What happens when your comfort shows stop comforting—and your “fun little apps” start feeling like tiny extensions of state power?

In this episode, Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok talk about how living under fascism is reshaping our relationship to pop culture, streaming, and the platforms we’ve treated like default companions. From canceling Hulu/Disney after the Jimmy Kimmel controversy (and the bigger question of what a boycott is actually asking for), to rethinking Spotify amid reports of ICE recruitment ads, we share what we’re wrestling with: values vs. convenience, visibility vs. safety, and how to stop “overstaying” in unhealthy relationships.

We also get real about grief (yes, even for a 20-year relationship with Grey’s Anatomy), the algorithmic slide into right-wing propaganda and diet-culture-as-evangelism, and why our nervous systems are demanding different kinds of stories right now—like audiobooks, games, and community-centered ways of staying connected that don’t depend on billionaire-owned platforms.

Are you in your breakup era, too? Then put on your softest sweatpants, order some takeout, and come on over for a lonely hearts club episode of The Popaganda Podcast.

Listen: Dungeon Crawler Carl (audiobook)

Watch: No Other Land and support Masafer Yatta.

Reflect: What platform or subscription are you “overstaying” with—and what would a clean, loving exit look like?

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, and leave a five-star review—it really does help people find the show. Come for the pop culture. Stay for the abolition.

Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? In Tashmica’s house, absolutely—and it’s also a masterclass in copaganda.

In this special holiday episode, Shannon and Tashmica rewatch Die Hard the way Tashmica’s family does every year: loud, talk-back style, like a Christmas Rocky Horror—except the call-and-response is all about how the “good cop” story gets built.

We break down how the film makes John McLane (Bruce Willis) irresistible—young, tender, “just a guy trying to get his family back”—while quietly selling us a whole worldview: cops can bend rules, instincts count as evidence, police violence is redemption, and everyone else (dispatch, LAPD, FBI, the “system”) is incompetent until the right cop takes charge.

Along the way, we unpack: why the “terrorists” being white matters, how the Black characters are positioned (from “Black nerd” to “cop who needs his gun back”), why the ham-radio emergency line moment is peak “rules don’t apply to cops,” and how even the Christmas sparkle (hello, “Ho Ho Ho, now I have a machine gun too”) is part of the package.

Welcome to the holiday copaganda workshop you didn’t ask for—but probably need. Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!

Pop Culture Homework:

• Watch: Die Hard (1988)
• Read: The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston’s Racial Divide – the book Tashmica mentions on police culture + the “blue wall” logic*
• Reflect/Discuss: What’s the ‘cop intuition’ moment in your favorite cop show/movie—and what does it train us to excuse?

*Correction corner: Michael Cox, the focus of the book The Fence, was brutally beaten, but he survived the attack and the cover-up that followed.

Hosts: Tashmica Torok & Shannon Perez-Darby

🎧 Stream now, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review—it really helps others find the show. To learn more, visit: www.popagandapod.com

Help keep Popaganda independent—shop our merch! → https://shopaganda.sellfy.store/

Sponsored in part by: The Accountable Communities Consortium and Aletheia Coaching & Consulting

Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcast

What if our best tool for fighting fascism is embracing all of our ‘Wayward’ teens and their imagination for resistance?

In this episode, Shannon and Tashmica rave about the talented nonbinary artist Mae Martin (they/them), and Wayward, the limited series they created for Netflix. Set in 2003, the story follows Leila and Abby, teenage best friends and a local police officer, Alex, as they uncover dark secrets surrounding the town and their strange relationship with a local academy for troubled teens.

Martin’s portrayal of Alex (he/him), a trans man, and his relationship with his pregnant wife Lauren, delivered a captivating story that normalized the existence of trans people and queer family dynamics while also giving us one of the hottest queer sex scenes we’ve ever seen on a mainstream platform.

Listen in as we talk cultish spiritual vibes, that time Republicans crashed Grindr, and the all too real impact of the for-profit, unregulated Troubled Teen Industry (TTI).

Welcome to Tall Pines. We think you’ll like it here.

Pop Culture Homework:

• Watch: Wayward
• Read: Officials calling for state investigations over use of force in East Lansing, Michigan
• Listen: The Autobiography of Assata Shakur, Pen and Paper: Library of A Pan African Communist | Podcast on Spotify

Hosts: Tashmica Torok & Shannon Perez-Darby.

🎧 Stream now, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review—it really helps others find the show.

To learn more, visit: www.popagandapod.com

Help keep Popaganda independent—shop our merch! → https://shopaganda.sellfy.store/

Sponsored in part by: The Accountable Communities Consortium and Aletheia Coaching & Consulting

Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcast