NEWS ROUNDUP

NEWS ROUNDUP: Simpon Death Spiral

Professor Frink looks at a woman in a bikini and Bart's twin Hugo. Behind them is a word cloud, and the word simpon is the only non-Japanese word.

It seems like everything’s in a death spiral these days: linear television, Twitter, the internet in general, America. Oh, and a little show called The Simpsons.

  • Last Sunday’s episode, “Frinkenstein’s Monster,” suffered a huge drop in the ratings from the previous episode (which aired on Christmas Eve), netting only 0.72 million viewers, making it the least-watched episode of the series… so far. For comparison, the highest rated show in that timeslot was the season premiere of The Equalizer, with 6.32 million viewers. [TV Series Finale]
  • Conservative writer Nick Clairmont has watched every episode up to Season 35, but now he’s dropping the show due to a decline in quality, which is a very funny concept. After a couple years of “THE SIMPSONS IS GOOD AGAIN!!!” articles it feels refreshing to get a dissenting view, even if it’s mostly complaining about Wokeness. [The Critic Magazine]
  • There’s been a noticeable increase in spam bots on Twitter as of late, perfectly crystallized in this moment where a Simpsons meme referencing the phrase “░M░Y░P░ U░S░S░ Y░I░ N░B░I░O ░” used by spammers is replied to by another spammer with “the simpon:”A tweet by ErnieLies consisting of a Simpsons meme. There's a reply by user @Chloe019283244, who has a stock image of a woman in a black bikini as their avatar, that just says 'the simpon.''

    Over on Bluesky, “simpon” was briefly the only English word trending, which users then catapulted to #1. [@ErnieLies]

  • Here’s a nostalgic look at the official Simpsons website over the years. It used to be charming and chock full of information, and now I guess it… doesn’t even exist anymore? There’s a page for the show on FOX.com with some information on the cast, but otherwise it looks like it’s just social media for the franchise now. Grim. [Web Design Museum]