Beyond Parody with Bridget Phetasy

Bridget’s back in LA and the decline is noticeable. It doesn’t have to be this way, decline is a choice. - Check out Sheath’s ingenious dual pouch system - order yours and save 20% with the code DUMPSTER at https://www.sheathunderwear.com/ - Revitalize your skin with BON CHARGE’s Red Light Face Mask and get 15% off with code BRIDGET at https://bit.ly/boncharge-df Beyond Parody with Bridget Phetasy is a reader-supported publication.

Bridget checks in from Los Angeles — where she's spending five weeks with family — and the city is not what she remembered. Empty storefronts on 3rd Street, deodorant locked behind glass at Walgreens, stores you have to get buzzed into, and a Hollywood Bowl 4th of July that felt more like a eulogy than a celebration.

Bridget does an Ask Me Anything giving details on how Dumpster Fire is made, what her actual day looks like, why she threatens to quit every quarter, what prevents her from doing so, and more! - Ready to ditch the corporate chemicals? Go to http://vanman.shop/dumpster26 and use code DUMPSTER26 for 15% off your first order. - Ready to give MASA a try? Get 25% off your first order by going to https://masachips.com/dumpster and using code DUMPSTER.

The day after their birthday, kids love to ask, “Do I feel different now that I’m older?” As Americans stumble out of our post-birthday haze, through a wall cloud of fireworks and Blue Angel contrails, this question is what’s waiting for us to catch our breath: Do we feel older, now that our nation is 250? When we were 249, our soccer team still had the gleam of a squad that could win the World Cup. Now we know better.

Christopher Nolan's Odyssey hasn't even come out yet and it's already the most disliked Hollywood trailer since Snow White. Bridget breaks down the casting controversy, why Elon rage-tweeting about a movie he hasn't seen is just as annoying as woke casting, and why the script is a downstream effect the collapsing literacy rates of our youth.

Bridget sits down again with novelist and Free Press columnist Kat Rosenfield to talk about the rise of death doulas, the death of YA fiction, and how the internet is quietly erasing itself. Kat digs into how YA fiction collapsed into "romantasy" and smut, the dead internet theory and vanishing digital archives - including Bridget's own lost Playboy articles and Kat's MTV News work.

The US men's soccer team got knocked out of the World Cup by Belgium 4-1, and America responded by immediately going back to not caring about soccer. Bridget breaks down the Balogun red card, Trump calling the president of FIFA, and all the reasons why America will truly never care about soccer the way the rest of the world does. Also: two Russians illegally climbed the Empire State Building, got engaged at the top, and got arrested on the way down. She was raised in the circus. Obviously.

Stay safe out there, Pham. Don’t lose any limbs or appendages. If you haven’t already, check out Bridget’s Dumpster Fire episode about America 250, the part about toilet paper is humbling and beautiful.

A recent poll that CNN shared says only 29% of Democrats are proud to be American, but if you step outside of the news cycle and into a World Cup watch party, you’ll see a version of this country that the media has been trying to bury for 30 years. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA! I love America. A lot of people do. In fact, I think most normie Americans do, and so do a lot of people around the world.

A new CNN poll says only 29% of Democrats are proud to be American. Bridget asked her audience what they love about this country — and got hundreds of responses. The four things that came up most: free speech, the founding documents, guns, and the freedom to build your own life. The people who felt it most weren't born here. They were immigrants, refugees, and World Cup tourists who showed up expecting the country the media described and found something completely different.