“What Happens When a Pop Star Isn’t That Popular? – Pop’s middle class enjoys loyal online fan bases. For these artists, pop stardom isn’t a commercial category, but a sound, an aesthetic and an attitude.”: https://tinyurl.com/bdcd3x6y

That’s a free link, and you should click on it.

As for the Kesha/Dr. Luke story, if you don’t subscribe directly to the L.A. “Times” you can still read it as part of the Apple News: https://tinyurl.com/3z9hzrpe

If you’re on TikTok or Instagram, you’d think that Bebe Rexha is a big star. Rexha has 8.4 million followers on TikTok and 11 million on Instagram. And for weeks there’s been a debate about her weight. Rexha’s retort has been that she has PCOS, which notoriously causes weight gain, and she is doing the best she can. So Rexha is both humanized and humiliated, still an object of hate. But that’s social media. However, when it comes to charts, Rexha is challenged.

And despite the Top Ten being published every week in news outlets, it’s only oldsters and those in the business who care about charts, the fans care not a whit. They’re fervent believers willing to take on all comers, defending the object of their affection, such that one might get a skewed view of the overall marketplace.

Just like Trumpers.

If you were aware during Watergate the Trump indictments are a head-scratcher. News for a day and then they disappear. And on Fox, it’s not even the main story. In a world where Hillary Clinton is President and Hunter Biden the Democratic Minority Leader of the House, there are more important fish to fry. But you can’t tell a Fox fan, a Trumper, any different. But how many  Trumpers are there?

This is where media falls down. Basing its info on polls that have been notoriously inaccurate for nearly a decade. Why trust them now?

Trumpers are a niche. Even if you give them 35% of the Republican electorate. But the Democrats are deathly afraid, and non-biased media too, because if they say anything anti-Trump, their inbox is going to go wild.

That’s right, decry Trump and you’ll be flooded with incoming. Praise Biden and some of these same people will blow back, but the Biden voters, the Democrats? They’re not that active, they don’t see a need to defend Joe, or any of the Dems, as much as the Trumpers need to defend Donald.

So if you’re in the maelstrom, you’d better have perspective, or you’re going to get it all wrong.

Like I said, on social media Bebe Rexha is a queen. And she is, just to a very small number of people. And it’s the same with Trump.

As for the Trumpers…

They ain’t gonna show up in person. They learned their lesson on January 6th. They want to be vocal, but they don’t want to go to jail. Those days are through. It’s easy to bloviate online, yet to put your person at risk is a no-no. But the Donald doesn’t even understand this himself. He doesn’t know he’s living in a past era. If he really wanted to win he’d adjust his message, but vengeance excludes all contrary input, actually, all input other than exacting revenge is excluded. In other words, despite being told again and again that Donald Trump is in touch with the public, just the opposite is true.

But still, if he shows up, the crowd will go wild.

Well, there are acts you’ve never heard of that sell out Madison Square Garden, that’s how fervent fans can be these days. And people need to believe, to make their lives work. As for truth? That train left the station long ago.

But non-Trump media keeps wincing, keeps adding right wing commentary, all to appease a right that will never be satisfied. If you’re going to deal with these people at all you must go on the offensive, but the only people who know this are those who interact with the right wing each and every day. You think teaching is easy, but talk to a teacher, just keeping order is a big problem, controlling the classroom is a skill unto itself. Unless you’re there, you don’t know.

So…

The wheels of justice turn slowly, but they turn. Right now Donald Trump is sh*tting bricks. This ain’t some civil b.s., this is criminal, if he loses he could go to jail. And his constituents can’t help him. It’s not like they’re going to revolt in the streets, they tried that, and once bitten, twice shy.

So really, you should laugh at Trump. Laugh at his minions. You see they’re on a losing path. They’re desperate. Kind of like those Japanese soldiers still fighting the war years afterward. They may think the battle is continuing, but it’s over, the public has moved on.

Don’t be scared, just vote. If you do, it’s no contest. And it turns out the Democrats are motivated, that’s what we learned in Ohio. Being in the public eye for all these years, giving us a look at his shenanigans, most people are scared of giving Trump control of anything. But the news is like Chicken Little, always telling us the sky is falling.

And reporting on Trump’s so-called defenses.

Let the circle jerk itself. You’re never going to penetrate it. They’re going to say it’s free speech. That’s like you’re four year old saying he didn’t know not to eat all the cookies in the jar. The kid is desperate, they’ll say anything. But you don’t set up a court and hear the defense, because it’s obvious. Just like Trump’s crimes are obvious, they were in plain sight, January 6th was on television, and if you think that’s peaceful, how about we do it at your house?

Forget these people, they’ve forgotten us. And their goal is to jet back to a past that was worse for everybody and is never returning anyway.

And they’ve got their statistics, which like Bebe Rexha’s are in a vacuum. Jason Aldean’s song going to number one! Well, most people don’t even listen to the radio and you can live quite easily not knowing a single song in the Spotify Top 50. This is not the Beatles, the song is not ubiquitous, there’s a hard core that know it, and that’s it.

Kind of like this Oliver Anthony “Rich Men North of Richmond” kerfuffle. A tempest in a teapot. Maybe if you’re in the business, you’ve seen the story. But otherwise, no one knows. And if you pay attention, like with the Aldean song, you come across offensive lyrics:

“Well god, if you’re 5’3″ and you’re 300 pounds

Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds”

Now let me see… The red state people are all skinny, and those in the city are fat. Actually, percentage-wise the opposite is true. In other words, to be a fan of this song you’ve got to be self-hating. And just like every family has a gay person, every family has an obese person, maybe all of the people. Where is fat-shaming a good look?

Once again, once you pierce the bubble you find there’s nothing there. But the right wing agitators keep throwing up this crap and making the left crazy, which is exactly what they want. No, Oliver Anthony is not a new hit artist, he’s a brief moment in time, ultimately meaningless, because almost nothing sticks these days, to have a career means to pay untold dues that most people don’t want to. Even if you have a hit it’s forgotten. But we should pay attention to this bigot?

I don’t think so.

But all those on the left are up-in-arms. As if their agitation will make a difference. The first rule of internet hate is don’t respond, that’s exactly what the haters want. But those with keyboards on the left never seem to have learned this, while they keep telling us to put the smartphone down. Pick it up, the more you’re on the more you win. Hell, the most revered person in the music business today is the internet marketer. If you can penetrate the morass and reach the people you’re king, or queen. But you’re hearing just the opposite from those who made their bones in the last century.

The “New York Times,” the “Washington Post,” they’re on the back foot, constantly playing defense. Don’t they understand that the only thing that will satiate their haters is if they shut down the entire enterprise? Hell, if I listened to all my haters I wouldn’t write at all, which is exactly what they want. And the haters are more vocal than the lovers, always.

But we’d better not indict Trump, his numbers will go up, people will attach ever more tightly to him. In what world have you ever seen this? Sure, his hard core, who were never going to give up the fight, might embrace him more, but no one else sees Trump being indicted and says “He’s my man!” but the old school bloviators keep telling us the wolf is at the door, and Trump is commanding an ever-growing army. Yeah, just like Putin in Ukraine. Everyone thought he was going to win in a second, but here we are many seasons later, and he’s far from victory. Furthermore, even more of what’s behind the curtain has been revealed. Putin is holding on by a thread.

But Putin is proffering disinformation. Like the educational system of Florida. But if people truly loved DeSantis’s policies he’d be trouncing Trump, but the guy is cold and offensive and the closer you look the more you’re disgusted.

Just like abortion. Dodd revealed the culpability of the Supreme Court. It single-handedly undercut their credibility, just like lawyers in Watergate. Lawyers haven’t regained their status, and it’s fifty years later. The Supreme Court is vulnerable, seen as a bunch of self-dealing doofuses who can’t even judge their own lives properly.

Turns out people want abortion rights, and they’ll come out to fight for them.

In other words, the left is winning. As Trump and the nincompoops dug their hole ever deeper, the rest of us woke up. And we’re saying NO MAS! That’s the one thing we all agree on.

So how about a news reset. How about the end of fearmongering. How about making fun of Trump and his people. How about owning this great country of ours instead of getting down in the gutter with these agitators who just want to tear down the government. Yeah, just wait until there’s a natural disaster in their backyard, they’ll be looking for a federal handout. And their hero Elon Musk digs his own grave each and every day. He’s another one we should ignore. Leave him in his own backwater.

But first and foremost pull back and see the landscape.

Musk dented Twitter and it’s never recovered. And sure, Threads is no replacement, but if you think we need Twitter/X, you think that tech could never survive without Steve Jobs. I mean there’s no lack of information. And what’s important will get out, it always does.

And social media is a nightclub, it’s hip and successful and then it goes bankrupt. It’s a moment in time. Everybody realizes it’s no longer cool and they go somewhere new. But Elon Musk doesn’t understand cool, and the world runs on cool. And Donald Trump is not cool. Nor is white nationalism. However much they press, their platform is a bad look.

So just ignore the Trumpers. Don’t argue with them. And if they can’t shut up, stay away from them. And if they continue to talk, just laugh. They want you to engage, don’t. Supersede them, live above them.

Because they’re niche.

And to win in this country you’ve got to be mass. And Trump is losing followers each and every day.