The Brunch round-up: The week and how it made us feel

This week we’re all about the Barbie & Ken tagline, TikTok’s new app, the new Super Mario movie and Ramzan in football

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has been pushing an Instagram-like app called Lemon8.

This week we’re...

• 
  Wary of a new app.

  TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has been pushing an Instagram-like app called Lemon8. The influencer-marketing-led video and photo-sharing platform has been rolled out in the USA, with great success. Creators describe the app, “as if Instagram and Pintrest had a baby.” More content, more viral fame, more influencers. #Enough!
• Feeling sorry for a plastic doll.

  The tagline for the new Barbie film is, “She’s everything. He’s just Ken.” It plays on Mattel’s focus on the girl doll who can do it all. Overnight, that dismissive tone has become a way to describe women who outshine their male partners. Diana and Charles, Taylor Swift and anyone she’s dated. The memes are hilarious. But poor Ken. No body hair. No genitals. Now this.
• 
  Cheering football for the politics.

  The Premier League is on. So is Ramzaan. Matches are often at sunset, when Muslims break their fast. The League allows a pause in the game for this. Like a cooling break, it’s so short, it’s hardly noticeable. The French Football Federation, however, has banned the interruption. Look out for little acts of solidarity and resistance -- a water bottle passed around, referees that stall just long enough. These are #GoodGoals.
• 
  Humming the Mario theme.

  Because the new animated Super Mario Bros Movie topped the global box office with $377m on its opening weekend. The origin story of how Brooklyn plumbers Mario and Luigi ended in the Nintendo world has filled cinemas with ’90s kids. It’s beaten Warcraft’s $210m and Frozen 2’s $358m openings. Your princess is no longer in another castle.