It is January 6, 2026. Three days ago, the US captured a head of state.
This should be the most serious news story of the decade. But if you look at your phone, you aren't seeing history. You're seeing a roast.
You're seeing deepfakes of Nicolás Maduro crying in a puddle of baby oil. You're seeing his propaganda cartoon, "Super Bigote," getting beat up by a Fortnite character. You are seeing a geopolitical earthquake filtered through a Snapchat lens.
Welcome to The Meme Coup.
In this episode, we break down the media theory behind the chaos. The US didn't just execute a regime change; they executed a Vibe Shift. We explore how they are using "Memetic Warfare" to strip a dictator of his dignity, turn a war into content, and distract the world with absurd spectacles like buying Greenland.
The Syllabus:
The Death of the Real (Baudrillard): Why the AI deepfakes feel "truer" than the official news photos.
Context Collapse (Danah Boyd): How linking Maduro to the Diddy memes turned a political prisoner into a tabloid joke.
The Society of the Spectacle (Debord): Why the "Greenland Purchase" is the ultimate distraction.
The revolution will not be televised. It will be shitposted.
If you use AI to write an email, and I use AI to summarize it... did communication actually happen?
Or did two piles of code just perform a handshake while we both stared at a screen, hallucinating productivity?
In this episode, we argue that the Dead Internet Theory isn't just about bots on Twitter anymore. It has come for your inbox. We are witnessing the industrialization of communication, where human interaction is replaced by a "Zero-Human Feedback Loop."
We break down the sociology of 2026 using three critical frameworks:
Goodhart’s Law & The Zombie Loop: How optimizing for "responsiveness" turned us into biological API keys for our own tools.
The Hyperreal (Jean Baudrillard): Why AI-generated empathy feels so repulsive. We explore the "Uncanny Valley of Vulnerability" and why we are starting to crave friction over flow.
Costly Signaling Theory: Why the elite are going back to analog. In a world of infinite digital content, "face-to-face" is the new luxury good.
The glitch isn't the problem. Believing the glitch is meaning is.
While the internet was busy arguing about domestic politics, the US Navy just went back to the 17th Century. On December 16, 2025, the White House designated the Venezuelan government a "Foreign Terrorist Organization" (FTO).
That designation wasn’t a diplomatic move. It was a heist.
In this episode, we break down the seizure of the Bella 1 oil tanker and the new "No Entry" zone in the Caribbean. We explain the "magic trick" of international law: once a government is labeled a cartel, their national resources aren't "sovereign property"—they are "terrorist financing." And that means we can legally steal them.
This isn't just about oil; it’s a masterclass in modern imperialism. We analyze the strategy through three critical frameworks:
1. Necropolitics (Achille Mbembe): The blockade isn't a military tactic; it’s a biological one. We look at how the US is weaponizing the survival of the Venezuelan population to force a surrender, effectively creating a "death world" where the population’s status is reduced to the living dead.
2. The Großraum (Carl Schmitt): The era of the Global Free Market is over. We are returning to "Great Spaces." We explain Schmitt’s theory of the Großraum—a closed sphere of influence where the dominant power (the US) has the right to evict "spatial strangers" (China) and rewrite the laws of the sea.
3. Accumulation by Dispossession (David Harvey): Why is the US acting like a pirate? Because capitalism has run out of new markets. Harvey’s theory explains that when growth stalls, the system shifts to cannibalism. We aren't trading anymore; we are looting.
If you have oil and you aren't our friend, you aren't a country anymore. You're a crime scene.
The internet laughed when Donald Trump announced the "Patriot Games" for the Freedom 250 Semiquincentennial. "It's the Hunger Games!" everyone tweeted.
They were right, but for the wrong reasons.
In this episode, we look past the memes at the dark reality of summoning "one young man and one young woman" from every state to compete for the Sovereign in Washington D.C. This isn't a track meet; it's a ritual.
We break down the biopolitics of the event, using Giorgio Agamben to explain how the State is asserting ownership over the biological bodies of American youth. We look at how this spectacle replaces civics with athletics, and use René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire to explain why a divided nation needs a ritualized competition to avoid actual civil war.
The Games aren't a celebration of freedom. They are the gamification of submission.
Did she say "Grift" or "Grit"?In this episode, we break down the viral moment that has the entire Right Wing internet spiraling. But we aren't just looking at a slip of the tongue—we are looking at a slip of the mask.We analyze Erika Kirk’s lightning-fast transformation from "Trad-Wife" to "CEO" following Charlie’s death, comparing her rise to the "Evita Perón" archetype. Is her performance of grief a masterclass in brand succession?We cover:
Does Christmas feel less like a holiday and more like a deadline?
In this holiday anti-special, we peel back the wrapping paper on the "most wonderful time of the year" to reveal the capitalist engine underneath. We aren't just being Grinches—we are analyzing how a religious and social tradition was systematically replaced by a financial imperative.
If you feel stressed, broke, or empty this December, it’s not you. It’s the simulation.
We cover:
The Invention of Tradition: How Coca-Cola designed Santa and department stores invented Rudolph.
The Elf Myth: Applying Karl Marx’s "Commodity Fetishism" to Santa’s Workshop.
The Gift Trap: Why Marcel Mauss’s theory of the "Gift Economy" explains your holiday anxiety.
Simulation Theory: Why we care more about the aesthetic of Christmas than the reality.
Key Takeaways:
Why "nostalgia" is just affection for old marketing campaigns.
How to opt out of the "Potlatch" of competitive gifting.
Escaping the "Capitalist Realism" of Q4.
Boxing used to be about the fight. Now, it’s about the feed.
In this video, we break down the Jake Paul vs. Anthony Joshua narrative not as a sporting event, but as the ultimate example of Guy Debord’s "Society of the Spectacle." We aren't asking if the fight is rigged—we're asking if the sport itself has been replaced by content.
We discuss:
Why Netflix’s entry into live sports changes the fundamental definition of "competition."
How athletes like Joshua are being converted into "actors" in a scripted reality.
Why true sporting merit no longer matters in the attention economy.
"He asked to take me shopping. I thought that was the weirdest sh*t in the world." — 50 Cent
For 20 years, it was hip-hop’s biggest "open secret." It played out in diss tracks, vodka commercials, and Instagram memes. But now, the federal government has stepped in, and the man who played the Joker to Diddy’s Batman is suddenly holding the camera.
In this episode, we deconstruct Netflix’s Sean Combs: The Reckoning and analyze how 50 Cent turned a two-decade grudge into the #1 streaming event of the year.
We cover:
The Origin Story: From ghostwriting hits to the infamous "Mase" contract dispute.
The Vodka Wars: How Cîroc vs. Effen was actually a prototype for modern brand warfare.
The Sociology of the "Open Secret": Why 50 Cent was the only one allowed to say the quiet part out loud.
The Spectacle: Is this true justice for victims, or just the ultimate commodification of a collapse?
50 Cent isn't just a rapper anymore; he's the narrator of the culture's darkest moment. And he’s selling tickets to the show.
🎧 Tune in for: Media analysis, hip-hop history, and the dark reality of the "White Party."
John Cena’s retirement isn’t just the end of a wrestling career — it’s the collapse of a myth built on permanence. In a culture addicted to reboots and eternal heroes, Cena’s exit forces us to confront time, aging, and closure. This episode breaks down Cena as a media construct, a moral brand, and a symbol of an era that believed consistency could defeat change.
FIFA has made headlines again, and not for football. I dive into the controversial decision to award Donald Trump a Peace Prize. Is this just politics, or is there more to Infantino's strategy? I analyze the stupidity of the decision and the backlash that is sure to follow from a media & comms point of view.
I'm in the top 0.05% of Taylor Swift listeners."Congratulations. You are part of the Monoculture.
Spotify Wrapped is not a celebration of your unique taste. It is a masterclass in Gamification and Surveillance Capitalism. In this episode, Professor Funk breaks down why we love sharing our own data, the sociology of "Audio Auras," and why the algorithm—not you—is choosing the music.
The Syllabus:
Pierre Bourdieu: Why posting your Wrapped is just a status signal.
Shoshana Zuboff: Your emotions are just "Behavioral Surplus" for advertisers.
The Monoculture: How the algorithm forces everyone to listen to the same 5 artists.
Your personality is 100% loaded.
The university classroom is a microcosm of society. If you want to know where the culture is going, look at the students.
Another semester is in the books. I survived. But did the students?
In this honest retrospective, Professor Funk breaks down the real highs and lows of teaching Gen Z in 2025. We move past the usual "AI is bad" complaints to look at what actually connected. We discuss the "Soft Quitting" phenomenon through the lens of Byung-Chul Han, why group projects are still the ultimate social experiment, and the surprising moments where critical thinking actually clicked.
A look back at the wins, the losses, and the lessons. The syllabus is closed.
This Means More." It’s a brilliant marketing slogan—until you start losing. Then, it becomes a curse.
Liverpool FC aren't just suffering a dip in form; they are suffering a total Narrative Collapse. In this episode, we ignore the xG and tactical heatmaps to analyze the communication crisis at Anfield. Why does the media love a fallen giant? And why is the fanbase demanding a ritual sacrifice?
The Syllabus:
Roland Barthes: How the "Myth" of the club traps players in the past.
René Girard: The "Scapegoat Mechanism" and why sacking the manager is just ancient sociology on Sky Sports.
Maxwell McCombs: How the media "sets the agenda" for the crisis.
The football is bad. The communication is worse.
Two years of hype. One unplayable menu. Football Manager 26 is finally here, and it’s a disaster.
I’m skipping the tactical analysis to give you the media analysis. Why do we keep buying broken products? Why does "Next-Gen" always feel like a step backward? And what does a 20th-century French philosopher have to say about your lagging striker?
Featuring:
Jean Baudrillard (Simulacra)
Franco Berardi (Exhaustion)
My losing patience with the gaming industry.
Cut the noise. Fix the game.
Reuters, BBC, and Fox News walked out. Vloggers walked in. The Pentagon’s new media rules turned the pressroom into a stage — bright lights, perfect angles, and zero friction. This episode unpacks how “access” became obedience, how transparency became performance, and why democracy now dies under fluorescent lighting instead of in the dark.
Why does every track in 2025 sound like background noise? Because music isn’t written for humans anymore — it’s engineered for skips, clips, and playlists. In this episode, I dive into the culture industry, Baudrillard’s simulacra, Raymond Williams’ “structures of feeling,” Terranova’s free labor, and Attali’s prophecy of music as control. The result? Pop as algorithm bait, with resistance hiding in subcultures.
Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl broke every streaming record and still got called a flop. Critics say she’s out of ideas; fans say the lyrics sound like ChatGPT in heels. Maybe that’s the point. This episode dives into how pop stars weaponize boredom, why “bad” albums reset fandom addiction, and what Baudrillard, Bourdieu, and Banet-Weiser can teach us about performing failure for profit.
From Nepal banning TikTok to Morocco’s “hospitals, not stadiums” protests, Gen Z is turning bans and failures into meme-powered revolts. This episode dives into Habermas’ public sphere, Debord’s spectacle, DeLanda’s assemblages, Anderson’s imagined communities, and Butler’s performative politics to show how youth aren’t apathetic — they’re just organizing through Discord servers, anime flags, and ironic cosplay. The revolution posts first, marches later.
From WWE and UFC mega-events to comedy festivals and Formula 1, Saudi Arabia is buying global attention to rebrand repression as spectacle. This episode unpacks media events, Debord’s spectacle, Gramsci’s hegemony, Said’s orientalism, and Bourdieu’s symbolic capital to show how authoritarianism launders its image with pyros, punchlines, and billion-dollar checks. Authoritarianism, now available in pay-per-view.
Benjamin Netanyahu calls social media a weapon — and Israel is treating your feed like frontline terrain. From bot networks to state-aligned talk shows, narrative has become artillery. I unpack the propaganda model, hyperreality, Foucault’s power/knowledge, and Arendt’s “lie in politics” to show how perception itself is militarized. Forget war rooms — this is war feeds.