The Babylon Bee tweets again

Big apologies that this edition is so late. I always forget how busy the end of the year is and I completely mismanaged my time lol. Anyway, here is a Sunday edition of Modern Relics. Please forgive me for posting on the Lord’s day.

With Twitter’s future looking uncertain, would you consider joining the Modern Relics Discord?

Babylon Bee is back

Last week I wrote about how during the court case surrounding Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition, it was revealed that he’s a fan of the Babylon Bee. Well, now the Bee is back on Twitter. It appears to have been a unilateral decision on Elon’s part.

The transphobic tweet that triggered the initial lockout is also back on the platform. Cool cool cool. Jordan Peterson is also back. And Donald Trump has had his account reinstated, but he says he won’t come back. How long do you reckon that’ll last?

While on the subject of Twitter

Quran Dreams

Okay — so you know how people were impersonating brands on Twitter using $8 verification and driving all the advertisers off the platform? I was already manually blocking almost every account that used sponsored tweets, so now almost all the ads Twitter is serving me are ~wild~.

Recently this tweet advertising something called Quran Dreams got pushed to my feed as a sponsored post and it’s extremely my shit. It turns out there’s an entire playlist of Surahs illustrated with AI art which might be using the English translations of the text as prompts?

A year ago I wrote about people using text from the Bible as AI art generation prompts in wombo.art so it’s cool to see people doing this with the Quran as well.

Can you beat Skyrim without breaking the Ten Commandments?

These long videos about beating video games with extremely specific restrictions on play are super popular on YouTube. Usually they require just one big restriction that breaks the default assumptions of the game, like completing a run without ever killing anything.

In this one, YouTuber Authentic Animations ups the ante by attempting to complete the main story of the extremely murder-y, kleptomaniacal game Skyrim without breaking any of the Ten Commandments. Is it possible? Click here if you want to skip to the end and find out.

In the comments, Authentic Animations says:

Unsurprisingly, people have already managed to poke some holes in the rules I set up and the manner in which I obeyed them. … If I do another video like this, I'll try and put a lot more research to make my videos as biblically correct as possible!

St Paul, on pussy

Marguerite Perrin is still a God Warrior, but there’s more to the story

Two weeks ago I wrote about Justin Kirkland’s interview with gay icon Leslie Jordan after he released a Southern gospel album. Last week Justin tweeted about an article he wrote in 2019 for Esquire, which covers a perfect intersection of all my interests in internet culture, religion and queer stuff.

Justin interviews Marguerite Perrin, whose iconic ‘God Warrior’ meltdown on Trading Spouses is an enduring meme.

I encourage you to read the article instead of reading further here, but fair warning, I happened to read it at the pub and cried in public.

Marguerite’s eldest daughter Ashely (wearing the denim jacket in the video) tragically died in a car accident in 2007. Afterward, something amazing happened.

From Esquire:

After her daughter's death, Perrin remembers that even some of her closest friends didn't know how to bring it up to her, so they just didn't. In their stead, the gay community stepped in. Co-opting her as an online viral icon, gay men reached out with condolences and notes and flowers. "[The gay community] weren't scared to talk about me losing Ashley and saying I'm sorry to hear about that," she remembers. "I was pretending like I was happy and I was okay. They would not leave me alone. You couldn't help but talk to them and be okay with them. The people that write those little memes and do those little things, I love that. That's what got me out of bed after Ashley's death."

Marguerite ends up in New York City during Gay Pride, and even 12 years after her daughter’s death, a group of gay men approach her, giving their condolences and welcoming her to the city. Marguerite says, “If I was having my last supper, it’s going to be a variety of people sitting at my last table, okay?”

A good tweet

New Tales of Khayaal comics

Tales of Khayaal is a gorgeously illustrated Muslim futurist comic series set in the year 2073 in various parts of the Islamic world.

Last time I wrote about Tales of Khayaal only the first comic had been published, but now there are three new ones! Have a look!

You, too, can be Jesus Christ

I thought it had been released already, but according to IGN the Jesus simulator ‘I am Jesus Christ’ is being released in December. Or at least the first part is. I don’t know. Much like Jesus himself, I have heard it is coming soon for years but it’s yet to happen.

In this official trailer, you can see Jesus summon a plank of wood out of thin air (carpentry!) and teleport into the bloodstream of a young boy to heal him. I still think it’s weird Jesus has a mana bar.

Taylor Swift Jake joke

Taylor Swift’s concert tickets are very difficult to acquire, and everyone is posting about them. My friend Jake made this joke on Instagram about the situation. It’s very Modern Relics.

But then? It got a response from the woman herself.

No tickets though.

Lastly, Mariah Carey is not the only Queen of Christmas

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has rejected Mariah Carey’s attempt to trademark the title “Queen of Christmas”. It’s weird, because Mariah rejected the moniker not 12 months ago in an interview, saying the only Queen of Christmas is the Virgin Mary.