Inside the White House meme factory

It's Been a Minute

NPR

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 8.8K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We need to talk about the memes your tax dollars paid for. What is the federal government trying to communicate with them?

The social media accounts of the White House and the Department of Homeland Security have been chock-full of memes: memes that mock people being deported, memes that are aimed at recruiting new ICE agents, even a meme that seemingly references a book by a white supremacist. To get into who these memes are speaking to and what story they’re trying to tell, Brittany sits down with NPR correspondent Shannon Bond and Joan Donovan, assistant professor of journalism and emerging media studies at Boston University and founder of the Critical Internet Studies Institute.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What's one of the best memes that you've seen recently?
0:03.7	So I'm going to out myself as a Swifty.
0:06.8	I have really been enjoying all of the repurposing of the audio from Taylor's appearance
0:12.6	on New Heights with Travis and Jason Kelsey.
0:15.2	Listen, I know that sometimes memes fall in and out of fashion.
0:18.9	I like what I like.
0:20.0	And I have to say, the Jetsu holiday ones,
0:22.8	they're consistently hitting for me all summer.
0:25.5	I'm sorry.
0:29.7	Hello, hello.
0:31.2	I'm Brittany Luce and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR,
0:34.6	a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
0:47.6	This week, we're connecting the dots between Studio Ghibli, white supremacists, and posting.
0:53.1	I know, I know.
0:54.6	How are all of these things connected?
0:58.4	Well, we're going to find out with NPR correspondent, Shannon Bond, and Joan Donovan,
1:02.9	assistant professor of journalism and emerging media studies at Boston University and founder
1:07.5	of the Critical Internet Studies Institute.
1:10.3	Shannon, Joan, welcome to It's Been a Minute.
1:12.4	Thanks for having us.
1:13.1	Thank you.
1:14.8	So we are here to talk about memes, specifically the ones posted by the White House and DHS Twitter accounts.
	...

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