Challenge the cult at your peril.
Have you listened to Joe Rogan's podcast? Can you name two songs from Taylor Swift's latest album? Can you name one member of BTS? Are you even on Twitter/X, never mind eating up every word Elon Musk utters? Are you one of the 130,000 on the Kamala Harris Zoom call?
Odds are you can't or you aren't. Large odds. The above represent cults, and they get overblown coverage in traditional media, giving an inaccurate picture of what is truly going on. And if you question anything about the object of devotion, you will be excoriated, to the point where most people don't even try, because they can't endure the hate.
All this news about Joe Rogan having a number one podcast... Most of it is about how much money he's making. And Bloomberg just ran a story about his impact in Austin. But we don't have accurate statistics as to how many people actually listen to Rogan. Sure, you can download the podcast, follow him and certain platforms do this automatically, but have you spent the hours every day checking out what he has to say? Probably not. But if you point this out, if you question anything Rogan has to say, good luck, his fans are bonded to him. They live for Rogan. They believe he speaks their language. Someone is standing up for the uneducated bros who were not popular in high school. Rogan's podcast is full of conspiracies, inaccuracies, and this is a big problem, but not as big as conspiracies and inaccuracies across America.
One of the big stories this weekend was about a Swift show in Europe where people sat on the grass outside the stadium. Kudos to her. Then again, people have been trying to get a free listen forever. It just hasn't been an international story. I'm not saying Swift isn't big, but exactly how big is she? There's this canard that as soon as Swift comes out for Kamala it will change the election, ensuring Harris rides to victory. But in the seven or eight states that matter, how many Swift fans are there? Sure, register them, every vote counts, but what makes you believe her endorsement will swing the election? Springsteen and his music were known by more people than Swift's, by a huge margin. He was all over MTV, the radio, but his endorsement didn't move the needle. The Eagles and Linda Ronstadt couldn't deliver the presidential nomination for Jerry Brown. These three acts still have more penetration than Swift, more mindshare in terms of songs known by the public, but the media and the Swifties have you convinced that she can move mountains, and she cannot.
Not only do you not know a member of BTS, you probably can't name a single K-pop song, even though you've heard all about the overhyped scene. Let's be clear, the music industry loves this hype. Anything to drive streams and ticket sales, but how big is the BTS Army in America? Or, as someone in the Phish camp once said to me, they don't know how many Phish fans there really are, is it the same fifteen thousand people going to every arena show? Once again, Phish has a business, kudos. But they outpunch their weight in my inbox. Someone farts and a Phishhead will e-mail me a connection to the Vermont band.
As for Harris... There's been euphoria since she replaced Biden on the ticket. But 130,000 women on a Zoom call, in a country of 340 million? Even raising 300 million dollars, not insignificant, but that does not mean she'll win in November. Only seven or eight states matter. What can she do to win there, where Biden squeaked by, on 80,000 votes. Sure, Biden won the popular vote, but the Electoral College is something different.
As for the tech bros... One thing about the musicians, the entertainers endorsing and supporting political candidates, they're not in it for the money. Whereas the tone-deaf Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen make no bones that a Trump victory in November will benefit them financially. Andreessen is so heavily invested in Crypto that he wants someone in office to support a world which has not shown a practical use other than for ransomware. And Musk? One thing about Musk is he owns Twitter/X, so he outpunches most of the other people I've written about above, but have you noticed Tesla sales not only faltered, they helped bring down the entire market last week? But tell this to a bro... The same bros who think they're winning in meme stocks, the same bros who are buying crypto meme-coins that have no value other than speculation. The tech titans are so myopic, so out of touch, they don't realize they've replaced the cable company as the second most hated entity in America (Ticketmaster is the perennial number one). This is the same blindness that had big time media missing the Trump surge of 2016.
So you've got these cults, not tiny by any stretch of the imagination. And there is real power within them, believe me, Taylor Swift is making bank, but people are afraid to question their power, because of the sh*t that will rain down upon them.
People believe in these cults because it's human nature. It makes them feel good. Especially in a world where the individual has never felt more powerless. And it's those on the fringe that garner the most belief. It's no fun pledging fealty to the person or scene everybody else does. This is your identity. No one can cross the object of your belief/fandom.
But once again, these are CULTS! Large cults, but they don't encompass the public at large, not by a long shot.
Cable news? It's lucky if it reaches a million people. Walter Cronkite spoke, it moved mountains. We still have one newspaper that can change the course of political history, the "New York Times" brought down Biden. But no other newspaper has this power, none.
But I won't say that the "Times" has a handle on popular culture, can tell which way the wind blows. Because the "Times" was built for a world where the big stories rose to the top and only the big stories mattered. So we get an endless whipsaw effect, blowing us left and right on entertainment stories that don't matter. At least everybody knows who J.Lo is, but one of the acts with the most press recently is Gracie Abrams, some might have even heard her name, but her music? And that of Kate Hudson? You're entitled to make a go of it, but that doesn't mean we'll accept it.
Hell, most rockers believe rock is not dead. They'll point to aged acts and Active Rock acts...talk about a niche. When was the last time a rock act had a track that dominated the culture? Maybe Coldplay twenty years ago. Yes, rock used to be a big tent, including both AC/DC and the Little River Band, but not Olivia Newton-John. Raw belief is not enough, it does not make something true, but it feels good to the believers so they bully others into believing what they say is true, when it is not.
Yes, add up all the cults and it makes a difference. But we don't have one cult with the power of network television or terrestrial radio in the last century. Things have changed, but the sensibility of the public and the news media has not.
I wrote about the flaws in a Kamala Harris campaign and it was unacceptable. Some people believed I'd gone MAGA, was going to vote for the Orange Man, when nothing could be further from the truth. Blind devotion crosses all age groups these days, all political persuasions, you cannot question the orthodoxy.
Even Biden being too old to run. You took it on faith that the Democrats were trustworthy, you could believe what they said. But that did not turn out to be true.
And it's hard to be an individual with your own opinion, because that oftentimes leaves you alone, and no one likes the solitary life.
I hope Harris wins in November. But statistics tell us it will be a tight race. Furthermore, the constant attacks on Trump's character are not working, even criminal conviction couldn't sway people, the Trump cult is unswayable. But how are you going to bring the independents, the changeable voters to your side? By talking about the future, the issues. But the Democrats have been so busy saying the economy is great under Biden that they can't acknowledge and sympathize with those who are struggling.
Or to quote Pauline Kael, who didn't really say it, even though everyone believes she did... How could Nixon win, nobody she knew voted for him! Too many are living in bubbles. And the news media is not helping. The media loves rah-rah, it loves a story that it believes most people support, it sells subscriptions and advertising, But if you're on "Entertainment Tonight" or in "People" not only will it probably not move the needle, most people will still be unaware of who you are and what you're doing.
And the music business found out that TikTok stars don't necessarily translate into mainstream music stars, so now everyone is sh*tting on the platform. But the industry has not found another way to find and break acts, and TikTok is as powerful as ever.
Just like the anti-social media crowd. How much time have you spent on TikTok? How can you be an expert if you've never been on the platform?
And the aforementioned "Times," appealing to its educated older base, talks about the evils of smartphones and social media seemingly every day. Has this put a dent in usage? Do those on social media even hear it? It's just a circle jerk amongst an elite who think they know better. Completely detached from reality.
And Nate Silver's numbers can't be accurate because he's involved in a new business funded by Peter Thiel. You can't separate one from the other. Polling is data, but now that Silver is associated with the enemy he's been taken off the table by those on the left, he's a pariah.
This is the country we live in. Where what is small as seen as big. Where you can't challenge anybody's belief. And you can't trust the media to get it right even if it's doing its best not to be biased.
Does that mean I have the answers? Absolutely not. I do my best to take the temperature of America, by reading and asking people questions everywhere I go. I don't know. But I'm trying.
You should try too.
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