Empire State of Mind
This week news outlets and social feeds around the world were treated to a good old-fashioned stunt. It was both a classic of the genre and a rare stunt executed for its own sake (or at least for nothing more sophisticated than to get attention for its perpetrators).
A pair of Russian “rooftoppers” - a couple who have been pursuing thrills (and, let’s be honest, fame) by scaling the world’s highest and most precarious buildings and cliff edges - tackled the Empire State Building.
They broke in, they climbed to the top of the weather tower, they unfurled a banner bearing a platitudinous legend, and then the man proposed to the lady.
The helicopter footage (and commentary) ran on every news channel, every moment – both captured by the Russian couple’s socials and from the outside - went viral, and the pair have caught the world’s attention far more than they did when they were the subject of a 2024 Netflix-distributed documentary.
So why does this stuff captivate even when there’s a World Cup on, and here in the UK, a new government is being anticipated after the latest soft coup, Taylor Swift is getting married, and tectonic geopolitical events occur daily?
There’s something so instinctive about the desire to report, share, like and click a story of this kind that it feels a bit unnatural to break it down, but here goes nothing.
The first thing is the image: although print and television news no longer have the cachet they once did, a striking visual is still guaranteed news; particularly if it’s an instantly recognisable backdrop, with a slight alteration.
The Empire State Building itself is key to this: although now dwarfed by various Middle Eastern megastructures, it has a kind of old-world glamour to it that was perfectly in-keeping with the nature of the stunt. We also don’t hear about it much outside the USA anymore – even as the yardstick for something ‘really big’ the Burj Khalifa has stolen its thunder so it’s just nice to be reminded that it’s still there.
The other obvious factor is the daredevilry. Even stage-managed to within an inch of its life, if the optics suggest the protagonists could die at any moment with one slip, then we’re fascinated.
Various other little touches made this a great story; to quote a great philosopher, ‘the secret ingredient is crime’. Even the minor and basically victimless ‘cosy crime’ of breaking into the building has led to some gentle speculation about how the stunsters pulled it off, as well as the supplementary image and (infinitesimally) minor drama of their arrest.
Then there’s the proposal and constant PDAs. They’re a fairly telegenic couple and although it stretches credibility to believe they were somehow doing it for love rather than attention, there’s an undeniable romance about a big showy proposal.
Finally there’s the content; they’re both clearly professional creators as well as climbers and so the story was being told in HD from the inside as well as the outside - scratching the itch of any curiosity the public might’ve had for a view beyond that of the helicopters.
So there you have it; the anatomy of a classic stunt. Long may they live, and long may the rooftoopers rooftop.
I do (Taylor’s Version)
Last October, Graham Norton asked Taylor Swift whether 2026 would be her wedding year. “Oh… you’ll know,” she said.
Before anyone has walked down the aisle, Taylor Swift’s wedding already has live news blogs, watermarked digital invites, ironclad NDAs, journalists tracking truck movements and security experts debating whether the venue is actually an elaborate decoy. Guests reportedly didn’t even know where they were going until the last minute. Even New York mayor Zohran Mamdani has found himself fielding questions about it, joking that anyone “getting married at Madison Square Garden” during a heatwave would be wise to stay indoors and hydrate.
There is something faintly absurd, yet entirely on brand, about guests being treated like state witnesses and the entire affair unfolding under military-grade secrecy while Swifties stand outside MSG conducting their forensic analysis of lighting rigs. It’s exactly how Taylor Swift has taught her fans to consume her life.
For two decades, she’s turned pop stardom into an interactive fan experience. Album announcements arrive disguised as puzzles. Outfits, Instagram captions, minor details in a music video that come to bear relevance months later. So, when she appeared courtside at Madison Square Garden in a “Stevie Knicks” shirt, Swifties duly filed this into their evidence folder. Weeks later, Stevie Nicks is reportedly performing at her wedding in, you guessed it, Madison Square Garden. By turning her wedding into a kind of album rollout, she’s transformed a deeply private milestone into a global spectacle.
Nobody entirely agrees on what is exactly going to happen at the wedding, or when. But mystery is all part of the Swiftie fan experience. Whatever anyone manages to see through the barricades, Taylor will find a way to make it feel like it happened to all of us.
Oh, and by the way, Travis Kelce will reportedly be at the wedding too. No word yet on whether that’s another clue.
‘Something is up’: New York prepares for wedding of the century amid Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce …
Is Smoking Cool Again?
We know the brightly coloured, fruit-flavoured vapes are a regular fixture for the news cycle, often blamed for underage nicotine use and targeted by a government crackdown on the illegal shops supplying them. Yet as scrutiny of vapes intensifies, cigarettes themselves appear to be enjoying an unlikely cultural resurgence.
Magazine covers featuring stars mid-drag are back in fashion, and recent front-row appearances by Charli XCX and Madonna at Paris Fashion Week, both photographed smoking with visible ease, have only reinforced the sense that the ciggie is having a moment.
Charli’s “Brat” persona is a great example of this, one built on mess, chaos, and hedonism, and the cigarette played an important part, working as a deliberate rejection of the curated, wellness-obsessed perfectionism defining Instagram-era influencer culture. Kylie Jenner’s cigarette-lit Vanity Fair cover pushes the same idea further, showing a notable indifference to the habit’s long-term cost.
That indifference may not be coincidental. With Botox, fillers, and facelifts now routine among the wealthy, the most visible penalty of smoking - premature ageing - has effectively been outsourced to treatments many of these same figures can comfortably afford.
Whether cigarettes are genuinely cool again or simply photogenic will continue to be debated among culture writers. What isn’t contested is the knock-on effect: teenagers absorbing these images alongside heavily marketed vapes are getting a two-pronged nicotine message, however unintentional the pairing.
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