Forget royal weddings — the Swift-Kelce saga proves romance now comes with broadcast rights. From stadium PDA to John Oliver cracks about a “royal-killer wedding,” their relationship plays like a franchise launch. In this episode, I unpack how intimacy becomes spectacle through Dayan & Katz’s media events, Benjamin’s aura, and Debord’s spectacle. Love might be in the air, but only if it trends.

It looks like self-care, but feels like finals week. TikTok’s “September Lock-In” trend has Gen Z turning routines into performance art — planners, matcha, and candlelit grind sessions sold as wellness. I dive into how discipline culture dresses up as care, pulling in Foucault’s panopticon, neoliberal selfhood, and the influencer hustle. Spoiler: burnout never looked so aesthetic.

Forget speeches and policies — in 2025, it’s all about the clapback. Politicians dunk on rivals, corporations roast their own customers, and trolling has officially become a communication strategy. In this episode, I unpack how memes replaced governance, with a little help from postmodern branding, Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, and the fine art of parasocial outrage. Because nothing says leadership like a well-timed ratio.

Streaming was supposed to kill cable. Instead, we’ve reinvented it — with more logins, higher prices, and ads on everything. Netflix, Disney+, Max, Prime: all fighting to enshittify faster. This episode breaks down how the golden age of streaming collapsed into the same bundle fatigue we thought we escaped. Expect Doctorow on enshittification, Jenkins on convergence, and a reminder that piracy is just rational consumer behavior in 2025.

Meet Labubu — the gremlin plush that proves memes don’t just rot your brain online, they move into your bedroom. This episode unpacks how absurd internet culture mutates into physical commodities, from Beanie Babies to Squishmallows to Labubu hype drops. Along the way: Haraway’s cyborg manifesto, Baudrillard’s hyperreality, and Marx’s commodity fetishism. Late capitalism: now available in cuddly, limited-edition form.

Remember when grunge meant thrift-store chaos and a middle finger to fashion? Now it’s a TikTok eyeliner tutorial with affiliate links. In this episode, I rant about how subcultures lose their bite once they’re fed into the algorithm, from Nirvana cardigans at H&M to “clean grunge” at Sephora. Theories on deck: Hebdige’s subcultures, Baudrillard’s simulacra. Spoiler — rebellion has never looked this brand-friendly.

Emotional DRM - you're not just a fan, you're a captive audience. Don't believe me? Let me explain. #communication #media

VAR, Social Media, hardcore Fandoms - they all have something in common, killing live events.

You can't see heel and face turns like this too often - so let's talk about what that means for fans and try to look at it through a media & communications theory pov.

I survived a major tech conference so you don't have to. In this episode, I'm not reviewing the gadgets; I'm putting the entire culture under the microscope. This is a field guide to the strange, jargon-filled world of the tech industry, where the goal is to say as little as possible using the most syllables. I'll deconstruct the empty buzzwords that function as linguistic gatekeeping, analyze the cult-like performance of the keynote speech, and unpack the powerful "myth of disruption" that papers over a whole lot of inconvenient truths. Join me as I translate the empty language of innovation.