"SPAC" has become a pop culture buzzword, attracting your favorite celebrities, former politicos, Reddit traders and longtime investors — and now, increasing scrutiny, Axios Kia Kokalitcheva and I report.

Why it matters: Questions about whether updated rules are needed for SPACs are getting louder.

How it works: So-called "blank-check" firms go public and use the money they raise to buy a private company, which becomes publicly traded after the merger.

What's happening: An SEC advisory committee held a hearing today about SPACs. Questions largely focused on investor risks and whether additional protections are needed.

• Lawmakers are also feeling new pressure to keep SPACs on their radar, with some advocacy groups recently asking Congress for fixes to "tamp down pre-merger hype," among other things.

The other side: "You've had a lot of folks jump into the SPAC market thinking it's like a gold rush," Arjun Sethi, co-founder of venture firm Tribe Capital, tells Axios. (Yes, he has a SPAC).

• "But you don't want to have it regulated so hard, with a tight iron grip that you lock people out from being able to participate in the upside," Sethi says.

What to watch: The SEC warned against investing in SPACs solely because celebrities are involved or promoting them.

• A-Rod, R&B singer Ciara and rocker Sammy Hagar are a few big names joining SPAC boards — possibly making them that much more alluring.

Keep reading.

If you feel that you're being bombarded with fire takes about Clubhouse, NFTs and SPACs, that might be a sign you're Extremely Online, Axios' Felix Salmon writes.

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P.S. ... Beeple's digital image — minted as a non-fungible token (NFT) sold for $69 million — in a Christie's auction, a record for digital artwork.

🛍️ Shares of South Korean e-commerce company Coupang closed up 40% in its public market debut. (Reuters)

• It's the largest U.S. IPO since Uber — and the largest for a foreign company since Alibaba debuted in 2014.

💄Ulta CEO Mary Dillon is stepping down and will be succeeded by current executive Dave Kimbell — news that came alongside worse-than-expected sales results. Shares fell 9% in after-hours trading. (Bloomberg)

👀 Biden signed the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill ... Stimulus checks could come as soon as this weekend ... Aggregate U.S. household net worth rose to a record $130 trillion, per Fed data ... Nike says it will tie executive pay to the company's progress on diversity goals.

Black-led films are underfunded, while Black and minority leads remain underrepresented across the industry, a new report from McKinsey shows.

Why it matters: It comes as Hollywood is increasingly under fire for being too white.

Other findings: Films with Black leads were distributed in 30% fewer international markets on average — yet they earned nearly the same global box-office sales as films with white leads in 2019.

• In the first 10 years of their career, Black actors get an average of six lead roles, while their white counterparts get nine.
• Black actors made up 4.7% of all roles on streaming TV shows in 2019 — much lower than their 13% share of the population — while white actors made up over 75%.

The bottom line: "The reshaping of the film and TV ecosystem will play a role in reshaping ideas on race — and the advancement of racial equity — in America and beyond," McKinsey researchers write.

One year into the pandemic, Axios Re:Cap is looking back at the week of March 9, 2020 — when high-profile leaders were forced to make consequential choices that changed our lives and society.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital chief executive Steven Corwin says the medical center had four cases of COVID on March 8 of last year.

• By March 29, that number had jumped to 600.

Corwin tells Axios Re:Cap ... "We had people from our finance department that volunteered to go to the morgue. I mean, imagine being somebody who has a finance degree or an accounting degree, and now you're spending time in the morgue because people are dying."

🎧 Listen to the episode. Subscribe to Axios Re:Cap here for the entire series.

"Crocs with socks is definitely the move."