Team Trump was winning the internet until the Harris–Walz campaign took over. But Democrats can’t just keep calling Republicans “weird” and celebrating Brat Summer until Election Day. Today on the show, writer and critic Hunter Harris on how Kamala Harris is harnessing social media, and what comes next in the run-up to November.
Leah Feiger is @LeahFeiger. Hunter Harris is @hunteryharris. Write to us at politicslab@WIRED.com. Be sure to subscribe to the WIRED Politics Lab newsletter here.
Mentioned this week:
Silk Presses Stick Together: Kamala Harris Secures Club Chalamet’s Endorsement by Hunter Harris
Lemme Say This by Peyton Dix and Hunter Harris
A Visual Guide to the Influencers Shaping the 2024 Election by Makena Kelly
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Transcript
Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.
Leah Feiger: This is WIRED Politics Lab, a show about how tech is changing politics. I’m Leah Feiger, the senior politics editor at WIRED. Today on the show, I’m talking to Hunter Harris about the internet culture surrounding election season this year. Hunter is a writer and critic who writes a lot about pop culture and occasionally about politics. She’s also worked for Vulture at New York Magazine and as a screenwriter on HBO’s Gossip Girl reboot. Now she hosts the Wondery podcast Lemme Say This, and she has her own Substack called Hung Up. Hunter, welcome to WIRED Politics Lab.
Hunter Harris: Thank you for having me.
Leah Feiger: Well, let’s dive right in, because I know that you have so much to say about how the internet has responded to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz’s campaign over the last few weeks. What are you thinking, what are you seeing?
Hunter Harris: It’s kind of funny, like the absolute rancid vibes of Joe Biden’s campaign and the tone and tenor of the internet felt extremely dystopian, and now it’s—
Leah Feiger: It was sad.
Hunter Harris: Yeah, no, it was sad, but it was also like elder abuse, like we can’t keep trotting out this man and pretending that he is going to be president. And now, I think there’s a big sort of wave of goodwill and also, like we can have fun again in a campaign season. Which hasn’t felt that way since Obama.
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: And there’s something funny, to me, about the way that Kamala Harris is, maybe, the most memeable politician ever, or at least in my memory. She’s so naturally funny, even like unintentionally, and it kind of thrills me.
Leah Feiger: And I think it’s also this very specific cultural moment of conversation, the way that she is talking and the things that she’s saying are funny. I don’t know if I would’ve found them funny 10 years ago, but I find them absolutely hilarious right now.
Hunter Harris: I don’t know if I would’ve found them funny even 10 months ago, like there was a really—
Leah Feiger: Fair.
Hunter Harris: There was a really dire point in the presidency, where it seemed like there wasn’t a lot of clarity on how she was being positioned, right. Like—
Leah Feiger: Oh, gosh.
Hunter Harris: The knock against her was that she was too kind of like laughy, giggly, which obviously I think that has lot to do with misogyny and misogynoir.
Leah Feiger: Oh yeah, very gendered.
Hunter Harris: But she did, also would laugh a lot, like to be fair.
Leah Feiger: Sure.
Hunter Harris: And she was wearing Converse to seem relatable, like that was a whole moment in her public life, and then it seemed like she was just not doing any appearances or any press at all. And now, everything that was seen as a detriment to her then has just come around full circle, into being some of her greatest strengths.
Leah Feiger: I mean, what you’re saying though about how the White House was positioning her and even how Biden’s campaign positioned her in 2020, that was horrible, that was shockingly bad, actually. I don’t know if we’ve actually seen a vice president in the last couple of cycles, where it’s like been, I mean, maybe Pence, but on the Democratic side, where someone has just seemed so shoved to the side. Like I think of like the Joe Biden, Barack Obama memes, they were everywhere, that was like, “Oh, they’re best friends, they’re this, they’re thought partners, they’re everything.” And the whole thing with Biden being like, “I’m going to be the last person in the room. I’m going to be the last person you make a decision with.”
And it was so clear to me, that that was not how Harris was getting positioned. So when it seemed, like after the debate, Biden was faltering, senators and congresspeople were calling for him to drop out, Nancy Pelosi had her whole like behind the scenes campaign, to end this all. And I’m looking at polling, that shows that Harris is actually pretty neck and neck with Biden compared to Trump, in a lot of states.
Hunter Harris: The comparison that everyone makes online is that this is like literally the HBO series Veep, playing in—
Leah Feiger: Oh yeah.
Hunter Harris: Real life. In Veep, for those who haven’t seen the HBO show, the president actually drops out in like a finale twist at the end of season three. And Selina Meyer, who is the vice president played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, assumes the presidency.
Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus): POTUS is not going to be running for a second term. Oh my God, I’m going to run. Oh my God.
Dan Egan (Reid Scott): Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, ma’am, give me this straight poop ears, is this for real?
Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus): It’s totally—
Dan Egan (Reid Scott): Yeah.
Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus): For real.
Dan Egan (Reid Scott): Oh, thank you.
Hunter Harris: People who know Veep by heart, it’s our season, let me tell you that.
Leah Feiger: It’s so good.
Hunter Harris: But I mean, truly, it was ridiculous the degree that Kamala Harris was being publicly, and it seemed privately, undermined.
Leah Feiger: Yeah, absolutely.
Hunter Harris: And then I think it’s worked in her favor, the degree to which the Biden campaign had basically hidden her away.
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: Because all the reasons why the internet and young people had sort of soured on Kamala, her record as a prosecutor, her stance on Gaza, people kind of forgot that she was less progressive than she’d seemed.
Leah Feiger: Sure, totally, totally. Yeah, she just popped out. It’s an underdog story, is kind of how it feels, which is hilarious, because she’s on the incumbent side.
Hunter Harris: It is shocking that someone who has been so close to the presidency for the last four years, is like the underdog in this narrative because—
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: But she wears it very well. I think—
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: … that it is, I wonder when this will all kind of turn, when politics will become—
Leah Feiger: Oh, yes.
Hunter Harris: … politics again and not pop culture, and then it will feel like, okay, we’re back to none of this being very fun.
Leah Feiger: Well, I guess that brings me to, is Brat Summer over already? Let’s talk about it, Biden drops out, Charli XCX wrote on X that Kamala is Brat. The Harris campaign seized on it, they changed a ton of their social stuff. They’ve been doing things that the Biden campaign just couldn’t have even dreamt of with social media. What are you seeing in terms of trends changing, things perhaps shifting in, even the discussion about it? Like you can’t have a Brat Summer in October.
Hunter Harris: Sure. I think the Brat Summer sort of phenomenon, will eventually die down, although Obama did just put a Brat song in his annual summer playlist. I said—
Leah Feiger: Like, bless the intern who is like super on top. That entire playlist, I’m like, “This is amazing.”
Hunter Harris: There’s something so petty to me about him not putting Chappell Roan, like the music story of the summer being absent from his playlist.
Leah Feiger: I was looking for “Hot to Go,” that was what I wanted to see pop up on the Obama playlist.
Hunter Harris: It just feels very shady to me that Obama is listening to Saweetie and not Chappell Roan, but it is what it’s. But no, so I think that the Brat moment for the Kamala campaign, at least, is already kind of passed. It doesn’t feel so funny, I mean, the thing is, it felt sort of plugged in and online, but I do think that their social team does seem pretty nimble—
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: In terms of how they will pivot and position her in the future. But again, the internet is such a crazy place and all of this stuff is so nebulous, and one thing that I am very intrigued by, is how all of those like RNC supercuts of her giving that old stump speech, “What can be unburdened by what has been?”
Kamala Harris: What can be unburdened by what has been? What can be unburdened by what has been? What can be unburdened—
Crowd: Yeah.
Kamala Harris: … by what has been? What can be?
Hunter Harris: That playing on a loop, only worked in her favor.
Leah Feiger: Everyone loved it.
Hunter Harris: Exactly, exactly. And that this comes from the Republican side and that they’re trying to find a way to make her seem ditzy or stupid or kind of uninformed, it’s not doing that at all. It makes her seem like the most online ready candidate in a long time.
Leah Feiger: I 100 percent agree, I mean, she’s Teflon right now. That supercut is such a great example, ’cause I’m like, “That’s what your APO research team came up with.” They looked around and said, “The internet’s going to hate this.” And I’m like, “Have you spent a single second on the internet?” Which I guess, gets into like also how fragmented these spaces are. Maybe that would play super well on Truth Social or like a couple of spaces on Telegram and people would be like, “Yes, this is it. This is it.” But on Instagram, on TikTok, even on Elon Musk’s X, everyone had a very different reaction.
Hunter Harris: Totally. And it does sort of remind me, in a weird way, of the way Trump’s memeability existed during his presidency. I mean, gosh, these were like the most annoying tweets I ever saw. But whenever anything would happen in culture and someone would immediately run and say, “There’s always a tweet,” and they would retweet like a classic Donald Trump tweet, of him talking—
Leah Feiger: Okay.
Hunter Harris: More eloquently about Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson than about like anything happening—
Leah Feiger: Yes.
Hunter Harris: In global politics.
Leah Feiger: Totally.
Hunter Harris: And both of these candidates do have that kind of Teflon, as you said, like funny bone quality of like, it doesn’t really matter the substance of what they’re saying, but they just have a certain way of talking that is pretty funny and does—
Leah Feiger: Oh, yeah.
Hunter Harris: Traffic very well in being a meme.
Leah Feiger: There was some good reporting earlier this week about how the Trump campaign is really upset that Kamala is getting all of this like, free press, basically. That everyone is so excited to write about her, everyone’s so excited to post about her online. And part of the dismay from the Trump campaign, absolutely has to be that that was their game, that was how Trump did it. It was free press, it was free publicity, like you said, it was the memeability, he was made for the internet. So it is fascinating to watch a Democrat, for the first time, flip the script a bit. So I want to talk also, about the fandoms getting in on this, that are propelling so much of this content. You wrote in your newsletter about how Club Chalamet endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, and that was just so specific. You got to tell us, I know you’re a huge fan, you are Club Chalamet pilled, who is that? Who’s behind it and why should we care?
Hunter Harris: Okay, let me say get ready.
Leah Feiger: I’m so excited, I’m so excited.
Hunter Harris: So Club Chalamet is really just one woman named Symone. I think she lives in California, but she is a Gen X superfan of the actor Timothée Chalamet. She started posting, I want to say like four or five years ago, it’s unclear … So she’s in her fifties, I think she’s like—
Leah Feiger: Okay.
Hunter Harris: Fifty-six or fifty-seven. It’s unclear what she was doing for the previous decades of her life before Timothée Chalamet was born. For at least some of that time, I believe she was a Michael Fassbender stan, the actor, Michael Fassbender.
Leah Feiger: Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, sure.
Hunter Harris: But basically, she has that dog in her, she really is like the main character of every day. I mean, I have multiple group chats on—
Leah Feiger: Stop.
Hunter Harris: Just dedicated to texting each other stuff Club Chalamet, because it hearkens back to like golden age of Twitter, where she just really has the most unhinged take on everything. Both Timothée Chalamet related and not Timothée Chalamet related, which is hilarious. Some of her club classics, if you will—
Leah Feiger: Yeah, please.
Hunter Harris: … include—this is when I really first started to take note of her—she had, I would say, a deliriously unhinged post about 9/11. Just bear with me, ’cause this is legitimately kooky. So she posted about 9/11, on the anniversary last year, and basically she said that sometime in 2000 she had applied and interviewed for a job at the World Trade Center and she got a weird feeling and didn’t take the job.
Leah Feiger: Oh my God.
Hunter Harris: And then she’s like, “And it would’ve offered me more money and better benefits and all this stuff, but I felt bad. Like something was unsettled in my spirit, so I didn’t take the job.” And then she’s like, “And then look what happened.”
Leah Feiger: Oh my God.
Hunter Harris: It’s a perfect shit post, like—
Leah Feiger: Incredible.
Hunter Harris: It really operates on so many levels of like, how was 9/11 about you? So you knew it was going to happen? Like I’m not sure that she understood the implication.
Leah Feiger: World wars were started by this, “But me personally, I need you guys to know my relationship with all of this.”
Hunter Harris: It also brought a lot of attention to her age, that she really is like Gen X, but extremely online, on corners of stan Twitter, where she’s defending Timothée Chalamet, where she’s posting every update to his life. She has an ongoing one-sided, I would say, beef, with Kylie Jenner.
Leah Feiger: Oh my God.
Hunter Harris: Timothée Chalamet’s girlfriend, who she calls Slurpee. And—
Leah Feiger: How did this get into Kamala Harris again? How did—
Hunter Harris: So based on her, what I’m imagining is demographic, like I said, she’s Gen X, she lives in California. She seems to be a pretty like establishment Democrat, and was posting a lot in support of Joe Biden.
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: And all of a sudden, once Joe Biden drops out of the race, I mean, I ran to Club Chalamet account, because I had to know what she was going to say. Because I mean, listen, from what—
Leah Feiger: You’re like, “Anderson Cooper means nothing to me, I am all Club Chalamet.”
Hunter Harris: No.
Leah Feiger: No?
Hunter Harris: I know the news, I need the commentary. And of course, she posted, it’s very similar to the tone of the 9/11 post, in that, this all comes back to like what this means to her and how … I think her point was like, “For the first time, someone around my age is going to be in the White House.”
Leah Feiger: And she endorsed, related to that. She’s like, “This is why I am a fan.”
Hunter Harris: Yeah, yeah. There wasn’t really a lot of like political discourse. It really—
Leah Feiger: Sure.
Hunter Harris: … did seem to me like their ages are the same and that was her endorsement.
Leah Feiger: I mean, to each their own, everyone has a reason, for some, it’s reproductive rights and for others, it’s similarities in demographic.
Hunter Harris: And let me say this, they also … Listen, as a Black woman, Black woman with bobs, they stick together, with the silk press, we’re built different, like—
Leah Feiger: Love it.
Hunter Harris: I think there are a lot of commonalities, dare I say, I don’t know. But it is funny that Club Chalamet, like you have to be so online to care about this stuff, but that she is, I don’t know, that Kamala does have this very online appeal.
Leah Feiger: And obviously we’re seeing other fandoms, other kind of random influencers come out in support of Harris as well, which just continues, to your point—
Hunter Harris: Yeah.
Leah Feiger: This incredibly online candidate. Who else are you seeing get involved, that you have been slightly enthralled by?
Hunter Harris: A lot of this stuff does kind of feel like how it felt during the Obama years, when Obama is like a cultural tastemaker in some ways. And Kamala Harris getting Quavo, the rapper from Migos, or Megan Thee Stallion involved in her campaign, that does feel a little bit more organic than it felt during Joe Biden’s presidency.
Leah Feiger: Totally.
Hunter Harris: Totally, he had the support of rich and famous people, like George Clooney, for example, we see how that ended. But at the end of the day, it does help, I think, the campaign feel more active and engaged and youthful than it felt even two months ago, when Joe Biden was the candidate.
Leah Feiger: Absolutely. I mean, one of our senior writers wrote an article in the last few weeks about how now Swifties are organizing in support of Harris. Obviously, Taylor Swift has not come out and said anything yet, but the article wasn’t just about like, “Oh yeah, we’re in support.” Like Swifties are organizing in very serious ways, the fundraising campaigns, the social outreach, like chatting with the campaign, have their game plan for the next few months. It’s honestly really refreshing to also watch these campaigns in turn take these fandoms seriously. I have to ask, before we take a quick break, who are some influencers or celebrities that you just like dream of getting involved, giving some endorsements? Maybe not on the Club Chalamet level, of course, but who’s on your list right now? Even just like for the love of it all, the humor of it all. I can give you mine, right off the top.
Hunter Harris: Yeah, please, please.
Leah Feiger: Caroline Calloway, I need to know what she thinks about this entire election cycle. For those of you that don’t know and you absolutely should, Caroline Calloway is an Instagram influencer and author and alleged scam artist. Basically go look her up, but from her apartment in Florida, I need her to tell us what Floridians are thinking about this campaign right now.
Hunter Harris: Wow.
Leah Feiger: Who do you have?
Hunter Harris: Listen, at the end of the day, I love Julia Roberts, and my favorite thing about Julia Roberts is that she will post a grainy photo of her and anyone. Like if it’s like her friend’s birthday, if it’s like—
Leah Feiger: I love her.
Hunter Harris: Her anniversary, she does not have a Getty login, she just goes straight to Google and looks up, “Julia Roberts, George Clooney,” and that’s the photo she posts. I mean, she was at the Joe Biden fundraising event, where George Clooney lost all faith in him.
Leah Feiger: Sure.
Hunter Harris: And so, I’m—
Leah Feiger: Faithful time.
Hunter Harris: Yeah. I’m imagining that she has some photos of herself and Kamala, in the archive, to post. And she—
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: Just also activate that type of white woman who is totally Kamala-pilled and like—
Leah Feiger: Oh, yeah.
Hunter Harris: Will be so enthusiastic to vote for her.
Leah Feiger: Major endorsement.
Hunter Harris: Yes.
Leah Feiger: Major endorsement.
Hunter Harris: Yes.
Leah Feiger: We actually have a pretty big project coming out today also, from senior writer Makena Kelly, comparing the influencers and content creators from the right and left. I am very excited for everyone to see it, I’ll send it on over to you as well. Her large scale analysis here, is on the right, influencers and content creators are bigger, their audiences are larger, and they are more general. And on the left, they’re smaller and they are more specific, either in corners of the country or on topics. And it’s really interesting to watch how that is like playing out in online discourse right now. Anyway, little plug for that project, but very, very excited that it’s now out. We’re going to take a quick break, and coming up is, what happens next for these very online presidential campaigns?
[Break]Leah Feiger: Welcome back to WIRED Politics Lab. So Hunter, until recently, it really felt like Trump was kind of winning the internet. He has Elon Musk’s X behind him, he has all of these manosphere dude bro influencers posting about him, they have millions and millions of followers. And now, it seems like Democrats are alive again, because Biden’s out. But as we also chatted about, Harris can’t keep talking about Brat Summer in October. What happens after this energy fades a little bit? Do you have any thoughts or predictions on how the Harris campaign kind of continues to mobilize online, through the fall?
Hunter Harris: My prediction is that I think Republicans will continue to hit at her sort of tendency to give word salad answers. Even the way, in some interviews, she gets a little, really bark back in an interview. She will get a little testy, and I think that, maybe Republicans will use that against her, but I honestly think, again, that can be used in her favor online. That’s a reaction meme—
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: That’s like a gif in the making.
Leah Feiger: People are into it right now. I mean, there’s so many reasons that she is different from Hillary Clinton as a candidate in 2016, like we don’t even have to get into the large, massive list. Whereas I think, Hillary snapping back maybe wouldn’t have worked in her favor, for Harris, it actually really could.
Hunter Harris: Yes, I—
Leah Feiger: Like in a debate, for example.
Hunter Harris: Totally. I think that her history as a prosecutor, and as I said, she just is very funny, like—
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: I remember, this was years ago, but when she was running for president in 2020, there was a really funny video of her like taking a deep sigh and waving, and I used it when I turned 25, and it was like me saying goodbye to my youth basically. That just kind of is a part of her appeal, and I think that capitalizing on those moments and drawing attention away from her more, I don’t know, moderate political opinions, will probably keep younger voters, younger people on her side.
Leah Feiger: But at some point, like you said, “the election” has to really start, how are they going to integrate her policy positions and platforms into this youthful outreach online?
Hunter Harris: I think that’s the real challenge for her campaign, is that eventually this kind of goodwill will die down, and at the end of the day, she probably is more conservative than a lot of Gen Z voters, who are liberal, would want her to be. She has to appeal to moderates and to older people, and I think a lot of this energy that she’s harnessed over the last couple of weeks is mostly people who probably would’ve voted for a Democratic ticket anyway. And so how they couch her more unpopular positions and continue … They can’t meme their way out of her stance on Gaza, they can’t meme—
Leah Feiger: I was going to say.
Hunter Harris: They can’t meme her way out of her more tough on crime positions. But they can certainly turn the attention back onto Donald Trump and how that is the reality that people don’t want again, who are very online, and maybe that will work for them.
Leah Feiger: Yeah. I mean, thinking about the fandoms we’re talking about that are coming out in support for her right now, that are organizing for her, and just recently, protesters in support of Gaza interrupted Harris at an event, while she was speaking, and she absolutely shut it down.
Kamala Harris: You know what, if you want Donald Trump to win, then say that, otherwise I’m speaking.
Crowd: Yeah.
Leah Feiger: Some people loved her reaction, but a lot of people didn’t, specifically, Gen Z, posting online about it. I’m really interested to watch that tide turn. We’re not there yet, and frankly, I think the Democrats have a bit of a layup for the next couple of weeks. This week is the buildup to the DNC, and then we have the DNC, and then the week after that, they should be basking in the glow, and then what happens?
Hunter Harris: I mean, that’s what I was saying earlier, I think that—
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: It really, in some crazy way, worked to her benefit that she just has not been as front and center over the last few months of Biden’s campaign. Because there’s more distance from the way that she, really, can come off as just kind of unpleasant. Like when I watched her responding to the protesters, it was like, “Oh, this is the Kamala that is kind of unpopular, especially online.”
Leah Feiger: Especially online, right. Yeah, no, we’re going to have to see what happens there. Meanwhile, obviously she’s riding a different sort of wave, our favorite Midwest princess wave, named Tim Walz. I’m so curious what you think about all of that. I mean, it felt like last week was just an explosion of love for that man, online.
Hunter Harris: Truly, I was not that familiar with him before, but then all of a sudden it is like, oh, this is like a character from Parks and Recreation.
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: Like he would’ve gone crazy on an NBC sitcom in 2012, like the T-shirts, the merch alone, would’ve been outrageous. No, he does give the impression of like dad posting online, like dad who loves dad movies, dad who wears the New Balances. And I think there is an interesting kind of parallel to like the return to the so like dad core, mom core fashion and the way that he exists on the internet. That those trends are sort of coming together, there is an appreciation for stuff that does feel kind of homey and nostalgic, that he taps into.
Leah Feiger: I mean, he was made for the internet. I think there was an article about how him and his wife don’t actually have any investments, they don’t actually own any homes. They sold their house below original asking price, when they moved into the governor’s mansion in Minnesota. Everyone’s like, “This is so relatable. I too, have $20 in my pocket.” And I was like—
Hunter Harris: Exactly.
Leah Feiger: “You were made for this moment.”
Hunter Harris: Exactly. Who does that appeal to, other than people who are in their twenties and like, “I have to transfer—”
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: “—money from my savings to my checking for every single purchase.” Like that’s—
Leah Feiger: Yes.
Hunter Harris: That’s what it is to be 25.
Leah Feiger: Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. And obviously, he started the trend of calling Republicans, weird, and he jokingly perpetuated this rumor about J.D. Vance and couches. What do you think about this new era of Democrats using the right’s tactics against them?
Hunter Harris: It’s kind of ironic to me, that the day that Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Aaron Sorkin had written that op-ed for the New York Times.
Leah Feiger: Oh my God.
Hunter Harris: Suggesting that Democrats, as sort of a last ditch effort to save democracy, nominate Mitt Romney.
Leah Feiger: Incredible.
Hunter Harris: It’s like, we’re seeing the, I would say, older and newer way of Democratic establishment operations kind of together, in some really crazy way, where it’s like … Aaron Sorkin who made The Newsroom, who made The West Wing, who really is like, it feels like now, like a sort of crazily outdated liberal—
Leah Feiger: Oh my gosh, yes.
Hunter Harris: … way of thinking.
Leah Feiger: Fantasy.
Hunter Harris: Fantasy, entirely, versus a Democratic Party that is a little bit more agile, that is not afraid of leaning into a certain level of humor and culture and onlineness, for lack of a better word, to get their point across and to find new audiences.
Leah Feiger: Yeah, totally. And for everyone accusing them of being hypocritical, I think, my question is a little bit like, do voters care? Like I don’t actually know if there’s a Democratic voter out there who’s like, “You know what? I actually …” Republicans were going low, and I really did want us to go high in that moment. Now, it seems like everyone’s loving this.
Hunter Harris: Exactly, and I think, in a lot of ways, that was kind of the … I just remember watching The Newsroom when I was in high school, and it’s like, the point of that show was that Democrats always do the right thing—
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: And then it never works out, and now it’s time to shake the table a little bit.
Leah Feiger: We’re going to take one more break. Hunter Harris, thank you so much for joining us. We’ll be right back, with Conspiracy of the Week.
[Break]Leah Feiger: Welcome back to WIRED Politics Lab. It is time for Conspiracy of the Week, our very favorite segment of the show, where guests bring favorite conspiracies that they’ve come across over the last couple of weeks or that are old school favorites and I pick my winner. Since it’s just the two of us today, Hunter, I am already going to declare you the winner, but let’s see. I think I have one that you’re going to really like as well. You’re the guest, please go ahead, what do you have for us?
Hunter Harris: It’s not breaking news, but I think I maybe kind of believe that Khloe Kardashian was OJ Simpson’s daughter.
Leah Feiger: Oh my God. Okay, wait, say more. What? I’ve never even heard of this.
Hunter Harris: Oh my gosh, this is like old news at this point.
Leah Feiger: I’m behind.
Hunter Harris: There just is a rumor that Kris Jenner and OJ Simpson, maybe during or after the trial, were lovers, and Khloe Kardashian is the love child between them.
Leah Feiger: Has anyone ever commented on this? Like have they come up and been like, “No, no, no, couldn’t be me.”
Hunter Harris: So on an episode of Keeping Up, Khloe kind of addressed the rumor and said that her parents were Robert Kardashian, Caitlyn Jenner, Kris Jenner, and that she has never subscribed to this theory. But then randomly, OJ Simpson himself, said that he thought Kris Jenner was like a cute girl.
Leah Feiger: Oh my God.
Hunter Harris: But quote, “She was really nice, but I was dating supermodels.”
Leah Feiger: Oh my God.
Hunter Harris: Which is kind of like—
Leah Feiger: Also rude.
Hunter Harris: Yeah, no, kind of the craziest way to respond to—
Leah Feiger: That is so terrible.
Hunter Harris: Like a romance rumor.
Leah Feiger: Yes.
Hunter Harris: But I don’t know, I mean, I did read that OJ Simpson asked people to sign NDAs, like on his deathbed—which I, listen, not something I would say an innocent man does. Was this part of that? I don’t know. But it’s just something that I think about a lot, like hmm, hmm.
Leah Feiger: That’s a good one. I’m going to go into an absolute rabbit hole on this, the minute that our recording ends. Okay, here’s mine. I am so confident that you’ve heard this, and I’m so confident that you probably know more about it than I do. But in the last couple of weeks, I’ve gotten really into the body switching conspiracies that are pushed by the right wing, about Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton. They’re like, “They’re wearing masks,” and it’s this whole thing, it’s like a very QAnon, far far-right conspiracy. I found a different body switching conspiracy that I spent hours, a full day, like really throwing myself into, which is the conspiracy theory that Canadian singer, Avril Lavigne, actually died in the early 2000s, shortly after Let Go. And then she ended up getting replaced by a person named Melissa Vandella, who is just out there posing as Avril Lavigne.
It like all apparently started on this Brazilian blog. There’s been a lot of Twitter threads about it, and it’s become like, definitely not like accepted. This is not a widely accepted conspiracy, but every once in a while, if you’re searching on Twitter or TikTok, you have people that are like, “Okay, now let me tell you why I’m super confident today,” and sometimes people just reference it. They’re like, “Oh, and you know, like Avril Lavigne, that’s not actually Avril Lavigne.” It is wild. Have you heard about this before?
Hunter Harris: Yes, I have, and I feel like—
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Hunter Harris: You’re either an “Avril Lavigne is not alive” truther, or you’re a “Katy Perry is JonBenét Ramsey” truther. Like those are the two paths before you, on the internet.
Leah Feiger: Hunter Harris hosts the Wondery podcast, Lemme Say This, listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can also subscribe to her Substack, which is called Hung Up. Hunter, thank you so much for joining us.
Hunter Harris: Thank you so much, this was so fun.
Leah Feiger: Thanks for listening to WIRED Politics Lab. If you like what you heard today, make sure to follow the show and rate it on your podcast app of choice. We also have a newsletter, which Makena Kelly writes each week. The link to the newsletter and the WIRED reporting we mentioned today are in the show notes. If you’d like to get in touch with us with any questions, comments, or show suggestions, please, please write to us at politicslab@WIRED.com, that’s politicslab@WIRED.com. We’re so excited to hear from you.
WIRED Politics Lab is produced by Jake Harper. Pran Bandi is our studio engineer, Ammar Lou mixed this episode. Stephanie Kariuki is our executive producer. Chris Bannon is Global Head of Audio at Conde Nast. And I’m your host, Leah Feiger. We’ll be back in your feeds with a new episode next week.
