Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay. This is the Studio six forty plus podcast only
version of Studio six forty and we've welcomed our panel back,
Cameron Hughes from Chapman University, Kaya Manned from Los Angeles
Valley College, and haraheimon Til from Arizona State University. We
just wrapped up the radio show and you've all submitted
your topics, and for those of that don't know, our
(00:21):
panel submits their own topics when they come in and
then I don't know who does it, and we sit
there and go through them, and of the three, it
looks like the one Harris and Trump set to debate
September tenth, possible strategies Who was that? Okage? And then
recent uptick and social media marketing for hairs campaign. The
memification Did I read that? Right? Whose is that? Yes?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
That's mine?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Okay, Kaya? Sorry? Cam, That's all right, sorry, Cam. So
let's kind of do a hybrid on that. Kaya. Let's
start with you the memification why why did you? Where
did you? Was that? Is that an actual word?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, It's a word that I've heard flow and around
and I think it's a succinct way to describe kind
of what we're seeing on social media, specifically with the
Harris campaign, just a lot of conversation going on about
her and connecting her to pop culture and memes and jokes.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Do I read this right? Paris social bonds with politicians
and explain that.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
It's a phenomenon as occurs a lot with celebrities. So
people have a one side relationship with public figures where
they know everything about them, whereas the public figure knows
nothing about about the consumer. And I think that's been
on the rise in politics a lot, where people, you know,
they feel like they know these politicians, which can cause
(01:44):
harm and can cause them to feel like they maybe
can't do wrong or oh I know this politician. They
are on a twitch and do this or that, and
so they would never do a bill or pass that.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
So what about the memification of America, of the of
this America, which is true though it seems like lately
we live by memes, But the memification of this election
and these politicians, do you think memes skew opinion?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I think they can, especially for the people that are
the people consuming them. So my generation, it starts the
conversation more than ever. I'm seeing people talk about Kamala
Harris and you know, make jokes and every single social
media platform I'm seeing it, and the Kamala HQ is
contributing as well.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
What's your favorite meme about Kamala Harris? Your favorite positive meme?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I think you gotta go with brat Summer.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, yeah, Okay, we're radio.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
So describe that paint the picture it's connecting. It's connecting
Kamala and her campaign to a Charlie XCX album that
got really popular this summer. Okay, that's a very popular
Shark to char Trus Green Color, and so I'm not
completely sure why it got connected, but it kind of
(03:08):
just shows the excitement for people for this new leg
of the race.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
And your let's just say, the most negative meme you've
seen of Kamala thus far, that just just just.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Bothers you, you know, I think there have been some
like focusing on like her laugh. I think, I mean,
I think the memes they they you know, you shouldn't
look too much into them. They're more of a reflection
on how how the community and how my community the
peers are viewing politics and how they interact with it.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Okay, guys, what are your views on this memification of
the of the election. It's it's fun.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, I mean, I've seen I guess to chime in
about one negative meme. One of the more absurdist takes
that I've seen is, especially following the Biden and Trump election,
a lot of people were editing clips and making it
look like a love story, a romance between Biden and Trump,
you know, just these ridiculous things to to make light
(04:14):
of real world events. I think where it might start
to become an issue is, you know, our generation is
now voting age. Those are the people who are engaging
in this memification which I did looked up. Did look
it up. It's a dictionary dot Com verified word apparently.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So really yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Mema phi is to turn into a meme or make
the subject of a meme. M E M E I.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
F y ah, so the E and I are together.
I was trying to figure out meme memafication. So I
was trying to figure out, Okay, m E M E
I M E M E M M E M I. Oh,
it's happy our timeification. That is so crazy. Uh hey,
(04:57):
you favorite favorite meme of Harris, or at least favorite
or disturbing one. What what do you got?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
I think my favorite has to be the one that
does with their laughs. It just it just cracks me out.
But I'm not I'm I'm gonna tind like I'm gonna
sound like a total like non gen z here, but
like I'm not into like the memes and all that. Really,
I guess because I'm more of a serious person. I
tell you things, there's.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
No denying that they are alive, though you don't have
to be into them to know.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
I'm not denying that whatsoever. It's just me personally. I
don't look at that and you.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Don't get up every morning go what's today's meme?
Speaker 4 (05:32):
No, I got friends, I do that for me.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I do think that that's where some of the issues
come in too, is where if people are engaging in
politics in this way, you know that they can kind
of cross those lines and go into more parasocial bonds
and maybe not think as critically about the politicians.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
What I think is interesting is you can take like
you're talking about Kama's laughs. When you montage that together,
it is annoying and it makes it sound and it
makes her sound annoying. And when you then, on the
other hand, you do the thing where you're talking about
Trump and Biden with this love affair. I mean, first
(06:11):
of all, who's got this kind of time on their hands?
I'm wondering, I mean, where where do these people get
all this time? And and brilliant editing skills, by the way,
brilliant editing skills. But you know the memes too, and
well we save this for another day. But the deep
fakes and the AI part of this, that's what is
a little frightening, is how that might influence opinion or
(06:34):
how skew it skew opinion. But memes for me are
just funny. I just I don't I don't put any
stock in them, but I could easily see where repetition
would get to the point where it would make you
annoyed enough to where it could influence your decisions. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
I got friends who I won't name any names, but
they they don't.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Like Come on, name names. Let's sell out them, all right,
they don't.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
They don't like Kamala for the simple fact of the
way that she laughs or I don't know if anybody's
seen the bus one like she's going to a bus
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
I'm like, this is what you're basically going to a bus.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
Yeah, she haves like some bus and it has like
Kamala on it or whatever and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I had a hard time remembering.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
But anyway, Okay, this is what they're basing like they're
voting on they don't know anything about the issues. And
I can say that because I know these people personally.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
My friends.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
They don't know anything about the issues, haven't voted ones,
they didn't care to vote, don't care about politics. But
it's like they're getting motivated to vote. But I feel
like it's like for the wrong reasons.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Listen, that's a great part of America. A lot of
very vast part of this population is apoplectic when it
comes to the election. I mean, that's that's sad reality. Yeah.
How many people do you know actually vote on issues?
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Well, I'd say half the peoplest one that I voted.
I mean that I talked to.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Say. What I'm saying, it's this is what's frightening. I
love our democracy and I'm frightened by it at the
same time. So am I let's move on our other topic. Horny,
you came up with the Harris Trump debate and what's uh,
what do you think is going to happen there.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Well, it's been an interesting story September.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Tenth, by the way, so if this is going to
be posted this people that listened to this, it might
have already happened. But let's in that case, let's see
if your prognostication is is proven accurate.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Good luck.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Well, uh, to start this off, it's been a very
interesting story between these two because Trump wanted a debate
on Fox, Kama said no, Kamma wanted to debate and ABC.
Trump said no, it's just has been. They're playing a
game of chicken this whole time. They can't they couldn't
agree for weeks on whether who should be, you know,
(08:46):
moderating it, who should be hosting it, whatever, And they
finally came to this thing. And it's pretty clear that
Trump just needed an extra week to prepare it because
he was like, oh, I prepared for Joe, I didn't
prepare for Kamala. You know, it's ridiculous. I'm like, I
wish he would have just you know, said, hey, you
know what, I could use the nextra week of prep
but you know, maybe his ego doesn't allow for that.
I don't know now possible strategies here, I gotta go
(09:10):
with Like, Kamala has been pitching this whole thing where
it's like the prosecutor against the criminal. She's been pitching
that to a lot and it's sticking because of how
many indictments Trump has had. So I feel like she's
going to use that and then Trump is going to
use The Democratic Party didn't even didn't hold any debates.
The Democratic voters didn't really get it saying who the
(09:32):
nominee was going to be, Joe Biden, just like, Okay,
I'm endorsing Kamala. She got all the delegates didn't even
there was no debate, no voting, no nothing like, Okay,
this is our pick basically because she's vice president and
everybody knows her. So I feel like he's going to
try to spend that to be like, well, where's the
democracy in that? So I feel like there's going to
be two Those are gonna be the two biggest things
(09:52):
they're going to attack each other with.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
You guys, got any thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I think that's a great point. It is worth noting that,
you know, the presidential candidate has been not really been
chosen by the democracy and the sliders. She was she
was hand picked by Joe Biden.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Before that, I have no idea. Well, do you think
she was really picked by Joe Biden?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
She was handpicked by the Biden administration or the Biden team.
And yeah, before that, I had no idea who she was.
And then now, as I guess, a stroke of luck
for her, She's been thrown into the presidential Cannis candidacy,
and I agree with you, I think Trump's going to
probably attack that. I also think, from what I've seen,
(10:32):
I think Kamala Harris has a lot to be desired
in the public speaking realm. From the speeches I've seen
from her, I I think she struggles a little bit,
maybe a little bit of stage fright even, but she
also loves to like ramble off topic, and we all
know that that's you know, kind of Trump's going to say.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Together.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
So that's what I'm getting at is I think this
is going to be an interesting you know, as in
gen Z you might refer to this as a yap
sessh is what yap set?
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, So you know what I think would be interesting
is why no one has ever thought about doing a
presidential debate at a college campus with college journalists as
the moderators. Don't you think that would be the play?
I think that would be the important To me.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
In my totally unbiased opinion, I'm very much in the
support of that.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, you know, I just think that that would be
kind of cool. Because the other thing, too, is the
moderators are always getting beat up because people are always
saying they should have asked this, They shouldn't have asked this,
They should have been more of this, they should have
been more that. It doesn't I would never I've been
invited to to moderate a couple of debates here locally,
and I won't do it. I just won't do it.
There's no way I'll do it. That's too much pressure.
(11:43):
But I think party I'll be anxious to see now
because some people will hear this before the sixth, and
then obviously it'll stay up indefinitely. So after the sixth,
I'll I'll be anxious to see if your predictions are right. Hopefully,
who do you think? Who do you think is going
to win the debate based on what you both know
or all of you know? Now?
Speaker 4 (12:05):
In terms of winning the debate, I've always said, it's
so you ask.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Because there's no scorecard. I mean technically there's there's you know,
the everyone's personal score card. But knowing what you know
about the both of them, whether it's in their memes
or not, who do you think is going to be
the stronger debater?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I think this is Kamala's race to win at least
in the debate, just because I mean, Joe Biden that
was so disappointing the debate with him, and I think
everyone lost so much steam and was so just bogged down,
and it really it's been exciting the dropping out and
the changing of the teams that I think she has
(12:46):
everything to lose.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Yeah, I would. I would agree with that because look,
the biggest reason as to why Trump was kicking Joe
Biden's behind is because he's not cognitively there. And Trump
knows Joe Biden already. He doesn't have any idea how
Kamala Harris operates on the debate stage.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
His whole campaign was built on Joe Biden being old
and not cognitively there, and now he's the oldest dad.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Now he's the oldest candidate, so it's completely flipped on him.
Kamala Harris is going to have a lot of tricks
up her sleeve. Where we know how Trump debates, we
know what he's going to say. Most of the time.
It's the same thing every single debate.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
We shall see, well, interesting topic. Thank you very much,
and again i'm anxious to see if you're right or not.
It'd be good, it'll be interesting and we'll be looking
for all the memes coming up after the day, the
day after the debate. Thank you all again, thank you,
thank you,