The Daily Zeitgeist - Trendessee Capitol Building 3/30: Elon Musk, Harvard, JoJo Siwa, Instagram, Ciudad Juarez, Tennessee Capitol

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

In this edition of Trendessee Capitol Building, Miles and super producer Becca discuss the Florida Principal who was scammed by a scammer posing as Elon Musk, Harvard telling it's grad students to sign up for food stamps, JoJo Siwa being messy, Instagram becoming Pinterest?, the fire at the migrant detention facility in Cuidad Juarez, and the protests at the Tennessee Capitol!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This show is la plática like you've never heard it before. We're breaking the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in Latinx communities. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z. We're your hosts, Diosa and Mala. You might recognize us from our first show, Locatora Radio. Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to this edition of Trendacy Capital Building, which we'll be talking about, which is one of the trends because the Tennessee Capital Building is trending.

We'll tell you why. I'm Miles. I am joined by Becca Ramos. How are you'll tell you why. I'm Miles. I am joined by Becca Ramos. How are you, Becca? Hello. I'm good. How are you? You know, I'm looking out the window as I burp into the mic,

and the sun is out, and I like that. But then I look on the app, and the fucking rain icon is coming back again. I think on, I mean, I'm not really hating but oh she's gonna rain it too also oh wait no it went away man see this weather app you never know i'm just like waiting for a streak it's freezing here in new york i'm upset about it i have like an outdoor chair i want to sit in but it has a cushion and i just i can't sit i can't leave that shit out or else it's gonna get fucking soaked and i'm like i need like i'm like a string of days where i can leave something outside i already had i already took an l on these other secrets since it was bad news but again that's me acclimating to the increased rain that

i have not been used to anyway let's talk about some of the top trends first up i just want to circle back on the uh principal from the charter school we talked about in the episode that came out today who cut the hundred thousand dollar check to someone she believed was Elon Musk because the guy said, I'm Elon. I will invest millions in your school, your science and technology charter school, if you just give me $100,000 up front. Because that's how a charitable investment works. Scamming 101 of like, okay, if a scammer is asking you for money, saying they're going to give you more money, then they don't have the money.

Why would they ask you for money if they're going to give you more money, then they don't have the money. Why would they ask you for money if they're going to give you money? Yeah, that's what we call three good to be true. You know, not even two good to be true. It's three good. It's just, come on now. But what's fucking really interesting is that I didn't realize this,

that teacher is now claiming that she was groomed. And that's what happened. And I i am like what a terrible use of the the word groom to describe your bumbling as a school administrator she was like yeah you know basically she was saying like and grooming she like broke it down for like the administration she was trying to defend herself there's like that's when someone tries to gain your trust and then they do it for deceptive purposes or to get you to do something you don't damn baby girl you got way to like try and spin it off into some other thing like yeah it's actually not i'm completely susceptible to this it's that i was groomed by you know what she said she goes on to be like

it wasn't even elon it was a dude named like Luis Alberto Fernandez or something. That's who the check was written to that that person kept claiming that he was Elon's right hand. And that's how she got caught up. And you're like, fool, you got caught up by someone who said they fucking knew him. Yeah. Like, literally, this is so embarrassing on so many levels. Like, first of all, second of all second of all charter school question mark period like already an issue there gotta get that elon money though you know i guess whatever whatever

you got to do to not do actual work as a school administrator i mean i guess that is an easy way like man it'd be cool if elon like just invested millions that would be real cool um let's keep the theme of education and academia going specifically harvard as we know one of the wealthiest schools in the world baby and you know they churn out constant people who end up leading our world and shaping policy and from foreign policy to domestic to financial fiscal it's all there well harvard university um the grad students there, especially the ones that are doing TA work

and stuff like that, or laboring for the university, they've been saying for a while, they're not paid enough. I think that's a general issue with most grad students, I'd say, I think if not all, that they are not paid enough. And especially for the amount of money that this school is generating,

the amount of money in their coffers, there's absolutely no excuse for this. Well, Harvard is adding insult to injury right now because they're holding an event. This is advice to help graduate students sign up for government food assistance programs. Quote, the university's health services office sent a flyer to grad students on Wednesdaynesday encouraging them to come to a quote snap benefits sign up this is literally like made my skin crawl like the flyer goes on to fuel your body and stock your pantry did you know that grad students may qualify to receive assistance paying for food and groceries may may not saying you will but you might because we damn sure not and we know we don't pay you enough that you have to apply for these programs but we hear you you're not getting paid enough

that's why we're like well if you actually broke then you'll go on snap okay rather than going on snapchat and trying to besmirch the good name of harvard university uh is how i believe the people speak there it's so crazy because i was actually just listening to the Bechtelcast episode that came out today that is about the movie Buffaloed, but it's about like a debt collector and they go over like, you know, kind of this hole where the protagonist was going to go to Harvard, but then they were like, I was going to put me in too much debt. And then they didn't go to Harvard. And it's just, it's, it's just this whole concept that it's like, we go to these higher universities so that we can earn enough money so that we can live this lifestyle that we are told

is the American dream. And then to have insult to injury, you go to these universities, you rack yourself in so much debt. Sometimes your degrees don't pay off in the jobs that you need them to. And then you're literally in grad school at a prestigious university and you have to be on benefits. That's crazy. What's also wild, though, too, right, is you can't get SNAP benefits if you're not a U.S. citizen. Yeah. So what of the international students that are there? Absolutely.

Askout.org slash Harvard fucked me because they're there's like absolutely just choosing to not address the situation. Like, yeah, the grad graduate student union is like, oh,all gotta do is pay us more that's it or just change the way you structure these salaries so we don't have to like be on food benefits while we edge do some of the educating at this prestigious fucking university higher education's a scam it's a scam and i'm someone who values education so much as a child of educator and my brother's an educator like i i love school but like it's fucked i like never going back i mean yeah it's i mean because it it started off as something easier to get into most people could get in bar most you know like non-wealthy people of color and things like that or other marginalized groups but you know when you look at it like that and it made sense to go

and like that was the entry point to the quote middle class but now we're like you want debt to enter a rapidly vanishing middle class because you either it's going to be feast or motherfucking famine yeah and you can do that with 80k of debt over your head. Up to you. Up to you. But yeah, it's really fucked up. And just like with inflation and all this shit and how much rent costs to add insult to injury by being like, yeah, like your food. I don't know. So I don't know what the fuck they can do. You know what I mean? Good luck to the Harvard Student Union.

You know? Yeah, please. student union you know yeah please you know i i hope them and anybody who is you know giving their fucking labor to a just a university that's sitting on a fucking pile of money yeah yeah anyway same song just different just different key uh and that was in the key of higher ed um and then finally for before we go to break i keep keep seeing JoJo Siwa trending on Twitter. And every time I click it, I'm like, well, what's going on? Like, is there some controversy?

The first thing I saw was this dude at a bar, like a country line dancing bar, just killing the dancing choreography to a JoJo track. Another one is just JoJo, like singing in her Lambo. First of all, love that. Shout out to you. Look, I'll get it jojo you got the

lambo but that's because you're grind on your grizzy um but i couldn't quite like then there people talk like there's like tweets from three weeks ago but it's still trending so becca help me why jojo siwa okay i've been waiting to talk about this i feel like jack's been uh honestly too scared to bring this up i think it would just big brain him too hard. Coward move to not bring up Jojo Siwa. He'd explode. And so I'm so glad you asked, Miles. For people who don't know, this is Jojo

Siwa was like a massively popular child pop star doing YouTube, TV, and all that. And Dance Moms. She got famous from dance moms and then from dance moms she like became like i don't know a youtube sensation with children and she was like on nickelodeon and she's you know but what she's now famous for

is being the tiktok lesbian okay okay all right the last time she came out and right so now she's on tiktok right and she's being messy on tiktok and that is what's trending okay so there's this account called les topia i don't want to highlight the creator too much because she's been known to be a racist and a bigot despite being a lesbian herself she is from florida and a trump supporter so we're gonna put her in a little bucket let Let's put that. She started talking about all these white lesbian tech trucks creators, which like can be its own conversation about the fact that less Topia discourse does not include black and brown women. Right.

We're not getting into that right now. We don't have time right now. Less Topia. Jojo Siwa. Jojo Siwa started this drama because she was like dating somebody and then broke up with that person and then this other couple was dating avery and sophie everyone loved avery and soph they were like oh my god tiktok couple they live together whatever they break up everyone's so then avery of that couple

starts dating jojo everyone's like oh my god poor self drama drama drama drama and then avery and and um jojo were all over tiktok it was crazy they're getting cruises they were at la bars like in clubs and they were doing all this stuff and people were just like oh it's so childish it's so sick like we hate this and then they break up and avery's like woe is me i'm so sad and she kind of goes on this healing journey she talks to her ex-self and it's just like i'm so sorry for everything I did to you. Like what I did to you, JoJo did to me. And so like queen of the year was just like, they're there, you know, glad you learned your lesson.

We can be chill now. And Avery's been on her healing journey. Well, now JoJo's been like being messy on TikTok, just like kind of clout chasing after the fame of the breakup. And it's just been like red flagging it all over the place being like oh my god dating in la is like people chasing you for clout uh people

wanting to date you for xxx people who don't know stuff the tiktok form of red flagging is when you have the text come up on the screen with the red flags up just for some of the the older folks like myself who only recently understood this format on the tiktok okay so doing the red flag videos got you so she she was basically making jabs at her exes basically only dating her for you know the clout type of vibe right and now her exes are like we've been silent long enough and we're tired of being bullied from the discourse yes and so they are upset because they're like, we, like the discourse has died down. You know, we have been out of the spotlight for a minute now.

That's how we want to be. Like we're over this JoJo hate train that we got post our breakups. Like her ex previous to Avery and her current ex Avery. And so now they're coming out being like, fuck this shit. JoJo was the one using us for cloud like she took us to Disney because she wanted to post about it not because we

were trying to make like ourselves TikTok famous because Jojo's known for taking them on these like extravagant dates like Jojo's thing is taking her for the tent yes her girlfriends all go to Disney like you know Jojo's seeing someone new when paparazzi spot her at Disney like it's like a thing that she does is

like take her girlfriends to Disney and so they're all coming out saying like well JoJo's seeing someone new when paparazzi spot her at Disney. Like, it's like a thing that she does is like take her girlfriends at Disney. And so they're all coming out saying like, well, JoJo's actually the reason that we like we're internet famous. Not because like we were clout chasing for her, but because she was the one wanting to post content, not us. Wow.

So that's when she's in the heat. Yeah. It's a lot. It's just funny when like, cause I, at first I remember being like, her image was always very sanitized and she had her like up pony you know with the with the wild neon colors and then when she was like look i'm an adult like i'm coming out this is kind of what

i'm going through like this is me now and then just watch that evolution of like yeah you know what too i'm gonna get a little messy on well and it's funny because like the the lesbians of tiktok are like well this is common like you know you like you didn't date when you were younger because you were closeted to be messy at 20 is not crazy because you are going through like dating experiences you maybe would have had when you were like 13 and 14 and said you're doing it now so you know at first it was like oh but now it's kind of like girl girl, like, you are so famous. Right. You don't need all this.

Yeah, it is. It is wild when you see people come out of their, you know, out of their chill like that. And you're like that. You don't have to do. Okay.

Well, you know what? Some people, sometimes the ego is a very powerful thing. That is something we know very well. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll be back to talk about some other stuff after this. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months.

These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of this right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore.

The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that.

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to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? I mean, the Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels with the image of the Biscuits. It's right here in black and white in print. They lying. An individual that came to the school saying that God sent him to talk to me about the mascot switch is a leader. You choose hills that you want to die on. Why would we want to be the losing team? I just take all the other stuff out of it. Segregation academies.

When civil rights said that we need to integrate public schools, these charter schools were exempt from that. Bigger than a flag or mascot. You have to be ready for serious backlash. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back uh instagram is trending because i don't know what what is this something cool okay so i put this in here because it's actually a feature that i'm

excited about okay let me know you know social media is trash and we should spend less time on it talking to myself um instagram now lets you bookmark posts with friends and store them in a dedicated space so what i'm understanding what they're doing is like kind of finally pulling the plug to bring pinterest to instagram basically right like you know when you're on instagram you can save a post and then if you hold the button down you can make a collection oh right to like start like i remember back in the day it would all just be sloppy in one one place yeah for a while it was just like a useless feature where you're just saving shit and it's just like okay like now this isn't a peripheral saved button and you can't make

collections right then they added the collections feature where you can save posts into a collection. I frequently do it for if there's clothes I want to buy or nail designs that I want to do. Those are usually my top or hairstyles that I'm looking to do. Those are my three big collections. Well, now you can add your friends to a collection, which is like the OG Pinterest board, right? When you're on Pinterest, you can make a board. You could share the board with your friend and be like, oh my God, this is what I'm thinking about wearing to prom, you know, because that's like when you were using shared Pinterest boards. But I think as someone with a, you know, overly active Instagram

mom, sorry, mom, you know, I think this will be helpful because she sends me a lot of DMs about, I don't know, things to do in New york puerto rico whatever and if i can just add her to a collection you can just put them all there i can go look at them and my messages don't pile up i have the weird i just look half of the shit i've saved it's like on accident like truly i'm like wait what the fuck did i some i'm like oh yeah i remember that one and then another one's like i add no that's very much a lot of my saved, like only some of them are very intentional where I'm like, oh my God, yeah,

like I definitely needed to go back to that, like my nails ones. Right. Because I get my nails done enough that I can like go and refer to it. But some of the things I forget, like I am not a big shopper. Like I like save things being like,

oh my God, that would be a dream to wear. And then I never think about it again because I only buy things like clothing when I need it and i'm like oh my god i need a dress for that thing right and then i just go to the store and i don't think about what i've saved so yeah i mean look i like a feature like this because it's funny because all the time it's usually just me like in text threads just sharing instagram posts exactly then i think it's easier helpful yeah i think also but for my old ass friends like we get stressed out going on there sometimes it's something like

yo just bring it here like would you see they're like i'm not gonna go in there just post it in here okay i like that recipe or they'll be like oh shit look at look at that glow up from that old co-worker uh which is always nice to see all right um next uh juarez is trending so there was a terrible fire um at a detention facility micro detention facility in mexico a few days ago where i believe 39 people died in a fire because these people who were being detained as they were seeking asylum or whatever to get into the united states a fire broke out in one of the cells and 39 people perished in this fire in a horrific manner.

We're now hearing that authorities are actually considering homicide charges for two federal officers, two state employees, two subcontracted security guards, and one migrant for their alleged, you know, misconduct that led to this fire, which is horrific. I mean, like a lot lot of people were saying like just other people tried to help but like it seemed like some like a gate would be stuck and things like that just a really really terrible terrible story i mean just the layers to it aside from like the u.s putting pressure on them like on mexico being like look we're not gonna brutalize like y'all this has got to be your problem but don't ask us to figure out our immigration laws quite yet.

And let's not even address like what is even the forces that are even making people migrate like this. Spoiler alert. A lot of it has to do with the U.S. Of course. But, you know, this is kind of the situation. And it's just it's just like clearly preventable to the point now that they're saying, oh, it's a criminal act. So yeah, just an ongoing story that just went from like awful to even worse somehow. So we will, I'm sure we'll hear more about what's going on there. But sadly, I'm not sure it's really doing much to drive any increased debate around

our immigration policy and, you know, the lack of difference between administrations uh where it's kind of a consistent low bad yeah consistent low hum of you know uh just inhumane treatment and then finally the tennessee capital the reason the trend to see capital the reason for the title uh is trending because there are thousands of people protesting there at the capitol building the republicans have a super majority in the state of course state government and you know in the last few days a lot of journalists activists have been pulling up on these representatives these politicians asking what are you going to do about gun control and actually addressing the issue about safety especially in schools but overall all people that are affected by gun

violence what is your plan these people they acted like they they were like oh i'm sorry i'm about safety, especially in schools, but overall, all people that are affected by gun violence. What is your plan? These people, they acted like they were like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm on mute right now. Literally. I can't hear you. Miss me with that. Or like running into elevators.

Really shameful shit. So now there's rightfully been an outpouring of anger over the lack of any kind of activity from their legislators to do something. And it's, yeah, people are showing up in mass. Marjorie Taylor Greene, though, and some other despicable folks are trying to say this is all part of a trans day of vengeance and that it's trans people that are the ones that are contributing to the ruckus when anyone who just did a cursory look at the footage and the people that are at the Capitol, it is everyone.

It's the people of Tennessee, kids, parents, all different ethnic groups, you know, gender identities. So why were they saying that they think trans people were leading the violence at the Capitol? Because it's all part of this like conservative. They are. They were like rubbing their mitts that the shooter was a trans person and that they can now trans person okay yeah in tennessee and they want to they want to then you know basically tie that to the dehumanization the villainization of trans people and make it seem like and they're then these people can be murderers and they're like anybody

can be a murderer you know it's like yeah i know but look at the fucking stats because the amount of trans people are very underrepresented in the kinds of people that are engaging in this kind of activity it's pretty clear too because it's like like it's that you know one drop rule almost right it's like okay so one trans person committed a heinous crime but we're not going to talk about how every school shooting is a white man like yeah or most yeah like 90 of whatever some percent 99 of them are white men and also much of the crime against most other communities are white men you're treating the republicans as good faith actors in the system you know and so like i know i get it but that's just sort of this is what their

agenda is um because they're also like let's be real you know especially like evangelical christians who are a huge part of the conservative movement like it helps it's an agenda for them while also you know the game right now is to try and expand their numbers or preserve their shrinking group and it's by any means necessary. And right now it's just, they want to just be as horrible to human beings as possible. And in this case, even people that they know personally, like we talked about the governor of Tennessee and his wife personally knew some of the victims and yet crickets when the issue of gun control is brought up.

So, you know know so it happens when when money overruns everything you just get a bunch of people who are just going to parrot lobbyist talking points but uh until then it's good to see the people come out because that is one way to actually you know show the people that think that everything is very comfortable for them that in fact people are aware of their lack of action um So, yeah, ongoing as we grapple with our terrible, terrible gun culture in this country. All right. Well, that's going to do it for us today. Becca, thank you for joining me.

Make sure you tune in tomorrow because we've got a whole new episode. It's going to be a pretty good one. Talking about, you know, some fascist bangers that are climbing the charts right now uh so check you know check in for that uh until next time be kind to yourself be kind to each other you know make sure you stay safe get that vaccine if you haven't also you know don't do anything about white supremacy or any kind of homophobia transphobia nothing like that because life's hard enough and the only way it gets better is if like everybody's on the same page saying, hey, everybody deserves, you know, to live a good life. Okay. Anyway, we'll see you then. Take care. Peace and blessings. Bye. Bye.

In California, during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer.

This season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. What happens when a professional football player's career ends and the applause fades and the screaming fans move on? I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. For some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers.

You mix homesteading with guns and church. Voila! You got straightway. They try to save everybody. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts how do you feel about biscuits hi i'm akilah hughes and i'm so excited about my new podcast rebel spirit where i head back to my hometown in kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot the rebels into something everyone in the south loves the biscuits biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? It's right here in black and white and prints. It's bigger than a flag or mascot.

Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.