Coolness, in Gen Alpha slang / MON 6-1-26 / High-waisted fashion trend of the 1990s / Physiques that aren't quite perfect / Superfan's ticket purchase / It measures audience feedback / Pouncing predator / Southernmost country in Central America / Reality show starring the "Fab Five"

Constructor: Kenneth Cortes

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: CAME OUT ON TOP (43A: Emerged victorious ... or what this puzzle's constructor did, as indicated by the shaded squares) — the shaded squares at the "top" of the grid contain a message: "MOM, DAD ... I'M QUEER!" 

Theme answers:

• MOM JEANS (3D: High-wasted fashion trend of the 1990s)
• DAD BODS (4D: Physiques that aren't quite perfect)
• "I'M THERE!" (9D: "Sign me up!")
• "QUEER EYE" (10D: Reality show starring the "Fab Five")

Word of the Day: CLAP-O-METER (30D: It measures audience feedback) —

A clap-o-meter, clapometer or applause meter is a measurement instrument that purports to measure and display the volume of clapping or applause made by an audience. It can be used to indicate the popularity of contestants and decide the result of competitions based on audience popularity. Specific implementations may or may not be based on actual sound level meters. Clap-o-meters were a popular element in talent shows and television game shows in the 1950s and 1960s, most notably Opportunity Knocks, but have since been supplanted by other, more sophisticated, methods of measuring audience response.

Today, various digital implementations exist across different platforms. Mobile applications for iOS and Android offer portable measurement, while specialized browser-based tools or PC software provide solutions for live events. Some free-to-use software, such as the "Applaus-O-Meter", provide full features without advertisements or in-app purchases, often including event management tools like integrated timers. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well it turns out I'm not made of stone. I sat here looking at the message in the shaded squares thinking "well, that's an interesting theme for the start of Pride Month" (Happy Pride Month, btw), and then (beat, beat) I was like "wait a minute ... is he ... is this ... no? that can't be right." Since I was solving Downs-only, I pieced together CAME OUT ON TOP but I never saw the clue until I was finished. And omg, there it is: "What this constructor's puzzle did..." Now I've been solving puzzles forever—forever, I tell you!—and I've seen constructors do a lot of creative things. Marriage proposals, that's been done a bunch. Election predictions—that one was famous! And while I've seen a number of insanely creative queer-themed puzzles, I have never, and I mean never, seen someone come out (To Their Parents!) in a crossword puzzle. I printed out a clean puzzle, took it into my wife, and said "you have to solve this right now." She also solves Mondays Downs-only, and two minutes later she marched into my office holding the puzzle up with just the shaded message part filled in, looking at me with amazement. I was like "I Know" and suddenly there were tears in my eyes goddamn it, what the hell, this is not supposed to happen. Puzzles are not supposed to be unaccountably moving. I'm supposed to come up here on Sunday evenings, knock out the Monday puzzle, do my little write-up and then go to bed, happy in the knowledge that I get to sleep in tomorrow! It's Monday! Mondays are light, breezy, badda boom, done and done. But no, this puzzle had to go and get all emotional and joyful and ... original on me. And aside from being an important life event (!), the theme is actually well executed. Nice little play on words. Clean fill. Snappy longer answers. If this doesn't deserve five stars, nothing does. Congratulations, kid. I hope your parents are proud. You certainly should be. 

The Downs-only solve was a breeze, which was nice, for once. The last thing I needed was a catastrophic failure to ruin the good vibes of this puzztheme. I did have some trouble parsing APEXAM when it was just APE-AM. I was like "the ape is doing what now? APE JAM? is that something?" But once I got out of there it was smooth sailing all the way to the end. ADMONISH off the "A"! (37D: Give a tut-tut, e.g.). SEASON PASS off the "S"! (29D: Superfan's ticket purchase). CLAP-O-METER off the "C"! (30D: It measures audience feedback). HAT STAND off the HAT, even though my whole brain was like "the term is HAT RACK!" (39D: Place to hang a fedora). I couldn't miss. That is, I couldn't miss until I could. At the very end. The very very end. I ended up at the last clue: 53D: Pouncing predator, and ... uh oh. The answer was not, uh, leaping out at me, and all of the crosses had multiple possibilities. PO-E = POKE? PORE? POPE? POSE? Was it ABIT or ABUT? SOLE, SOME, SORE? SEER or SEAR? But more importantly, what four-letter predator pounces? Finally I was like "hey, what about PUMA? That works. They pounce. Feels ... wrong, but give it a try." And so I did, and ... no "Congratulations" message! What!? "What the hell?! That has to be right!" And it was. See if you can find what I had wrong:

Got a little hasty / sloppy in the SW corner, and wrote in ATONED instead of ATONES (44D: Makes up (for)). If I'd checked the crosses carefully, I'd've noticed my mistake (SADH is not a word!) (61A: It might read "Miss Universe" = SASH). I found the error eventually, and all was right with the world again. And once again, hurray for everyone being able to be themselves and loving whoever they love. Every coming out is a beautiful little victory against the CREEPY people who want us to live in a bigoted DYSTOPIA. Gonna have some RYES tonight to celebrate this damned puzzle (Piña COLADAs aren't really my thing). Once again, hurray for this puzzle. My CLAP-O-METER is at 11.

Bullets:

• 12D: Dated (OLD) — had this as SAW for a second, then noticed that that gave me QUS URA and ENW in the crosses. Very helpful when *every* cross is a fail. No chance you're gonna mistake your dumb answer for the correct one.
• 46D: Southernmost country in Central America (PANAMA) — shall I tell you about my brain's insistence that, and I quote, "there are no Central American countries that start with 'P'!" To be fair(ish), I was actually looking at an answer that started "PL-" because at that point I assumed that MUSC- was MUSCLE (it's MUSCAT) (48A: Capital of Oman).

• 52D: Thin woodwind (OBOE) — brain: "FIFE!" I mean, he's not wrong, but as with SAW (above), those letters just didn't check out.

That's all for today. Hope it's a joyful day for you. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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