The Popaganda Podcast

What happens when your comfort shows stop comforting—and your “fun little apps” start feeling like tiny extensions of state power?

In this episode, Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok talk about how living under fascism is reshaping our relationship to pop culture, streaming, and the platforms we’ve treated like default companions. From canceling Hulu/Disney after the Jimmy Kimmel controversy (and the bigger question of what a boycott is actually asking for), to rethinking Spotify amid reports of ICE recruitment ads, we share what we’re wrestling with: values vs. convenience, visibility vs. safety, and how to stop “overstaying” in unhealthy relationships.

We also get real about grief (yes, even for a 20-year relationship with Grey’s Anatomy), the algorithmic slide into right-wing propaganda and diet-culture-as-evangelism, and why our nervous systems are demanding different kinds of stories right now—like audiobooks, games, and community-centered ways of staying connected that don’t depend on billionaire-owned platforms.

Are you in your breakup era, too? Then put on your softest sweatpants, order some takeout, and come on over for a lonely hearts club episode of The Popaganda Podcast. 

Listen: Dungeon Crawler Carl (audiobook)

Watch: No Other Land and support Masafer Yatta.

Reflect: What platform or subscription are you “overstaying” with—and what would a clean, loving exit look like?

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, and leave a five-star review—it really does help people find the show. Come for the pop culture. Stay for the abolition.

Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? In Tashmica’s house, absolutely—and it’s also a masterclass in copaganda.

In this special holiday episode, Shannon and Tashmica rewatch Die Hard the way Tashmica’s family does every year: loud, talk-back style, like a Christmas Rocky Horror—except the call-and-response is all about how the “good cop” story gets built.

We break down how the film makes John McLane (Bruce Willis) irresistible—young, tender, “just a guy trying to get his family back”—while quietly selling us a whole worldview: cops can bend rules, instincts count as evidence, police violence is redemption, and everyone else (dispatch, LAPD, FBI, the “system”) is incompetent until the right cop takes charge.

Along the way, we unpack: why the “terrorists” being white matters, how the Black characters are positioned (from “Black nerd” to “cop who needs his gun back”), why the ham-radio emergency line moment is peak “rules don’t apply to cops,” and how even the Christmas sparkle (hello, “Ho Ho Ho, now I have a machine gun too”) is part of the package.

Welcome to the holiday copaganda workshop you didn’t ask for—but probably need. Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!

Pop Culture Homework:

• Watch: Die Hard (1988)
• Read: The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston’s Racial Divide – the book Tashmica mentions on police culture + the “blue wall” logic*
• Reflect/Discuss: What’s the ‘cop intuition’ moment in your favorite cop show/movie—and what does it train us to excuse?

*Correction corner: Michael Cox, the focus of the book The Fence, was brutally beaten, but he survived the attack and the cover-up that followed.

Hosts: Tashmica Torok & Shannon Perez-Darby

🎧 Stream now, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review—it really helps others find the show. To learn more, visit: www.popagandapod.com

Help keep Popaganda independent—shop our merch! → https://shopaganda.sellfy.store/

Sponsored in part by: The Accountable Communities Consortium and Aletheia Coaching & Consulting

Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcast

What if our best tool for fighting fascism is embracing all of our ‘Wayward’ teens and their imagination for resistance?

In this episode, Shannon and Tashmica rave about the talented nonbinary artist Mae Martin (they/them), and Wayward, the limited series they created for Netflix. Set in 2003, the story follows Leila and Abby, teenage best friends and a local police officer, Alex, as they uncover dark secrets surrounding the town and their strange relationship with a local academy for troubled teens.

Martin’s portrayal of Alex (he/him), a trans man, and his relationship with his pregnant wife Lauren, delivered a captivating story that normalized the existence of trans people and queer family dynamics while also giving us one of the hottest queer sex scenes we’ve ever seen on a mainstream platform.

Listen in as we talk cultish spiritual vibes, that time Republicans crashed Grindr, and the all too real impact of the for-profit, unregulated Troubled Teen Industry (TTI).

Welcome to Tall Pines. We think you’ll like it here. 

Pop Culture Homework:

• Watch: Wayward
• Read: Officials calling for state investigations over use of force in East Lansing, Michigan 
• Listen: The Autobiography of Assata Shakur, Pen and Paper: Library of A Pan African Communist | Podcast on Spotify 

Hosts: Tashmica Torok & Shannon Perez-Darby.

🎧 Stream now, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review—it really helps others find the show.

To learn more, visit: www.popagandapod.com 

Help keep Popaganda independent—shop our merch! → https://shopaganda.sellfy.store/

Sponsored in part by: The Accountable Communities Consortium and Aletheia Coaching & Consulting

Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcast

Fascism trains us to shrink. Pee-wee shows another path: bold, maximal, unashamed. What can Paul Reubens teach us about refusing to comply in advance?

In this episode, hosts Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok discuss the pressure to get small under rising Fascism—and how Paul Reubens, through Pee-wee Herman, modeled color, camp, and audacity anyway. From 70s/80s performance-art roots to TV fame, we trace what it means when a persona eclipses a person, how moral panic + policing criminalize marginalized people, and why maximalist self-expression is not a luxury but a practice of selfhood as resistance.

Pop Culture Homework:

• Watch: Pee-wee as Himself (HBO), dir. Matt Wolf.

🎧 Stream now, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review—it really helps others find the show.

To learn more, visit: www.popagandapod.com 

Help keep Popaganda independent—shop our merch! → https://shopaganda.sellfy.store/

Sponsored in part by: The Accountable Communities Consortium and Aletheia Coaching & Consulting

Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcast

This week on Papaganda, Shannon and Tashmica dive into We Are Lady Parts, the brilliant British sitcom about an all-Muslim punk band that has captured hearts with its humor, complexity, and radical tenderness. From awkward first gigs to the band’s unapologetic “villain era,” we explore themes of friendship, family, self-determination, and joy in claiming your full personhood.

As this episode comes out, it marks the year anniversary of the passing of Shannon’s dear friend and beloved community member Alix 'Ponyboy' Kolar. Ponyboy was a deep lover of pop culture, so many of Shannon’s fondest memories are sitting on the couch watching TV with Alix. Ponyboy loved We Are Lady Parts, so in his loving memory, with all the laughter and joy, we dedicate this episode to you, Alix 'Ponyboy' Kolar.

Make sure you stay until the end of the episode for a sweet dedication to the one and only Ponyboy. Thank you to Lisa Nims for letting us share your beautiful words. There was no one quite like you Ponyboy, we miss you. We love you.

🎧 Stream now, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review—it really helps others find the show.

To learn more, visit: www.popagandapod.com 

Sponsored in part by: The Accountable Communities Consortium and Aletheia Coaching & Consulting

Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcast

What if you could sit in on our group chat—unedited, unfiltered, and supported by a quick check-in with Daddy Google? In our 2nd annual Pop Culture Chisme episode, we unpack the messiness of reality TV, the chokehold The Pit had on us, and the power of Alex Cooper naming abuse in sports.

This time, we edit nothing—no cuts, lots of “ums,” and even more chisme. You’ll feel like you’re sitting in on a late-night text chain, jumping from how Love Island USA disaster crash-outs say more about race and gender than romance to the tragedy of diluted queer representation in And Just Like That. We get nostalgic over ER via The Pit, and add Alex Cooper’s Call Her Alex documentary to each other’s pop culture homework.

No one gets our complex relationship with Couples Therapy and our favorite TV therapist, Orna Guralnik more than Marina & Micah from Couplet Comedy.

Join us as we celebrate 5,000 downloads! What started as a fun experiment for two pop culture besties has become the space we dreamed of—where TV, movies, and headlines open the door to deeper conversations about Transformative Justice, abolition, care, and the world we’re building together.

This Week’s Pop Culture Homework 

How to End Family Policing, coauthored by our own, Shannon Perez-Darby, and Erin Miles Cloud, Erica R. Meiners and Charity Tolliver!

Grounded in the work of over 20 contributors, How to End Family Policing: From Outrage to Action lays out a vision for alternatives to family policing. From leading abolitionist organizers, this book is a much-needed intervention arguing that the systems that purport to protect children make them-and our communities-less safe.

Offered by Haymarket Books. Pre-Order now! http:bit.ly/endfamilypolicing

Subscribe and listen everywhere you get your podcasts. Come for the pop culture. Stay for the abolition.

To learn more, visit: www.popagandapod.com 

Leave a 5-star review for The Popaganda Podcast, and we might feature it in an upcoming episode! 

You can also send us love or suggest show topics by emailing us at: [email protected].

Sponsored in part by: The Accountable Communities Consortium

Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcast

What do you get when you mix juke joint resistance, supernatural horror, and a masterclass in Black storytelling? Sinners—Ryan Coogler’s 2025 genre-defying masterpiece—sets the Mississippi Delta on fire, and The Popaganda Podcast is here for that Smoke (and Stack).

In this episode, co-hosts Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok sink their teeth into the historical brilliance, Black cultural references, and intergenerational reckoning that make Sinners a film for the ages. From Michael B. Jordan’s dual-role performance to Wunmi Mosaku’s heartbreakingly embodied magic, we explore themes of vampire lore as white supremacy, biracial identity, cultural reclamation, ancestor hunger, and radical resistance—plus some very hot sex scenes.

Whether it’s Grace's Molotov rage, Mary’s weak link behavior, or a juke joint dance sequence that turns into a spiritual time-travel portal—this film is layered, lush, and full of rabbit holes that will have us jumping for a long time into the future.

This Week’s Pop Culture Homework

• Watch Sinners! Now streaming on Max.
• The 'Sinners' Movie Syllabus by Jemar Tisby & Keisha N. Blain
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Subscribe and listen everywhere you get your podcasts. Come for the pop culture. Stay for the abolition.

To learn more, visit: www.popagandapod.com

Leave a 5-star review for The Popaganda Podcast, and we might feature it in an upcoming episode!

You can also send us love or suggest show topics by emailing us at: [email protected].

Sponsored in part by: The Accountable Communities Consortium

Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcasts

Content Warning:

The Popaganda Podcast explores the intersections of transformative justice, prison abolition, and pop culture. In this episode, we discuss themes of trauma exploitation, survivorship, and systemic harm, including references to sexual violence and political violence. While we do not delve into graphic details, we invite you to make choices about what feels right for you.

Adolescence isn’t your typical TV crime drama. Stephen Graham, creator and writer of the hit Netflix miniseries, isn’t asking you to figure out who did it—he’s asking you to consider why.

Shot entirely in one continuous take, each episode of this four-part series follows 13-year-old Jamie, a boy accused of murdering a classmate. But Jamie isn’t just a perpetrator. He’s also a child—shaped by patriarchy, misogyny, and unexamined rage. 

In this episode, hosts Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok examine the layered dynamics of Jamie’s story—from his family and peers to the criminal legal system and the court-appointed therapist tasked with assessing him. Together, they explore violence, gender, punishment, and how a child becomes capable of such devastating harm.

From incel culture and manosphere influence to the realities of digital parenting, we ask: If children can be radicalized into hate, can they also be guided back into healing? What does accountability look like when the person who caused harm is still developing? And who do we become when we let the carceral system answer those questions for us?

"There's a wonderful saying, which is, it takes a village to raise a child. And within that kind of complexity ... it's kind of like, maybe we're all accountable.”

– Stephen Graham, Adolescence Creator & Writer

This Week’s Pop Culture Homework

• Watch Adolescence on Netflix
• Read Black Pill by Elle Reeve

Subscribe and listen everywhere you get your podcasts. Come for the pop culture. Stay for the abolition.

To learn more, visit: www.popagandapod.com

Leave a 5-star review for The Popaganda Podcast, and we might feature it in an upcoming episode!

You can also send us love or suggest show topics by emailing us at: [email protected].

Sponsored in part by: The Accountable Communities Consortium

Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcasts

Content Warning:

The Popaganda Podcast explores the intersections of transformative justice, prison abolition, and pop culture. In this episode, we discuss themes of trauma exploitation, survivorship, and systemic harm, including references to sexual violence and political violence. While we do not delve into graphic details, we invite you to make choices about what feels right for you.

The Popaganda Podcast is an official Cast & Crew Sponsor of the 15th Annual Capital City Film Fest.

Join cohosts Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok in an episode spotlighting the Midwest premiere and Closing Night Feature Firebreak, a deeply moving documentary screening.

Firebreak follows Brandon and Royal, two formerly incarcerated firefighters who turned exploitation into transformation—and built a nonprofit, the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program, to help others like them access careers in wildland firefighting. 

💥 What We Talk About in This Episode:

• Prison labor, fire camps, and the myth of redemptive suffering
• Reentry, shame, and the trap of gratitude narratives
• Ancestral land connection and environmental justice
• Daredevil, fiddle-faddle, and why background checks aren’t liberation
• That gorgeous mural scene (bring tissues)
• Nonprofit hustle, funder fatigue, and the fight for sustainability
• Jacket envy. Obviously.

This Week’s Pop Culture Homework

• Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program
• 13th by Ava DuVernay
• Former Lansing Firefighter wins discrimination suit against city
• Daredevil: Born Again (Netflix)
• Book of Mormon (the musical, not the cult - yet)

🎬 Attend the Midwest Firebreak screening + panel moderated by Tashmnica at CCFF 2025:

🗓 April 12 | 7:30 PM

📍 Central United Methodist Church, Lansing, MI

🎟 capitalcityfilmfest.com

Other Fest Highlights:

 Symphonic Cinema → more info

 Distant Planet Project → more info

 Arab Narratives Project → link coming soon!

Subscribe and listen everywhere you get your podcasts. Come for the pop culture. Stay for the abolition.

To learn more, visit: www.popagandapod.com

Leave a 5-star review for The Popaganda Podcast, and we might feature it in an upcoming episode!

You can also send us love or suggest show topics by emailing us at: [email protected].

Sponsored in part by: The Accountable Communities Consortium

Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcasts

Content Warning:

The Popaganda Podcast explores the intersections of transformative justice, prison abolition, and pop culture. In this episode, we discuss themes of trauma exploitation, survivorship, and systemic harm, including references to sexual violence and political violence. While we do not delve into graphic details, we invite you to make choices about what feels right for you.

This episode unpacks King of the Apocalypse, a new documentary exposing Stuart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers and key figure in the January 6th insurrection. But this isn’t his story—it’s about the people who survived him.

Through the eyes of Dakota Adams, we explore how radicalization and abuse shaped the family Rhodes tormented, the years of planning that went into their escape, and the systemic failures that left them unprotected.

Now, Stuart Rhodes is free. Pardoned. No parole. No restrictions. Back in public life, standing behind Trump at rallies. What does this mean for his family? For the rest of us?

Join hosts Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok as they examine the intersections of white supremacy, domestic violence, and rising authoritarianism. Listen in as they break down why militia movements thrive in unchecked power, what Dakota’s escape reveals about survivor resilience, and why we must take the growing far-right threat seriously.

This Week’s Pop Culture Homework

Watch King of the Apocalypse

Support Dakota Adam's campaign

Subscribe and listen everywhere you get your podcasts. Come for the pop culture. Stay for the abolition.

To learn more, visit: www.popagandapod.com

Leave a 5-star review for The Popaganda Podcast, and we might feature it in an upcoming episode!

You can also send us love or suggest show topics by emailing us at: [email protected].

Sponsored in part by: The Accountable Communities Consortium

Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcasts

Content Warning:

The Popaganda Podcast explores the intersections of transformative justice, prison abolition, and pop culture. In this episode, we discuss themes of trauma exploitation, survivorship, and systemic harm, including references to sexual violence and political violence. While we do not delve into graphic details, we invite you to make choices about what feels right for you.