This week, a 21-year-old Norwegian tourist named Mads Mikkelsen was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Newark Airport, and the most important part of the story is NOT that there’s another guy named Mads Mikkelsen. The most important part of the story is that Mikkelsen claims he was detained and eventually returned to Norway at least in part because of an image CBP agents found on his phone, which is this doctored photo of JD Vance.

Upon his return to Norway, Mikkelsen gave an interview to local newspaper Nordlys, saying that CBP agents threatened him with a $5,000 fine if he did not unlock his phone and allow them to scroll through his photos, and when they saw this hilarious and unsettling image, that was the last straw. The story spread far and wide, and CBP felt the need to address the situation on social media.

“Fact Check: FALSE,” they X’d, “Mads Mikkelsen was not denied entry for any memes or political reasons, it was for his admitted drug use.”

Indeed, there was also allegedly a photo of Mads holding a wooden weed pipe, and the official charge was “suspicion of drug smuggling,” even though he had no narcotics on him. Also, “drug smuggling” in Norwegian is “narcotikasmugling,” which is not important but is pretty fucking cool.

Because the CBP chose to address the story publicly rather than let it blow over, the JD Vance meme has been on the front page of European newspapers and websites all week long, which is the dumbest and funniest and most obvious possible outcome. It is proof that people in power do not understand the Streisand Effect.

The Streisand Effect refers to the phenomenon in which many thousands of people have the same false memory, specifically that Barbra Streisand died in a South African prison. Wait, no, that’s the Mandela Effect. There is also the Shazam Effect, in which many thousands of ’90s kids swear they saw a movie of that name with Sinbad in the title role, even though we all have IMdB now and know that movie never happened. Shaquille O’Neal was in a movie called Ka’Zaam, and then later there actually were two Shazam movies, but nobody remembers those due to the Zachary Levi Effect, which is the phenomenon where you can look at Zachary Levi and forget him at the same time.

No, the Streisand Effect refers to the very dumb thing people do when they want you to stop talking about something, which is to tell you not to talk about it, but in telling you not to talk about it, they themselves talk about it, which leads more people to find out about it, and then those people talk about it. It gets its name from Barbra Streisand’s lawyers having sued a California government agency, because in an aerial photograph on a section of their website about the effects of coastal erosion, Streisand’s Malibu home is visible. The lawsuit got the story into the news, and the attempt to censor the photo had the paradoxical effect of widely disseminating the photo. Prior to the lawsuit, the photo had been viewed six times, four of those by Streisand’s lawyers. Since the suit, it has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. It is in fact the lead image on the Wikipedia page for the Streisand Effect, which at least for me came up as the first suggestion when I typed S-T-R-E, before even Barbra Streisand herself.

I think guys like JD Vance and whoever is in charge of social media at CBP refuse to learn about the Streisand Effect because they think knowing anything about Barbra Streisand will make them look gay. But whatever the reason, now this image of JD Vance is everywhere, and this story ensures that it forever shall be. It reveals Vance’s weird, sweaty soul better than 272 pages of Hillbilly Elegy ever could. It will be in the museums of the future, if we end up having museums and a future. I love it.

“Stoney End” – Barbra Streisand

And now some more of the news and the noise of this week.

“davina mccall” – Wet Leg

From the upcoming second Wet Leg album, a song named for the original host of the UK Big Brother. The 27th season of Big Brother U.S. premieres on CBS on July 10, which is great news for the show’s fan base of “everyone in my life who I have mixed feelings about.”

”I Wanna Be Your Lover” – La Bionda

Italo Disco is all the rage at the moment, because some track or another from Mind Enterprises is blowing up on TikTok. This makes me happy for the kids. Italo Disco truly is the perfect genre for summertime. It’s campy and absolutely sincere and refreshing like a Select Spritz (true Italians know you go with Select instead of Aperol, and I know that because I visited there once). Mind Enterprises is all well and good, but I suggest going back to the original trailblazers, La Bionda

“Hot in Herre” – Nelly

I am writing this in my hometown of St. Louis, where my nephew Danny is getting married this weekend. It is 95 degrees as I write this, and it is also very humid, so the real feel temperature is You Are a Large Bowl of Queso. Nelly is a local hero in St. Louis, and this is his song about heat, specifically about how heat should make you be naked. Do you remember the show Hit Me One More Time? It was on NBC around twenty years ago, and it was all about vintage artists reuniting and doing covers of what were then current songs, which are now vintage songs. Wang Chung did “Hot In Herre,” and obviously it is not available on streaming, so this video is a NoiseWeek EXCLUSIVE. If you ever wondered what “Hot In Herre” would sound like if Alan Richman were shouting it at you, wonder no more.

”Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News” – Mabel King

So we dropped bombs over the Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend, and it doesn’t look like we did too much damage to anything but our own reputations. Reports indicate that we only set their nuclear program back by a few months, but the president is not trying to hear that. He stands by his initial assessment that we “obliterated” the site, he’s sent poor Pete Hegseth out to parrot that talking point, and some U.S. military social media account posted a video of the bombs exploding, to the tune of “America Fuck Yeah” from Team America: World Police, which proves that these guys understand neither The Streisand Effect nor the message of Team America: World Police.

I want it to be known that when I got the push notification that the United States had dropped bombs over Iran, I was hosting a dog fashion show. Ernie won, due in large part to a standout look in the Sportswear category.

”Summer” – Buffalo Tom

Proof that a summer song can also be angsty and bubbling with regret.

”I Had a Dream” – Long Ryders

Hard not to miss New York City this week, with Zohran Mamdani winning the Democratic mayoral primary. Always nice when, “We can do and have nice things,” resonates as a message. Incidentally, probably also good news for new SNL castmember Emil Wakim.

”Jesus Etc” – Wilco

I do have to say, Donald Trump in the immediate aftermath of Operation Midnight Hammer saying “I want to thank everyone, and in particular God” made me laugh out loud. Dude’s got the juice.

”Home Sweet Home” – Motley Crue featuring Dolly Parton

Motley Crue are back with another greatest-hits compilation, From The Beginning, this autumn, and they are probably kicking themselves for never having named anything “Operation Midnight Hammer.” This week, Vince Neil went back and forth on X with a model whom fans have clocked as almost definitely AI. Delicious. Long ago, I bought their memoir The Dirt and read it in an afternoon. I then lent it to a friend, on the condition that he never, ever return it. That book has a dark energy I do not want inside my home.

But even they cannot taint Dolly.

And now, a question from a reader. submitted via Instagram:

@sketchieesethie asks: “What is our obsession with And Just Like That? Why do we love this terrible show?”

I think it’s because it is mesmerizingly off-putting? Or maybe because every element of it is exactly wrong? Or that they’ve taken characters that we love and have bonded with, and they have put them in a city that is not only not recognizably New York City, it’s not recognizably anywhere, and into situations that feel like they were generated by an AI chatbot that you’ve trained to hate you? I don’t know. But I have genuinely found myself wondering what Che Diaz is up to.

“Montauk (Recorded Live To No One)” – Matt Sucich

The good news is it’s made me go back to the original Sex and the City. I’m on the one where they go to the Hamptons and Charlotte gets crabs from Anson Mount.

“Drops of Jupiter” – Train

Like you, I did that The New York Times ten favorite movies of the 21st century thing, and though there is some definite recency bias, I stand by my choices. This is also just a good opportunity to remind you to watch Other People, a movie that will make you cry like an infant. Other People weaves this song through the story in an absolutely perfect way, because writer and director Chris Kelly knows what’s up: This is both the worst song ever recorded and one that in the right conditions will get you all the way up in your feelings.

“Only The Lonely” – Josh Rouse

To leave you on Train would be cruel, so here’s one more. Josh Rouse also knows what’s up. After a few perfect indie and Americana albums in the ’90s and ’00s, he peaced out to Valencia, Spain, returning with a perfect new record every couple of years. His latest, Streets of Your Town, is all covers: The Blue Nile, The Go-Betweens, Orange Juice, and, here, The Motels.

Oh hey I just realized that JD Vance photo is now on my phone, and yours. I hope it doesn’t get us all deported, but if it does, fingers crossed they send us to Norway. See you next week.