Latest news with #SusanBin
Express Tribune
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Pope Crave: Meme account inspired by ‘Conclave' goes viral during real papal election
As the world awaited the announcement of the new pope, one unlikely source delivered the news ahead of the Vatican's official channels—a meme account dedicated to the 2024 film Conclave. Created by Dallas-based artist Susan Bin, the account @ClubConcrave has become a viral hub for memes and live updates from Vatican City. Launched in 2024 following Bin's fascination with the film adaptation of Robert Harris's novel, the account built a niche community through humorous content and fan art. The platform, also known as Pope Crave, parodied pop culture news pages while focusing on all things papal. During the real 2025 conclave, it surged in popularity after sharing a meme-filled post about the white smoke moments before the Vatican made its official announcement. Speaking to New York Times Bin said, 'I am currently physically not in the Vatican, but metaphysically I am always in the Vatican and in their walls.' The account's popularity grew organically from fan interest, particularly after the film gained traction in Asian markets post-Oscars. A Discord server and a charity zine followed, establishing a global network of contributors, some of whom Bin claims are stationed within Vatican City. The account, which blends sincere curiosity with satire, has received little negative feedback. Bin added, 'It comes from a place of sincerity and humor… I think Pope Francis would enjoy these memes.'
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Pope Crave' Meme Artist Explains How ‘Conclave' Fan Account Became a Real Vatican News Feed
This article contains a major spoiler for the 2024 film Conclave. Susan Bin is not a Catholic. She tells Rolling Stone that she's been to a single Mass service in her life, 'and that's a long story.' But she's engaged with the church from an academic perspective as someone who works in fine art and has an education in art history. She has studied everything from early Christian art to papal sarcophagi to the Renaissance transformation of Old St. Peter's Basilica into the basilica that stands in Vatican City today. More from Rolling Stone New Pope Elected: Robert Prevost Named First American Pontiff in History Alleged Threat to Lady Gaga Brazil Concert Came From Rising Type of 'Nihilistic' Hate Group Meet AMP, the Brat Pack of the Streamer Era And yet, despite her mainly scholarly interest in Catholicism, the world turned its eyes to Pope Crave, an X account Bin created just five months ago, for up-to-the-second news about this week's conclave to elect a successor to the late Pope Francis. With help from collaborators and church insiders, she broke the news that a selection had been made before mainstream media or the Vatican's own news service did. How, exactly, did that happen? Long story short, Bin wound up on the Vatican beat because she really, really likes the Oscar-winning 2024 film Conclave, starring Ralph Fiennes, which is about the palace intrigue and power struggles that arise when cardinals are convened in Rome to elect a new pope. 'I mean, you probably liked it a normal amount,' she says. 'I did not like it a normal amount.' Though it's not the kind of movie Bin, who also does work in TV and film, normally gravitates toward, 'you cannot deny the pageantry of the Catholic church,' she explains. To her, the trailer suggested 'a film that I would watch for the aesthetics, just to break it down by costume design or lighting, from a technical perspective.' She had read the novel Conclave before heading to the theater, yet the screen adaptation surprised her. 'I was like one of three people in my screening, and I was laughing. It was very sincere, but there are moments that are very funny in this film. And it's silent as hell in this theater. I was like, 'You guys aren't getting it.'' This was in the fall of 2024, when Bin was working as an election clerk in Collin County, Texas, a conservative region outside the solidly blue Dallas area, where she lives. The politics of Conclave, and its hopeful electoral resolution, 'became a coping mechanism' in this stressful moment, she says. 'With everything going on, I was like, let me go back to this movie where we elected intersex pope from Mexico, and it has no dominant white heteronormative structure. I need this.' By December, @ClubConcrave, a.k.a. 'Pope Crave' — the names nod to notorious Timothée Chalamet stan account @ClubChalamet and the pop culture feed Pop Crave — was born. Bin meant it to be a promotional feed for the Conclave fan zine she was working on, From the Crooked Timber of Humanity, which ultimately included more than 70 pages of art and writing exploring the themes and characters in Conclave from dozens of contributors. (Profits from the publication go to the Intersex Human Rights Fund, Freedom Fund, and Librarians and Archivists with Palestine, with around $75,000 donated to date.) As Bin started posting Conclave memes on the account, mixing references to the religious thriller with Garfield content and characters from The Devil Wears Prada, she realized that she was hardly alone in her obsession. 'This film obviously generated a fandom that probably surprises the strategy people at Focus [the distributor of Conclave] in that it's youth-leaning, extremely global, and also very queer,' she says. She notes that Noelia Caballero, her co-admin on the account, is a 'queer Catholic in ministry' and international human rights lawyer. 'When you see the film, that makes a lot of sense, as opposed to it just being this prestige drama for Academy voters,' Bin says. 'There's a lot of people who are part of the zine who are Catholic and have really complicated relationships like queerness and their place in the Catholic church, and people who are from the global south.' After repping Conclave through awards season, which saw it claim the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, Bin and Caballero turned their attention to Pope Francis' ailing health, and they discussed plans to fly to Rome to cover the conclave following his death. When he died on April 21, Easter Monday, they realized such a trip wouldn't be feasible, resolving instead to monitor the live camera feed of the Sistine Chapel chimney that releases white smoke when a pope is chosen, and black smoke for each inconclusive vote among the cardinals. On Wednesday and Thursday, Bin even woke up at 3 a.m. to follow developments from the Vatican as the conclave began and stretched into a second day. By this time, however, the Conclave zine and larger social media phenomenon had spawned a Discord of devoted fans ready to pitch in on coverage. 'People reached out — Cravers — and they were like, 'Hey, I'm going to be in Vatican City. Can I be a local correspondent?'' Bin says. She immediately designed unofficial press credentials that said Pope Crave, which at least two individuals printed out and brought to St. Peter's Square. One of them gave an interview to the BBC. 'We were boots on the ground,' Bin says. 'We were doing it DIY punk, very fandom style.' Bin says she had figured that statistically speaking, the conclave would wrap by Friday. Better still: she then got an 'insider leak' that it would conclude by Thursday. (She is not sharing the names of the sources she describes as 'informants' or details of their knowledge about Vatican procedures.) That gave her the edge she needed to beat the competition on 'smoke watch,' and she announced the next pope's election just after 6 p.m. local time in Rome with a meme that read 'HOLY SMOKE WE GOT A POPE.' Followers reveled in Pope Crave's triumph, calling the account the 'fastest news outlet on earth' and expressing their joy at seeing the news break there. 'I'm very proud,' Bin says, regardless of soon afterward misidentifying the new pope as Cardinal Pietro Parolin instead of Cardinal Robert Prevost, who became the first American pontiff as Leo XIV. The inaccurate announcement was swiftly corrected, and Bin says she has some research to do on Prevost. 'I'm not the expert on this dude,' she says. 'I haven't even read his Wikipedia article.' Caballero, meanwhile, shared a statement on Pope Crave stating her opinion that the cardinals had picked an American in response to President Trump and a rising global tide of fascism. She also noted that Prevost has in the past spoken against 'gender ideology' and 'leniency' for the LGBTQ community. 'As a lesbian Catholic I am disappointed but am here to remind all LGBTQ+ Catholics: you are loved and you belong here,' she wrote. 'Are we going to keep eyes on Pope Leo?' Bin says. 'Absolutely, in the sense that everything is political. He's a spiritual leader, but he exists in a very political context.' What's more, Pope Crave is closing in on the 100,000-follower mark. 'I'm pretty sure a lot of our followers are Catholic this point,' Bin speculates. 'Based on the fighting that I'm seeing happening in the comments — oh, it's Catholic discourse happening.' And she's glad that the account, like Conclave itself, is allowing people to 'really dig into their relationship to the pope, with religion, with the church.' Of course, as Bin demonstrates, you don't have to take communion every Sunday to be part of this club. Questions of faith and human stories of the divine have a resonance that supersede any particular form of worship. Which is also why anybody can find potent meaning in Conclave. 'All the characters in that film are going through it,' Bin says. 'And that experience is not specific to Catholicism.' God, it would seem, is more universal. 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Fast Company
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Fast Company
‘His views better have changed since 2012': How a viral meme account beat the Vatican to the Pope Leo XIV news
White smoke poured from the Sistine Chapel chimney Thursday at 6:07 p.m. local time, signaling the end of the conclave and the election of a new pope to lead the Catholic Church. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of the United States is now the 267th pope, taking the name Pope Leo XIV. Just a minute later, Pope Crave broke their silence: 'We don't claim him,' they posted to their 93,000 followers, beating even the Vatican News portal to the update. 'His views better have changed since 2012 to be more in line with Papa Francis or else . . . apostasy!' they added. If you're late to the party, Pope Crave is a parody account modeled after celebrity news sources like Pop Crave and Pop Base. They've been posting updates on the papal vacancy with a mix of on-the-ground reporting and ' diva sightings.' 'We don't have official press credentials, but we are very determined people,' they told Time in a recent interview. The account began as an X fan page devoted to Conclave, the 2024 film starring Ralph Fiennes and its heavily memed awards season run. Pope Crave is run by Susan Bin, an artist from Dallas, and Noelia Caballero, a lawyer based in Ontario, Canada. Since launching, the account has grown into a broader community, spawning a dedicated Discord server and a charity zine that has raised over $50,000 for the Intersex Human Rights Fund, the Freedom Fund, and Librarians and Archivists with Palestine—charities Bin and Caballero say reflect 'the views of the film.' When news of Pope Francis's death broke in late April, Pope Crave quickly shifted focus, offering real-time updates and explaining the conclave process through memes. (They even managed to fact-check Politico.) The last conclave happened in 2013—before TikTok existed. This time, with social media fully embedded in everyday life, the papal succession became a fandom event and a platform to support the most progressive candidates.
New York Times
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Meet the Meme Maker Behind the Conclave's Most Viral Moments
How did you learn a new pope had been elected? Were you glued to a livestream? Maybe you got a push alert. Or, if you are a particularly online type of person, you might have learned from the X account @ClubConcrave, a fan account for the 2024 film about a dramatized papal election process. In recent days, the account has become a source not just for memes but also for regular updates from Vatican City. Susan Bin, a 30-year-old artist in Dallas, started @ClubConcrave last year after becoming obsessed with the film, growing a small community of similarly devoted fans and creating a 'Conclave'-inspired zine to raise money for charity. When the white smoke started billowing from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel on Thursday, Mx. Bin, who runs the account with another administrator, was ready to post the news within seconds, sharing a litany of memes including a cat stylized as a cardinal vaping. (@ClubConcrave, which also goes by Pope Crave, a riff on the popular culture account Pop Crave, beat the official Vatican account to the news by four minutes.) In an interview that has been has been edited and condensed, Mx. Bin discussed the account's unlikely path from the fringes of fandom to the mainstream. Let's get one thing out of the way. Are you Catholic? I am not Catholic! I am so not Catholic. I have been to mass once in my life. You seem to have a bit of a fascination with the pope. When did this begin? I'm just a little bit normal about the pope. I'm an artist and I studied fine art — most artists who go through a studio system have some familiarity with the Renaissance and a lot of that's deeply embedded in the Catholic Church. What drew you to 'Conclave?' I don't typically watch these types of dramatic films. I watch a lot of horror and nonfiction. 'Conclave' is not normally a film I would watch, but I saw the trailer was well cut. I then read the novel because I couldn't find the script. So I knew exactly what I was getting into when I watched 'Conclave,' but the way in which the film transformed the text really caught me off guard. In a good way! How many times do you think you've seen it at this point? Oh, probably in the 40s. I know. Please don't laugh. What is its most meme-able moment? I'm going to go for my favorite and just say the loud Lavazza coffee machine. That's my personal favorite. I know it's not like the definitive one, but it makes me giggle. You turned that obsession into an online community. Tell me how that happened? I'm not obviously the only person that thought 'Conclave' was so prime and ripe for memeing. As soon as I watched, I opened Letterboxd and someone had already written like 'the most diabolical vape hit of all time.' I was like I need to talk to people about 'Conclave,' period. I just kept drawing fan art and making memes. Around November we had a small fandom and I started a 'Conclave' charity zine. The community grew a lot after the Oscars when the movie was released in Japan and Korea. And then, you know, the real conclave happened. In addition to posting memes, you've also been using your account @ClubConcrave to give people news updates. Are you actually in Vatican City? I am currently physically not in the Vatican, but metaphysically I am always in the Vatican and in their walls. We do have Pope Cravers on the ground, though. We have a Discord group that grew out of the zine and the zine contributors, and so that's truly global. There's even some people inside the Vatican. Inside? Do you mean they work for the … I cannot say. Why do you think popular culture, whether that is memes or film and television, is so obsessed with the pope? I would say that the aesthetics and patriarchy of the Catholic Church and its institution is like next to none. It's pretty crazy. I think also the lore … not me referring to a religious institution as lore, but like it has a deep lore. It's an institution that is a bunch of contradictions, it's supposed to be sacred and yet in its history it has been super political. It exists as a state and yet, it isn't. It's like a video game entity. Has anyone online gotten mad about your content? Honestly, no. Everyone's been in pretty good spirits. I think this account finds the people it needs to. It comes from a place of sincerity and humor. Pope Francis spoke in Italian about how it's important to have humor and light in life and that lot of people see Catholic dogma — the institution — as heavy and labor-intensive and, essentially, not fun. I am going on the record and saying I think Pope Francis would enjoy these memes.
