00:00:00.000So my intro question for you is, do you think that Kamala Harris would allow herself to be filmed doing cocaine with Charlie XCX to secure the youth vote?
00:00:12.200I don't know if you remember when she was asked about her, all the convictions for like marijuana offenses.
00:00:18.500And they were like, have you smoked weed?
00:03:27.220I have a YouTube channel called Broye Deschanel, where I do film analysis, video essays.
00:03:33.200And then I also have a podcast called Rehash, which I co-host with my best friend, Hannah.
00:03:38.000And it's all about internet phenomena.
00:03:40.400And if you like this podcast, you would love Maia's podcast, Rehash.0.89
00:03:45.400She does such a great job of unpacking these like pop political topics online.
00:03:51.620And I am so happy that we're going to sit and talk about this very jarring thing that has happened to one of my favorite albums of the year.
00:05:04.400personally one of my least favorite songs of hers but totally but it uh that also kind of
00:05:09.560brought her into mainstream attention most recently she came up with this album called
00:05:13.100brat which had one of the most impressive guerrilla marketing campaigns i've ever
00:05:17.080witnessed honestly yeah um i remember i learned about it because i went to a party at a bar next
00:05:22.480to my house it was like some sort of event that these people i knew were throwing it was very
00:05:27.400intimate and all over the bar were these stickers that said brat on them like chartreuse colored
00:05:33.300stickers and rattle them uh and i was like what is this and they're like charlie xcx's team reached
00:05:38.260out to us and we're like hey we hear you're throwing an event in toronto do you want these
00:05:41.940stickers to give out i think it's notable to begin with charlie xcx is british yes and she's had a
00:05:47.840wild splash in american politics over the last few weeks but she's not american and like you said
00:05:53.900she's been around for basically a decade and what's interesting is that even though she's had
00:05:58.380so many moments of mainstream success like she had a song in the Barbie soundtrack she has always
00:06:05.380I think been most cherished by the like queer underground I think she continues to like she
00:06:12.080loves the underground as much as the underground loves her when this stuff hit like you know CNN
00:06:16.460and stuff they were talking about Charlie XCX like she had this death grip over Gen Z which
00:06:21.860she kind of does but they were talking about her like as if she was a famous icon like Beyonce
00:06:27.400or like lady gaga or taylor swift and like she doesn't she's never at any point had nearly the
00:06:33.780same like popularity or cultural ubiquity as any of those people yeah i would say she's niche
00:06:39.200she's definitely niche and she's always kind of maintained an edge i would say totally in a way
00:06:43.400that i think is really alluring to a lot of young people especially among gen z so i think when brad
00:06:49.040came out it kind of felt like the anthem for these like kind of cool underground people but then i
00:06:54.960think it just like exploded from there it was like felt like kryptonite almost for some reason
00:06:58.960describe brats album cover it's like a chartreuse square and it has in like very lo-fi kind of a
00:07:06.440like pixelated font just says brat it's very simple it's very like windows xp yeah yeah yeah
00:07:12.220yeah what's interesting is when this album cover first came out i remember online people were like
00:07:18.140angry like angry in a very serious way about the fact that this was like a very lo-fi album cover
00:07:24.560you know and i remember like charlie was going back and forth with her fans online and she was
00:07:28.920like i don't know why you expect that artists faces must always be on their album cover or
00:07:32.920whatever and there was like a weird back and forth happening but people were really upset about it
00:07:36.680and it's interesting because the album cover clearly has become like i mean it became a meme
00:07:40.820it became like one of the most iconic and central parts of the marketing of the album
00:07:44.740people would really yeah repurpose it for other things and kind of put their own names on it
00:07:50.040different corporations like publications were using it as a marketing tool as well yeah it kind
00:07:54.600of became like the people's princess of marketing it's kind of the people's princess of albums
00:08:00.460really or at least it was yeah i guess you can't really be the people's princess of albums once
00:08:06.100you're like co-opted by like a major political party oh i want to say before we move on i actually
00:08:11.000met charlie xcx once maybe this isn't a story it's just not an interesting story i met her and she
00:08:16.360was really sweet is the point i've heard she's very nice i also know people who have met her
00:08:20.400she's kind of just like around she's kind of an accessible person i think that's actually
00:08:25.260really important again you think of these major pop stars and while some of them build like
00:08:30.860extremely successful parasocial relationships with their audience like taylor swift none of
00:08:36.260those people ever feel accessible like they're up here whereas like charlie xcx like part of her
00:08:40.640album rollout was like she was doing these like club performances there was um brick wall here
00:08:46.240in new york that they turned into like the brat wall that always had like messaging relating to
00:08:50.000brat and remixes that were coming out like she like went to the brat wall and like met a ton
00:08:55.020of her fans there and it was the ultimate campaign like it truly was incredible we have to talk about
00:09:00.120brat summer but of course because brat is more than just an album it's a lifestyle i just love
00:09:05.480that every summer we come up with a new term for us having our like messy era there's like a new
00:09:10.940term every year it kind of means the same thing every time every summer is basically about like
00:09:15.280being hot and having sex and like partying but we find new ways to dress we find new ways to do it
00:09:20.740yeah so i think brats generally kind of oscillates between these songs about being it can even happen
00:09:26.860within a single song but like you know being a party girl going out doing drugs being messy
00:09:31.680having kind of indie sleeves vibes like having makeup and ripped tights kind of energy and then
00:09:37.300also tank top with no bra tank top with no bra oscillating between that and then like kind of
00:09:42.600really introspective poignant takes on being a woman in your mid to late 20s and early 30s
00:09:48.860and kind of reckoning with like the biological clock and reckoning with just getting older in
00:09:54.820general body image stuff that I think really resonated with people but it's couched within
00:09:59.340these songs that are kind of like club hits almost right the amount of times I've heard0.98
00:10:03.680360 or Von Dutch played on a night out is is crazy I know and I lose my shit every time0.75
00:10:08.540i was like at the club a few weeks ago with my friend tyler and von dutch came on and we were0.91
00:10:13.680just like i was like i don't care like if i like sweat through my like filled in eyebrows like i0.88
00:10:18.180don't care i'm just gonna like fucking ball out to the sun yes i think that essence of like a brat0.98
00:10:22.840you're maybe cocky maybe a little mean you're like hot you like sweat through your makeup on a hot0.99
00:10:29.700summer day and you like the sidewalk on the street is your catwalk kind of thing but then also
00:10:34.260you are like a vulnerable insecure person and you're using these kind of like edgy hot curl
00:10:42.780aesthetics to cover up for that and you're aware of that it's a little bit epi stonem dare i say
00:10:48.000is that skins yeah she's she was like a tumblr icon right yeah tumblr icon i guess indie it's1.00
00:10:53.300just such an indie sleaze thing epi stonem kind of coming home in her like makeup and her messed0.52
00:10:57.300up hair totally but then being this kind of like tragic figure i think there's also like really
00:11:02.180uplifting notes like there's a song called girl so confusing which is about feeling in competition
00:11:08.380with other women who might also like be your peers it's song she did uh in reference to lord
00:11:15.000right so then lord and charlie made a remix together where they were like let's work it out1.00
00:11:19.620on the remix and then they basically like used their respective verses in the remix to describe
00:11:24.840how like they didn't know that the other one was feeling that way and they were so caught up in
00:11:28.720their own insecurities and their own paranoias about themselves and the world that they didn't
00:11:33.320realize that they had like projected this image of like infallibility onto the women around them
00:11:38.120and then at the end of the song they're like we ride for each other and it's like there's a lot
00:11:42.040of like a lot of introspection and a lot of universality but in very like yeah very specific
00:11:47.780ways like that feels like such a feels like kind of a universal experience with womanhood and just
00:11:52.160like the competition amongst women and and like this kind of guard we all have up when we first
00:11:57.000meet each other like it's yeah it's very interesting it's definitely a break the internet
00:12:00.740moment right and so brat summer is about just like embodying all of these themes on the album
00:12:06.040it's about being vulnerable it's about being hot it's about doing cocaine also which i'm not you
00:12:11.540know don't do drugs youtube we're demonetized don't do drugs right don't do drugs but also
00:12:19.120that is what brats that's what it's about that's what i saw this tweet from someone i think i sent
00:12:24.120to you and it was like does kamala harris know that like brat summer is about doing coke and
00:12:28.720wanting to kill yourself yeah i saw that now before we talk about how brat summer enters the
00:12:34.020world of kamala harris and problematize it a bit i want to talk about how kamala harris i think0.77
00:12:39.740she's become the meme candidate i think in many ways memes are like the language of young people
00:12:45.900and i think politicians make a conscious effort oftentimes to meme themselves in ways that will
00:12:53.000endear themselves to young people but it doesn't work usually and with kamala harris it has worked
00:12:58.800so well and we're going to talk about why that is but i want to make reference to some of the memes
00:13:04.000that have even before she announced that she is essentially the democratic nominee for president
00:13:09.240right now she she became really endeared to like this the very online very young portion of voters
00:13:15.600by like being herself in these kooky ways so do you know the wheels on the bus no don't remember0.99
00:13:20.860it she literally kamala harris is just always i mean as a high profile politician she's always1.00
00:13:25.520being filmed and she just like i mean she's been memed into like kind of the coked out aunt in a1.00
00:13:30.960way people make people make a lot of jokes about like she is on the craziest pharmaceutical cocktail
00:13:35.820known to man yeah she's on some zans for sure and yeah the wheels on the bus one was a viral video
00:13:41.820where she's just she sees a bus on the curb like in front of the curb in front of her and she goes
00:13:46.640the wheels on the bus go round and round and it's not in tune with how the wheels on the bus song
00:13:56.420the wheels on the song is the wheels on the bus go round and round and she sings the wheels on
00:14:02.520the bus go round and round and it's one of the most rudimentary songs of humanity like if there's
00:14:07.880some like row row row your boat like it's a song that's just ingrained within us from age three so
00:14:12.440it's crazy well and it's also just like there were there weren't children around like the thing that
00:14:18.040inspired her to do that was seeing the bus in front of her like she really is a kooky individual
00:14:23.560she's got jouissance for sure like she's she's got a she's got a joie de vivre a what a joie de0.98
00:14:29.880vivre me doing the french accent a lust for life oh yeah she's got energy she she totally has a0.99
00:14:36.760lust for life yeah yeah totally has a lust love her or hate her she the woman has a lust for life
00:14:41.060do you know the venn diagram meme yeah essentially kamala harris and another in some other public
00:14:47.320appearance said that she loves venn diagrams and she went into great detail explaining why
00:14:53.220specifically she loves the venn diagram what it does for her well so the funny thing is though
00:14:58.160i watched that i was preparing for this episode and i watched that video and she doesn't actually
00:15:02.580say why she loves venn diagrams she just describes what a venn diagram is she's like i love venn
00:15:10.180diagrams you know you get those two circles and the part in the middle right i love venn diagrams
00:15:15.340i really do i love venn diagrams it's just something about those three circles and
00:15:23.100the analysis about where there is the intersection right yeah i see people that you agree with me
00:15:28.900right so okay so i asked my team i brought props that yes that's what a venn diagram is she loves
00:15:35.480she'd be like I love lawns you know you have the the grass and and you know you water it and
00:15:42.700lawns you know it's like she's just describing things yeah and it's the most like benign I mean
00:15:50.240it's it's a diagram it's a type of diagram yeah she's giving like glass of scotch barbiturate
00:15:55.6202 p.m 2 p.m kind of energy and I I kind of like yeah it's so hard not to find it so funny and I
00:16:03.540think the lens of that for so long during biden's presidency especially in the months leading up to
00:16:09.040this past couple months was that like oh here's joe biden he's got dementia he never knows what
00:16:14.620he's saying but then and then kamala was kind of paired with that as like and then he has his crazy
00:16:19.720vp who does a lot of drugs you know so they were kind of this pair to be kind of like mocked we're
00:16:25.640going to again problematize all of this like this is not an episode about worshiping kamala as a
00:16:33.060camp icon we're gonna discuss her i think in a hopefully nuanced way as a politician but
00:16:39.600it is worth noting like she would be america's i think first kooky president it goes a long way
00:16:46.360to have personality i think that is the most fundamental aspect of american politics
00:16:51.700unfortunately is personality yeah which is the problem yes which is the crux of this episode
00:16:56.700but we're getting ahead of ourselves i'm not done talking about kamala memes do you know
00:17:00.360unburdened by what has been wait you just described this to me three seconds ago unburdened okay okay
00:17:05.040okay you you tell you what yeah so this is really interesting a lot of the memes that have really
00:17:09.840been successful for her have surfaced from one twitter account which is a republican run twitter
00:17:16.480account it's it's like an official rnc account and it's called rnc research and what this account
00:17:23.760does over and over again is publish these videos of her doing things that the people running that
00:17:31.400account Republicans think are like cringy or weird and what they don't realize is that it's really
00:17:38.080like camp and funny and so multiple times they have done this where they're like can you believe
00:17:43.780Kamala said this and then everyone like kind of the liberal and the left internet will both be
00:17:49.960like this is fucking hilarious and so it to the extent that i am like okay i think the rnc research
00:17:56.140research twitter account is a psyop that's my conspiracy theory i think it's like a liberal0.91
00:18:01.100psyop but anyway they posted this four minute compilation of her from like a hundred different
00:18:07.120speeches that she's done she she uses this line what can be unburdened by what has been i can
00:18:13.460imagine what can be and be unburdened by what has been you know what can be unburdened by what has
00:18:20.940been there are those who are unable to see what can be um but there are many more who are able to
00:18:28.860see what can be unburdened by what has been and it's it's just like i mean they're trying to be
00:18:34.460like it makes no sense she obviously thinks this is an extraordinarily hard-hitting line that she's
00:18:39.120said it in a hundred different speeches and it's just kind of not but that is what's so funny and
00:18:43.740she does her politician hands when she does it where she does her like roundabout hand and she's
00:18:48.260like don't you see and it's just it's like drunk auntie giving sage advice kind of vibe and you're0.90
00:18:52.960like yes yes the wisdom totally drunk auntie giving sage wisdom yeah yes and then perhaps
00:18:58.240the most famous meme is the coconut tree meme take it away i believe it was a press conference
00:19:04.260where she's telling a story that her mom used to tell her she kind of does this crazy laugh where
00:19:11.280she's like then she's like you think you just fell out of a coconut tree and then she and then
00:19:17.580she all of a sudden gets extremely serious and she's like we exist in the context what is it
00:19:23.560you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you and she's like doing her
00:19:30.240politician hands my mother used to she would give us a hard time sometimes and she would say to us
00:19:35.140i don't know what's wrong with you young people you think you just fell out of a coconut tree
00:19:40.080you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you and she it's just the
00:19:50.480switch up from the crazy laugh to the immediate seriousness and like somber tone that's so funny
00:19:56.820and it's just like when you take any clip out of context if you're walking let's say you hear
00:20:01.160someone walking by you on the street anything they say will be so funny but so something about
00:20:07.020the out of contextness of it also just amplified the like ridiculousness of the statement i think
00:20:11.800if you listen to the speech in full it makes sense within the context of what she's saying
00:20:15.340but the way she delivers it and like the the concept of the coconut tree and it just it's
00:20:20.700just so kooky and strange i was at the gym the other day and i you know there were there like
00:20:26.500the stationary bikes and i get on one and the two guys on the stationary bikes next to me i just hear
00:20:30.640one go to the other one you think you just fell out of a coconut tree kamala harris fans are
00:20:34.620describing themselves as coconut pilled and i do think this is just such a seismic shift because
00:20:39.060like democrats have struggled for so long to appeal i mean since obama really like joe biden
00:20:45.240has struggled so much to appeal to young people because there's nothing about him that was ever
00:20:49.260naturally appealing to young people he's out of touch with the issues that we care about but also
00:20:53.740just like on a personality level it's like what no amount of like gen z democratic strategists
00:20:59.520huddling around biden which they did every day for years could ever make him like cool yeah to
00:21:05.220young people and so the fact that kamala could do this like organically it makes sense that the
00:21:10.760people around kamala would try to capture this and seize on it there's been a lot of discourse
00:21:15.220like leftists like just on the left about the idea that like the democrats kind of need their
00:21:20.200own Trump not ideologically but just in the sense that like Trump was someone who was able to
00:21:25.740galvanize a group of disenfranchised people right and he used populism to do it he used these like
00:21:31.460horrible world views yeah to do so and he I think what's so important about to remind ourselves of
00:21:38.440is that we live in a society of spectacle and like the most important things in that society
00:21:42.760are images and their icons and like narratives and stories and I feel like Trump what was so
00:21:48.440effective about his campaign and what people really underestimated was the power of the image
00:21:53.240like he had the really simple hat he had these really simple slogans and i'm not saying oh
00:21:58.060everyone should go be a populist that's not at all what i'm saying but i think what the democrats
00:22:02.380have kind of failed to capture is this this like the simplicity of those things and the power of
00:22:07.900those things and i think biden especially was someone who just really came to symbolize how
00:22:13.060forgettable the democrats became and especially the these like establishment democrats
00:22:18.220uh like i can't even remember his slogan all i can think of is we did it joe which was kamala's
00:22:24.060slogan like that was literally the i also can't remember his slogan but you're right yeah that's
00:22:28.960like the most like memorable kind of like slogany thing that came out of that campaign and it was
00:22:32.680kamala again being herself at the end of a run lean in it joe it was again it was like the drunk
00:22:38.560aunt at like exactly yeah and i think you know even thinking about trump getting shot recently
00:22:42.960the second that image of him was taken by that associated i think it was an associated press
00:22:48.100photographer everyone was like oh it's done it's done because that image of him with the ear is
00:22:53.720like way too powerful the fist it's an innate thing for him trump trump understands the power
00:23:00.620of an image of course and i think the reason he does is because i get we can talk about this more
00:23:04.860of it like american politics has always been political theater like american democracy is
00:23:09.200political theater it's all about personality it's all about the image it's all about the narrative
00:23:13.160And so politicians are celebrities by way of that, like by virtue of that being a thing in this like mediatized society.
00:23:19.640But Trump especially was already a celebrity.
00:23:22.080Like he knows how to appeal to people in these in these ways.
00:23:25.780And like that's kind of what he had, not to give him too much credit.
00:23:28.940But even in the months leading up to this election, people were kind of like, Trump's kind of funny, which is not something I ever want to indulge.
00:23:35.540But it's like that that was a thing that even people on the left started kind of admitting.
00:23:38.960And it's like the Democrats just like they just didn't have that.
00:23:42.520ever since obama played basketball i feel like after that no one was ever to recreate was ever
00:23:47.320able to recreate that not only did democrats fail to have any sort of like there was never any cult
00:23:52.960of personality and like to be clear i think cult of personality is bad and it's bad and i think
00:23:57.360that i think the fact that american politics is like you said theater is bad and we're going to
00:24:03.540get into all of that but that is what it is here and it is what you have to champion if you want
00:24:09.200to win and Democrats could never do it and I think Democrats just became viewed as like the like0.93
00:24:14.480boring party that's always just like slapping you on your wrist and being like we suck but you have
00:24:18.800to vote for us because we're not the other guy yeah the lesser of two evils yes and it's like0.94
00:24:23.180you just can't campaign like you can't run a successful campaign as the lesser of two evils
00:24:28.300forever you have to give people something to vote for and not just someone to vote against
00:24:31.860I'm just remembering when like even Hillary went on Broad City and instead of that being good for
00:24:37.340her campaign it was just bad for broad city something about them like the most recent like
00:24:41.720democratic candidates just felt so disingenuous and so like hollow yeah in a way that like yeah
00:24:46.380trump kind of speaking his mind and being for the people and being this like populist person
00:24:50.480worked and i think that's something that the democrats can no longer take for granted
00:24:53.960totally you know who should be president put this on record monica lewinski
00:24:57.880i would like to take a quick quick break from the show to give a shout out to the sponsor of
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00:31:50.100Kamala is brat is his capitalized yeah this was like immediately controversial I think it's been0.68
00:31:56.440quote tweeted like 30,000 times with everyone either being like oh my god like Charlie like0.84
00:32:02.120I can't believe you're endorsing Kamala and like saying she's brat and then other people were like
00:32:05.880what are you doing like why are you bratifying Kamala Harris did you have any hot takes when
00:32:12.600this happened like I just have very complicated feelings about everything right now like I'm not1.00
00:32:17.340really landed in one place I think just seeing Charlie XCX do it because she has this edge
00:32:22.080her promoting this establishment democrat which I feel like has been really like not on vogue
00:32:28.760over the past few years like it's been really uncool to be a lib it's been kind of uncool to
00:32:33.180be like pro democrat for someone as cool as Charlie to do that felt kind of like like it's
00:32:39.820more it was more just kind of like concern for her brand because I was like what's going on
00:32:43.540It did feel off brand for her to to like lend her image and like lend the meme that's come out of this album to like a major American presidential candidate.
00:32:53.340Again, she's British. So there's which adds another layer of just like, what are you, Ariana, what are you doing here?
00:32:58.460What's up, girl? I mean, America has a very strong cultural power over the world.
00:33:01.640So I like in Canada, we're completely invested. Why? Like, why do I know any of this? You know what I mean?
00:33:06.280yeah my is my is canadian which is also part of why i'm happy that you're here because you can0.90
00:33:12.440add some perspective from someone who's like living outside of the slush over here oh yes
00:33:18.180yes within a couple hours of charlie xcx tweeting that the biden hq twitter account which is the
00:33:25.640twitter account that managed official communications coming out of the biden administration switched
00:33:30.660over to kamala hq and they switched over the imagery on the twitter account and the banner
00:33:36.780for the twitter account said kamala hq in the brat font on the brat chartreuse background this
00:33:43.780is marketing that's coming from the kamala harris campaign and i remember seeing this and honestly0.64
00:33:49.220at first i was fucking gagged i was like whoa whoa whoa it's so crazy for people who are working0.54
00:33:56.620on a presidential campaign for the mainstream candidate to like acknowledge a meme like this0.96
00:34:02.200especially because so much of like the brat stuff is it literally is just about like feeling crazy
00:34:08.240and doing drugs yeah and so for them to like approximate it i was like i was like a little
00:34:13.240kamala brat pilled for a moment i think part of like why almost this kind of worked there's i have
00:34:18.540many reasons to why this works but part of it i'm just i'm thinking now is that so much of brat
00:34:23.540like a lot of it was charlie xcx's fans and like people loving the album a lot of it like we were
00:34:28.900saying at the beginning of the episode was about marketing and i think the brat logo getting taken
00:34:34.380and reappropriated so many times by its corporations by all these different people
00:34:38.700kind of made it like it kind of extricated it from its context like abstracted it and so i think that
00:34:44.020made it so like it lended itself so easily to something being kind of co-opted by a political
00:34:50.000campaign because it had kind of had no meaning after a while soon after the kamala hq instagram
00:34:55.960was set up and they one of the first things they published was the green brat square with text that
00:35:02.700said welcome to kamala hq so this was the point of no return when kamala hq started using the
00:35:10.060chartreuse brat imagery as their own marketing like there was no going back this is when it
00:35:15.060picked up by the mainstream media and i want to watch a clip with you of them talking about this
00:35:22.420on cnn and like a bunch of cnn news anchors like trying to understand what the hell is going on
00:35:27.620here kamala harris appears to be leaning into this this is the singer charlie xcx uh tweeted
00:35:33.700last night kamala is brats uh and this is in reference to her album it's called brat kamala
00:35:39.380has branded her kamala hq twitter page with the same aesthetic of the album that's another gen z
00:35:44.020So, first of all, just for my producer, Elizabeth Stewart,
00:35:48.020who will spit out her coffee as I say this,1.00
00:36:05.020because I knew you would want a definition.
00:36:08.020Okay, here we go. Charlie XCX, who I do know,
00:36:13.020know, quote, Brett, you're just that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says0.96
00:36:23.000some dumb things sometimes, end quote. So it's the idea that we're all kind of0.94
00:36:29.440Brett and Vice President Harris is Brett. I don't know if you're Brett. I think you aspire to be
00:36:35.260Brett. You don't have to become Brett. You have to try. You can work at it. I will aspire to be
00:36:41.640they were talking about this on fox news and a fox news anchor said that brat is very dangerous
00:36:48.960to republicans and they've essentially turned her into a meme which has inherently given her a fan0.99
00:36:55.580base for the first time in her career and it's quickly changing the public's perception of her
00:37:00.160and this is very dangerous for republicans and it needs to be taken seriously that same day july 23rd
00:37:06.120The deeply unpopular mayor of New York City, Mayor Eric Adams, who has the lowest approval rating of any New York City mayor in history, according to the New York Times, who has been accused of sexual assault, who is known for his tough on crime stance and for having been a cop for a really long time and his inhumane policies towards homeless people, including legally not allowing them to sleep on the subway.0.94
00:37:32.220Eric Adams tweets brat summer shaking hands emoji with the summer of responsibility on July 24th one day later as I open the episode with Buddy Carter the Republican House of Representative guy representing Georgia's first district tweets his own brat meme and asks am I doing brat right and so I saw this and I was like who the fuck is Buddy Carter and so I googled his policy positions and he's basically anti human rights for everybody except straight cis white men.0.90
00:38:02.220and pro-gun and like got an A from the NRA.0.97
00:38:28.160which is an incredible critically acclaimed album,
00:38:30.700How does it get in the hands of like a pro-gun, anti-affordable healthcare, anti-LGBT, anti-abortion, 66-year-old white dude, Georgia Republican politician?
00:38:44.900Here's my theory about memes and about this kind of internet culture is I think that it has to travel from the bottom up and not the other way around.
00:38:55.260and what I mean by that is I think that memes are like I really believe in the internet a lot0.93
00:39:03.520of people are like you know like the internet's dumb and social media makes you dumb and like0.89
00:39:07.520it's all like you know right rot your brain and like I think that memes are a community-based0.97
00:39:13.080art form I think that it's a democratic and like I think it's like an inherently democratic and
00:39:18.680accessible art form and i think once they have been co-opted from the community of you know
00:39:27.160everyday social media users by the wealthy and powerful that's when they lose their shine like
00:39:32.640when we watched that first kamala brat video you and i and anyone listening to the podcast when we
00:39:38.960watched it just now but also when we watched it on twitter for the first time at the beginning of
00:39:42.940July it was so funny and so sporadic and it made no sense we were just like experiencing this like
00:39:51.100absurdist both political and pop cultural drama like reach its peak through like you know random
00:39:57.520Twitter videos and it was it was just funny and we could all laugh together to me the moment that0.67
00:40:02.200it was doomed was also kind of the height of its popularity which is when Kamala HQ decided to make
00:40:10.200to use the brat banner on their social media and it wasn't even them using the banner it was that
00:40:14.700they acknowledged it it worked because they weren't breaking the fourth wall do you know
00:40:20.040what i mean it was like totally community based yeah and then once people at the top start
00:40:25.840manufacturing it back down then it's manufactured then you're receiving this like watered down
00:40:31.400version of it that was created by a focus group in in a boardroom in washington dc yeah i think
00:40:36.760so much of it is PR. Like I'm saying, like politicians are celebrities in, within North
00:40:41.760American democracy. That's just kind of, that's, that's how it is. And I think there was like a
00:40:46.660viral tweet that went around being like Kamala, when, when the Brad stuff first started coming
00:40:50.180out, they were like, and Kamala was endorsed. Someone was like, uh, Kamala shouldn't acknowledge
00:40:55.360the memes because that's going to take the power away. Something I've learned about Kamala Harris0.98
00:40:59.500throughout just like knowing about her as a, as a politician, but also in like researching for0.99
00:41:03.560this episode is that she was someone who was actually really averse to like narrativizing
00:41:09.680herself oh it's something that like i i was listening to some uh podcasts where people were
00:41:14.900like why doesn't she address like the south asian side of herself why doesn't she talk about her
00:41:18.820relationship to her father it's like she's actually been kind of against that i think just as like a
00:41:22.900former da and as an attorney general like that's not really something that she was kind of in touch
00:41:27.220with because that's not something you do to get into those positions and she was kind of uncomfortable
00:41:31.820with that in 2020 and that's something that didn't really work for her and it's something
00:41:35.620that you kind of need as a president is to be or as a candidate is to be able to narrativize yourself
00:41:39.420and so it didn't work for her in 2020 um she didn't really know how to deal with her like0.95
00:41:44.480prosecutor label people are like extremely critical of that you know the idea of her being
00:41:48.420a progressive prosecutor just doesn't make any sense like right all that stuff so now when we0.97
00:41:52.720get to now i think kamala harris on her own has like gotten in control of the narrative and she's
00:41:57.720kind of she is kind of like embracing the prosecutor position because trump is a criminal
00:42:01.560kind of vibes yeah and for liberals it like totally that works really well i'm the i'm the
00:42:06.420cop and he's the felon yeah and like that doesn't work for the left it's not working for the left
00:42:10.240but she's not she doesn't she needs to appeal to like the comparatively much larger group of like0.93
00:42:15.760center liberals which that narrative works really well exactly and so to have her personality kind
00:42:21.340of come through to gen z in this really organic grassroots way was kind of the perfect way for
00:42:27.200her to galvanize these, what is the Democrats disenfranchised group, which is Gen Z and which
00:42:32.040is young people. The thing about the memes is she was never trying to have a moment. Like you think
00:42:37.360about like the wheels on the bus go round and round or like the Venn diagrams. It's like those
00:42:42.020were not moments where she was trying to be funny. She was just literally zoning out and being
00:42:46.560herself. Molly Roberts wrote in the Washington Post, the so-called coconut pilling of the populace
00:42:53.520was until recently organic no one well no one that we know of paid a tiktok user to produce a
00:43:00.040remix of harris's goofiest moments to tracks from charlie xcx's blockbuster album brat now democratic
00:43:06.580surrogates are proclaiming their own coconut pilledness and posting pictures of themselves
00:43:11.220climbing palms the campaign itself on a twitter account rebranded from president biden to harris
00:43:16.980has traded out dark brandon for kamala hq on a lime green brat background who can blame them
00:43:23.320the content is that good but there's a risk in trying to force something whose appeal comes
00:43:27.980precisely from the reality that is unforced you might lose the magic do you remember dark brandon
00:43:33.980this is in my blackout era where i was like no i won't hear it you're also fully not american
00:43:39.320like you don't have to understand these failed means unfortunately like it's shoved it's shoved
00:43:44.020down our throats anyways as canadians we know about it anyways i think canadians know more
00:43:48.380about american politics than they do about canadian politics wow because cultural hegemony
00:44:15.060basically there was a thing that trump supporters started doing a few years ago where they would
00:44:23.700chant at their maga rallies and the trump rallies and whatever they would chant like1.00
00:44:27.680let's go brandon and it was for some reason coded to mean fuck joe biden it was so stupid it was so1.00
00:44:33.300stupid everyone who participated in this was dumb but sorry so this let's go brandon thing is0.99
00:44:40.520totally taking off in like maga circles and the democratic establishment and the people around1.00
00:44:46.380biden are like okay we need to make you look cool which as everyone in america knows is an extremely
00:44:52.920difficult thing to do for a senile old white centrist man like literally geriatric and i
00:45:01.780commend everyone who like was at task with making him seem cool because that you know i don't think
00:45:08.140they ever successfully did it but that is not a job that i envy die his hair pink yeah we should
00:45:15.760have we should have made if we had made joe a blue hair lib yeah make him a cat girl
00:45:20.940i had to stop doing this yeah like what if what if we made oh my god a neon girl
00:45:26.460we made we made we made joe biden young cat like yeah if only hadn't if only hadn't dropped out
00:45:33.540joe biden come back here um so they were like gonna take a sound bite out of that and cancel
00:45:38.880you so hard on twitter do it i don't care anymore i have nothing to live for so they were like let's
00:45:46.380take this let's go brandon thing and turn it on its head and they attempted that and so basically
00:45:51.940what they made is this meme which i'm gonna show you like what is it can you describe what you're
00:45:59.060looking at wait what would you describe this art style as i guess it's kind of like pop art yeah
00:46:02.900it's kind of like a pop art stencil version of joe biden and then he has evil uh red eyes it
00:46:10.620looks like the thumbnail of a video i did about the barbie movie except it's joe biden right it
00:46:15.540has like laser eyes laser eyes like hypnosis eyes right and so they called this the dark
00:46:23.040brandon meme i don't know like this is joe biden but like as like a super villain like it was kind
00:46:29.700of i don't know they were branding him as like some like kind of like sinister like cartoon
00:46:33.660does this do anything for you maya so this is supposed to make him look good that yes the
00:46:38.840democrats made this to like make him look cool do you think he looks cool like it would be cool if
00:46:47.320like i didn't know it was joe biden but i also would not but it is i would have no idea what's
00:46:54.220going on yeah so the dark brandon they basically were just like you know trying to rehabilitate
00:46:59.640his image as this frail octogenarian and this is what they came up with and it resonated with
00:47:07.060no one with no one and so but you know again it's just this like this is what happens when a meme
00:47:14.860is created by a focus group again top down versus bottom up the culture youth culture internet
00:47:21.240culture meme culture it has to be it has to start with the community it has to start with people
00:47:27.540yeah it feels like the memes are such a emblem of like the free net you know what i mean totally
00:47:33.340kind of like the wild west yeah the web and to to have like an actual corporate entity well it's
00:47:39.360interesting because one of my friends actually described kamala and brat this whole kamala
00:47:44.660ex-brat phenomenon as being like manufactured consent which i thought like i really spent a
00:47:49.620lot of time thinking about this manufactured consent in the way that like oh this is being
00:47:53.700manufactured to us to basically get us to be on board with kamala but then it's like but like
00:47:58.700propaganda like propaganda but like the thing with manufactured consent is that it is top down
00:48:02.800and coming from corporations whereas the kamala brad stuff was coming from the bottom uh this
00:48:07.960is manufactured consent the other meme the other kind of manufactured dnc meme that i had here
00:48:14.780was pokemon go to the polls do you know pokemon go to the polls of course can we uh can we can
00:48:21.100we whip it out real quick yeah hillary was making a campaign speech in 2016 which was
00:48:26.900famously the summer of pokemon go exploding in popularity and taking over the world for a brief
00:48:32.840moment but you know what i will say one of my best friends one of my best friends is like
00:48:37.620not only still playing pokemon go but he like travels to pokemon go meets and he's like ranked
00:48:42.700nationally or something oh good for him and so i i do want to make the point that there is still a
00:48:47.340large swath of people who are like competitively continuing to play pokemon go maybe hillary
00:48:52.600clinton is in that group i don't know can you imagine okay here i'll pull it up i don't know
00:48:57.540who created pokemon go but i'm trying to figure out how we get them to have pokemon go to the polls
00:49:08.480it's so it never gets easier to watch it's the issue with it is that like the the grammar
00:49:23.840it's just something about is not flowing well but that's the whole thing right is it's not
00:49:28.900flowing like that was written for her and you can tell yeah yeah she's confused as hell
00:49:33.780pokemon go to the polls i'm trying to get them to pokemon go to the polls stiff and wrong stiff
00:49:40.680and wrong i want to talk a little bit about the intersection of fandom and politics i think that
00:49:47.560fandom has for a long time to your point about like political theater it's it's had a place in
00:49:52.420american politics but it's had a particular resurgence in a brand new way with donald trump
00:49:59.780The thing with fandom is that people's relationship to the politicians who are public servants, right, that they're voting for, starts to resemble the way that, like, again, a gay person in Brooklyn might love Charlie XCX or a 12-year-old girl in the mid-2010s might have loved One Direction.
00:50:16.680It's when voting, which is political strategy, becomes hero worship.
00:50:23.140Do you know where the word stan came from?
00:53:13.080And what I found so refreshing and beautiful about Bernie, though, was that he had a really compelling way of actually getting people to think about specific issues.
00:53:21.940And I think I think like more than ever and more than any other politician that he was he was up against.
00:53:26.940And I think that was the appeal of him.
00:53:28.500And that's what that's what drew me to him specifically, but then still managed to have this really distinctive look, distinctive voice, distinctive personality.
00:53:35.940And he had these very kind of casual ways of delivering that information.
00:53:40.260i think maybe because he was a lifelong he's talking about like he's dead i think maybe
00:53:44.560because he's a lifelong politician like he he had that ability but um but yeah it was very
00:53:48.500compelling and i think you don't usually get that kind of balance from democrats from democrats
00:53:53.220especially yeah well and but and the thing is like republicans and conservatives you're saying
00:53:58.740like oh people only you know it becomes all about their personalities and not their policies and
00:54:03.280it's like i'm not saying that like democrats work entirely for the people all the time like at the
00:54:08.380end of the day like these are all part of like an elite class of politicians who answer to people
00:54:13.360that aren't always us they answer to the oligarchy quite frankly but also like republicans in
00:54:20.360particular like they need this personality driven almost psychosis that they have over their i would
00:54:27.840say like voter base but it literally becomes fan base but they need that personality stuff because
00:54:32.280anyone who starts reading the actual policies that they're proposing it's like these aren't for
00:54:37.900working people yeah of course like trump's whole thing is that he's proposing stuff that's actually
00:54:43.040completely at odds with the well-being of his voter base you know like who tend to be lower
00:54:48.720income like white people it's sad it's sad he needs people to buy into his personality because
00:54:55.300like there's nothing to buy into with the policies i mean like we could talk about project 2025 and
00:55:00.220like all that stuff but it's just like it's it's not good for anyone like whether you if you're
00:55:04.860listening to this podcast you've never agreed with the single thing i said if you are just like
00:55:07.940not in the 0.0001 like the policies that these people put forward are not for you and like we
00:55:14.960don't have to get into the details of it but if you're listening to this podcast you don't know
00:55:18.780what project 2025 is it was a transition plan proposed by a famous right-wing think tank
00:55:25.200signed off by tons and tons of people who worked in the trump administration during his first term
00:55:30.540And essentially, it's like an extremist proposal that will have outrageously devastating effects for every single person in this country, other than a very small few.
00:55:42.040So I highly recommend looking into it.0.99
00:55:44.200I looked into it recently and it kind of lit a fire under my own ass.0.99
00:56:13.760Okay, so blue MAGA, this is something that I talk about a lot.
00:56:17.060blue maga they're basically people who are they tend to be like centrist liberal democrats who
00:56:23.620have taken this like maga like obsession but like towards democrats who these were the people who
00:56:31.080were like ride or die like biden people you know these were all the people who were like no biden
00:56:35.700who shouldn't drop out like he's our candidate and like okay these are the people who like they
00:56:41.620when the dark brandon meme was pushed on us they were like yeah hell yeah dark brandon like
00:56:46.980biden's a boss i i've gotta meet these people in person because i i'm like that sounds like
00:56:51.760a unicorn to me but also there's just like a lot of people online you know it's like
00:56:55.320hashtag blue wave hashtag resist libs like on twitter they're known as resist libs but it's
00:57:00.260basically people who have this like fandom like obsession and inability to criticize politicians
00:57:05.600the way that trump supporters are towards trump no i am going to mention it there's this page
00:57:09.940on online there it's like very popular on like facebook but it's called occupied democrats
00:57:15.460but it's basically it's one of these huge pages that's just like they they're liberal but they
00:57:22.540treat american politics like it's team sports and like i'm on the blue team and you're on the red
00:57:28.860team and the goal is for the blue guys to win and it's like no the goal for any of this should be
00:57:32.520to make people's lives better it's just so revealing of like the failure of north american
00:57:37.720democracy in general and like especially american democracy with a two-party system and obviously
00:57:42.580people vote third party but it's like you really have the two and they're pitted against each other
00:57:47.780they're us versus them even when they are sometimes they're quite often aligned at least like
00:57:52.320fiscally and with regards to foreign affairs they're quite similar and it's just it is a team
00:57:56.820sport if you add that to the pageantry in the theater it's like it is basically like sports
00:58:01.080and it's like should we be indulging that or should we should we be trying to change that
00:58:05.060When Biden withdrew from the campaign and was replaced with Kamala, something that so many Trump supporters I saw saying online was like, wow, you guys are just like, you know, going coconuts for Kamala right away.
00:58:16.360And like, you're just going to let Biden go like that.
00:58:18.500And it's like, yeah, you know, I don't think people who are engaging with politics from like an intelligent place should be like wanting to like marry themselves symbolically to any single politician.
00:58:31.380Trump has built this like cult like base. And when people behave that way towards a Democrat candidate, like towards Joe Biden or, you know, whoever Democrat, like I don't think anybody should be doing that. I don't think any of this stuff should be personality driven. We should not we should be focusing on these people's policies, like you said, like we should be pushing them in the direction that we want them to go politically, like in favor of, you know, bettering people's lives. Like we should not be doing this. Like, I don't I don't think we need posters of these people in our rooms.
00:59:09.200And I feel like we always forget that.
00:59:10.820I think so much of it gets lost in, like, the fervor and the us versus them and, like, this party being, like, he's lying, she's lying, everybody's lying.
00:59:17.240And it's, like, we get so caught up in this us versus them stuff that, like, we have so little time to sit down and really envision, like, what this person would be doing on a day-to-day basis in office.
00:59:27.260are they charismatic enough to really engage with other leaders from other countries are they strong
00:59:32.560enough to lead a team on a day-to-day basis within the oval office like are they do they have these
00:59:36.880leadership skills that are important rather than like who is this person what are all their scandals
00:59:41.660like all of this stuff it's like that's not really what i'm interested in like i want to know what
00:59:46.200kind of person they're going to be on the job because it's a job and i think we just forget
00:59:50.000that because it's so mediatized because of the spectacle like it's so weird that the president
00:59:54.960for so long had to have like a nuclear family unit who cares crazy i mean even still kamala's0.96
01:00:00.760getting so much shit for like not having biological children of course because it's a bad narrative0.53
01:00:05.120it doesn't fit with the narrative of like american the american ideal i guess yeah and1.00
01:00:09.600it's misogynistic of course but it's like jd vance is a fucking pig yeah fuck that guy1.00
01:00:14.500like i just that's just not what i'm interested in in politicians and i think we just we so often1.00
01:00:20.280forget that we forget that this this is all actually about us not them not these two people
01:00:25.320yelling at each other on a stage like it's a joke it just becomes a joke after a while returning this
01:00:30.800to the what i'm calling the comma-ification of brat i have conflicting feelings about this at
01:00:36.840the end of the day on one hand i think that nobody our age has ever been excited about
01:00:42.840a presidential nominee i say my age because i was too young to really understand what was going on
01:00:48.440when obama oh i was big on obama me 12 years old i was like i was riding hard for obama because it
01:00:57.120was exciting at the time you know but like but i'm i mean i'm a couple years younger than you
01:01:01.060and like everybody younger than me and i'm 25 there's a lot of people younger than me who are
01:01:05.280voting and who all they've ever known are like hillary trump and biden what's there to get
01:01:11.160excited about there as a young person and so like i think it's good ultimately like if if brat if
01:01:17.940kamala brat gets young people excited about like voting which i think is a net good then i think
01:01:24.920that's great political momentum is something that you need to win but right like my concern with it0.67
01:01:32.280is that when she gets reduced to the like cool aunt like brat coconut head girl like we run1.00
01:01:39.400the risk of forgetting that she is a fallible powerful public servant who must be held1.00
01:01:46.980accountable at every term and who must be pushed on some of the issues that she still needs to
01:01:51.460prove herself on it really does speak to like the myopia of the internet in general and just people
01:01:55.860people just forgetting you know it's just like a collective amnesia one month ago maybe two
01:02:01.300months ago kamala harris was crazy coked out aunt who everyone was kind of it was kind of
01:02:06.360derogatory like they were kind of mocking her and now we're all like ah my girl kamala and it's
01:02:12.080take that out. We're all like, wait, that was perfect. I feel like I just made myself cringe
01:02:18.280so hard. Everyone's like, yes, Kamala, mama. I think we're in this kind of, and I think young
01:02:25.600people especially are just in this mode where it's like, yeah, for as long as they've been
01:02:29.140voting, it's been a thing where, oh, they're forced to choose between the lesser of two evils,
01:02:33.740but like you got to choose one. And I think a lot of people are just very fatigued with that.
01:02:37.560You know, you look at Project 2025. If you think about all the people that are going to be harmed
01:02:41.140by Trump's policies and by his reign. It's like, it's going to be more people. So you kind of end
01:02:47.360up having to do this utilitarian kind of calculation where it's like, who is going to be most harmed in
01:02:52.060this? Who is going to be immediately harmed by this? How can I as a voter protect at least one
01:02:56.320more person? That personally is to me how I approach voting. It's tiring being in a crisis
01:03:01.040where you can't just be excited about the person you're voting for and be like, hooray, I'm putting
01:03:05.360all my backing in them and I'm going to feel so represented by them. I don't think any young
01:03:09.560people have ever felt that well and the truth is though i think to a certain extent if you are you
01:03:15.460know to left i don't think you're ever gonna feel that in american politics i think like to aspire
01:03:20.700and to get close to achieving the office of the president like you're an imperialist like you're
01:03:26.300the empire and this is why i just feel like no politician should ever be stand because i think
01:03:31.880that they all inherently like this is my hot take like i think there will never be a perfect
01:03:36.520candidate. I don't think there's ever going to be close to a perfect candidate. I think every
01:03:40.080person who probably ever runs for president will have done like pretty awful shit. And I still think0.99
01:03:45.440that we should get out and vote. And that's, I mean, that's my take, right? Is like, I'll say
01:03:50.100like, I'm voting for Kamala. I hope that because she is the only person right now who can be Donald
01:03:56.440Trump, I hope that people will also get out and vote for Kamala. And that being said, like, I think
01:04:01.040that Kamala is someone that you should vote for and then protest against every time she falls short.0.54
01:04:05.240and i think that she's like not our friend i think she's not a girly i think she's not
01:04:10.780coked out brat mom coconut head falling out of a coconut tree like i i just i think she's a public0.67
01:04:17.020servant and that's i'm not speaking for my i'm not speaking for anyone but like that's like my0.68
01:04:22.420personal ethos around all of this that's the other truth that i hold right like on one hand i think
01:04:26.980that like if the memes get you excited look i don't want to be like the annoying lefty who's
01:04:31.280always smacking you on the wrist for laughing like i think excitement's you know political like
01:04:35.880it's fun it's fun we should and we should have a moment to laugh especially when you know the the
01:04:40.900senile old old guy isn't our only choice anymore but that being said like i think we should probably
01:04:46.600dial back our feelings about like kamala being a girl that we're gonna go out and party with
01:04:50.400because like she's not she's very well could be the president of the united states yeah i'll also
01:04:56.500speak for myself and no one else and not matt i think like i went from being incredibly nihilistic
01:05:02.120about this election i'm not a voter i can't vote for this but like whatever happens in american
01:05:06.060politics will gravely affect us in canada we're extremely codependent uh with the u.s and so we
01:05:12.400have a huge vested interest in it it's really hard not being able to have a say but i went from being
01:05:17.300completely nihilistic about this election to kind of honestly without realizing it unconsciously
01:05:22.100becoming a bit optimistic and i think that just comes from i think it comes from a renewed energy
01:05:27.280that kamala is bringing just like the happiness that biden is is gone and i think also just that
01:05:33.320you know kamala has shown throughout her history that she's someone who can be pushed further in
01:05:37.480either direction that's just what i've observed of her and i think over the past few years she's
01:05:42.460been pushed further and further and further to the left she's someone who will just do whatever
01:05:45.680is currently popular and i think that she has the capacity to be pushed even further and that
01:05:52.380is the optimism that i'm carrying with me throughout this these next couple months i think
01:05:57.060the brat spell over kamala harris's campaign kind of broke for the young online left when
01:06:05.560recently after netanyahu disgracefully spoke in front of u.s congress and kamala in fairness and
01:06:14.020a lot of Democrats did boycott his speech. But there were tons of protests around D.C. when
01:06:20.360Netanyahu visited. Kamala released this statement that basically smeared all of the protesters as
01:06:27.140anti-Semitic, which like certainly anti-Semitism has occurred at these protests. And, you know,
01:06:33.280if I say that if I don't include that disclaimer, then someone's going to send me a screenshot of
01:06:37.340some zoomed in photo from a protest that had an anti-Semitic symbol somewhere. And so I'm
01:06:41.420acknowledging that I'm sure that it did exist. But as we all know, we've been so many months
01:06:47.760into this issue. And we know that smearing all protests against the atrocities committed by
01:06:54.220Israel as anti-Semitic has been a way to squash the entire movement. And so Kamala Harris wrote
01:07:02.160a letter essentially doing this, and it went over really poorly online. But I think I saw a lot of
01:07:08.200people being like well that's brat summer for you and i do think that that was like a necessary
01:07:15.160like i think the spell had to be broken there was only so long that like this like fun 365 party
01:07:23.020could be co-opted by the democratic party by any sort of like major politician before we have to
01:07:30.940all come back down to earth and be like again these are public servants who need to be protested
01:07:35.980when they do something that is not in favor of the people.