole thing was orchestrated by Kris Jenner as a PR stunt. She’s done worse…

Wakey Wakey.

Speaking of shooting women, the 2023 Australia and New Zealand Women’s World Cup got underway yesterday.

With this year’s tournament set to be the most-watched event in the history of women’s football, any brands associated with the competition are currently doing everything within their power to stake their claim. But, unsurprisingly, Nike have absolutely blown everyone out the water – as was also the case with their ‘GOAT Experiment’ ad for the men’s World Cup last year.

The ‘What the Football?’ campaign champions the current crop of players changing the game while also honouring legends of the past like… that American lady… what’s her name again? Brandi Chastain. Course it bloody is. Did you seriously think I didn’t know who Brandi Chastain was? Pffft, please. And it’s all just too much to take for this poor bloke waking up from his Rip Van Winkel nap. Wait till he finds out we have seedless grapes now.

And let’s just be grateful they didn’t call it soccer. Even though they definitely would have done if it didn’t mess up the WTF acronym.

Seoul Mates.

Netflix are releasing a reality show in which the contestants compete to survive a hyper-realistic zombie apocalypse. Because if you’re out of ideas, go zombies. Audiences will always lap that shit up.

The reality angle is somewhat novel, though. But the jury is still out on just how realistic ‘hyper-realistic’ truly is. One would imagine that Netflix would be capable of simulating an incredibly convincing zombie apocalypse – just without the zombies or the apocalypse, obviously. But a load of ‘survivors’ running round Seoul in a Hobbesian state of nature trying to escape hordes of ‘zombies’ does sound like quite the spectacle.

Plus the WGA have now been joined on strike by the SAG in the US, so we should be grateful that Netflix are even able to release anything. Although I don’t know why they went all the way to Seoul to create a zombie apocalypse when they could have just gone down the road to downtown San Francisco and seen the real deal.

Holy Crepe.

To be completely candid, this was a very last-minute entry for coolsh*t. So late indeed that all six stories had already been locked in and written up. And the fact that we have ejected one in favour of this, in spite of a vehement reluctance to do any extra work, should be a testament to just how highly we rate it. Although we won’t tell you what it replaced in case we want to recycle it for next week. Greta would be proud.

We’re also forced to immediately retract our statement about Nike having “blown everyone out the water” with their World Cup ad, due to this absolute tour de force celebrating the French national team from Orange. Or as they say in France, ‘Orange’.

The ad shows a montage of the likes of Mbappe, Griezmann and other members of the French national team pulling their opponent’s pantolons down. But then comes the rug-pull: it wasn’t actually them. The entire montage was a deepfake, with the players’ faces having been superimposed onto the bodies – and highlights – of their female counterparts.

Absolutely hook, line and cinquer. Now the French fans will be hoping they can all come together to celebrate Les Bleues this summer. Especially Emmanuel Macron, who could probably do with a day off.

The Coolsh*t Podcast - Episode 56.

It’s coming home.