#petunia mulaney

[johnemulaney]

noooooo 😭

[niffysboxers]

petunia mulaney passed away no one talk to me

[crispymarvellousdinosaurs]

Rest in peace Petunia, you were a real one, you saw the Gestapo pull into Paris, hope you get all your dishes now

[zhangster-moon]

i stopped caring about john mulaney a long time ago but i feel like the fact that he posted a really old photo of himself with petunia while anna marie tendler is posting so many photos of her with petunia is like. wow john really left that family and didn’t look back huh

[deanwinchestersleftballsack]

WAIT WHO TOOK PETUNIA IN THE DIVORCE????

[briceterry]

Petunia: You're not eating dinner cocksucker!!! Dish now!

Meanwhile, Petunia’s just staring at us with her Paul Giamatti face, like… 

[xluciferseyeshadowx]

Hazbin hotel characters as John Mulaney quotes

Charlie: Thirteen year olds are some of the meanest people in the world.

Alastor: You have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair.

Angel: THERE’S A HORSE. LOOSE IN THE SEX DUNGEON.

Husk: In terms of instant relief, cancelling dinner is like heroin.

Vaggie: One black coffee.

Lucifer: LOOK UPON YOUR SOVEREIGN PETUNIA, AND TREMBLE!

Angel: It’s a hundred degrees out, I’m stressed, I desperately want cocaine-

Husk: It’s just Outback!

Alastor: Was the girl in the Victorian nightgown just ME?!

The Vees: NOO THAT’S THE THING I’M SENSITIVE ABOUT!

[ts1989fanatic]

OPINION

Matty Healy exposed the dark side of the Taylor Swift parasocial fantasy

The responses to Taylor Swift's latest breakup highlight a toxic cultural phenomenon.

Karma may be your boyfriend, but Taylor Swift is not your best friend.Chelsea Stahl / MSNBC; Getty Images

June 6, 2023, 5:29 PM EDT

By Patricia Grisafi

It’s a bummer when your best friend starts dating an apparent dirtbag. God, you think, what does she see in him? He looks like he smells of stale coffee and cigarettes. He looks like a hipster stork. You’ve heard him brag about how he watches humiliation porn. And don’t forget the racism and antisemitism.

Except Taylor Swift is not your best friend.

I don’t know what prompted the breakup, but I doubt it was a tearful Swiftie on TikTok.

When news broke this week that Swift and The 1975 lead singer Matty Healy had ended their brief relationship, social media celebrated in a way that was notable — and a little deranged. (And immediately started speculating about her next fling.) Just hop on Twitter and read the comments about how Swift had really heard her fans and tossed that loser in the trash. I don’t know what prompted the breakup, but I doubt it was a tearful Swiftie on TikTok. Still, imagine feeling like you have that kind of influence over a person you’ve never interacted with. Or that kind of personal investment.

Swift is — in some ways — an unusually private celebrity. It feels like her every move is carefully choreographed. We hardly ever see her messy, incoherent, or intentionally challenging. But fans feel like they know Swift because she writes prolifically about romantic relationships. It’s hardly novel, a musician writing about love and loss. Still, fans pore over these songs. They find Easter eggs in the lyrics, do complex analysis aligning certain ex-boyfriends with specific details. And because language is subjective and Swift is arguably both elusive and slyly encouraging of these readings, the meanings are ever-shifting. Depending on who you ask, she is everything from an Aryan pinup girl to a queer icon. In short, she is the perfect parasocial fantasy subject.

The term “parasocial interaction” has been around since sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl theorized on the phenomenon in the 1950s. A parasocial interaction refers to a relationship in which a consumer comes to believe that media personalities are their intimate friends and that an emotional connection is shared. The phrase has become more popular recently with the rise of pop culture super fans, or stans. These fans can become incredibly invested in their favorite celebrity’s real-life relationships, and devastated if those relationships implode.

See, for example, when comedian John Mulaney separated from his wife Anna Marie Tendler in May of 2020 and began dating actor Olivia Munn. While celebrity relationships have always been fodder for gossip and people are naturally curious about their favorite stars (this writer included), public response regarding the Mulaney situation was noteworthy. Critics suggested that this was because Mulaney’s public persona made it seem like he was your buddy, your pal, a friend you could relate to. And he made his personal life part of his public persona by integrating details about his wife and French bulldog Petunia into his comedy routine. When he violated the parasocial social contract by not living up to that fantasy, things fell apart. It’s similar with Swift — particularly, this situation with Healy.

Swift stepping out with Healy disrupted fan notions of her and the values they believe she holds dear. She’s dating a guy who makes racist remarks? Who unrepentantly laughs about violently objectifying women? Is this who you are, Taylor? And if this is who you are, who am I?

Things got so intense that a group of Swifties circulated an open letter telling other fans to #SpeakUpNow.

Things got so intense that a group of Swifties circulated an open letter telling other fans to #SpeakUpNow and condemn the relationship: “He has been involved in acts and controversies that deeply trouble us,” the letter says. “We urge you to reflect on the impact of your own and your associates’ behavior and engage in genuine self-reflection.”

Rapper Ice Spice, who Healy called a “chubby Chinese lady” on a podcast, was brought in to share the stage with Swift in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Some speculated this act was a professional olive branch, others an empty, performative gesture to both Ice Spice and fans who were disturbed by Healy’s original remarks (he has since offered both an apology and a non-apology for the comments).

Poets talk a lot about how the speaker of the poem is not the writer of the poem. You’ve got to put distance between them. That’s healthy for artists and fans. You don’t know anything about Taylor Swift except what she carefully curates and puts out into the world. Her songs may speak to you, but she directly is not. Proclamation of ownership over a stranger and her love life, the fantasy that our whispers reach Swift’s ears and she heeds our pleas, is problematic.

Parasocial relationships can show the beauty of human emotion, our capacity for empathy, and our ever-expanding desire to connect. On the darker side, they reveal our desire for control, our capacity for cruelty, and our instincts to possess. If the parasocial fantasy is punctured, you might have to make an ethical choice that forces you to confront the dissolution of that illusion — and, more importantly, yourself and what you’re willing to accept.

ts1989fanatic: in some ways the last month or so on SM has been far worse and much more divisive than this🐍🐍🐍🐍 in 2016. There are times when I don’t recognize our fandom anymore.

I honestly don’t know if it’s the rise of TikTok as a preeminent SM platform or just a general increase in SM usage but I do know it’s become far more toxic than it was just a few short years ago.

[awkwardturtletrash]

An egregious rant about celebrity culture and I am not even sorry

I feel like I'm going insane, I want to claw my eyes out and eat my phone and burn every cord I have in my house. How is everyone okay with celebrities? The concept? The payoff? The whole fucking charade of these people? They're not real anymore, these aren't genuine connections, this is the most dystopian existence I can imagine and you're all just fucking eating it up???

There is not fucking benefit to these people being in my face 24/7 ??? I cannot find a single piece of genuine emotion besides annoyance and anger whenever I see the same fucking picture of Kim Kardashian (I had to fucking google the spelling) in that dumb pink shirt and everyone losing their mind that she incorrectly styled a piece of clothing that they will never touch in their god damn lives. It's the most insane, mindless, pointless use of an existence I've ever seen. Why are you all so fucking obsessed with the CONCEPT of people? She has a stylist. She has a whole team. She doesn't do her makeup or hair or outfits or accessories. You are following this handcrafted existence, this portfolio of makeup and cloth and you just??? (This is not a personal attack on Kim Kardashian, as much as I do not care about her life this is not her fault and I do not want it to seem this is a rant against any specific human, they are still people and cannot control society as a whole.) Fucking do it day in and day out? You genuinely care about who Taylor Swift is dating or if John Mulaney got Petunia in the divorce or if Zendaya is engaged or if Henry Cavil's hairline is bad now or if Kendal Jenner can walk well or if Jenner Lawerence got face work done???

(And don't say you don't "genuinely" care when you spend HOURS online tweeting about it and talking about it to your friends in person and 'finally getting into football lol' over a single woman who went to a single game and hung out with a single guy. You put in the hours, you are pathetically genuine.)

What fucking purpose is there? What benefit? The world is in fucking shambles and you bitches have stan accounts dedicated to an actor??? Where does the self come in? Your own life? I cannot pity anyone more than someone who so desperately needs to know Ryan Reynolds's favorite color or what Bella Hadid eats in a day. Did I sometimes watch these kinds of videos, seeing famous people describe mundane stories or do the most boring secret talent? Yes...In middle school. Something clicked one day that every interview is a job, that this is an advertisement, that they are selling themselves as a byproduct of a film or show or whatever they were up to. I am being sold human beings as a product for a temproary creation.

How are none of you ripping your hair out everyday over this? That cute little game on Jimmy Fallon? An ad. Oh she's doing a panel? An ad. Oh they're doing a Reddit AMA? An ad. Literally at this point their whole social media accounts are ads. Their appearances are ads. Everything is a fucking ad. Their existence at this point is an ad. Oh she's the face of Prada, oh he's the face of Gucci. THESE ARE WALKING ADVERTISEMENTS FOR LIFE NOW. The amount of people who keep track of who works for who and which dresses they're allowed to wear make me nauseous. Do you care about your friends as much? Do you notice your family as much? Do you care about your health as much as you care about a Met Gala look from 2013?

And again, I used to do this all the time. I still do! I'm forced to have an opinion on who Ariana Grande is dating. I'm forced to have an opinion on an Andrew Garfield interview. It's absolutely impossible to not have celebrities in your face. Everywhere is merch of their face and photos of their face and quotes from their work with their face tied to it. They are ads. We are paying for people. You pay to meet them. Pay for a photo. Pay for their signature. Pay to see them naked. Pay to see behind the scenes. Pay to see them on a panel. Pay for them. Pay. Pay. pay. pay pay paypaypaypaypay.......

And yet. Here we are. "Anne Hathaway looks so gorgeous for her age because she's unproblematic." "Elon Musk looks hideous and malformed and terrible." Assigning moral value to appearance. Caring about their outfits and hair and "face card" and whatever the fuck else we are cursed to think and see and hear and PAY.

My theory is that everyone hates themselves. Everyone, everyone not on a red carpet or famous on TikTok or not in an ad resents that fact. Everyone wants to be seen, famous, loved, beautiful, attractive, followed. Everyone feels so fucking ugly that they retweet random screenshots from a movie of an actor purely because they're attractive. That looking at someone else, praising them being beautiful is some form of twisted wish fulfillment. And it's sad and it's weird and most importantly it's always turns sexual. It's always "this actor is secretly a bottom" or "this actor could spit in my mouth."

It's the most obscene shit. Imagine a classmate showing you a photo of another classmate and saying the most raunchy, salacious comments. Imagine your uncle showing a photo of a shirtless teenage boy and saying how submissive and breedable he is. Imagine standing in a coffee shop and a barista starts loudly exclaiming how wet they are over a customer. How is it being twitter and a famous person better? Less insane? I find celebrities attractive, but I am not going to make a fucking twitter account roleplaying as a character they played, use only photos of them, and INTERACT PUBLICALLY. Y'all are fucking insane. Absolutely disgusting.

And this doesn't just apply to fucking Twitter trending whoever is hot this week or putting down anyone in a bad pair of jeans. Tumblr sucks too! It's obsessed with actors! Misha Collins???? Why the fuck am I supposed to care about his opinion??? Did I like his performance? Yes. Is his life interesting? Sure. Do I need daily updates about him? What the fuck are y'all on? Reblogging just pictures from magazine shoots? Having entire gifs dedicated to someone just being hot. At what point is it not unhealthy? At wha tpoint are you not feeding a machine of self-hatred and devotion to pixels on a screen that you can only see in person because you fucking paid for it? At what point do you lose yourself?

This is horrible written, doesn't make sense, and is definitely out of order. But I don't care. I'm tired and upset and done with parasocial relationships. Everyone always complains "now is NOT the time to say 'this is why you dont praise people'" YES THE FUCK IT IS YOU ARE A FUCKING IDIOT WHO NEEDS RESTRICTED INTERACT ACCESS

You don't know these people. They have entire TEAMS dedicated to their image and their interviews and their social media and their entire fucking personas. You are getting fed a product and you stupidly fell in love or trusted it or even gaslit yourself into thinking it saw you back. A product cannot love you back, what makes you think it even notices you?

Markiplier could come out as a horrible person tomorrow and as a longtime fan of his channel and an active watcher/listener of his podcast I would stop watching and I would have negative feelings but not a single one would be disappointment. Because I never once assumed I was his friend who knew him. This is a stranger. It's the same feeling if a stranger on the street said something horrible. It's the thought "well I'm not associating with that" and that's the only correct one.

Get a life! Become someone! Who the fuck are you if you exist to talk about someone else? What is your purpose? They already exist, they don't need you, you need you, please for the love of god get off Instagram and find a passion that isn't someone else's success.

and yes I am certain I have evidence of the above in my tumblr blog. I am not different I am not some special little person. I am simply insane and angry and tired. So deeply tired of society.

[youngsamberg]

idk if you still stay up to date on mulaney stuff but did you see petunia passed away :(

i saw and i'm so upset

[bitchinbarzal]

Bro you mentioned tris and daisy keeping the flower them with their kids but they def have to carry it over to the pets too like all I can think about is John mulaney’s dog petunia 😭

they have a son who feels so left out

[djgrannyglasses]

Petunia Tendler Mulaney died.

I’m gonna cry now.

[thisislizheather]

Men Have Called Her Crazy By Anna Marie Tendler - A Review

The only thing better than reading a comedian’s memoir? Reading the partner/ex-partner of a comedian’s memoir. Truly. I don’t know why exactly, but the partner of someone who’s had immense success/fame is usually ten times more interesting than the famous one. Practically always. And this memoir was fantastic. I had known so little about Anna Marie Tendler before reading this (I knew that she was John Mulaney’s beautiful ex-wife, that she designed lampshades and seemed like she wouldn’t have liked me in high school) but I’m grateful to have found this book. Favourite parts ahead.

“I cemented my role in relationships as a pleaser, a convincer, a girl, who, well into adulthood, would contort and conform to the desires of a man, overlooking his easy dismissal, and dampening her self-worth, all to be loved” - OOF, it that wasn’t me for all of my dating life.

The parallels of our two lives are fucking eerie (I know that’s interesting to no one other than me), but it’s weird that we both heard about 9/11 in a high school chemistry class. (I also agree with her about hot firefighters but that’s, like, a universal thought that you’d have to be a comatose to disagree with, so I won’t count that commonality.)

The entire part about her longterm therapist being so horrid to her was nuts to read. I loved it mainly because therapists are such trusted people and it’s insane to me that none of the terrible ones ever really get talked about that much.

“Why are women so fucking ashamed of ourselves? I blame men.” Perfect line. Wish it was the title of the whole book. I get why it wasn’t, but really wish it was.

Talking about a web series she did: “I simply got to show a weekly guest how to do one makeup trick and asked them to share a ghost story or paranormal encounter. When the web series aired, it was met with backlash from women, mostly moms, who insisted that a show about makeup was antithetical to the very ethos the website touted - that girls were smart - and the decision was made to stop making episodes. May we never forget that females cannot be intellectual and aesthetically minded at the same time.” I love this woman.

It’s crazy how much I agree with her thoughts on motherhood: “My reservations about motherhood have been shaped by my feelings about men, their general incompetence, their propensity toward selfishness, and their inability to empathize with the female experience. My obsession with equality in relationships restricts me from balancing the weight of what men put into child-rearing versus what women do. I wonder if it can ever be equal. I feel instinctually it can’t, while also recognizing that instinct might be wrong.”

“I know mothers feel excluded from life too. I guess that’s the paradox of being a woman: no matter what path you choose, chances are you’ll feel invisible.”

“I’m momentarily aroused by the memory of a man properly doing a chore.” Good god, that’s funny.

The entire chapter on her losing her dog Petunia made me weep, but I’m a human being with a HEART sue me.

Such an inspiring memoir, I can’t recommend it enough. Read it immediately. And the fact that she didn’t mention her marriage in detail at all speaks such volumes - she’s not defined by that part of her life and that is made extremely clear with what she chose to share. She’s an incredibly strong writer so I sincerely hope she continues to publish. Absolutely love this woman.

[akascow]

the way my weather widgit says Rain Now always reminds me of john mulaneys Petunia impression when he says Dish Now and it gets me everytime

[cocoartistwrites]

what did you think of john mulaney’s new special?

rip petunia ( so sorry to anyone if this is how they find out )

Omg wait that went over my head, how sad! It was very good wasn’t it?

[tendlerfancy]

Anna shared this video of Petunia. "Blink and you'll miss her!" ❤️🐶

(october 22, 2021).