The VMA Nominations Dropped, Complete With Plenty of Snubs

With less than three weeks until Labor Day, fall is on the way, and with it comes approximately 3,000 announcements about new movies, TV shows, books, etc. headed our way. The onslaught of reveals kicked off last weekend at Disney’s massive D23 event, where the studio laid out their slate of content for the next few years. Coming up we’ve got a slew of sequels, spinoffs, and remakes including: VisionQuest (Oct. 14, 2026), Avengers: Doomsday (Dec. 18, 2026), Ahsoka Season 2 (Jan. 20, 2027), Ice Age: Boiling Point (Feb. 5, 2027), Star Wars: Starfighter (May 28, 2027), The Bluey Movie (Aug. 6, 2027), The New Simpsons Movie (September 2027), Frozen 3 (Nov. 24, 2027), a live-action Tangled (March 31, 2028), a new X-Men movie (May 5, 2028), Lilo & Stitch 2 (May 28, 2028), Incredibles 3 (Summer 2028), Coco 2 (November 2029), Zootopia 3 (TBD), and Princess Diaries 3 (TBD). Might as well get that AMC A-List subscription fired up now, because you’re going to be at the movies a lot in the coming months.

Disney also announced that a staged musical version of The Greatest Showman would be arriving on the West End next spring. This news came only days before another announcement heralding a new Broadway musical based on 10 Things I Hate About You will be bowing a year from now as well. Fascinatingly, the 10 Things musical will be written by Lena Dunham and Carly Rae Jepsen. Clearly they are eyeing the millennial audience, and let me be the first to say, it’s working. Consider that ticket purchased.

Over in TV world, The Traitors: New Blood, the first U.S. all-normie version of the show, dropped its trailer. While the celebrity-filled version of the show has been a smash hit (and I can’t wait for Season 5), I’m excited to see a version where the contestants truly know nothing about one another. I’m also just happy that Alan Cumming and his fabulous outfits will be back on my screen next month.

And rounding out the pop culture announcements, author Sarah J. Maas revealed on Monday that the next two books in her hit series, A Court of Thorns and Roses (aka ACOTAR), will come out back-to-back. Book six, A Court of Splintered Harmony, will hit bookshelves on Oct. 27, 2026, while book seven, A Court of Forgotten Melody, will arrive only three months later on Jan. 12, 2027. So clear your schedules, everyone; we’re eating good.

The 2026 MTV Video Music Awards (aka the VMAs) announced their nominations yesterday, and in a move that’s both extremely shocking and not shocking at all, Madonna won the morning with 11 total nominations. While Madge has previously won 19 VMAs, not to mention the prestigious Video Vanguard award, the 68-year-old hasn’t taken home a trophy since 1999 (the same year her Video of the Year competitor Sabrina Carpenter was born). Carpenter and Ariana Grande each earned seven nominations, while Taylor Swift edged the pair out with nine.

Now I’d like to raise a few objections to this year’s set of nominations if you don’t mind. First, how the hell is Zara Larsson not nominated for Artist of the Year? This is the year of Zara Larsson, and yet we’re nominating Morgan Wallen and (forgive me) Taylor Swift over her? Can’t we all admit that The Life of a Showgirl was a bit of a flop? The only nominations that Zara got were for “Stateside,” which she shares with PinkPantheress, and the girl deserves better. Second, how is “Golden” still getting nominations? That song is 500 years old at this point. Third, where is Adela in Best New Artist? She’s the KGBitch! She deserves a nomination. And lastly, the best music video of the year was Haute & Freddy’s “Dance the Pain Away.” I understand that they’re a niche pop group, but THIS CHOREOGRAPHY deserves an award.

Lasting five full seasons on Netflix is quite the feat, but Outer Banks has completed that task. The North Carolina-set teen drama became one of Netflix’s biggest hits when it premiered in 2020 during peak lockdown season, and hasn’t lost steam since. The show, which turned Chase Stokes, Madelyn Cline, and Drew Starkey into bona fide stars, will come to an end tomorrow when the final season drops all ten episodes on Netflix. It’s been a fun six years, cruising around OBX with the Pogues, and they will be sorely missed.

I’m sorry for being a hater, but we’ve got to just announce this Dancing with the Stars cast already. On Monday, DWTS revealed that professional dancer Whitney Carson, who won last year with Robert Irwin, will be returning to dance with Jimmy Kimmel Live! Star Guillermo Rodriguez. She’ll also be pregnant while competing. This is just the latest announcement in a slow string of information that’s been doled out, one crumb at a time, since April, and I’m tired of it. Season 35 premieres on Sept. 15, and I need ABC to just announce the cast already. We know a couple of the celebs. We now know one returning pro. There’s a whole TV show that’s slow-rolling out another new pro for the season. This has just gone on for far too long. We have to stop announcing people one at a time for seemingly no reason. It takes too much energy, and I keep having to check the Wikipedia page to see if I missed something. JUST TELL US ALREADY!

Is “Chanty Beluga” the funniest name ever created? I think so, and the internet appears to agree with me, given how viral this meme is getting. Back in July, comedian Courtney O’Donnell created an Instagram account for a fictional woman named Chanty Beluga, posting a video of her confirming her name with an Uber driver. Chanty has since appeared in a dozen innocuous videos where she’s performing mundane tasks like ordering coffee, meeting new people at a pool party, or buying a key chain that involve her saying her name. The videos have since gone viral on chronically online corners of the internet, spawning adoration from fans and confusion from everyone else. There’s really nothing to understand other than “Chanty Beluga” is a funny name and that paired with Chanty’s bright optimism is exciting. Now we’re all just waiting to see what delightful little errands Chanty runs next. #ChantyBelugaSummer