Power User with Taylor Lorenz Vox Media Podcast Network

Politics and social media were inextricable this week. Joe Biden announced his dropout via X and other social platforms — and after he endorsed Kamala Harris, the media rush to explain Brat memes began. Taylor talks to The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel about coconut memes, irony pilled posting, and the outcry of a generation frustrated by politics.
Then, Taylor and Zach break down this week’s headlines, including a lifestyle influencer suing another lifestyle influencer for copying her aesthetic, a terrifying DHS robot dog, and Marc Andreessen’s hope that AI will save comedy.
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Minutes after a gunman attacked Donald Trump at a rally, conspiracy theories flourished on social media. Did Trump fake it? Was it a false flag? These are the latest additions to a growing collection of anti-Trump conspiracy theories referred to as "Blue Anon." Taylor Lorenz discusses the rise of conspiracies from anti Trump influencers with Mike Rothschild, author of "The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything."
Plus, Taylor explains the alleged shooter's "Demolition Ranch" YouTuber T-shirt, and talks about the RNC influencers tasked with making the GOP look cool. (edited)
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Kick, a is home to some of the most reprehensible behavior on the internet. Creators have live-streamed themselves accosting people on the street, sexually harassing minors, even getting into hit-and-run car accidents. Taylor Lorenz talks to J. Aubrey, who documents some of the Internet’s worst people, about Kick’s race to the bottom.Plus, Taylor breaks down her recent reporting on influencers in politics. NATO and the State Department invited content creators to this year’s summit in Washington, DC. And in Utah, the first full-time content creator is running for Senate.
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For the past several years, influencer Lily Chapman has been plagued by a relentless community of women online. They congregated in a snark subreddit dedicated to mocking and criticizing her. Lily says they even contacted her friends and family, and attempted to kill her sponsorship deals. But Lily did something most influencers haven't been able to do: She fought back and won. Taylor Lorenz talks to Lily about how it all went down.
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An online smear campaign painted a top Stanford researcher as a censorship supervillain, whose goal was to silence free speech and delete 22 million tweets. Former Stanford Internet Observatory research manager Renée DiResta tells Taylor Lorenz what it's like to monitor disinformation about yourself -- and how rumors about her work that began on one conspiracy theorist's blog eventually spread into the halls of congress.
Then, Taylor talks about her report on how Biden is struggling to garner the support of Gen Z influencers, the surgeon general’s campaign to put warning labels on social media, Logan Paul’s Donald Trump interview, and TikTok’s new AI-generated ads.
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Over the past few months, the term “brain rot” has gone from essentially meaning chronically online, to a fully fledged meme and ironic slang language. Adam Aleksic aka “the Etymology Nerd” and Harvard linguistics graduate joins Taylor to break down how the language of the internet is evolving. 

Later, Taylor dives into stories from the week including big announcements from Apple’s WWDC, the shadowy right-wing backers behind a Mr Beast video, BeReals big sale, and a new word to describe AI generated garbage. 

Full video of this episode will be available on Taylor's YouTube channel.


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