The New Yorker Radio Hour - Can Memes Swing the 2024 Election? Plus, Michelle Zauner on “Crying in H Mart”

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

In a Presidential race with two leading candidates who are broadly unpopular, any small perceived edge can make a tremendous difference. According to Clare Malone, more and more people will have their judgments formed by memes—visual jokes about the candidates floating on social media. Republican memes capitalize on widespread discomfort with President Biden’s age, by highlighting his stumbles, verbal or otherwise. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is a master of turning bad press to his advantage: he propagated his own mug shot on social media, feeding his outlaw image. Malone says that conservatives also have a leg up here because their beliefs suit the medium. “The right wing can ‘go there’—they can say the thing everyone thinks, but doesn’t actually say out loud.” Now the partisan fight on social media has roped in a relatively innocent bystander, Taylor Swift. The pop star, who has endorsed Biden in the past, and her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, have been labeled a “psy op” by right-wingers online. “My theory about American politics, especially in the past decade, is basically none of it’s really policy,” Malone argues. “It’s all political pheromones.” Plus, Michelle Zauner, the front woman for the indie band Japanese Breakfast, talks about her memoir, “Crying in H Mart,” with The New Yorker’s Hua Hsu, author of “Stay True.”  New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. I've been in the news business for a few years now, and here's a statistic that I found interesting. I'm not blind to the fact that TikTok is a thing, a huge thing, but a third of American adults under 30 regularly get their news from TikTok. That caught my attention to say the least. I came across that figure in a piece by my colleague Claire Malone, who covers media for the New Yorker. And Claire writes this. More and more voters are forming opinions based on the funny video that their cousin's husband's sister shared in the group chat.

In other words, whether I like it or not, memes matter. Claire Malone joins us now. Claire, one of the quotes in your piece just stays with me. A right-wing influencer says the following. The left can't meme, but we can. What does that mean? It basically means the left is too self-righteous and sanctimonious and worried about being politically correct that they can't be funny.

But the right wing can be funny and go there. They can say the things everyone thinks but doesn't actually say out loud. I think that's what he means there. I see. And is he right? I think there's some truth to it. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's one of the reasons why, you know,

I talked to this professor, Ryan Milner, who studies memes. He's an academic memeologist. You can make a living at that? And he basically said, you know, like the reason why right-wing memes are so successful is because in American right-wing ideology of 2024, it's a very black and white thing, right? You know, fluid gender identity is a total joke. We all know that. That's the right-wing thinking. So we can make the funny joke that frankly probably elicits a lot of maybe inappropriate laughter from people.

people who consider themselves Democrats, but they wouldn't maybe make the joke themselves. But I think the right wing has, what's the phrase we all like to say, has created a permission structure for that kind of humor because it is a more black and white ideology. This is how America should be. This is how it shouldn't be. So let's start with this meme of Biden's birthday cake and other age-related memes. This is a picture of Joe Biden that was posted on his Instagram. He turned 81 in November.

and it is a birthday cake absolutely a light engulfed in flames. It looks like a forest fire on top of a chocolate cake. That's right. And Biden is sitting there smiling at a, you know, glossy mahogany table. And the caption says, turns out on your 146 birthday, you run out of space for candles. Okay. Okay. That's all in good fun.

Basically, the Biden campaign has realized that he will not get younger. And so the way to deal with concerns about his age is to make jokes about it. That joke is showing up on Joe Biden's official Instagram account, right? That's right. Yeah. So that's their way of sort of counteracting some of these, you know, there are a lot of memes on the internet of Joe Biden tripping over his words or maybe looking confused. The R&C actually put on an ad or a YouTube ad that sort of splice them all together. I think those are a little bit unfair.

I mean, one, Joe Biden suffers from a stutter. or has kind of overcome a stutter throughout his life. So maybe there's some of that going on with his speech patterns. But yes, there are various things beyond just the Biden tripping on the Internet that makes him look old or fumbling or feeble. A recent poll shows that 77% of American adults think that Biden is too old for a second term. So is that me helping Biden? I think it's – I should say, with those poll numbers,

it's also a majority of Democrats or a plurality of Democrats. I mean, most people think this – he's too old. I mean, I think it's... Trump is a spring chicken of what, 77? Yeah, he's four years younger than Biden. And looks fabulous. I think we're dealing with an American public that is upset. I would say that both of their candidates are...

Of an age. Old. Let's use the word, David. Old, by any standard. So online, we're not seeing left-leaning memes at all when it comes to politics? We are. You know, I think the most prominent one, which I do talk about in the piece, is the dark Brandon meme. So explain what that is.

Okay. It's complicated. So it's a dark, the dark Brandon meme is a left wing meme derived from the right wing meme. Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon is a polite way of saying F Joe Biden. So the dark Brandon meme sprung up on what we call dirtbag left Twitter. and it was basically any time Joe Biden got sort of a policy win early in his administration,

sort of to counteract the feeble narrative of Joe Biden, these guys, and they're mostly guys, would tweet out images of like, Biden in his aviator but with lasers coming out of his eyes or like Emperor Palpatine hands, shooting out thunderbolts. And it was basically like, he's not a daughter in Garepa. He's this sort of powerful dark lord who gets it done in Washington. And the campaign now sells T-shirts of the dark brand and meme. Now, you say that the right does this better.

They're better at memes, or at least you're sourced it in this piece. And at the same time, there seems to be memes all over the Internet about Trump's affection for fast food, for example. So I think the sort of famous meme is when he invited the Clemson football team after they won the National Championship. They came to the White House during a point. partial government shutdown. Right. And so Trump on, you know, silver, Washington Silver,

served them McDonald's, dominoes, just like a host of fast food. And there's an amazing picture of him with his arms outstretched, basically. So that meme works for him.

I think it's, I mean, it was sort of affectionately, there were certainly, you know, liberals who made fun of him on Twitter. You know, people have been making fun of Trump

for his bad eating habits and appearance for a long time. But then people on the right were like, you elitist. This man is in touch with the pulse of America. People like fast food and so does Donald Trump and like... You might not have a pulse after that meal, but you can, it's relatable, as I say, it's relatable. And he, you know, he, he, he, he leans in, he knows that he is a figure of, um, he's a caricature and he knows that. I mean... Oh, in place with it. Yeah. And in fact, if you look at when he was booked and had his mugshot

taken, right, he had that sort of famous glowering to the camera, picture. which he apparently rehearsed. Yes. And I think we could all tell that. You know, it's sort of, it is, it is an amazing visual representation of our time. And Trump tweeted it out himself. So it became a meme for him everywhere. It became a meme.

I mean, it was basically then made into t-shirts. Sure, people on the left wing made fun of him. But Trump knew that was going to happen. He knew it was going to be the news of the day. And he very cannily asserted his own control over it and gave, His outlaw cred. Exactly. His outlaw cred gave his supporters basically signal to them, this is how we're going to handle this.

This is going to be our line of response to this. So is the meme format uniquely effective at taking something that in the old sense would be bad coverage and turning it into a positive? It can be. I mean, it can spin both ways. Memes are basically like the updated political cartoon, right? I mean, you know, so. Which barely exist anymore. Which, you know, yeah, here.

No, no, no, I mean, political cartoons used to be a staple of what used to be called newspapers across the country. And everybody had a her block or tolls or whomever. And it's a smaller tribe now. I think that there, you know, you can be hurt by memes as a politician, as I think Biden probably is. Do any memes ever end up hurting Trump? Or is he just immune from that because of the nature of his. I don't know, his persona. I think he is probably hurt by them to a certain extent, but to a lesser degree, a much lesser degree.

Which one's hurt? I do think, well, let me back up and say that I think it's all impacted by polarization. So I do think there is a slice of people who are ambivalent about whether or not they're going to vote for Trump. And I think you could, for some of those people, the memes of him, you know, the mugger's, shot or when Trump sort of, you know, is talking back to the Manhattan judge or, you know, making sort of purial statements, like those are things that I think can go out into the ether and some people will say, you know, if they're a supporter of his, look at this guy. He's like really sticking it to the man. It's a witch hunt. And other people will be like, geez, this guy. I mean,

is this really what we, you know, the accumulation of bad stuff is going to happen all over again if we reelect him. And by the way, when I reached out to the Biden campaign to ask for their response, they basically said, you know, our internal polling shows that most, you know, target voters. That's what they use. And what does that mean? It means basically, I think, like, independents who are potentially swayable towards Biden. In crucial states.

Yes. Well, they didn't specify. But, yeah, I think we could probably infer that. Most of those people think, don't know, aren't sure, that Donald, Trump is going to win the Republican primary. And the implication there was once they do realize that he's going to be the nominee for president, there's a good likelihood they're going to get sick of him. And it's not so much a defense of against Joe Biden being old so much as a, well, people are going to be annoyed by Trump again. And they'll forget about how much they think Biden

is too old for office. In the Quinnipiac poll, he comes out 6% ahead of Trump in the popular vote. Now, that's yet to be confirmed by other polls. We'll see how this matches up with others. It's polls themselves, as we've learned to our absolute devastation. Or how they do in swing states? Yeah, or how they do in swing states. It's a momentary phenomenon, to be sure. But this is the first poll that he's had that is at all encouraging to the Democratic Party in a very long time.

Does humor and memes have any effect on voters, do you think? I mean, my... It's okay if we're just having a good time. Yeah, yeah. I mean, my theory about American politics is, especially in the past, you know, decade, is basically none of it's really policy. It's all political pheromones. You like the cut of the person's jib. You kind of like, yeah, that guy. And that's really what it's all about. So if the person parries back with humor that you like and it seems to be done well and it's not corny, then yeah, maybe it works. Or vicious. Or vicious, yes. That's baked into the brand, too. I hate to combine two cliches and. on short sentence. Let's turn to something much more important than the 2024 election and the stakes of democracy in general, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey. Now, this romance has become a kind

of cottage industry of conspiracy thinking. What has been showing up online and what are the key memes there? I mean, let's just take it really low here. I mean, enough with this high-minded stuff. This one I didn't actually see this one coming, which shame on me. Exactly. Basically, the new conspiracy theory is that Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift's romance is a democratic or maybe deep state operation to win Joe Biden the presidency because if both of them endorse Joe Biden, then it will be... Unfair? I guess, a coup. It will, you know, the idea is basically like the NFL and Taylor Swift are, you know,

along with complaining about airlines, the thing that all Americans can get behind. That noted left-wing organization, the National Football League. Right. Right. But this was going, I mean, this wasn't just like a meme and like, you know, weird right-wing. It was on Fox. It's been on Fox every night. Yeah. Dark Brandon doesn't get bogged down on details.

He can't name a Taylor Swift song. Taylor Swift can't name a Biden policy. This relationship was engineered in a lab. And Taylor's boyfriend sponsored by Pfizer, it is a match made in corporate heaven. Could you imagine if the chiefs win the Super Bowl? Does any of this mean anything? Or there's just, you know, a little bone for us to chew on for a while?

I think it might be a bone for us to chew on, maybe some Super Bowl promo. And here we are chewing. And here we are chewing on it. Chewing like mad, yeah. I mean, I was just, Ross Douthit had a little thing. in the New York Times. And I think he made a pretty good point, which was basically Taylor Swift has endorsed in an election before she endorsed in the midterms in, I think, 2018. And her candidate lost,

you know, so it's not, I mean, again, Tennessee is a deep red state, and that's where she sort of made a very public endorsement. But will Taylor Swift swing in the 2024 election? Hey, okay, maybe not. But maybe, you know, Biden is sort of unappealing to younger voters. Maybe if Taylor's, I don't know, getting out the vote and in Wisconsin. Is there any history of a celebrity endorsement having a decisive impact, either in the era of memes or before? I don't know. I want to say, like, maybe during the Obama era, but that was really more like certain political influencers in the primary kind of said to, like, to vote, to black voters in particular,

it's okay to vote for him. Like, you should. Oh, but John Lewis. Right. He's not, I'm not like, no, I know, but now I'm trying to, and you know about it and I, Like, was Oprah so early to Obama that it was influential? God, it's going to be a long, long campaign. Claire Malone, thanks so much.

Thanks for having me, David. You can read Claire Malone's column on the media and politics at New Yorker.com. The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in a case that could have tremendous impact on the presidential election. This is the Colorado case, deciding whether Donald Trump should be eligible to be on the ballot in the state of Colorado. The plaintiffs who include a 91-year-old Republican argue that Trump should be disqualified because of a clause in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Jill Lepore, a historian and staff writer for The New Yorker, joins our podcast, The Political Scene this week to talk about the history behind that amendment and the stakes of the case.

The reason this case exists is that Republicans in the Senate failed to do their constitutional duty and convict Donald Trump of impeachment in January of 2021. And I think that's really important to remember. The proper way to deal with the insurrection on January 6th was indeed to impeach Donald Trump, which the House did, and then the Senate by a very narrow margin failed to reach the two-thirds majority rate. It has now come out in several memoirs that some of the, I believe it was 10 senators that were needed to convict Trump, were persuaded to vote against conviction because of threats against their families. And Mitch McConnell said, of course, at the time that he voted against convicting Trump of impeachment because he thought this was a matter for the

criminal courts, that was the wrong decision, right? Trump should have been impeached and he would have then been disqualified. The criminal prosecutions that are now proceeding very, very slowly are, you know, another way to confront the problem of a president who has engaged in insurrection. But this is not the best solution. That's Jill Lepore speaking on the political scene, a podcast from The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. In 2018, the New Yorker published an essay about reckoning with the death of a mother. It was called Crying in H-Mart.

and its author was Michelle Zoner, the musician who fronts the band Japanese Breakfast. It was a lovely essay, and she kept writing and writing and expanded the essay into a book, finally, a memoir about culture and family and loss, and food. A lot of food. People say they got hungry reading her descriptions of cooking Korean dishes with her mother. Crying in H. Mart, the book spent over a year on the bestseller list. H.M.R. is freedom from the single aisle ethnic section in regular grocery stores. They don't prop goya beans next to bottles of saracha here. Instead, you'll

likely find me crying by the banchan refrigerators, remembering the taste of my mom's soy sauce eggs and cold radish soup, or in the freezer section, holding a stack of dumpling skins, thinking of all the hours that mom and I spent at the kitchen table, folding minced pork and chives into the thin dough. Sobbing near the dry goods, asking myself, am I even Korean anymore if there's no one left to call and ask which brand of seaweed we used to buy. That's Michelle Zoner, reading from crying in H-Mart. At the New Yorker Festival recently, Zarner sat down to talk with the New Yorker's H-H-H-H-H-U, and it was really a meeting of minds because Hua also wrote a memoir called Stay True,

which won the Pulitzer Prize last year. Both extraordinary books, and here's Huah Shue, speaking with Michelle Zonner. Michelle, how are you doing? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm very nervous. No, you're not. I am, yes. He was, like, eating a Rice Krispy treat, like, right before we went on.

I was like, wow, you're so chill. Like, walking up the stairs with a Rice Krispy Treat. I can't believe you told everyone that I did that. So, the book, which I'm sure everyone here has read, crying in H-Mart. I guess I'm contractually obliged to ask you whether people recognize you at H-Mart. Oh, yeah.

I don't get recognized in H-Mart very often. And actually, like, the only time I've wanted to, like, bust out any, like, celebrity cred is, like, when, like, the security guard at the, like, East Village location was, like, really mean to me. And I wanted, like, I couldn't figure out how to put the, like, basket in the cart. And he was, like, really mean about it. And I wanted to be like, do you know who I am? You should, like, pointed to the monitor because they have that video there, right? They don't have them there. That's probably why.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Even when I did that, though, I was, like, checking out. I was, like, oh, that's me. The Ajima was really just, like, I don't. care. Take your rice and go. So the book grew out of an essay you wrote for The New Yorker. Thank you, and you're also welcome.

So I'm just curious, like, when you finish the book and the book comes out, like, how did you change over the course of writing it if you feel like you did? Yeah, I mean, I don't know if you had this experience, but I mean, I think that writing memoir really forces you to have like some radical compassion for people that you may or may not feel ready to have or like want to have you know i mean there is a first version of this book that was so angry um at my dad and at myself and and every person in my life and you know one really beautiful thing about writing a book is that it takes so much time and it it forces you to have so much perspective.

You know, when I submitted the rough draft, I didn't get it back for three or four months. So when I reread it, I think I didn't realize I was so angry and how much I was holding in and how much I really needed to let go if I wanted to tell this story honestly and fairly. And so I think I was able to see, you know, other perspectives a bit more clearly

and find a lot of forgiveness for myself and the people that were involved in this very difficult time in all of our lives. You know, I'm wondering, like, how did your relationship to your mother change after you finished writing this? I feel like I have a deeper understanding of her. I don't know if you've, I mean, I know you don't want to talk about Stage True, but I had such a wonderful, I mean, I'm talking to a Pulitzer winning writer right now, who has an amazing memoir called say true and I read it this week and enjoyed it so much and you know it's it's impossible to not

think about how very similar they are and also how very different one one thing I thought was sort of interesting was you know the first line of my book is ever since my mom died I cry in H-Mart and so much of your book is I mean it's really not mentioned until I mean it's a discovery that sort of happens that that your friend has has died and it's it's sort of towards like the end of not I don't think that's spoiling anything it was sort of towards the end of the book and it's interesting to see how differently we handled grief and and and sharing the story of loss but for me personally it was such a joy to kind of try to see things from my mother's side and share parts of her and I think part of the joy of being a writer is like being a sort

of detective and unraveling parts of their person and and I think I learned so much more about. I had such a, I feel like I had to be deeper understanding and I felt much closer to her after writing the book. That's, that's beautiful. I mean, I think that, you know, you're a detective, you're also sort of like a time traveler. Like, you can sort of go back and relive things that you may not have appreciated it the first time around. And I also think it was like proof that I really loved this person because my mom and I had such a tumultuous, relationship that I almost felt like I needed to get the facts straight that we really loved each other. It was just complicated and I felt this need to prove that. And I feel like,

you know, towards the end of the book, you also kind of confront that where you were like, were we really as close as I thought we were and you're sort of like convincing yourself and exploring this relationship and all of its complexities and validating that for yourself of like, yeah, we did really love each other. We were really connected and close. And I think that was a part of that writing process as well. So, you know, one thing that I talked to you about a year and a half ago, I think, and at the time you were working on adapting your memoir for the screen, is there anything you can share about sort of like your approach

or how you're going to think about doing it? Yeah, I mean, one thing I didn't write very much about, and the book was, you know, my musical life. And I just love, I mean, that was such a big part of my teenage years was like that sort of discovery. And I think also towards the end of the book, I sort of began to realize, you know, I didn't want anyone to get confused that this was like, this is how it became Shills on or of Japanese breakfast. Like I'm not like Keith Richards or something. But I, so I think I just was, I really like avoided writing too much about it until I realized like that was a really big part of my. you know, major rift with my, my mother was a really big part of our relationship. And when we sort of

started to, um, argue with one another was this like, this calling I felt I had in this, and this real passion that she was so, um, confused by and so, uh, against. And, you know, it's just such a different craft. It's really, it's really funny. You have to find to like, I started make, compiling a list of like adverbs because you have to like describe, you know, leaving a room or smiling or looking at someone in like so many different ways and you have to be really smart and short about it and it's almost like there's this kind of like ad agency like lingo um so it's quite different so there was this moment um i don't know if it was last i've lost complete track of like the last two years but um there's this moment where you perform with carin-o and also the linda lindas

yeah and you posted this like incredibly like moving note where you you talked about sort of Karen O's role in sort of like being able to understand yourself and see yourself. I do feel like it is like a generational thing where it does seem like a lot of younger artists, particularly in this AAPI space, are kind of looking out for each other in a way that might not have been as obvious in the 80s or 90s when there was like more competition. I was really lucky and so much of my career was assisted by. by Mitzky, who took me on tour in 2016, and it was really cool to have, you know, at the time,

like, she was, like, the hot Asian girl in Indy, and, like, she could have, like, really, like, coveted that position and not wanted to, like, share. And I feel like one thing that's really cool about our generation is that, like, we've really started to dissect that, like, internalized misogyny and racism and, and try to, like, lend a helping hand, whereas, like, maybe even in the 90s, like, they would pit women against each other,

and it would be hard not to kind of believe that. And it's really nice now. I feel like we have such a wonderful community where we're really helping each other and are trying to push for bringing each other on tour and sharing each other's work and having a supportive network with one another. And so I try to take part in that.

That's awesome. You're moving soon. Yeah, so I'm moving to Korea to live for a year. and work on my second book where I am going to study the language and document that process. And I think it was such a natural response to writing a book that was so rooted in the past

and so much of what was hard about it was like it was so obviously emotional but also, you know, it was hard to remember all of that. So I'm really looking forward to writing about, you know, the day-to-day experience of living in another country and learning a language. Yeah, I guess like the thing I'm most worried about is just like being too dumb to learn.

Because I, you know, I've always, I've gone to Koreans. I never, like, cared enough about it until, you know, you get older and you, like, start paying for school and tutors yourself. But, and I'm really curious, like, how it will go to be fully immersed and have my one job to be a student.

And I'm most excited to just be completely consumed by one thing. I just want to do one thing and to, like, go to school and focus on one, skill. Wait, you're going to be an actual, like, student. Yeah, I'm going to go to classes, and I'm most excited to, like, live in a city where people have manners. Because I think that, you know, our country is getting out of hand. I'm so looking forward to everyone standing to one side of the escalator. Yeah. That is what I'm, like, most excited about. And the idea of, like, someone not watching a video on their phone, on the subway, without headphones.

Like, there's no way anyone in Korea is doing that. And I'm looking forward to never being around that for a full year. That does sound great. That's all we have time for. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, everyone. Michelle's honor is the author of Crying in H-Mart and leads the band Japanese Breakfast. She spoke with Hua Shu. Huaz's memoir is called Stay True, and you can can read him on all matter of things at New Yorker.com. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining me this hour. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbeths of Tune Yards with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, Calailla, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, and Louis Mitchell, with guidance from Emily Boutin and assistant from Mike Cutchman, Michael May, David Gable, and Alejandra Decker. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.