Well, it's finally happened. After a solid 148 year run as the country's national pastime, baseball has been replaced by a worthy challenger — lip reading what celebrities say at awards shows.

If you don't believe me, just look at all the viral media hoopla surrounding two particular conversations from this past Sunday's 2024 Golden Globes which would have otherwise gone unearthed without our new lip reading obsession.

First, Selena Gomez made her way over to Taylor Swift's table to talk with Swift and Keleigh Sperry (wife of Miles Teller) about something so salacious the entire internet had to rally together to lip read what was said.

The consensus? They were apparently speaking of Willy Wonka himself, Timothée Chalamet, who Gomez may or may not have asked to take a picture with, and who then may or may not have refused to take said picture out of respect for the wishes of his girlfriend, Kylie Jenner.

You see, Jenner is friends with Hailey Bieber, wife of Justin Bieber, and sharer of bad blood with Selena Gomez (all facts that have surely replaced significant historical events in my brain in recent years).

The drama blew up so fast and furious and created so much controversy that Gomez had to confront it head on, insisting on E! News' Instagram post that the conversation was actually about “two of my friends who hooked up.”

Likely story, Gomez. You expect us to believe there are yet other friends in your glamorous Hollywood inner circle who lust after one another?! I think not.

Gomez then announced on her Instagram story on Tuesday that “I'm off social for a while. I'm focusing on what really matters” — which is apparently the urgent need for children to tackle record producer Benny Blanco and bombard him with kisses, judging by the video Gomez posted.

Either that, or Gomez is saying she's planning to spend more time with her boyfriend and family, which is also sort of important I guess.

Is this not directly analogous to the hoopla of Roger Clemens being forced out of baseball after being implicated in the steroid scandal? I mean, come on, the parallels are uncanny.

Sorry baseball, you're done

But in the interest of proving a point beyond a shadow of a lingering doubt, allow me to draw your attention to a second lip reading scandal from those very same Golden Globes which definitively proves this is our new national pastime.

A-list Hollywood husband and wife John Krasinski and Emily Blunt were being photographed on the red carpet before the awards show when all hell broke loose from their lips.

As numerous lip readers have man-splained online, Emily Blunt, wearing a spaghetti strap dress on a surprisingly cold day in Los Angeles, appears to have said “It's actually kinda chilly right now.” To which her husband John Krasinski either responds “I can't wait to get indoors” or “I can't wait to get a divorce,” whose interpretation is kinda dependent on whether you're a glass is half-full or half-empty type of lip reader.

I've already covered at length the wonderful logic conundrums proposed by one of these interpretations, so let's just focus here on the fact that the unearthing of any little chitchat between a married celebrity couple on a red carpet is grounds for lengthy online debate that used to be reserved for the minutiae on the mound between pitcher and catcher during a great ballgame.

I believe I've made my point explicitly clear by now, but since I'm not silently mouthing it with my lips, it might still be open to interpretation, so at the risk of repeating myself I'll spell it out one more time…

Just a few short weeks ago we were talking about the massive MLB contracts being signed by Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and now we merely speak of celebrity lip reading!

If Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were to reenact their famous debate today, it would probably concern what J-Lo said to Ben Affleck in Page Six's exclusive clip of her picking something out of his teeth during dinner between awards (hey, I still have some historical events up there after all!).

It therefore follows with flawless logic that either celebrity lip reading is the new national pastime… or the infinitely fast news cycle has conditioned our brains to not harp on any one thought for more than a millisecond. You know what, come to think of, it might be the latter actually. Now if you'll excuse me, I see something shiny just over there.