Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - What killed The Song Of The Summer w/ Anthony Fantano

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co We're halfway through August and summer is rapidly coming to a close. But this year, something about the season was different. It's the first year in over 100 years that there hasn't been a definitive song of the summer. Is the absence of a “2025 song of the summer” just a quirk of this year’s charts or a symptom of a music culture permanently fractured by personalization, speed, and saturation. I called up Anthony Fantano to help me answer this question. We dive deep into what makes a good song of the summer, how the concept emerged in culture, why we don't have one this year, and what a post song of the summer society might look like. Follow me:https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzhttps://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

There's no greater harm to the world if like some Sabrina Carpenter fan doesn't have the most adventurous taste in music. But there is like potentially harm to the world when you have democracy at stake and people are not as informed as they should be. Here we are halfway through August. Kids are heading back to school in a matter of weeks and summer is coming to a close. But this year, something about summer was different. It's the first year in over a hundred years that there hasn't been a definitive song of the summer. Is the absence of a 2025 song of the summer just a quirk in this year's charts or a symptom of a music culture permanently fractured by personalization, social media, and saturation? To answer these questions, I called up YouTube's music king, Anthony Fantano. We're diving deep into what makes a good song of the summer, how the concept emerged in culture, why we don't have one this year, and what a post song of the summer society might actually look like.

Anthony, welcome to power user. Thank you for having me on. Okay, to start off, how would you define what a song of the summer is? I think like one of the telltale signs of a song of the summer is that it reaches some kind of like level of, I don't know, monoculture where we all kind of feel like we're collectively experiencing it, whether we're enjoying it or not, you know. I do feel like a song of the summer does need to be joyous, carefree, instill some kind of like genuinely positive vibe, maybe be kind of fun. That's why I think last year, you could probably argue that, like, espresso was like kind of the song of the summer. It was a track that a lot of people were viving to. It was very positive.

It was very bright. It was very feel-good pop song. And it was a track that it took me a minute to warm up to. But part of the reason that I did is that I couldn't really escape it. It was like the first time in a while where I felt like I couldn't avoid a song. And with the way stream platforms and algorithms work now, I feel like it's so easy to avoid it. certain things. I feel like there's not a lot of stuff in the pop sphere that really gets forced upon you in the way that I remember it when I was a kid and there were certain things I didn't like that I was getting over exposure to all the time. But espresso did feel like inescapable on some level. I want to talk a little bit about like the history of the song of the summer because I feel like as long as we've been alive, certainly, there's this concept of the song of the summer. I was looking back at this old Vox article about the history of the song of the summer and they were talking about past

song of the summer hits, including one from 1910 or 1909 that was, my wife's gone to the country. Hooray, hooray. And kind of like you mentioned, there was also a bunch like focused on prohibition, one called goodbye liquor, goodbye booze that was called the drinking song of the summer. What unifies a lot of these songs that kind of pop off in the summer? I think a lot of people sort of like associate the summer and music that you would want to define the summer with with like freedom and maybe not just a, I guess, being. so bottled up or sort of make the prohibition call back there.

Sort of like letting loose, I guess you could say, letting your inhibitions down. And I disagree with this sentiment, but it's it's the same way in which people, when they're talking about sort of like dating and the dating scene and what time of year you're dating and you're like, oh, it's cuffing season because the leaves are changing. I feel like if you're a lover, you can be a lover all year. I feel like if you're a slut, you could be a slut at any point of year that you want to be. You're probably not doing either grade if you're sort of like basing how into one of the other you are on whether or not the leaves are changing. But still, with that being said, like people do associate the summer with freedom.

And I feel like the songs of the summer do have to sort of like reflect that in some way. It's the same way that like the song ordinary is like the number one hit in the country. It's been topping the charts for weeks now. And even someone like me who is just like not really into that stomp class. Christian stuff to any degree. Even I'm aware of it. It's a song that most people seem to be aware of on some level. And yet, like, nobody's scrambling to call that the song of the summer. It's literally, like, by definition, the most popular song this summer. But, like, nobody's looking at that as like, yeah, that's, that's my summer jam. You know? Because it's like, it's not a summer jam vibe. Like, it does happen to be popular while the summer is happening. But, like, it doesn't sort of bring the kind of energy or narrative. that I think people are looking for in their summer jams in the way that maybe they were when, like, Brat was the most popular record of that season last year. That is a record that's all about partying, letting go, carefree vibes, do a line of coke off of something, you know, whatever.

Not that I would or that I'm endorsing that, but that's the kind of energy that even people who aren't fans want from their summertime music, you know, not ordinary. That's, I'm going to choir group vibes, which, I mean, there's a time and place for that too but it's it's not a song of the summer label i associate it with weddings like it very much feels like a wedding song of the summer a summer a summer wedding song for sure i want to talk about songs the summer in the past what do you think are some of the most iconic songs the summer that we've heard in sort of decades past that really kind of like brought this format you know to fruition back in high school i remember like what was kind of like my window at that point in my life for like what song of the summer music was was like i'm sure you

remember the vividly freaking TRL and sort of like telling me what was number one and what wasn't with Carson Daly, you know, and how many weeks in a row pretty fly for a white guy was like going crazy because it's a silly, stupid novelty rock song with a music video full of bikini girls. And I feel like that's kind of like the exact American song of the summer vibe that people are looking for. But beyond that, like sometimes it gets worse and kitschier like LFO's summer girls. Sometimes it's like really great anthemic pop punk, you know, like some Sum 41 or some yellow card or something like that. It was definitely an era where that was kind of the thing. And there was an era where it sort of felt like a lot of Farrell hits were sort of super summary around that time.

Yeah, I pulled up a list of songs of the summer, ones that people sort of declared. There's a few to me that like I remember from my youth. Like 2002 was Nellie's Hot and Hearer. And I feel like that was like peak TRL. Same thing next year, 2003, Crazy in Love. I just remember also seeing that music video, like, on loop. And then 2007, Rihanna's umbrella, I feel like that was also all over. But you're totally right that it, like, it was really actually in like the 2010s that we started

to see, like, I think a lot of the music industry, like, leaning into the song, like, the summer aspect. Like we had California Girls, 2011 party rock anthem, 2012, call me maybe, 2013, blurred lines. And it just kind of like went on from there, Despacito, 2017. I remember the summer of Despacito. It just feels like it got to be like more of a thing where there was like maybe more of like a conscious shift. And I'm wondering if you think that like that shift from like TRL and radio culture to streaming affected this landscape. Almost definitely it has. I mean, I think like the idea like you were saying of kind of labeling something the song of the summer, it does sort of feel like a bit of a music industry marketing ploy because I mean, I can think back to college to a lot of songs that were like wildly popular during the summer, whether it be like crank that soldier boy or.

or Jayquantipsy or any number of tracks around that point that like Lil John was affiliated with. Like, Lil John was like one of the most well-known voices in pop and rap music at the time just because, like, his ad libs and his production were just like all over so many tracks that were just like massive radio hits. I don't recall there being around that time like a lot of discourse just being like, oh, this is so the song of the summer. You know what I mean? Like we just kind of accepted this as like our summer playlist. This was, you know, the songs that we played out loud when we were out and about during the summer because that's when you're out. That's when you're outside. That's when you're partying.

That's when it's like you're looking for something to be able to blast on some speakers in a public space and you want to put on something that's going to get everybody sort of like hype and moving and excited. And that's the sort of stuff that you're going to go to. Yeah. When do you think we started to see this explicit marketing of like song of the summer where like there was this public consciousness? Because I feel like definitely the internet impacted some of it where there's like Stan culture to, trying to encourage people to like make certain people the song of the summer, like, certainly with TikTok and Twitter, I feel like that. Right, exactly. Yeah, I would say it goes back even a little bit before that. And a lot of those TikTok videos and sort of tweets and reference to those TikTok videos just kind of seem like an ironic continuation of sort of like a joke. Because I mean, a lot of people doing that are like obviously sort of insinuating they've jokingly made the song of the summer. But they've actually just like made crap. The idea of like what your song of the summer, what our song of the summer is, I feel like that sort of consideration or. sort of like awareness kind of comes with stuff like Spotify rapts getting popular.

And this was not a thing that like music fanatics ever did at any point in sort of popular music history prior to when we had access to these platforms that were like logging every click that we put into them every moment of the day. And with that comes all of this sort of metadata and information. And now all of a sudden, like we can literally go back and be like, wow, this was actually my song of the summer because it's the song I listened to the most. This was my album of the summer.

This is my whatever of this season. Now that we have sort of that awareness and people are like literally consuming certain things with the consciousness, which you didn't have back in the day of like, oh, here's how much we're all collectively contributing to Taylor Swift's monthly listeners, which like, to your average music fan probably doesn't matter, but to your average Twitter music stand who has this parissocial obsession that on some level is probably unhealthy, they're trying to find out ways to sort of be like, yeah, we're going to game this and get her the most streams or the most this or the most that behind this album because we really love her and we want to support her.

I even saw this like post on Twitter randomly the other day of this guy saying, here's how you stream the new Drake song. And they did a whole playlist of like a random Drake song and then what did I miss? And another random Drake song and then what did I miss? And then another random Drake song and then what did I miss? And sort of like alternating it over and over and over. So they're just like consuming old Drake, but then the new song again and again and again. and again, just sort of bump the numbers up.

And I feel like you don't do that sort of stuff. As a general music fan, you do that stuff more as like a fan of one person. You're a fan of more the person in your mind than you are the music itself. You mentioned this thing earlier that I now associate so much with the song of the summer, which is these like often ironic but often very not ironic TikToks that are like, did I just make the song of the summer? And it's some up and coming music artist that has often published something terrible and will never be the song of the summer.

Can you talk about the origins of that trope? Because I feel like that like format of TikTok also kind of like mainstream the idea of like the song of the summer on the internet. Yeah. I mean, the thing is like, I don't know, it doesn't really matter what corner of the internet that you're on. Everything gets turned into a joke eventually. Like I don't think there's a single thing that ever gets taken seriously forever. Like everything sort of devolves into humor in some way. And that becomes especially the case if people sort of like come to the realization through the algorithm that making a certain type of joke in a certain way will allow them to sort of get some hits or some clicks or some attention or whatever.

So there are a lot of people who are sort of like give in to the humor of something, even if they don't themselves think it's necessarily the funniest thing in the world just because there's sort of like incentive to do so just because it's going to get them the traffic or the attention that they seek. So as a result, like, of course, you're going to have things sort of devolve into people talking about what is genuinely the song of the summer. then they're going to start sort of like putting up terrible songs and proposing awful songs as the song of the summer. Humor is kind of like the fastest way to almost spread anything on the internet. Sometimes it's faster to sort of spread the idea of something with a joke than it is to be serious about it. I know, like, so much TikTok content, it's so hard to tell, like, how ironic and self-aware people are sometimes. Or like whether they're just sort of being intentionally ironic. But they do want their song to go viral anyway.

I feel like we're also seeing this idea of like the summer blockbuster hit. And last year we had Barbenheimer and obviously there were a bunch of songs that popped off because of Barbie. And like, how does like sort of like big summer films play a role in like the song of the summer and and just movie culture generally? I mean, Barbie, the reference point that you're that you're making there is an accurate one. But I mean, it's simultaneously, it's like it's hard to sort of gauge in the modern era because while Barbie obviously was a super huge hit and it was a movie that I saw more than once and enjoyed quite a bit myself and I enjoyed, you know, a lot of the songs on that soundtrack. That sort of thing still feels like such an anomaly in the current media landscape, especially when I kind of compare it to the 90s and the 2000s when I was growing up. And it sort of seemed like every major studio film had to have some kind of like attempted hit song attached to it for a soundtrack.

And it was sort of like a music video featuring a bunch of clips from the film on MTV. A lot of people don't even know that like Smash Mouth's All-Star was like released in tandem with. like that old comedy superhero movie with like Ben Stiller in it and everything. Because like for the most part, I mean, to what degree that song does have film associations, it's Shrek. Yeah, that's what I thought it was. I thought it was on the Shrek soundtrack. It is on the Shrek soundtrack.

But before the Shrek soundtrack, it was actually on a comedy superhero movie starring Ben Stiller. Wow. Did not know that. Yeah. That's where that song first got life. But the thing is like that is not as often a marketing ploy that movie studios use these days. I mean, it could be cooler if they did. Personally, I'm pretty hype about the fact that, like, the new Tron soundtrack has, like, Trent Reznor all over it. And at least, like, within the indie scene, there was certainly, like, a lot of talk and celebration around the, I saw the TV Glow soundtrack because that obviously featured, like, a lot of cool alternative

underground artists and so on and so forth. So I think, like, there are a lot of cool and potentially creative ways that film soundtracks could be tying in with, like, the modern music scene. I'm I mean, often they're not, and I don't know if that's necessarily sort of like a gap that must be filled. I'm thinking of some of my favorite films recently, like the Phoenician scheme, for example, from Wes Anderson. I love his work, and personally, I found it a little surprising and maybe even refreshing that you didn't have your stereotypical Wes Anderson needle drops in that film. It was kind of like totally original soundtrack, very weird, tense, orchestral background music most of the time, and that's all well and good. It is something that I feel like maybe is a marketing angle that's a little underrepresented. And maybe if some musicians or directors out there are looking for some opportunities to like maybe

create some hype and interest that wouldn't be there otherwise, you know, sort of like trying to find a way to tie what you do into the music community can certainly be a way to do it. And as you kind of just said off the bat here, like the Barbie soundtrack could be the answer. Because someone like Charlie XX, for example, you know, her track off that became like the huge hit off the record. And while Charlie was no stranger to making hits at that point, that song, became so big, it kind of became a first introduction to a lot of people who hadn't heard her stuff before. I want to talk about this summer because I feel like for months, people have been sort of waiting for the song of the summer. And we've had summer hits like Alex Warren's Ordinary and some

other kind of songs that have gotten a lot of big streams. But this sort of central agreement online seems to be that we haven't had a song of the summer. So I'm wondering, do you agree that 2025 has not yet had a song of the summer? At this point, it's August. It seems like we're not going get one. So if you do agree that we don't have a song of the summer, why do you think that is? Well, at least not a fresh one. I feel like a lot of the songs that I think stylistically or aesthetically I would categorize as like a song of the summer feel just kind of like they're just holdovers from not a year ago, but just like this past year in general. Like I would say if let's say, for example, at the start of June, Kendrick Lamar and Siza dropped Luther and sort of continue to

take off in the way that it currently is and standing strong in the top 10, I'd be like, that's a song of the summer. That's a great summer song. That's feel good vibes. That's a great dynamic between both of them. It's something both the guys and the girls can both enjoy. And there is like a bit of, as far as like rap music is concerned, there's a bit of monoculture element there to it. And also, I would say like Shibuzi's bar song is a really strong holdover.

That song has been like unstoppable. It's dominated at number one for, maybe I'm wrong, but I think more weeks than any other single. I remember sort of like the discussion about it being close to that record. It may have passed it. It's held on longer than any number one song since like Old Town Road. So I mean, there's that. And I think that's like definitely as far as a vibe and the messaging and the energy. It is a song of the summer.

It is a summer song that feels and sounds, I think, best and most appropriate during the summertime. It just didn't come out this summer. We have summary songs. We have songs that are appropriate for summer. We just don't have like a new one, I guess. And I don't know why exactly that is. There are some artists who most definitely create music with that vibe or that energy in mind. And I've talked with a lot of artists behind the scenes about their release schedules, which they don't always have full control over.

You know what I mean? I've done interviews with certain producers and songwriters who, when they are creating a certain thing, they'll tell me, like, I had a summer vibe in mind with this, or I wrote these songs during the summer or this record to me feels like a summer kind of jam, but I wasn't able to release it until November. So it's like there are a lot of sort of like elements of the stars needing to align. Because I think for something to truly become a song of the summer, it's got to hit that popularity peak to where everybody's kind of aware of it. And as a mainstream artist, you don't always have a say when something is going to come out. Yeah. There's been so much sort of written about this, but music industry leaders have described this summer as a crisis and said that there is no singular song. And I think they're, you know, of course, catastrophizing.

they're blaming Spotify, they're blaming streaming, they're blaming the internet. And as you mentioned, like, there are these sort of holdover songs that continue to have power. But do you think this is also any indictment on our sort of like fractured media landscape and the fact that like everyone maybe has their own sort of unique song of the summer, but there's not this like collective monoculture summer song anymore. I wouldn't put the anymore. I wouldn't put the A word on there necessarily. I just think it's it's just the way the stars have aligned.

Let's say for example, and I like this song quite a bit, if Drake and Party Next Do had dropped Nokia at the start of June. Like, that would have been the song of the summer. It's a great song. It's a great jam. Killer chorus. Very fun beat. Most fun song on the entire album.

The album seems almost engineered to draw your attention to that one track because, like, no other song on the entire thing pops like that song does. And, you know, I think it's a hit for a good reason. But the thing is, like, it hasn't held up the numbers that some other tracks have, you know, like, ordinary, for example. Some of Drake's more recent singles have sort of like provided a greater threat numbers-wise to that song than Nokia has. But the thing is like, even what did I miss and which one? Like, those aren't party jams.

You know what I mean? Like they're kind of groovy and they're moody like your stereotypical Drake song. I think like if there is an opportunity for an artist to kind of come out with another hit this year that will have like kind of a monoculture effect to it, it's Drake with Iceman coming out very soon. But we don't know when that's going to come out, maybe a week. maybe two weeks, even if he does manage to, I don't know, drop it tomorrow, might take a minute for whatever the popiest or catchiest track on that record is going to be to actually sort of like reach that commercial peak to where it is kind of like coming out ahead of everything else. And again, we are toward the end of the summer here. Like you said, it may be too late to even try. I know. I feel like at this point, kids are going back to school in two weeks. And at that point, it's going to be like a fall hit. Do you think there's anything like culturally, politically like people have talked about also this summer being kind of like a downer and just there's so. much negative stuff going on. Do you think that any of that broader sort of cultural, like, socio-political stuff is contributing to the lack of the song of the summer?

I mean, this year socially and politically has most definitely been a freaking downer. I'm not going to deny that. The thing is like, if the music industry has something locked and loaded that they think has that kind of potential, they're going to put it out as soon as possible. They're not going to wait on it. And it's not for lack of trying with some artists. I mean, Metro Booman just came out with a record where it's like the entire thing. It's like a double album. of like these really cool, crazy mid-2000s, like future Atlanta super glossy summer pop rap stuff. And I haven't heard stuff like that since I was in college.

And while personally I think it's really good, and maybe there is the potential for a song on there to sort of like really blow up, it's not particularly a sound and a vibe that I think a lot of young people are familiar with. So it's like they'd really have to sort of like adjust to what he's trying to do on that album to kind of like really adopted. It may sort of be like a niche thing, which is fine.

I love that sort of thing as a music fan myself. But when you think about like sort of the biggest hit makers that we're seeing dominate the top 10 right now, Drake, Kendrick, The Weekend, Chapel, Sabrina, Taylor, they can all only work so fast. And it just so happens right now that they're all kind of like, they're all off cycle. As far as like those artists are concerned, like Drake and Chapel are probably the closest to maybe doing something, especially with Chapel just dropping the subway, which is maybe too moody to be a summer hit anyway. Yeah. Though I do think it is a very good song. They're probably the closest to putting out something, but they're not quite there. Yeah. And even Chapel, I think, said, like, somebody asked her about the second album and she was like, it doesn't exist yet. Like, it'll be in five years. Like, you guys need to give me time. And then in light of that, I feel like we've also seen a lot of like manufactured artists. Like, I don't want to call Alex Warren manufactured, although he's very like, I don't know, very industry. But we also have like Benson Boone and all these other, I don't know, Addison Ray, these people that I feel like the industry maybe wants to have them to have like the song of the song of the song.

summer. And maybe Alex Warren Ordinary is the song of the summer. I just went to like today's top hits on Spotify and it's he's still the top. It's Alex. It just doesn't feel right. Things this past year musically, I guess you could say in terms of season, we're just very misaligned. Kendrick's GNX, for example, is like such an LA party rap record that is just like sunbeating down on you. The top is down on the car. Everybody's out and about in the neighborhood, so on and so forth. But that dropped in the winter. Yeah. That record dropped in the dead of winter.

And now we have Alex Warren, ordinary, you can like it. You can enjoy it if you want. But it does very much feel like kind of a fall winter sort of like love song. It doesn't feel like a summery jam that everybody wants to put out when they're going out and having a good time. So, I mean, we have these hit songs. They're just sort of like becoming hits and they're popping up at times when seasons-wise, it doesn't feel like aligned 110%. Even the video for Subway, which I love Chapel Roan's new song, but that video feels very like fall coded. And maybe because it's like she's like back to work and it's commute and it just reminds you of like September fall like energy.

Okay. So if we didn't have a song of the summer, 2025, what are your predictions for potentially song of the fall or song of the winter? What are you seeing sort of coming up in the next few months? I do think Drake is going to drop Iceman very soon. And that most likely is going to be sort of like probably aligning with people's moody and. introspective in your feels, music vibes that people typically want and desire from, from Drake. I will also say and give like a bit of a shout out, because I do think like, if anybody in hip-hop music has come close to sort of like trying to achieve this, it's probably Tyler the Creator.

Like, he did actually drop an album that very consciously is messaged as and geared toward being a party record, being a dance record, being a come out and see me live and everybody get moving, kind of album, but he's maybe a little too alternative to sort of be seen as like as much of a dominating force as like a number one pop star, like Drake or whatever, but like in his own little alternative camp, like Tyler is definitely like in his certain Tyler way, made kind of like a summer record and consciously a summer record. But I mean, as far as like chart domination and season domination going forward, I think it's probably going to be Drake. And I'm kind of getting a sense that Sabrina Carpenter is definitely hard at work, especially with like her.

latest single having been out very soon, and obviously she's been promoting toward the album with the track titles and a lot of live performances and the album cover and so on and so forth. Although, I think Sabrina Carpenter, she kind of has her sound and her vibe and her style. Like, if it's November or December by the time she drops that record, I don't think she's automatically just going to go like acoustic and moody. She's going to be dropping songs that most likely people are going to be playing for the next six months past that point. And those sorts of songs will see shelf life into the summer, which honestly, personally as a music fan and somebody who sort of like would like to see us reenter an era, and I do think we are seeing this to an extent,

but reenter an era where like albums actually have like some shelf life. And, you know, I think we're seeing that with Brad. I think we're seeing that with Chappell's record. I think we're seeing that with a lot of different records. I would rather that than sort of Sabrina drop a song that just does really well for an entire season. If she drops a record that's actually still good to listen to, six months later for the rest of the year, to me, that's more impressive and more important. Are there any up-and-coming artists that you're noticing that you think could make a bigger impact in the next six months? I was just having a very interesting conversation with Joey Valence and Bray recently, and they're these two like up-and-coming rappers who kind of have like this over-the-top bombastic like throwback,

Beasty Boys, White Guy, rap party vibe thing going on. And they just like make a lot of ass-shaking bangers. Their records are going to be coming out very soon in the middle of this month, actually. And it's going to be called Hyper Youth. And for sure, there's going to be some bops on there. Kind of the funny thing about this new record is like, and they have made some cool underground hits before that do very well on streaming. But they're actually getting like a little sentimental on this album with a bunch of songs about sort of like aging and kind of maturing and so on and so forth.

So, you know, maybe this is going to be the record that kind of pops off in a way to where it's bringing some party vibes. But simultaneously, there's a bit of moody, autumnal depth there emotionally. Who knows? I feel like there's been so much stress, I guess, ambient stress about like discovering the song of the summer this year. Do you think it's something that we need culturally? I think to a certain level and a certain degree, monoculture is important for people to sort of like uniformly have like a bit of a sense of the time and place culturally that we're

in artistically that we're in as well to sort of have like everybody listening to their own thing but also on top of that like have those kind of guiding markers that we're all aware of so like we kind of know where things are at. and we know where everyone is respectively. That's something that I feel like I grew up with a very kind of firm understanding of because you had people who were sort of in their certain cultural subsects who were into certain genres of music or certain whatevers. And now all of that feels like sort of broken apart by the streaming age and the fact that

the internet has made everything so easily and widely accessible. These days it feels like people are going back to that a little bit, maybe for reasons that are good, maybe for reasons that are bad because you do have this kind of like people just kind of entering their own algorithmic bubbles where they don't really get exposure to a lot of everything else that's outside of those webs of things that they're personally interested in. There's things that are positive about that artistically, but there's also things that are negative about that politically because there's no greater harm to the world if like, I don't know, some Sabrina Carpenter fan doesn't have the most adventurous taste in music. But there is like, you know, potentially harm to the world when you have democracy at stake and people are not as informed as they should be. Gosh, well, hopefully we saved the song of the summer, maybe to save our, to save democracy. Yeah, actually democracy in the song of the summer, they're actually more intertwined than you might think.

Sabrina, get to work, please. Anthony, thank you so much for joining me today. Yeah, thank you for having me on. All right, that's it for the show. Don't forget to subscribe to my tech and online culture newsletter, usermag.com. That's usermag.com, where I write about all of this stuff and more. I cannot continue to produce this podcast without your financial. support. You can watch full episodes of Power User on my YouTube channel at Taylor Lorenz.

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