This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** Today is the birthday of one of my favorite British writers, Dorothy L. Sayers. The Oxford educated author, translator, and literary critic insisted on the L., as she was nothing if not a stickler for detail. You may be generally aware of Sayers’ existence — more likely so if you have a library card, a Britbox subscription, or enjoy the sort of detective fiction that Rian Johnson has been ripping off for his “Knives Out” movies. These stories tend to have a much smaller number of deaths (and less grotesque ones) than the American “true crime” genre. The investigators, such as Sayers’ iconic creation Lord Peter Wimsey, are marked more for their wit, banter, and understanding of human nature than their devotion to forensics. If you are a Christian, you may know Sayers as someone who, while not a member of the infamous men-only Inklings, was a close friend of some of its members, including C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams. But that friendship did not include her Oxford graduating classmate J.R.R. Tolkien, who confessed that he “loathed” her books, finding her depictions of sexuality hedonistic. In “Strong Poison,” when she introduces her own stand-in romantic interest of Harriet Vane, Wimsey is weighing the pros and cons of pursuing the woman: “She has a sense of humor … and brains … life wouldn’t be dull. One would wake up, and there would be a whole day full of jolly things to do. And then we would come home and go to bed … and that would be jolly too.” That was a bit too much for Tolkien in 1930, but then no one (at least no one normal) reads Tolkien for his takes on sex. If you’re a true nerd, you may even know Sayers as a founding member of the renowned Detection Club, whose first members included Agatha Christie and whose first president was G.K. Chesterton. She famously authored the oath to be sworn over a skull by its invite-only members: “Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence or Act of God?” She would go on to curate great collections of detective fiction published by some of the top writers in the field. What you may not know is that Sayers’ life outside of the world of British mystery writing was often stacked with personal drama. Prior to the publication of her first novel, she gave birth to a son out of wedlock, having discovered belatedly the father in question was married. She gave the baby up for fostering and never acknowledged him as her own. The daughter of a vicar, she behaved like nothing of the sort, despite her Christian faith. She loved to smoke and drink and ride her motorcycle, and as an advertising writer in the 1930s, she created the famed Guinness toucan, the ads for which you’ll still find hanging around your Irish local pub. What certainly deserves to be known and appreciated more about her is that Sayers’ unique life and experience gave her an understanding of human nature that proved prescient for our day and age, and particularly for the fractious relationship between modern men and women. You can find this throughout her work, but its best distillation is a speech given nearly a century ago to a women’s society in 1938, which you can find published in full in the collection “Are Women Human?” She opens her remarks by saying that she is unsure about the very word “feminism,” and that “under present conditions, an aggressive feminism might do more harm than good.” As she explained in the context of her university experience: Take, for example, the very usual reproach that women nowadays always want to “copy what men do.” In that reproach there is a great deal of truth and a great deal of sheer, unmitigated and indeed quite wicked nonsense … That battle was won, and rightly won, for women. But there is a sillier side to the university education of women. I have noticed lately, and with regret, a tendency on the part of the women’s colleges to “copy the men” on the side of their failings and absurdities, and this is not so good … The women students, too, have a foolish trick of imitating and outdoing the absurdities of male undergraduates. To climb in drunk after hours and get gated is silly and harmless if done out of pure high spirits; if it is done “because the men do it,” it is worse than silly, because it is not spontaneous and not even amusing. You can read the entire speech here. The conclusion of Sayers’ argument has always struck me as stunning for how much it reflects the tensions between the sexes that endures today: Indeed, it is my experience that both men and women are fundamentally human, and that there is very little mystery about either sex, except the exasperating mysteriousness of human beings in general. And though for certain purposes it may still be necessary, as it undoubtedly was in the immediate past, for women to band themselves together, as women, to secure recognition of their requirements as a sex, I am sure that the time has now come to insist more strongly on each woman’s — and indeed each man’s — requirements as an individual person. It used to be said that women had no esprit de corps; we have proved that we have — do not let us run into the opposite error of insisting that there is an aggressively feminist “point of view” about everything. To oppose one class perpetually to another — young against old, manual labour against brain-worker, rich against poor, woman against man — is to split the foundations of the State; and if the cleavage runs too deep, there remains no remedy but force and dictatorship. If you wish to preserve a free democracy, you must base it — not on classes and categories, for this will land you in the totalitarian State, where no one may act or think except as the member of a category. You must base it upon the individual Tom, Dick, and Harry, on the individual Jack and Jill — in fact, upon you and me. This is the warning we in the West should heed today. The anti-relational musings of the chattering class, the grinding down or caricaturization of masculinity, the runaway scared memes of whether a man or a bear in the woods is more dangerous to a woman — all represent in their deepest level a collectivist vision of sex. This inhuman vision, advocated for by voices on the Right and Left today, is not just a danger to our pursuit of happiness. They are a danger to individual freedom itself. This is not idle talk. Recognize it for what it is: the seeds of Western suicide. Dorothy L. Sayers did. So should you.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** Not since iconic illustrator Norman Rockwell has anyone captured American life as vividly and poetically as Ralph Lauren. What made Lauren distinct among his peers was that the subject of his designs, of his deep admiration and fascination, was his country. His fashion immortalized and honored the many archetypes of American culture, from the sportsman and the cowboy to the sailor and the Ivy League prepster. Therefore, it was absolutely fitting that the U.S. Postal Service chose Ralph Lauren to curate a full stamp collection for America’s 250th birthday, the first such private collaboration in its history.  On Tuesday, I attended the first day-of-issue ceremony for Ralph Lauren’s stamps in Midtown Manhattan. Originally Ralph Lipschutz, Lauren forged his brand, and these stamps, from a place of deep gratitude for the homeland that allowed him to aspire to greatness despite coming from a modest Jewish household in the Bronx. From Lauren’s personal archives, the images printed on the stamps are, of course, open to interpretation. But it’s clear the intention was to evoke the timeless values that America has cherished since her inception. The pickup truck represents hard work and humility. The cheeseburger means community and national pride. The Jackie Robinson baseball glove symbolizes equality and competition. The wild horses conjure up pioneers and manifest destiny. These are simple yet powerful vignettes. Not merely stickers for mailing envelopes, they together make up our national DNA, packaging the ideals that have sustained us for 250 years. They convey the unique qualities that French political philosopher Alexander de Tocqueville marveled at when he visited the United States in the 1830s: the dynamism of our civil society, our entrepreneurial drive, and the way we jealously safeguard our freedom even amid difficult tests, while never forgetting our scrappy roots going back to 1776. The lighthouse signifies the guidance, specifically from the divine but also those principles enshrined in our founding documents, that has kept America on a fruitful and free path. The sailboat stamp nods to the thrilling race it is to be a part of America, especially in our industries and new commercial developments.  For Lauren, celebrating America’s survival over two centuries is personal. His work demonstrates that he believes he is a truly blessed beneficiary of such a city on a hill. He is unafraid to express that in his garments and in his philanthropy, no matter how cultural winds may change in any given year. This isn’t a new theme in his life, either. In 1998, Lauren spearheaded the preservation of the original 1813 Star-Spangled Banner. Through a multimillion-dollar donation, his company funded the Smithsonian Institution conservation project to stabilize the historic Fort McHenry flag, ensuring it remains on permanent display in Washington, D.C. The 13th and centerpiece stamp of the collection is an image of a knitted American flag that Lauren designed from scratch, with the writing “1776. 2026. USA Forever.”  After the ceremony, I popped over to the Upper East Side to pick up my stamp purchase in person at the Ralph Lauren flagship on Madison Avenue. Every corner of Lauren’s retail locations across the country is spectacularly curated with Americana maximalism that makes you feel like you’re stepping into an old-school general store, an auto shop, an Army surplus outpost, and a Hamptons boutique all at once. Lauren’s genius is that he pays homage to many different flavors of American society, both elevated and down-to-earth. While obviously high-end in price tag and showcased on glamorous runways, Ralph Lauren makes every season feel like an American renaissance, hailing the rugged blue-collar and the country club, the military and the polo field, the ranch and the tennis court, and the Native American tribe and the cigar bar. Lauren has outfitted our athletes at multiple Olympic Games, our Hollywood stars on their red carpets, and millions of Americans, making their treasured pieces into heirlooms. And through his aesthetic prowess, Lauren has evangelized the American spirit to places, from China to the United Kingdom, that should be reminded why our nation is beautiful not just in topography but in customs, character, and creed.  For America’s semi-quincentennial, we can now adorn our letters with poignant and classic symbols of our monumental heritage. After a storied career, 86-year-old Ralph Lauren should rest in the knowledge that he built an empire that gave so many citizens a creative language to articulate what it means to be American through wardrobe. His whole life has been a love letter to America. *** Caroline Downey is a columnist and video personality at National Review. She is also a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum and a 2025-2026 Novak fellow with the Fund for American Studies.

This summer has been anything but normal in La La Land. Two indie horror films, one made for less than $1 million, are crushing the box office. A Steven Spielberg film about aliens visiting Earth can only dream of catching up. The same holds for a film franchise “in a galaxy far, far away.” Nothing makes sense in Hollywood now, and that might be the best news possible for a flailing industry and audiences hoping for more voices, not fewer. The Old Guard is fading to black. Enter the New Guard, weaned on YouTube and ready to tell fresh stories that connect with Gen Z. Take director Curry Barker. The 26-year-old isn’t a household name like Spielberg, unless you live on YouTube. Barker cut his teeth on the platform, delivering viral hits like the creepy “Milk & Serial,” an hour-long found-footage film no studio would touch. That convinced Hollywood to let him direct his first feature, “Obsession,” about a lovestruck man granted one powerful wish: Make the girl of his dreams fall in love with him. It works, and that’s when the macabre elements rush in. The micro-indie opened to a solid $17 million in U.S. theaters, but it just kept growing. The film made significantly more money in its subsequent two weekends, a feat that doesn’t happen without adding movie screens. As of June 11, the film snuck back to reclaim the top box office slot nearly a month after it opened (May 15). Once again, that simply doesn’t happen. But it did. And its worldwide total as of mid-June is north of $240 million. Hollywood already handed Barker the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” franchise to revive. More gigs will follow, with one studio waving a $10 million check in front of him to do something, anything, for them. Here’s betting Kane Parsons will get similar offers. The 20-year-old director also flexed his storytelling chops on his YouTube channel (Kane Pixels), building on creepy stories that lurk across digital platforms like 4chan. The result? “Backrooms,” which opened to $81 million stateside. That comes on the heels of an early 2026 hit, “Iron Lung.” Once more, a neophyte director weaned on YouTube. Mark Fischbach, AKA Markiplier, wrote, edited, directed, and starred in a sci-fi/horror film that earned a stunning $40 million on a $3 million budget. As if 2026 couldn’t get any more unpredictable, there’s “The Amazing Digital Circus.” The Australian animated series debuted the final two episodes of its first season in select theaters. That release, subtitled “The Last Act,” briefly topped the box office and ended its debut weekend with more than $20 million. All for two TV-like episodes set to debut in less than a month, for free, on YouTube. We shouldn’t be shocked, though. The show’s pilot episode has generated 440 million views on the platform to date. These films did more than just wildly overperform; they let YouTube storytellers have their say. They brought Gen Z back to theaters in droves. That’s what’s been missing in recent years. Something blamed on a generational shift, short attention spans, and a dearth of compelling content. And it took a new guard of storytellers to make it happen. Now, imagine this stunning success complemented by older, more established franchises and iconic directors. Except it’s not working out that way. “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” the first new “Star Wars” feature since 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker,” is underperforming. Badly. The film is laboring to crack the $300 million mark at the global box office, a fraction of what a “Star Wars” movie should earn. For comparison, “The Rise of Skywalker” brought in $1 billion worldwide, and that film got skewered by franchise fans. The least successful “Star Wars” film in the modern era, “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” brought in $392 million in 2018. And then there’s the man who gave us “Jaws,” “Jurassic Park” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Spielberg’s new film, “Disclosure Day,” lets the Oscar winner revisit his most popular theme — aliens. The thriller stars Emily Blunt, Colin Firth, and Colman Domingo, and early reviews are promising — north of 80 percent “fresh” at RottenTomatoes.com. Yet the film is expected to earn roughly $35 million in its opening weekend in the U.S. Mediocre word of mouth could sink the film, and fast. Once upon a time, a new Spielberg film felt like a cultural event, one that couldn’t be missed. That’s especially true for his summer-style features. Not anymore. Then there’s Clint Eastwood. The actor-director just turned 96, and various media reports suggest he’s either retired or hasn’t decided yet. Either way, the Hollywood legend has earned the right to sit back and marvel at his magnificent film legacy. There won’t be another star like him, maybe ever. Hollywood is in flux, and the new kids are in charge. It could also lead to more voices being heard and movie studios losing their iron grip on content. After all, technology is breaking down the barriers between artist and studio. Someone can shoot a movie on their iPhone and edit it on any number of cheap but powerful tools. Plus, Fischbach self-distributed “Iron Lung,” bypassing the Hollywood gatekeepers — the same gatekeepers who often make sure select stories and voices aren’t heard on screen. We know which ones. That won’t be the case for much longer. The new, emerging Hollywood isn’t just saving the theatrical experience. It’s opening cinema up to fresh new ideas and, eventually, to more voices than ever before. *** Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic, and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. He’s also the host of The Hollywood in Toto Podcast. Follow him at @HollywoodInToto. 

The internet and streaming platforms haven’t just left a mark on Hollywood-style entertainment; the sports industry has felt the waves: a rushing tide that swept up cable behemoths like ESPN and publications like Sports Illustrated — even newspapers such as The Washington Post no longer carry separate sports sections. In just a few years, the industry that cultivated and created stars turned to the internet to recruit them. This is one of many changes to an ecosystem that dominates an increasing share of Americans’ time and attention each year, judging by NFL viewership numbers alone. Gambling, fantasy leagues, college transfer portals, and media startups have contributed to an evolution in sports and are the topics of discussion for DW’s Weekend Punch interview with Outkick founder, Fox News contributor, and Tennessee die-hard fan Clay Travis. *** Ben Domenech: Obviously, you have just achieved something pretty significant when it comes to the world of sports media with OutKick. You were one of the OG people to recognize the space that existed that wasn’t being filled. How do you think about that sports media landscape now, and what do you think is different when you started OutKick? Clay Travis: Good question. When we started OutKick, there was much more of a written marketplace for original content. If you remember back in those days, you might go to Deadspin, you might go to Grantland, or Kissing Suzy Kolber. It was the heyday of interesting written content that was being produced on a regular basis. That doesn’t really exist now. The blogosphere was still a thing. Video hadn’t completely taken over, and everybody didn’t have one-minute social media clips that they were being inundated with on TikTok, Instagram, or even Twitter, where the virality has all gone video. I still think much of the news cycle was dictated by what people wrote rather than what people said. That’s the biggest thing I see as different in the marketplace right now compared to when we started. BD: When you see the landscape now, what are you surprised by in terms of either the success or the failure of the worldwide leader to adapt to the changing cultural moment and priorities of fans? CT: It used to be the case that ESPN made stars. And I actually think ESPN is now reflective of the larger marketplace. Other than maybe Fox News and maybe Netflix, I’m not sure anyone makes stars anymore, other than the internet and maybe YouTube, but you don’t have big media companies that deputize you and say, “You are now a star.” One of my favorite stories back in the day was right before the show “Friends” made its debut. The entire cast went out together in Las Vegas, and one of the show’s creators was there with them and said, “This will be the last time that you guys can go out to dinner for the rest of your lives.” And you are going to be on after “Seinfeld,” you’re going on NBC, it’s a sitcom that everyone is going to see, and you are going to go from normal people to luminescent stars overnight. That kind of world doesn’t exist. You can see it in the rise of Pat McAfee, where ESPN had to go hire people who were already famous. You can see it in the success that the Barstool guys have had. I still think of myself as a guy who came out of the internet, and you have to compete against everybody when you come out of the internet. You don’t get deputized, and someone doesn’t say, “Oh, this guy’s going to matter because we’re putting him on a show and there are very limited numbers of shows.” In fact, it’s kind of a fun question. Who is the last person in sports media to become famous from television? It used to be that you would find a Stephen A. Smith or a Michael Wilbon or a Tony Kornheiser columnist —  people who had had an opportunity to write, did radio, and then you put them on television. That pathway doesn’t seem to exist for ESPN other than maybe, again, Fox News and Netflix. BD: We’ve just seen the takeover of Hollywood and the box office by two creators in the horror space who came out of YouTube. Do you think at some point there will be a similar crossover effect from these YouTube personalities to a greater degree than it’s already happened, or are they their own animals and will stay within that lane just because of the nature of what they do? CT: I think if you can make money, Hollywood and every other media company is going to find ways to make money more than they otherwise would. For example, I’m utterly fascinated that Star Wars, which has been popular since 1977, was dominated by two YouTube guys, even though Star Wars obviously had a 50-year head start on them in terms of recognizing the marketplace. And so I think what it represents is every generation wants to find its new people, and I think YouTube is more experimental, and when you’re more experimental, you can find out what works quicker than a lot of big companies can. If they’re totally wrong, they lose hundreds of millions of dollars. If a YouTuber is totally wrong, they might lose a few hundred thousand dollars. And so the scale of success is massive for them, but the risk that’s put on the table is tiny, and most big companies have the reverse. BD: Let’s talk about those big companies. They’ve made huge bets on sports rights across the board, rights that are continually getting more expensive. Those costs are being passed on to consumers. You testified about this on Capitol Hill. What is the actual solution that doesn’t require some kind of breakup or major disruption that would be difficult for the marketplace to handle? Or is that something that’s going to have to happen if we’re ever going to get back to a point where people can afford to watch as many games as they want? CT: What surprised me is the degree to which Republicans and Democrats across the political spectrum were furious with what NFL games cost now. The NFL is very popular and powerful, but there definitely seems to be the sense that fans are being gouged and that anger over affordability and access is also declining. I think this is a bad combination for the NFL. It’s funny, I have said for some time — and I think it’s probably going to end up being the reality of where we end up — that somebody’s going to try to put together a bundle of streaming services, which just recreates what we had when we had the bundle of cable channels, and it was a great deal. Everybody with one remote control could sit and watch every game. You could jump from one to another. I have argued for a long time that fans really didn’t understand how good we had it back then. If you compare the fan experience watching games to 2012, for instance, back when we started OutKick, I think it was way better. It was way easier to find your favorite teams. It was way more affordable. The analogy I used in my testimony earlier this week on Capitol Hill was this: I’m sure you remember the first flat-screen television that you bought, which was crazy expensive. It had HD. It revolutionized the sports viewing experience. I was at Costco the other day. You can buy a massive flat-screen television for $700. So we have higher-quality television at a much more affordable price. Meanwhile, you’re paying way, way more for the sporting rights, and you’re getting much less. And again, that’s a bad combination. BD: In terms of the decision that the NFL has made to go in all these different directions, particularly to require setting up their own coverage, their own teams, and their own announcers. And then of course, you add the overseas product and their hopes for extending the game around the world, which is getting bigger and bigger. Do you think that they’re risking diluting a product, or is the NFL just so big that they can do whatever the hell they want? CT: They do risk diluting a product in some sense. In September, I’m very excited. I’ve got Thursday football, Friday football, Saturday football, Sunday football, and Monday football. And then after a few weeks, I’m thinking, “Man, I don’t really care that much about Monday Night Football.” It used to be that when you just had Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, Monday Night Football was really a big deal. Now it’s not to that same extent. That’s a challenge for the NFL going forward in maximizing revenue without oversaturating the marketplace. BD: The NFL has decided to embrace gambling — I’ve heard the first radio ads for betting on prediction markets this week, and they’re essentially described that way, which surprised me a little bit. Do you think there’s any risk of going too far in that direction of making the game seem more disposable because fans are less devoted to their teams in a way that echoes what happened to the NBA? Or where people just don’t care about their teams anymore — they just care about stars? CT: It’s what the fantasy football world has created. For instance, my kids want to watch every game, and they have an incentive to do so. I do think the game itself can be threatened when you’re allowing prop bets to become too much of a storyline because players certainly can be corrupted, as we’ve seen, and the overall game itself can risk being bogged down by not whether someone performs at the absolute highest level or even whether a team wins, but whether someone scores a touchdown or makes a reception. And I do think the gamification of the game itself does lead to monetization, but I think you have to remain aware that the game is still the primary story, not how individual players perform. BD: Senator Ted Cruz has a bipartisan bill that is advancing, which is pretty rare for him. On the question of reform for college sports, they describe it as saving college sports. It does many different things that have generated controversy, not necessarily among the people who you would think would be politically on one side or the other. What is your particular take, and do you think that this would be a step forward or would create so much complexity that it would be very difficult for the different schools, the different institutions, and teams to adapt? CT: The number one thing they have to have is an antitrust exemption. You can just look at what happened with Brendan Sorsby versus Texas Tech. You can’t have individual federal district court judges making default policy rules for different teams in Texas compared to Florida, California, or Michigan. Everybody has to play by a uniform rule. Right now, every time you try to put a uniform rule in place, a player who is disadvantaged by that rule sues. It used to be that college athletes like Maurice Clarett sued to get to the NFL faster. Now guys sue to be able to stay in college longer. The second-highest paid basketball league in the world, after the NBA, is college basketball. So all the best European players actually want to play college basketball. Illinois effectively had an Eastern European All-Star squad and nearly won the national championship with it. So you do have to figure out basic rules. How many years can somebody play? How many years can they transfer and give an organization or entity the ability to put those rules in place? What Ted Cruz presents with the SCORE Act — figuring out how to get something that can pass both the House and the Senate that just has a very basic framework to allow rules to be put in place — is going to be necessary. The absence of any rules themselves at some point is leading to such a chaotic situation that college sports are on a sort of runaway train. Do you remember “The Polar Express”? There’s a scene in that movie where the train track runs out, and the train hits the ice and starts to spin in every different direction, and you’re like, “What in the world’s going to happen here?” I think we’ve reached the point where the train track has run out, and we’ve got a train on ice, and we really don’t have any idea how to control it or where it’s headed. BD: When it comes to your recommendations for our European friends who are navigating the country right now during the World Cup, what’s something that those folks who are trying to go viral haven’t checked out yet? CT: That they saw Buc-ee’s is pretty crazy. Somebody tweeted that Lionel Messi played in College Station before the University of Georgia did. I’m sure you saw that they brought out the War Eagle at Auburn for the Iceland versus Argentina game, if I remember correctly. It’s wild. I think the sheer immensity of America, when it comes to places, just walking into a Publix and looking at how many different types of peanut butter we have. I just think that the European mind doesn’t comprehend how much incredible excess we have. There’s that great stat where the British were actually told how poor they were compared to the poorest American states, and they just really had no understanding or comprehension of that. BD: What’s the most underrated storyline in sports media today? CT: The degree to which there aren’t very many successful sports media companies, period. right? There was a time when ESPN employed a lot of people who worked on ESPN.com. Hunter S. Thompson used to write at ESPN.com. — Bill Simmons. I started talking with you about the lack of writers. It used to be that writers drove content conversation and discussion in a significant way. There’s almost no one writing interesting opinion pieces now, and I think sports media suffers as a result. BD: Should we feel happy for Timothée Chalamet, or has he led a life that is so charmed that we are allowed to hate him for being so happy? CT: It reminds me of how today’s young Boston sports fans have won so many championships, creating an embarrassment of riches, which is such a dichotomy between everyone else. If you grew up from 1950 to 2000, Boston won almost nothing. If you were born after 1990 or 2000, all you’ve seen is Boston win. The guy’s got everything going for him and doesn’t seem to be wearing too many stresses on his shoulders.

Weekend Plans is our exclusive lifestyle feature where we highlight the real off-duty routines of the most exciting people in culture.  *** This weekend, current Miss Israel and 2025 Miss Universe contestant Melanie Shiraz sits down with The Daily Wire to dish on her viral run-in with Zohran Mamdani’s wife, where she really gets her “chutzpah,” and why this data scientist and self-described metal head is just trying to bake a decent loaf of challah and change the world.  *** We settle in for our chat as Melanie Shiraz pulls her long dark hair into a slick pony. She recently returned to her digs on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, where she serves “off duty” in an oversized Humble Club tee from the Tel Aviv gym launched by former IDF combat instructors and wears a bold silver pendant boasting the Hebrew “chai” symbol for “life.” I give up trying to adjust my laptop for a semi-flattering selfie angle. Melanie’s one of those people who could totally rely on her looks. But after going viral for bumping into socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, at a Brooklyn café in May, she has clearly found her voice. “What are the odds that a very vocal representative of Israel and a very vocal representative of the other side, even though she’s not Palestinian, would be sitting right next to one another?” Melanie wonders.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Melanie Shiraz Asor / מלאני שירז עשור (@melanieshiraz) Rama, who had previously liked social media posts supporting the October 7 terror attacks, had no idea what she was in for when she sat down next to Melanie, who was just grabbing a coffee.  “Haters want to say that I came all the way to New York to stalk her, but I was actually in New York for 24 hours because I was hosting the State of Israel,” she recalls. “It’s not on brand for me to be harassing anyone in public, no matter what their views are. So I didn’t just open my camera … I said, ‘Hi, I’m Melanie. I’d love to take a picture with you.’” Once Melanie identified herself as Miss Israel, Rama’s amicable demeanor changed. Melanie switched off the camera, hoping to engage in a conversation. “I told her, ‘As an Israeli, I was quite disappointed by seeing the rhetoric that you are promoting online … Have you heard from a lot of Israelis?’” Melanie says Rama brushed her off with, “‘Yeah, I know a lot of Israelis,’” and left. “She communicated exactly where she stands and who she is,” Melanie says. I ask Melanie where she gets her fearless spirit. “It’s the Israeli chutzpah that I’ve been endowed with generationally,” she says with a smile. “Israeli women are known to be very fierce, very strong, and very strong-minded. They can be engineers or combat soldiers and be Miss Israel. It’s just such a normal thing.” Melanie was born in Israel, and she spent most of her childhood in the U.S. before returning to Tel Aviv. The outspoken pageant champ and data scientist who launched her own fintech company assures me, “I have always been a critical thinker.”  Here’s what she’s up to when she’s not fighting for the truth.  Off-the-clock reigning queen “Nobody ever asks me about my personal life,” Melanie laughs. “Being Miss Israel is like an alter ego for me. Before, I never had anything colorful in my closet, I didn’t have any fancy dresses, I didn’t have heels, jewelry — literally none of that.”  Claiming she had to learn to walk in sky-high heels and accessorize with glimmering jewelry, she describes her true personality as more rock ‘n’ roll. “I like rock music. I have a motorcycle, which is my favorite means of transportation.” “I’m an adrenaline junkie kind of person,” she shares, noting her love of scuba diving. “Nowadays, I wouldn’t say that those things contradict being a beauty queen. I think a woman can be anything, and beautiful, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” Melanie Shiraz A rejuvenating daily routine We already know Melanie likes her coffee. But as for her favorite way to start the day, she says, “I just like to get moving. When I’m in Israel, it’s really easy because it’s so beautiful outside that I’ll just go out for a walk and see where the day takes me.” “Something that I used to do pretty regularly is singing, painting, and drawing,” she adds. When she’s hoping to refresh her spirit, she jumps on her motorcycle, or gets back on the horse. Literally. “I’m not a horseback rider of any caliber, but I do really like to be outside with animals … just in nature in general.” “There’s just not enough time in a day to do all of the things that I like to do,” she admits. “But I’m trying to carve out more time for my own mental health.” Invoking the smell of fresh-baked bread “I can cook,” Melanie tells me. “I wouldn’t say I have time to cook most days.” That checks out since she’s battling jet lag as we speak. “I started baking challah every Friday, believe it or not,” she shares. “It’s like the only thing I do every week.” With its sweet, chewy braids, challah is God’s greatest gift to bread lovers, Jewish or not. “It’s like a ritual that allows me to decompress and focus on something else for a few hours every Shabbat.” I ask for her recipe, but she laughs and says, “It’s still a work in progress … it didn’t come out bad the last couple of times.” (I guess I’m sticking with Claire Saffitz’s version for now.) A safe space to be herself While a packed schedule is par for the course, Melanie snags any chance to chill with the right people. “It’s really nice to just sit down and speak candidly with friends and hear about things that are not related to the conflict all the time,” she says. “I think it’s become somewhat of a luxury for me lately.” Grateful for a close circle of longtime pals, she adds, “If it’s up to me, we’ll go out in Tel Aviv, go to the beach, or listen to live music.”  She also looks forward to downtime with her family. “I feel like Shabbat is the one day a week that I actually force myself to rest,” she explains. “I don’t turn off my electronics, but it’s nice to just not work.”  I ask how she feels about a one-day weekend, having lived in the U.S. and Israel. “I think that’s something Americans can learn from Israelis,” she confirms. “No one in Israel will ever assign you work on Shabbat. It’s unheard of. You could laugh at them if they do that. Our weekend is shorter by a whole day, yet I find it so much more rejuvenating.” Turning it up to an eleven “Do I want to come out as a metal head right now?” Melanie jokes, attempting to nail down her varied musical tastes to a specific genre. “I’m listening to Bring Me the Horizon and Spiritbox.” (If you get a chance to see either the British rock band or Canadian metal band in concert, wear eyeliner.)  Offering what she calls a more “normative” response, Melanie reveals another track she’s playing on repeat. “The song stuck in my head right now is definitely Israel’s Eurovision song ‘Michelle.’” The emotional ballad by Israeli singer-songwriter Noam Bettan that ultimately earned second place in the contest is decidedly not metal. And partly in French. “I don’t know French, so it’s just me saying the word ‘Michelle’ and singing the rest of the melody for the last three weeks.” When she’s not listening to music, she’s reading — or thinking about it. “I’ve been really, really wanting to pick up a book,” she says. She’s got Yuval Noah Harari’s “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” on her list next. A meditation on the moment After the October 7 attacks, Melanie realized her greatest impact would be in advocating for Israel rather than working in fintech. But the decision still weighs heavily on her heart. “I had a six-figure job before this. I had a company that raised money when I was 23. I was really doing everything right,” she says. “I think a lot of people struggle to understand why I would give that all up for something that’s uncertain. When I look back, even with all the challenges I have faced for doing this, it has also been priceless to me.” “We all have to work as a collective to better the world, both as Jews, as Israelis, as people standing for women, as people standing for justice in the Middle East and beyond,” she adds. “I think that we all have to amplify one another and support one another, rather than comparing what we have that others don’t, or what others have that we don’t.” Describing a clarity and hopefulness about the future, she says, “I am where I need to be. I’m serving and advocating for my people. It has been the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done in my life.”