Super Bowl Memes, Vultures, Tucker/Putin Aftershock
The People's News For The People's Coin 2/6-2/13
Hey everyone,
This news digest covers the following stories from the past week:
1. The Super Bowl in memes
2. Ye’s Vultures release
3. The aftershock of Tucker’s Putin interview
Last Friday, a bonus newsletter went out documenting the immediate reaction to Tucker’s interview with Putin. It can be accessed here.
Don’t miss videos, memes, and news bites at the end!
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Super Bowl Memetics
The Super Bowl is one of the most-memed events all year, and 𝕏 is the undisputed champion platform for providing running memetic commentary on the game.
This year, the platform set new records for user activity, with massive growth from 2023.
This year, memes clustered around two topics the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce romance, and Joe Biden’s unexpected meme game.
Swift/Kelce
The Taylor Swift angle of the Super Bowl was irresistible for 𝕏.
As covered in last week’s newsletter, the conspiracist Internet has been buzzing with speculation about the undercurrents of the Swift/Kelce pairing.
In particular, discussion focused on Swift as an instrument of statecraft, and the political advantages a Kelce/Chiefs victory could provide to the political establishment.
More fuel was added to the speculative fire that the fix was in when the Chiefs were awarded with an accidental first down during their fourth quarter game-tying drive.
A milder, more evidence-based variation of this line of thought emphasized that the NFL successfully leveraged Swift to dramatically expand its audience, with Swift’s Super Bowl appearance as the capstone for the advertising strategy.
The partnership was mutually beneficial: Swift catapulted her own stardom to new heights as a fixture of Sunday afternoon television. There’s no denying that the combo of Taylor Swift and the NFL is good business.
Kelce, for his own part, was heavily memed for his elder abuse of Chiefs head coach Andy Reid early in the game.
Of course, these niche topics obscure a more basic reality: the Swift-Kelce pairing has become the defining celebrity relationship of the the decade.
The relationship is modern twist on past celebrity mega-couples. Swift’s stratospheric fame means that Kelce is punching up big time, and would be nowhere near the household name he is without her. Everyone knows she’s the protagonist.
At the same time, it contains element of traditional gender roles, with Swift playing the spectator cheering on her hubby as he battles with his bros to win bread and strive for glory in the public arena.
This may be the deepest fascination with the relationship, that it offers a vision for how modern women can finally have it all: girl boss during the workweek, tradwife on the weekend, main character always.
Optimistically, the duo represents a wholesome All-American relationship that has become vanishingly rare in media, and two ultra-succesful performers at the top of their games who, maybe, are actually in love.
A segment of social media is rooting for them to get married, which ironically could be the most entertaining and unexpected outcome.
What do you think: Does the Swift/Kelce relationships have staying power , or will it survive only in memes?
Joe Biden’s Unexpected Meme Game
Despite forgoing the traditional Presidential Super Bowl interview, Joe Biden exerted an outsized influence on the Super Bowl social media landscape.
Sunday afternoon, he released unintentionally funny video condemning American corporations for reducing the size of snack food products while charging the same price, also known as “shrinkflation.”
Jason Calacanis observed of the video, “This feels like a SNL skit that was cut!” Elon reacted, “Whoa, this is real”?
Much of the video’s humor stems from its denial of reality.
The same monetary dynamics driving inflation are also causing shrinkflation: the Federal Reserve printed a record number of new dollars during Covid.
Somehow, dollar inflation stayed low through the end of the Trump’s presidency, but as soon as the Biden administration took over, inflation burst past the Fed’s 2% target and never looked back.
For political reasons, the Biden Administration has been reluctant to explain to the public the real reason housing, food, and energy have gotten so much more expensive over the last three years.
Doing so could galvanize opposition to more government spending and money creation, both tactics favored by Wall Street and Washington.
Instead, the Biden admin has deployed an ever-changing litany of narratives to reassure the public that inflation has nothing to do with historic government printing, spending, and bank bailouts.
Blaming companies for raising prices—or keeping prices the same and reducing the quantity of a given good, which amounts to the same thing—is the latest such example of avoiding a facts-based conversation about inflation.
Inflation is a serious issue for many Americans. However, the video’s peppy music, quasi-comic tone, and seemingly gleeful aversion to discussing basic economics leaves it up to the viewer to decide whether the President sees it the same way.
As it turned out, the shrinkflation video was a prelude to an even zanier post.
After the game, Biden stole the show by trolling the “they’re-rigging-the-Super-Bowl-to-help-Taylor-Swift-to-help-Biden” crowd with a laser-eyed meme.
Biden’s comment read, “Just like we drew it up”, a reference to the conspiracy theory that a Chiefs’ victory would set the stage for a Kelce/Swift campaign endorsement.
Also notable, the image’s hidden description read, “dark brandon,” the name of another Biden meme.
The combination of Biden’s laser eyes (a popular meme among Bitcoiners) and Bitcoin’s breach of $50k on Monday led to tongue-in-cheek speculation that Biden had given the order to send Bitcoin to the moon.
What do you think: are you entertained by Biden’s revitalized meme game?
Vultures Release
This weekend, Ye reclaimed the cultural spotlight as only he can with the release of his album Vultures.
The album reached #1 on Apple Music in 109 countries, a new record for a collab album.
Ye addressed the entertainment industry’s attempt to cancel him in an impromptu interview: “We’re number one. Everything they did only helped us.”
At another point, he addressed the topic of anti-Semitism directly: “For all the jewish kids that love me, I’m sorry if y’all had to hear a grown up conversation…we got to a point where something needed to be said. If you’re in an argument with someone, you not going to say everything the right way.”
On Monday, Elon got pulled into the Ye universe after Ye posted a clip from the song “CARNIVAL” that included the line, “Elon where my rocket ship?/It’s time to go home.”
Elon responded by breaking the news that Starship’s next flight was in three weeks before tagging rapper Nicki Minaj, an apparent reference to the release of her own album on the same timeframe.
Ye also trended during Super Bowl with a viral ad recorded on his phone, and conspicuous markdown of all items to $20 in his Yeezy fashion store.
Afterwards, he compared himself to Robin Hood for delivering on his promise to democratize access to his fashion.
On Tuesday, former Broncos receiver Brandon Marshall claimed that Ye bought Super Bowl tickets in front of Taylor Swift’s box so he would be on screen whenever cameras cut to her, but Swift found out about the plan and had Ye removed.
The same day, Ye overtook Swift as the top global artist on Spotify.
In another widely circulated clip, he said he planned to vote for Trump in 2024: “Yeah of course it’s Trump all day, whatchu talking bout—you know what it is. They put me in the hospital for supporting [Trump].”
What do you think: Have you listened to Vultures? What do you think of Ye’s return to the public eye?
Tucker/Putin aftershock
Note: A bonus newsletter went out immediately after the Tucker/Putin interview aired dedicated entirely to the interview—it can be found here.
Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin from last Thursday continued to exert powerful influence on both geopolitics and social media over the weekend and into this week.
The interview surpassed 200M views on the three major social media platforms. Facebook appeared to be throttling the interview’s spread, with the world’s largest platform showing a tiny fraction of the views of YouTube and 𝕏.
The interview set the stage for several intriguing developments this week.
On both the anti-war left and right, the interview was praised for its discussion of the full context of the Ukraine-Russia war, including the role of US empire in provoking the conflict over the last decade.
The growing public awareness of the war’s context is important as Western countries debate whether to send additional aid to Ukraine and prolong the war, or attempt diplomacy.
At the core of the debate is the question of which country is the true aggressor.
Pro-war media depicts Russia’s invasion as “unprovoked” as a way of justifying aid to Ukraine.
Anti-war media acknowledges the West’s role in overthrowing the Ukrainian government in 2014 and expanding NATO to Russia’s doorstep—in other words, provoking Russia.
A related topic of discussion was Putin’s claim that the Biden administration sent Boris Johnson to scuttle a peace deal in 2022 between Russia and Ukraine that, if ratified, would’ve saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
The claim caused Johnson to issue a short video calling the interview a "tissue of lies” and warning against “the notion that Putin is somehow fated to succeed in Ukraine, on the contrary, he is doomed to fail,”
One 𝕏 account pointed out that one of Johnson’s parliamentary allies had already confirmed the claim (which has been widely reported) in a book.
On Tuesday, Reuters cited three Russian sources to claim that the Biden Administration rejected Putin’s offer for a ceasefire in late 2023, and again in 2024.
One source for the article said of peace talks, “Everything fell apart with the Americans”, who did not want to push Ukraine toward diplomacy.
A US source denied the claim that there had been any official contact between Russia and the United States. In his interview with Tucker, Putin said Russia was open to “dialogue” with the West.
The interview has also functioned as backdrop for ongoing Congressional debate over a new $95B Senate foreign aid bill to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
On Monday, Tucker returned for his first show since the Putin interview: an interview with Ohio Senator JD Vance about opposition to the bill.
Monday evening, Elon appeared on a Spaces event about the bill.
During the discussion, he urged Congress to consider diplomacy as an alternative to continued military funding: “if you are going to spend lives, it must be for a purpose. Not just a mile back and forth. In fact, the lines aren't moving. So, just every day, people die.”
Afterward, Elon was attacked by a Washington Post journalist, who called his opposition to continued war “Shameful stuff” and “Disgraceful.”
Elon responded that the main outcome of the war was “lots of dead kids” and asked, “What kind of psycho wants that to continue?”
Early Tuesday morning the foreign aid bill passed the Senate.
Speaker Mike Johnson has said the bill is “dead on arrival” in the House because it ignores the US border.
On Tuesday afternoon, Biden urged Johnson to bring the bill to the floor for a vote immediately: “the bill provides urgent funding for Ukraine so it can keep defending itself against Putin’s vicious, vicious onslaught.”
Another topic that caught fire as a result of Tucker’s interview the CIA.
On 𝕏, Putin’s multiple mentions of the CIA caused discussions about the intelligence agency’s past acts to trend for several days.
In a follow-up interview released on Monday, Tucker called out the CIA for trying to prevent him from conducting the interview.
The CIA came focus again on Tuesday when a bombshell report by journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger alleged that the CIA was behind the 2016 attempt to frame Donald Trump as a Russian asset.
According to Shellenberger’s article, Obama CIA Director John Brennan “asked the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance to surveil Trump’s associates and share the intelligence they acquired with US agencies, say sources close to a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HSPCI) investigation.”
Five Eyes is an intelligence-sharing agreement between the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the US.
The Five Eyes agreement allows the CIA to surveil its own population, which is otherwise illegal, by outsourcing the work to other governments’ intel agencies.
Brennan reportedly identified 26 Trump associates for the Five Eyes to target. The results of this initial targeting were eventually used to justify the now-discredited Russia collusion hoax.
If confirmed, the news that the CIA directed foreign agencies to illegally spy on then-candidate Trump and associates during the 2016 election would be an earth-shaking revelation, in no small part because Trump appeared to allege such a scheme during an August 10, 2020 press conference.
Trump ended the conference by saying, “I think it’s the political crime of the century, and they’ve been caught, so let’s see what happens to them all.”
Earlier in the year, Trump posted a meme suggesting his campaign had been targeted by a spying operation at the behest of Obama.
Shellenberger’s report also claimed the existence of a 10-inch binder documenting the spying scheme, which Trump ordered declassified at the end of his term. According to the sources, the binder has gone missing from the CIA.
Tuesday night, Shellenberger acknowledged speculation that the FBI was seeking the binder when it raided Trump’s Mar-A-Lago home in August 2022 and promised a forthcoming article about the topic.
Overall, the Tucker/Putin interview has become a skeleton-key for the present moment, providing important context about Congress’s obsession with Ukraine aid, the Biden family’s involvement in Ukraine, the 2016 election, Russiagate, abuses by US intel agencies, and the first Trump impeachment.
RFK Jr addressed the American media campaign to dissuade people from watching the interview: “every American should watch that interview, no matter how you feel about the war, no matter how you feel about American foreign policy. My uncle always said that to have peace in the world you have to be able to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.”
On a lighter note, Putin’s opening historical monologue continued to permeate the memesphere, taking an early lead for the year’s most powerful meme.
As of yesterday, interview has been viewed 200 million times on 𝕏. It can be accessed here.
What do you think: Did you watch the interview? Why or why not?
Top Videos
1. A reminder that people are good:
2. On the topic of indicting former Presidents:
3. Tucker on the US’s duty to promote peace:
4. On the process of spiritual awakening and global change
5. Stephen A Smith on immigration: “How the hell do you print money for foreign countries but you don’t print that money to help folks that are starving right here in the streets of America…That’s why Trump is on the verge of getting re-elected”
6. Dave Smith on the media reaction to Tucker’s Putin interview: “The real reason why these people are all freaking out is because this entire war has been sold on lies”
7. Bret Weinstein explains why Elon is not on the same side as the evil elites:
8. Israeli journalists talking about Gaza:
9. Alex Jones talking about crony capitalism in the aughts:
Dogey Treats: News Bites
Elon’s Companies
Roseanne said Disney’s Bob Iger organized her cancellation for liking Trump, and encouraged Elon Musk to take up her case in a lawsuit.
Elon floated the idea of making a hotel on the moon.
US Politics
Senator JD Vance wrote a letter to congress warning that the bill contained a provision that would allow Trump to be impeached for blocking money to Ukraine if he were elected President. Elon reposted the letter and asked Mitch McConnell “What is going on?” In another post, he called for Mitch McConnell to step down.
Trump said the US should never again give away free money to other countries and extend zero interest-rate loans instead.
Anti-Trump activist Michael Rappaport acknowledged that media depictions of Charlottesville were a hoax. Playwright David Mamet said “Trump Was the Best President Since Abraham Lincoln.”
Elon expressed support for the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas over the border and drew attention to Mayorkas’s involvement with HIAS.
The DNC filed a lawsuit against RFK Jr based on his attempts to get on state ballots.
Israel began a new bombing campaign in Rafah during the Super Bowl.
Elon said truth is censored about election fraud and highlighted election fraud in Atlantic City
Trump made a post encouraging people to give Bud light another chance.
Joe Biden posted a video of himself buying fried chicken for a black family.
CNBC pundits discussed reports that House Democrats were questioning whether Biden would drop out and Kamala Harris said “ready to serve”
Bill Maher claimed that the US “won the pandemic economically.” Florida Realtor Freddie Smith said inflation has made housing unaffordable for millennials.
Memes of the Week
Elon’s Memes
Thank You!
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