If you're normal, people will vote for you actually

The Summer Of Zohran

New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani swept the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City yesterday, crushing Andrew "I'm not perverted, I'm just Italian" Cuomo. Get wrecked, loser, we’re freezing the rent, bitch.

The reactions this morning to Mamdani’s win from prominent Democrats are a very delicious mix of confusion, dismay, and completely misguided confidence that they actually know exactly why Mamdani won. (They, of course, do not.) And this all stems from the fact that Democrats have spent the last seven months slowly reducing their own understanding of why they lost last November.

“Huge congratulations to the Pod Save Guys, the Abundance Guys, and all the Democratic pundits who suddenly discovered Mamdani and started saying nice things about him less than 36 hours ago as soon as the Polymarket odds shifted,” Lever News’ David Sirota wrote. “This victory is all you guys, great work.”

But for now, let’s ignore the fact Mamdani is clearly a generational political talent and, instead, start with what we think we know about why President Donald Trump won last November and why former Vice President Kamala Harris lost, at least when it comes to media strategy. It's obviously hard to map national politics onto a local race, but New York City is big and Stephen Colbert pressed Mamdani on Tuesday to, yet again, talk about Israel as if he was running for president. So clearly there is some crossover here.

The popular narrative that emerged last winter was that Trump won, at least in part, due to his embrace of what we're now calling the manosphere. An amorphous blob of podcasters and influencers that all seem to orbit UFC's Dana White. It seems like Elon Musk convinced Trump that X, the everything app, played a part as well, but that seems highly unlikely to me because no one uses that app. As I've written before, I think Musk's money helped much more. One other, I think, under-scrutinized factor was Trump's use of text messaging and small rallies to target local pressure points, reinforcing the culture war he was using influencers to amplify nationally.

That’s three things: influence, money, and identity politics. But Democratic strategists have ignored most of that. They agonized over who “the Joe Rogan of the left” is — it’s obviously Hasan Piker, I don’t know what to tell you. And now they have simplified things even further: Trump won because of podcasts. This is why Gavin Newsom launched his stupid show and why Pete Buttigieg went on the Flagrant podcast. (Funnily enough, I wrote back in March that Newsom could learn a lot from Mamdani about how to look like a real human person.)

“The key to political comms is being able to do longform podcast interviews and short-form videos,” Yahoo! Finance reporter Jordan Weissmann wrote on X of Mamdani’s victory. I’d be so bold as to say that Mamdani’s victory this week proves that none of that matters at all actually.

Mamdani didn't even do a lot of big podcast hits! He went on The City’s podcast in March, and Throwing Fits and Plain English with Derek Thompson this month. Do you think podcast hits helped a socialist win over a third of Staten Island? Be fucking serious right now lmao. Mamdani also didn't really align himself with big donors or even push a big influencer campaign. Most of the celebrities — and even the local podcasters that endorsed him — didn't get involved until the day of the primary.

I’ve also seen the argument that Mamdani won because of his savvy social media strategy, which I also don’t really agree with. Harry Sisson, some kind of Gen Z lib influencer I’ve never heard of that apparently has a million followers online somewhere, wrote in all caps, “PLEASE DEMOCRATS EMBRACE SOCIAL MEDIA AND NEW MEDIA IT CLEARLY WORKS.”

But Democrats have embraced social media. They over-index it actually. They’re also shit at it. And Mamdani’s big viral moments weren’t really even all that big. He did a cute video about how expensive Halal trucks are now. Another buzzy video where he spoke Bangla. And his biggest video was one documenting his walk across the island of Manhattan. None of these are Brat Summer. They’re, again, just a guy being normal and talking about policy in a way other normal people can understand. And this is not meant to downplay Mamdani’s team. Even they have said they didn’t really do anything all that revolutionary. “The same skills you have that help sell toothpaste, fast food, or kitchen appliances can easily be applied to a political life,” Mamdani video producers Anthony DiMieri and Debbie Saslaw told social media analyst Rachel Karten. “But all of us can use our time and our talents to fight for something like a $30 minimum wage and potentially change the lives of millions of people in the process.”

And Chapo Trap House’s Felix Biederman put all this best, writing, “He never condescended. He did not dumb things down into meaninglessness, do shallowly self deprecating ‘I’m uncool but doing a TikTok meme’ hits, or any of the billion other things voters find nauseating. He demonstrated real trust!” (He, also, it should be noted, did not throw trans people under the bus.)

So expect to hear a million reasons why Mamdani won today and what it means for Democrats across the country going forward, but, from where I’m sitting, it’s pretty simple. Social media does not turn a bad candidate into a viable one. It’s just amplification. And the same platforms that can amplify the ugliness and hatred and resentment of someone like Trump can amplify the joy and earnestness and seemingly genuine conviction of a candidate like Mamdani. It cannot, however, make voters forget that a candidate like Cuomo killed their grandparents during COVID or that current New York Mayor Eric Adams is a genuine maniac. There’s no magic trick. Mamdani ran a regular ass campaign where he spoke clearly about what he cared about and was normal about it and it worked. Revolutionary! And I understand why this would all be very threatening to Democrats, seeing as how most of them do not seem to care about anything.

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A Good Post About Zohran

Despite Reports, Rare Vances Aren’t Contraband (For Now)

—by Adam Bumas

Over the past couple days, a lot of places have picked up the story that a man was denied entry to the US because of the Rare Vance meme on his phone. It’s a scary prospect — if memes are outlawed, only outlaws will have memes! — but it’s probably not true. 

The original story came from the local Norwegian newspaper Nordlys, which spoke to the man (coincidentally named Mads Mikkelsen, lol) after he had been forced to return home. It’s true he was detained and turned away for no stated reason, which is not a good sign. It’s also true that new directives for visa applicants show the Trump Administration cares about your social media — as if you couldn’t tell from the non-photoshopped JD Vance becoming a keyboard warrior.

But in this case, it doesn’t seem like the meme was the deciding factor, and even the Daily Mail, the first English-language source to report the story, had to change their headline after an official comment from Customs and Border Protection. Make no mistake: If you’re crossing the US border, you should take steps to protect yourself and your phone. But there are more meaningful ways to resist than photoshopping Vance beyond all recognition. Though, it’s still funny that the meme is now gracing newspapers everywhere.

The Liver King Is Having Some Kind Of Breakdown Right Now

Brian Johnson, better known online as The Liver King, a bearded muscleman influencer who basically only eats raw meat (and steroids), is having some kind of weird one-sided feud right now with Joe Rogan. A local Texas NBC affiliate reported this week that Johnson was arrested after he posted a video to Instagram challenging Rogan to a fight. Huh, Rogan didn’t accept the challenge and instead called the cops? Kinda soy behavior, Joe.

“Joe Rogan, I’m calling you out, my name’s Liver King,” The Liver King said in a video. “Man to man, I’m picking a fight with you. I have no training in Jiu-jitsu; you’re a black belt, you should dismantle me. But I’m picking a fight with you.” All sounds very normal to me!

As The Hollywood Reporter points out, Johnson has had a grudge against Rogan for a while. He apparently blames Rogan for losing his supplement deal — for reasons that are sort of fuzzy. But the real kicker here is that Alex Jones, of all people, is putting out videos worrying about Johnson’s mental health. Which should be a real wakeup call for Johnson.

VTubers Are Still Terrorizing Hollywood

—by Adam Bumas

I recently wrote about how weird and outdated promotional press tours are, but I can’t pretend they aren’t trying to adapt. From entering the Criterion Closet to navigating the Scylla and Charybdis of fried chicken, celebrities are regularly going to newer and weirder places to promote their latest releases. 

The most obvious example, of course, is whenever a celebrity has to meet a VTuber. Even very online people aren’t always familiar with the motion-captured digital streamers, and so seeing confused reactions by Jared Leto or Bernie Sanders is, you could argue, part of the point.

Over the weekend, we got an especially interesting case from the press tour for the year’s most British-brained movie (complimentary), 28 Years Later. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland spoke to one of Japan’s biggest VTubers, who appears as a dog girl named Inugami Korone. Naturally.

The interview is pretty standard in terms of the questions, but there’s something compelling about how differently Boyle and Garland react to Korone. Clips have made the rounds, people have drawn fan art, tried to psychoanalyze them… again, this is all exactly what a promo circuit is supposed to do.

Speaking of being British-brained…

Wiganposting Is So Hot On Tumblr Right Now

So here’s a weird thing! The Wigan kebab and the smack barm pey wet, which both went viral back in 2019 thanks to a truly incredible JOE.co.uk video, are now going viral again on Tumblr in a pretty big way.

If you forgot all about this, a Wigan kebab is a pie barm from Wigan, England. A pie barm is when you put a meat pasty between two hamburger buns. A meat pasty is like a pastry, but savory. The smack barm pey wet is a fried potato slice covered in pea juice, also between two hamburger buns. England is a beautiful country.

You can follow the renewed Tumblr discourse about Wigan here and here. Though, be warned, it’s getting weirdly NSFW in certain Wigan-related tags for reasons I can’t totally explain. As one user wrote, “Girl are you from Wigan cause you’re getting my pey wet.”

One More Good Zohran Post

Some Stray Links

• “‘Big Balls’ No Longer Works for the US Government”

• “FICO to Include ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Loan History in Credit Scores”

• “Marc Maron Tears Into MAGA Comedians: ‘Hope You’re Happy’”

P.S. here’s a good Tumblr post.

***Any typos in this email are on purpose actually***