Currently: Shedeur Sanders, Pharrell, Trump’s crush on Mamdami, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Michelle Obama, and RHOP

Our takes on what’s trending — and what it says about who we’re becoming.

Welcome to Currently!

Our weekly digest — or, if you will, our collective Explore Page — where we unpack the stories, trends, and hot takes that had us (and probably you) double-tapping, debating, or doom-scrolling all week.

Each edition, our editors break down what the week’s biggest moments are really about — and how they connect to the ideas we care about most: leadership, conviction, and becoming.

Politics? Pop culture? Business, beauty, world news, or the latest “did-you-see-this?” viral moment? Nothing’s off-limits here. If it’s shaping the conversation, we’re talking about it — with context, curiosity, and occasionally a little bit of side-eye.

Currently…

… witnessing one of the most universal, painfully relatable experiences of what it looks like to be Black and great in this world through Shedeur Sanders. Last night, after much anticipation, he made his first NFL start as a Cleveland Brown, and made history as the first rookie quarterback in 26 years to win their starting game. And yet, instead of celebration, we watched his coach refuse to acknowledge him, and is withholding praise, acting like Shedeur didn’t just do what no one else has been able to do for decades. Up until now, many of us could feel something was off behind the scenes, but after last night, there’s no mistaking it.

Because here’s the truth: when you are great — when you know you are the answer to a problem and you carry the quiet certainty Shedeur named pre-game when he said, “I’m the one they’ve been looking for” — there will always be someone who can’t stand it. Some leader who feels threatened by your brilliance. Someone so unsettled by your light that they try to bury you, belittle you, or convince the world you’re not who you know you are. Shedeur has endured all of it. Expected to go in the first round, dropped to the fifth. Benched. Questioned. Picked apart in ways other rookies never are. And still — through all of it — he keeps choosing discipline over disrespect. Grace over ego. Steadiness over spectacle. He refuses to let anyone strip him of the deep knowledge of who he is.

And that’s why this moment feels bigger than football. What we’re watching isn’t just a quarterback proving himself. It’s a young Black man holding his ground in the face of public hostility, private politics, and intentional attempts to shrink him and choosing to rise anyway. There’s a blessing in that kind of resilience, in being mistreated because of the greatness you carry. And Shedeur keeps showing us exactly who he is, not by retaliating, but by becoming undeniable. The persecution isn’t proof that something is wrong with him — it’s proof that something powerful is happening through him for the world to bear witness. In the illustrious words of the great Muhammad Ali, “Rumble, young man. Rumble.” - Maya Watson

… watching Capitol Hill remind us why it’s the greatest workplace drama in human history. On Friday New York City’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met with President Trump, and Trump spent the meeting acting like he’d just discovered a new man crush, despite his past hard stance against Mamdani’s mayoral bid. Leaving the internet scrambling to make sense of their encounter. Across the Hill, Marjorie Taylor Greene is distancing herself from MAGA after falling out with Trump and announcing she’ll be resigning from Congress altogether come January. Likewise, leaving people struggling to believe her pivot — understandably. Trust is built on character and competence, and most people doubt Greene has either. The only way to gain trust is through consistent action. And while it’s fair to be slow to praise Greene’s latest moves, it’s even smarter to give her a chance to put her money where her mouth is, which is what it seems Rep. Jasmine Crockett is doing through her recent invitation for Greene to work together during her last weeks in congress and actually enact change that aligns with these so-called new views. Here’s what this moment is actually revealing: Mamdani and Crockett are modeling a version of leadership most people no longer recognize — the kind that allows you to tell the radical truth and STILL work with people you can’t stand in order to get something done. Like Crockett, Mamdani is proving trust and working together are not one in the same by maintaining his stance on Trump’s facism whilst working with him in the ways a mayor must work with a President. Tbh, it’s super refreshing to see these new young political leaders who are mature enough to do the work even when the people around them make it nearly impossible. If we want things to change, this is the kind of leadership it will take to move us forward. - MW

…saddened that one of our Black geniuses is misleading the community he comes from. Here’s the thing about those comments Pharrell made last week: DEI isn’t about favoritism, it’s about fairness. So to sit on a stage and ask the Black people in the crowd if they would rather get support for their business because they’re black or because they’re the best, as if anyone both Black and successful has ever been handed real opportunities without having to be twice as good, often only to get half as much, is not only absurd, it’s dangerously aligned with the false narrative that conservatives are trying to project onto DEI initiatives. And whether his belief system has aligned with the wealthy white capitalists he’s been in business with throughout his career intentionally or subconsciously, it’s clear that the privileges Pharrell’s celebrity have afforded him have blinded him to the very real ways minorities are under attack by the current administration. He has become yet another example as to why Black elitism is the greatest threat to our progress. It’s fine not to enjoy politics, but to act like it’s more divisive to pick a side than to not support the political group that’s gutting affordable healthcare, illegally deporting American citizens, and lobbying to strip various minority groups of multiple human rights is a wildly tone deaf take. Pharrell seems to have forgotten that the only leaders who have ever actually moved people forward are the ones who were courageous enough to take a stance. The quest for greatness will always require you to pick a side, and it will at times be in direct opposition to your quest for wealth. Don’t be like Pharrell and forget it on the very stage you created back when you understood why an event like “Black Ambition Demo Day” was necessary in the first place. - Sylvia Obell

… shocked by how many Housewives are falling apart trying to keep up. Karen, Wendy, and Mia, oh my! What is going on over at The Real Housewives of Potomac? In case you missed it, here’s the rundown from the last few months: Karen Huger was released after serving 6 months of a year-long DUI sentence. A few weeks later, Wendy Osefo and her husband were arrested on insurance fraud charges. And just last week, Mia Thornton was arrested in Atlanta for allegedly stealing furniture from a furnished condo. It’s the kind of storyline that makes for must-see reality television, but it also points to something deeper. This is what happens when the pressure to keep up gets louder than the truth. You start cutting corners, losing control, and reaching for things that were never yours to begin with. And before you know it, you’ve become the opposite of what you wanted people to see in you. And if we’re honest, most of us have felt some version of that pressure. Maybe not with cameras rolling, but in the quiet ways we’ve tried to look “okay” and “keep up” when life was stretching us thin. That’s when we start trying to hold up an image that costs more than we can afford to pay. I came across a quote recently, attributed to Jim Carrey: “If you’re not willing to downgrade your lifestyle for a year to have the lifestyle you want forever, you care too much about what other people think.” The truth underneath it is simple: being honest about where you’re at will save you faster than protecting your image ever will. And the cost of pretending is always higher than the courage it takes to be honest about where you actually are. - Kevin Stuckey

… channeling my Trump rage into action. I’ve been disappointed by Trump for years, but I’ve always tried not to lead with emotion. I try to make sense of at least one thing he’s doing, the same way you try to manage under a bad leader at work when you can’t afford to leave. You look for any light you can find just to get through the day. But then there are moments when that stops working, when there’s no angle to understand or benefits of the doubts left to give. Last Thursday was one of those moments for me. When Trump called for the death of lawmakers, the switch flipped. “Righteous rage” doesn’t quite capture it. It was the feeling you get when a line has been crossed so clearly that you can’t normalize it anymore. Because underneath the anger was something else: the weight of what people are already carrying. Imagine finding out your job is cutting salaries in half, removing free lunch, and dropping healthcare benefits. Then in the middle of all of that, you have to deal with bullying and threats from your CEO. It’s too much! And voicing how you feel in the annual 360 meeting doesn’t feel like enough. That’s essentially what we’re dealing with here, just worse, because the “CEO” is running the country. I don’t want that kind of toxicity turning into apathy. So I went straight to what I could control: I looked up the impeachment process (it starts in the House and moves to the Senate) found my representative, and sent an email asking how they planned to address this unacceptable behavior. It wasn’t a huge, time-consuming action, but it helped me feel less helpless and more grounded, more like myself again. It reminded me that when everything feels out of control, taking one small action is sometimes the only way to keep from shutting down. And maybe that’s the real invitation – not to fix everything, but to stay engaged and hold on to your humanity. - KS

…writing to the woman who is called to be the first woman president and making sure she doesn’t take Michelle Obama’s words to heart. Post–White House Michelle LaVaughn Obama is healed, unbound, and uninterested in performing optimism to make us feel better. And I love that for her. There’s something sacred about that kind of liberation after surviving the most scrutinized role in the world. Last week, when she said Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss in the last election proved the country isn’t ready for a woman president, it sparked conversation about the truth of our readiness as a country. But respectfully, I disagree with Mrs. Obama’s conclusion.. Kamala’s 107-day sprint was not a fair barometer. Hillary won the popular vote by nearly 3 million. These weren’t landslides of rejection; they were structural failures, timing failures, and coalition failures. I’d go as far to say we’re probably closer to a female president than we are to a Destiny’s Child reunion. So if you are the woman who was born to be the answer to this problem – you might be 21, 41, or 61 – don’t let her words discourage you. Learn from them. Let them sober you. Let them challenge you. But don’t let them stop you. - MW