Meme Team: The Pop Culture Marketing Podcast

Why do AI companies keep pitching dinner reservations when people want an AI wife, and why are book publishers hiding their AI use? On Meme Team, the pop culture marketing podcast, Sonia Baschez and Christina Garnett (fractional chief customer officer, Pocket CCO) break down Sonia's viral "AI wife" post and what founders got wrong in the replies, why everyone has to be a creator now and why craft is the new luxury, WIRED's report that HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette are quietly using AI, and why Elizabeth Holmes, Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg lost control of their own stories to Nathan Fielder, Luca Guadagnino and Aaron Sorkin.

Timestamps

0:00 Intro

1:27 "I want an AI wife": why AI marketing doesn't land with normal people

18:20 Be in the replies: fans sell better than founders

21:41 Everyone has to be a creator now

42:54 HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette are quietly using AI

58:48 Tech founders lost control of their stories: Holmes, Altman, Zuckerberg

1:10:11 A 2026 Citizen Kane

1:13:56 Amazon shelved the Sam Altman movie, Neon bought it

1:17:26 You can open the door, but you don't control what walks out

About Christina Christina Garnett is a fractional chief customer officer, founder of Pocket CCO and author of Transforming Customer-Brand Relationships. Find her on X @ThatChristinaG and at pocketcco.com.

📱 TikTok/Instagram/X: @memeteampod · Sonia: @SoniaBaschez · New episodes every Thursday.

Warner Bros. and Paramount are merging under the Skydance name, YouTube is done rewarding content farms, Amazon MGM turned a movie set into a creator activation, and Apple just quietly blocked half the ad tech industry from iOS 27. Sonia Baschez and fractional GTM advisor Gregory Kennedy break down what each of these moves actually means for brands, creators, and anyone paying attention to where the media industry is heading.

Timestamps 00:00 Intro 00:40 Warner Bros. + Paramount become Skydance: rebrand or escape? 18:00 YouTube kills the content farm: what the algorithm update actually rewards 38:00 Amazon MGM's Verity creator press tour: 30 creators, 12 countries, a new playbook 55:00 Apple's iOS 27 ad block: Trade Desk, ad tech, and what brands missed

About Gregory Gregory Kennedy is the founder of Vibe Your Sass, a fractional GTM advisor to startups, and a 3X CMO with 20+ years in Silicon Valley marketing. Find him on X: @gregorykennedy

Disney just announced John Watts for Star Wars Episode 10 and simultaneously undermined him by pairing him with Simon Kinberg — the writer behind X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Fantastic Four, and a failed Twilight Zone reboot. Taylor Swift's bonus "encore" to Life of a Showgirl got dismissed by critics and hit number one anyway. Letterboxd is up for sale at $300M with A24, NYT, Netflix, Sony, and Paramount all circling. And on the same day Meta unveiled its Muse Charm AI wearable, news broke that Muse AI had been caught reading Apple messages after being explicitly told to stop.

Timestamps 0:00 — Star Wars Episode 10: John Watts, Simon Kinberg, and why Disney keeps getting in its own way 21:00 — Taylor Swift's "The Encore": what happens when critics stop mattering to commercial success 33:00 — Letterboxd for $300M: who should buy it, who would ruin it, and the Goodreads warning 51:00 — Meta Muse Charm: Tamagotchi-style AI wearable and the iMessage scandal that hit on launch day

About Kushaan Kushaan Shah leads marketing at Superhuman and writes about consumer behavior and growth. Find his newsletter at substack.com/@kushaan

Mbappe just walked away from a lifetime Nike deal for equity at On Running, and Thierry Henry has been quietly running the football strategy behind it since 2025. Meanwhile, Lily Reinhart built a viral press tour for The Love Hypothesis with basically no help from Amazon, then Amazon showed up after she hit 1.7M impressions on her own. Four stories this week about which brands are staying ahead and which are reacting too late.

Timestamps 0:00 Intro 1:19 Mbappe, On Running, and Nike's brand crisis 19:03 Lily Reinhart's method dressing press tour 37:24 Netflix, A24, and the streaming wars 56:51 Xbox CEO Asha Sharma goes undercover in customer support 1:05:07 Takeaways 1:10:43 Wrap

About Danielle Danielle Messler, head of marketing at Captivate Talent and content strategy practitioner. Fine her at https://www.daniellemessler.com/ and on X @danielleismessy

Prada is making films with Barry Jenkins and Zohran Mamdani has 69% approval for posting about potholes. Hilary Duff just sold out a tour that has nothing to do with nostalgia, and Americans are spending $350 a day in Europe while Portugal buys ads in Times Square. Sonia and brand strategist Gia Jasing get into all four stories on the Meme Team, the podcast where we discuss viral pop culture moments in movies, TV, music, and politics.

Timestamps 0:00 Brands are the new Hollywood (Martin Scorsese/LavAza, Prada/Barry Jenkins, Ben Affleck/Dunkin, Ryan Reynolds/Maximum Effort, Gap + Running Point) 20:55 Zohran Mamdani's governance as content strategy 37:48 The rise of the American tourist in Europe 58:59 Hilary Duff's Lucky Me Tour 1:11:53 Takeaways

About Jiya Jiya Jaisingh is a brand strategist and behavior change marketing specialist. Find her at www.jiyajaisingh.com/ and on X at @JaisinghJiya

Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word manifesto calling for open, democratized AI the same week Meta was defending itself in six active monopoly lawsuits. Bumble scrapped the women-message-first rule, which was literally the brand. Obama launched a book podcast on an audio platform and somehow it's one of the smarter marketing moves of the year.

Jonathan K. Lowe joined me to talk through all of it, plus the FAA quietly solving a hiring crisis by recruiting video gamers.

Timestamps 

0:00 Zuckerberg's AI manifesto vs. Meta's monopoly problem

23:48 Bumble drops women-message-first (and what the Southwest comparison reveals about brand strategy)

42:00 Obama's Audible book podcast and why celebrity co-signs beat institutions now

54:00 The FAA is hiring gamers as air traffic controllers

1:03:00 Key takeaways

About Jonathan K. Lowe Jonathan is the founder and CEO of Salt Foundry, a fractional CMO collective, and author of "Keeping People Interested: How Leaders Use Marketing to Capture and Sustain Attention."

Spider-Man Brand New Day just hit $1 billion, and Disney's CEO is already publicly attaching Avengers Doomsday to that momentum. That's a bold bet with a lot riding on it. Sonia Baschez and journalist Shannon Miller look at the gap between brands that genuinely show up for fans and brands that just extract from them, from Disney's new TikTok creator deal to vinyl labels charging $40 for incomplete pressings to Flock Safety's police camera cover-up.

Timestamps 

00:00 Disney, Josh DeMaro, and the TikTok IP deal

24:00 The Vinyl Trap: why your record probably has missing tracks

41:55 Flock Safety and the police surveillance scandal

55:47 BTS Ari Dang World Tour and how K-pop does fan activations right

About Shannon Miller Shannon is a journalist and former managing editor at AdWeek covering the creator economy. She co-authored "A Miscellany of Weird and Wonderful Facts" with Jess Severis and writes her own newsletter. Follow her on Threads and Instagram @ShannonL_Miller.

Zendaya's press tour for The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day is generating more coverage than either studio's marketing budget combined. Christopher Nolan crossed $650M without a traditional campaign, the IMAX CEO is sitting on the biggest missed opportunity in entertainment, and Marvel Doomsday is locked into a same-day release against Dune 3, which is a position nobody should want to be in.

This week Sonia Baschez is joined by Christina Garnett for her seventh appearance on the show.

Timestamps 

0:00 Intro

0:48 Zendaya's fashion campaign: Law Roach, Schiaparelli, Mathieu Mirano wings look, and the plot Easter eggs

18:24 The Odyssey vs. Moana 2, Christopher Nolan at $650M, and the IMAX CEO fumbling in real time

29:55 Marvel Doomsday vs. Dune 3: same release date, missing female characters, why Doomsday deserves to lose

34:38 Fan conventions as marketing real estate: Hall H, Ryan Gosling as Ghost Rider, Fanatics Fest, Coachella as the influencer Olympics

47:00 Hades Town beats Hamilton's opening pro-shot record, Apple TV acquisition, and making theater accessible

1:00:00 World Cup lessons: monocultural moments, Scottish fans in Boston, Cape Verde's goalkeeper to MLS, FIFA leaving money on the table

1:10:00 Brand identity: Coca-Cola's successful rebrand addition vs. Cracker Barrel and Red Lobster alienating their base

About Christina Garnett Christina is the author of Transforming Customer Brand Relationships and Pocket CCO. She's a fractional chief community officer who helps brands turn customer loyalty into a real business asset. This is her seventh time on the show.

Sonia sits down with Brianna Miller, to break down Jennifer Lawrence saying she hates doing press, Christopher Nolan's take on Gen Z rejecting AI slop, Apple quietly dominating the Emmy nominations, and why Netflix, Paramount, and Sony are all trying to buy Letterboxd. The big thesis: authenticity isn't optional anymore, and the brands that engineer trust without manufacturing it are winning the cultural moment.

Jennifer Lawrence told Viola Davis on Variety's Actors on Actors that her biggest hindrance to acting is doing press. She dropped out of middle school and feels self conscious about how she comes across intellectually in interviews. This falls in line with celebrities opting out of traditional outlets and going direct to podcasts like Amy Poehler's show, Hot Ones, Call Her Daddy, and Chicken Shop Date. The reasons: lower stakes questions, the interviewer knows the space, their guard comes down when talking to a peer, and dual star amplification where both audiences compound reach. Emmy Rossum talked to Alex Cooper about asking for a raise on Shameless and how she got paid the same as William H. Macy. That story never would have come out with a traditional journalist. Tom Holland did press for The Odyssey and talked about being thrown into IMAX filmmaking instead of answering questions about his relationship with Zendaya. The lesson: celebrities are figuring out that if they go direct to celebrity podcasts, they control the narrative and get to talk about what they actually want to talk about.

Christopher Nolan said he's never seen a more rapid wholesale dismissal of a supposedly foundational jump in technology. Gen Z's judgment of AI slop has been immediate and harsh because they grew up online and can tell the difference. Kodak's film division is thriving because young filmmakers are embracing original film technology. Project Hail Mary used a puppeteer for Rocky instead of CGI and it worked. The Odyssey built practical effects for Cyclops, the horse, the boat, and filmed in caves that have never been filmed before. Olivia Wilde paid for film herself for The Invite when the studio didn't want to, and when A24 bought it for a huge profit she got the money back. Kane Parsons and Curry Barker both came out against AI. The lesson: audiences want original stories and practical effects, and the more real you make things, the more authentic it comes across.

The 2026 Emmy nominations came out: HBO got 122, Netflix got 111, and Apple TV got 81. Apple's library is way smaller than Netflix but they have a track record for choosing the correct shows. Their word of mouth is unheard of. Severance, Ted Lasso, Slow Horses, Silo, and Widow's Bay all became word of mouth shows. Apple is quietly curating itself as the sci fi and fantasy streaming platform, which fits with their brand. F1 marketed the camera they built to film cars racing. Netflix is thinking about doing channels that'll be on 24/7, which makes them regular TV. Amazon is becoming the place that creates shows from books: Off Campus, The Love Hypothesis, Lord of the Rings, Jack Reacher, Jack Ryan. The lesson: curation is a strategy, not a compromise, and one show that people feel something about is worth more than 50 average ones.

Netflix, Paramount, and Sony Pictures are in talks to buy Letterboxd. The concern is that they're trying to own an organic community of 26 million users who actively discuss films and influence what people watch. Amazon bought Goodreads and the culture didn't survive intact. OpenAI bought TBPN and the trust is gone. The lesson: when you buy a community, you don't automatically buy their loyalty, and it's very easy for them to leave the platform if they feel it's no longer worth voicing their opinion.

Timestamps

00:00 Jennifer Lawrence hates doing press and celebrities going direct to podcasts

20:00 Christopher Nolan on Gen Z rejecting AI slop and film division thriving

40:00 Apple quietly dominating Emmy nominations with 81 and word of mouth strategy 1:00:00 Netflix, Paramount, and Sony trying to buy Letterboxd and community trust

Guest: Brianna Miller, Director of Demand Generation at Cohere Health and Adjunct Marketing Professor at UMSL

Sonia sits down with Jess Zafarris, author, etymologist, TikTok creator, and editor at large at Ragan and PR Daily, to break down Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding brand activation, FIFA's controversial red card reversal for the US Men's National Team, and TikTok's new AI generated mini drama feature. The big thesis: speed isn't enough anymore, and brands that chase every cultural moment without discernment end up looking desperate instead of relevant.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got married at Madison Square Garden in front of under 1,000 guests, and NBC News called it the American Royal Wedding. Brands immediately jumped in with AI generated memes and reactive content, but most of it felt forced. The Knot put a branded moving truck outside MSG, which worked because the business alignment was obvious. American Eagle Outfitters announced their Kelce collab stock jump. But most brands used AI to generate lazy content instead of creating something thoughtful. The New York Times called them all out. Christian Dior designed both outfits but didn't announce it, and that restraint is working better than the brands that screamed for attention. The lesson: if you're going to participate in a monoculture moment, figure out what you're actually saying and whether your audience expects you to be there.

We're talking about:

• Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding at Madison Square Garden and brands using AI generated memes to participate
• The Knot putting a branded moving truck outside MSG, American Eagle Outfitters announcing Kelce collab stock jump, and Christian Dior designing both outfits but not announcing it
• The tackiness narrative: Blake Lively drama, buffet line, raffle for Chanel bag, and whether luxury brands should associate with that
• Two fandom problem: Taylor Swift fans versus football fans, and why trying to cater to both means you're catering to neither
• FIFA suspending Folarin Balogun's one match ban after Donald Trump called Gianni Infantino, Belgian Football Federation challenging the decision, and the US losing anyway
• FIFA doing this before for Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi, and why precedent is product
• TikTok launching TV studios with AI doing production, mini dramas feature, and why brands were already doing serialized content themselves
• Horror creators like Curry Barker and Kane Pixels building audiences on YouTube and TikTok before getting studio deals, and why AI generated content can't compete
• YouTube demonetizing AI slop and TikTok encouraging it, and which one audiences actually want
• Threads hitting 500 million monthly active users, behaving more like Reddit than Twitter, and why it's a Reddit Pinterest hybrid with microblogging format
• Threads solving the cold start problem by letting users arrive with Instagram or Facebook linked identity, and Blue Sky behaving more like Twitter used to
• Whether Threads will eventually eat Facebook, and where Facebook fits when Instagram is for photos and Threads is for text based community

Plus: Why soap operas got their name in the 1930s, and what that means for TikTok's AI mini dramas today

Timestamps

00:00 Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce wedding brand activation and AI generated memes

20:00 FIFA suspending Folarin Balogun's red card ban after Trump called Infantino

40:00 TikTok launching TV studios with AI mini dramas and why creators are already doing it better

1:00:00 Threads hitting 500 million users and becoming a Reddit Pinterest hybrid

Guest: Jess Zafarris, author, etymologist, TikTok creator, and editor at large at Ragan and PR Daily (@uselessetymology on Instagram, @jesszafarris on TikTok, Words Unravel podcast on YouTube)