Marketing Strategists Are Comrades Too
Nov 20 2025
Mamdani won New York City. The Onion released an article titled “Fact Checking Claims About Zohran Mamdani”, one says:
“Claim: Mamdani is a communist.
False: Any real communist will happily spend six hours explaining why this isn’t true.”
This is correct. Communist Twitter was completely out of control the few days after Mamdani’s win, some criticisms valid and some empty such as how nobody should be happy, this will not change our system, he’s going to betray us, etc. He’s seemingly a much more important figure than a mayor of a city.
But let’s not look down on him. There is one aspect of his entire campaign that I was paying attention to, one that I was absolutely amazed by, one that rarely any real communists could ever achieve: effective marketing.
I understand why communists do not gravitate towards popular marketing strategies. Social media, advertisements, entertainment, etc. are the *essence* to a consumerist society, they are the backbone of the culture that capitalism cultivates. But for the same reason why it drives us away, it lures other people in. One of the strategists in Mamdani’s team is Morris Katz, who talked about how the narrative of his campaign is “life doesn’t have to be this hard. New York can be more affordable and it’s government’s job to deliver that.” One of the ways they appealed to the *people* is to understand popular entertainment. His strategists timed his ads to happen between basketball games, and popular TV shows such as “Law and Order” and “The Golden Bachelor”, making references to these popular media to relate to American citizens. His ads also ran on Fox News, his news conference invited content creators.
There are also many talented artists behind Mamdani’s successful campaign. His graphic designer, Aneesh Bhoopathy, created the posters. The iconic blue and yellow are inspired by the colours that local bodegas, food trucks and cabs use to stand out within the city. The bold, colourful font is inspired by vintage hand-painted signs. His photographer Kara McCurdy, who has worked with him since 2020, used documentary-style photography to capture him in food trucks, with his wife Rama Duwaji, etc., providing a down-to-earth glimpse into his lifestyle. Rama Duwaji has also been credited in curating Zohran Mamdani’s digital presence, being an illustrator and animator on social media herself.
I can't help but notice the lack of digital presence in many of my local communist organizations. Some websites don’t care to be user friendly, Instagram and TikToks consist of bad graphics or solely serious, uninteresting videos. It makes sense to criticize Zohran Mamdani and democratic socialism, but we should cease this opportunity to understand what made a self-proclaimed “socialist” win an election under Trump’s U.S.. Marketing strategists are comrades too.
References:
https://theonion.com/fact-checking-claims-about-zohran-mamdani/
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5581737-mamdani-campaign-strategy-agency/amp/
https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/02/politics/rama-duwaji-mamdani-wife-nyc-election
https://fortune.com/2025/11/08/zohran-mamdani-campaign-graphic-design-hot-dogs-bodegas-bollywood/
Happy Birthday Sherlock Holmes
Jan 6 2025
January 6th, 1854 is the birthday of detective character Sherlock Holmes, a date never mentioned nor have even been alluded to in the entire canon. However, there are a few reasons why January 6th is the date agreed upon amongst Sherlockians.
Christopher Morely, an American writer who established the organisation “The Baker Street Irregulars”, decided that since Sherlock Holmes quoted the Shakespeare play “Twelfth Night” a total of two times in the entire canon, that the twelfth day of Christmas would be his birthday. The logic being that if he quoted it twice then that means he loves that play, and that he loves it because it reminds him of his birthday. The reason he was born in 1854 comes from the story “His Last Bow”, a story set in 1914, where Sherlock Holmes, in disguise, was described to be “a tall, gaunt man of sixty.”
It is not lost amongst fans that these reasons are absolutely wild. If Sherlock Holmes was real, he would probably be disappointed (much like how he gets frustrated with Watson’s depiction of him in the stories). But this begs the question: why are we so obsessed with giving him a birthday when he’s not even real? Why do we find joy in pretending that this fictional character is a real person?
This attitude towards Sherlock Holmes has existed for as long as he has. It is common knowledge that Arthur Conan Doyle was met with criticism after the story “The Final Problem” in which Sherlock Holmes dies. The Strand Magazine (which the stories were published on) lost tens of thousands of subscribers, and the citizens of London supposedly staged funerals, protests, and organised groups to bring the detective back. To the people in 1893, Sherlock Holmes was already beloved as if he was a person.
He was also dissected as if he was a person. Within Sherlockian history, fans would participate in “the game” (also Sherlockian game, Holmesian game, or the great game) where fans analyse the character and story elements while pretending that Holmes and Watson were real people. Author Dorothy L. Sayers described the game, saying, “one could disintegrate a modern classic as speciously as a certain school of critics have endeavoured to disintegrate the Bible.” Some early papers participating in the game were Ronald Knox’s “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes” and Sydney Roberts’ “A Note on the Watson Problem”. I’ve been exposed to and participated in the game ever since I started interacting with the Sherlock Holmes canon, long before I knew there was a term for it, simply because it is essential within the discourse of Sherlock Holmes. Leslie Klinger’s “The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes” follows the events of the stories while correlating it to our real historical timeline. Vincent Starrett’s “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” details the “biography” of Sherlock Holmes, and the fictional character’s relationship with the real world. I was fascinated with the idea that Sherlock Holmes was simultaneously fictional and real, and wrote this when reading Starrett’s book:
“‘It was as if a god had been destroyed by treachery. So children mourn, perhaps, when Santa Claus is murdered by their elders’ (about the public’s reaction to Holmes’ death).
…It’s interesting how even when talking about Holmes’ death as a character, he is described as a real human being; it’s not “Doyle hated writing him”, but “Doyle hated him”. Starrett put it perfectly—at that moment, Holmes’ death would’ve been like when kids found out that Santa Claus wasn’t real, when people realize he’s simply a character that the author can decide to discard at any moment. But Starrett also acknowledges that Holmes is more than that, he is beyond a fictional character. Doyle, without realizing, has lost control over this character that he has created. It doesn’t belong just to him anymore. This writer is no longer the god of his creation, instead Holmes is the god and Doyle only brings upon the treachery…”
With the existence of online fandoms, this sort of behaviour is no longer novel. Wherever you go, you’re bound to see fans consuming and analysing media as if the characters were real. However, we may give credit to Sherlock Holmes for being a pioneer in this phenomenon. Even within modern fandoms, terms like “Doylist” and “Watsonian” can be used in media analysis to describe the way the analysis is being done.
And though it’s been 98 years since the last Sherlock Holmes story was published, he lives on through countless modern adaptations. The newest being the audio drama podcast “Sherlock & Co.”, where Holmes lives as a contemporary man. He lives on my screen once a year as RDJ from the Guy Ritchie movies, and he lives as a doctor as I’m watching House.
Like Starrett beautifully puts: “but there can be no grave for Sherlock Holmes or Doctor Watson…Shall they not always live in Baker Street? Are they not there this moment, as one writes?...Outside, the hansoms rattle through the rain, and Moriarty plans his latest devilry. Within, the sea coal flames upon the hearth and Holmes and Watson take their well-won ease…So they still live for all that love them well: in a romantic chamber of the heart, in a nostalgic country of the mind, where it is always 1895.” Happy birthday Sherlock Holmes.
References:
https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/39990-sherlock-holmes-birthday-early-life-conan-doyle-canon
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160106-how-sherlock-holmes-changed-the-world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlockian_game
CEO Down
Dec 9 2024
Recently, the American citizens have been united by one incident: the assassination of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare. This is the insurance company that statistically denies the most claims, the Boston Globe stating, “the company dismissed about one in every three claims in 2023—the most of any major insurer. That’s twice the industry average of 16 percent….”
There are many interesting details about this assassination. Examined side by side, we see how this ordeal has the qualities of performance art:
The contents of the killer’s bag: the NYPD found a backpack discarded in Central Park, in it being a jacket and Monopoly money.
Deny, Defend, Depose: the three words written on the shell casings from the bullets used to kill Brian Thompson. People made the immediate connection between these three words and the title of a 2010 book, “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It” written by Jay M. Feinman. This book is a critical look at consumer rights and insurance laws, and how the industry prioritises making profits over serving clients.
Now let’s look at the man currently in custody, Luigi Mangione:
Mangione is 26 years old. In the United States, if your insurance is covered by your parent’s plan, the coverage ends when you turn 26. People online are discovering more information about him through his social media accounts, one tweet saying that Mangione “had back surgery a few months ago and went missing. No one had heard from him.” A BBC article outlined several facts that we know of Mangione at this moment: that he is “smart” and a “normal person” at school, and that a Goodreads account of the same name reviewed the Unabomber Manifesto, saying, “When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it's not terrorism, it's war and revolution. 'Violence never solved anything' is a statement uttered by cowards and predators.”
He was recognized by a McDonald’s worker and reported to the police. Within his possessions, the police found a 3D printed gun, several fake IDs, and a 3-page writing criticizing corporate America. Going off of the assumption that Luigi Mangione is the same person who killed Brian Thompson, it seems a little ridiculous that just a day before everyone was praising him for orchestrating a perfect crime (the shell casings, the backpack, etc.) that he would be found with comically criminalizing evidence.
And I find it hard to believe that he didn’t have the expectation of being caught if he was carrying an *anti-corporation manifesto*, or perhaps somebody planted the evidence. Perhaps not every detail of this assassination is orchestrated, but every mistake is just a happy accident. What better place for art than New York City. There is no condemnation of violence in art, there is simply no point. You don’t condemn Yoko Ono’s audience for taking the shears to her clothes, you don’t condemn Chris Burden’s friend for shooting him in the arm. In fact, I think the world needs more artists. Especially performance art, a medium often overlooked by the art world…
Mangione is right in saying that violence is productive. See the article “Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield calls off surgery anesthesia cap”. Besides that, many call this assassination the most class-unifying event in a long time. It’s true, there’s nobody under the sun who doesn’t hate the American healthcare system. And one dead CEO may not atone to the thousands who died from lack of coverage, or the families and friends who go in debt while grieving, but it is igniting all the pent-up rage that people gained while living under American corporations. This assassination was done by a “smart”, “normal” Ivy League graduate, who doesn’t even seem to believe in leftist ideology. This could be done by anyone.
Despite the strong possibility of NYPD having made everything up, let me just say that I don’t not condone violence. I don’t not rejoice in the death of a bourgeoisie. And in this jolly month, I don’t not urge everyone to gather around a big dinner table and realise the struggle that unifies us all.
Resources:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/05/data/unitedhealthcare-claim-denial-rates/
https://www.healthcare.gov/young-adults/children-under-26/
https://apnews.com/article/unitedhealthcare-ceo-shooting-delay-deny-defend-depose-ee73ceb19f361835c654f04a3b88c50c
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay,_Deny,_Defend?wprov=sfti1#
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp9nxee2r0do.amp
https://x.com/lukewgoldstein/status/1866199595229057086?s=46&t=mhJepmMECgleyBy3W9_1fQ
https://www.axios.com/2024/12/05/blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-anthem-connecticut-new-york
Iconography of Yahya Sinwar
Oct 20 2024
A day after the confirmed death of Yahya Sinwar, I’ve already seen countless reproductions of the scene of his last moments: him sitting on the chair, holding a stick. I wrote in an online post, quoting an image of a young Palestinian recreating that image:
“It’s revolutionary that people are creating visual iconography around Yahya Sinwar. There’s revolutionary power in art, this is why people reproduce the portrait of Che Guevara or Karl Marx, and why we have symbols like the red triangle and watermelon. Israel messed up when they released their drone footage. We will forever remember Sinwar through the image of him looking back from his chair while holding a stick as the weapon. Just like how Palestinians recreate him sitting on an armchair with his legs crossed, this image will be reproduced time and time again. Killing the man was like fanning the flame that is the idea.”
When Israel released the drone footage of Sinwar’s last moments, everyone decided that it was a mistake. We saw the Palestinian resistance leader as he is: a fighter in the front lines, using whatever he had in store to resist the state that has been terrorising them for the past seventy-six years. In a much simpler sense, it has given us a literal image of Yahya Sinwar: he’s sitting on a chair within the rubbles, one arm bleeding, the other holding a stick as a weapon, his face covered with a keffiyeh, his eyes gazing towards the drone camera.
There have been various symbols that crawled up during the long fight for Palestinian liberation, such as the watermelon and the inverted red triangle. There are many reasons why symbols become popularised. The watermelon was born as a symbol from 1967 when Israel banned the use of the Palestinian flag. Palestinians decided to represent themselves using the fruit, which is made of the same colours as the flag of Palestine. The inverted red triangle is a more recent phenomenon, being used by pro-Palestine activists online after seeing it in Hamas videos to indicate Israeli military targets. It also makes reference to the red triangle in the Palestinian flag itself.
So how does a person become a symbol? We’ve seen it many times before. It’s hard not to recognise the face of Karl Marx, Che Guevara, or pop figures like Marilyn Monroe, Salvador Dali, etc. In a Smithsonian Magazine article, the author describes the origin of the iconic image of Che Guevara. It started off as a rejected photograph from the photographer Alberto Korda, who was fixated on capturing images of Che. Right before Che’s death, the photographs were bought by a businessman, who distributed these images through uncopyrighted reproduction—unknown to Korda at the time. Many people have pointed out the irony of the popularity of Che Guevara’s symbol, how people are capitalising from Che Guevara merchandise or that he wasn’t actually a perfect person. But the undeniable truth is this: that Korda took the picture because he believed in something, that the people buying the merchandise believes in something, that the thousands of artists recreating his portrait believe in something.
With the internet, this sort of uncopyrighted distribution has never been easier. Photos and videos are mass-distributed every second of the day, reaching almost every part of the world. This is why everyone said that it was a grave mistake that Israel decided to release the drone footage, and what a revolutionary mistake it is. Before Sinwar’s death, young Palestinians have already been recreating the “Sinwar Pose”, the one with him sitting cross-legged on an armchair in the middle of the rubble. It’s like destiny that the same man would be documented sitting on another chair in another rubble once again, like a poem writing itself. And though it’s hard for anything to become more iconic than the image of Che, I believe that these images of Sinwar will have a lasting impact on Palestinians, freedom fighters, and revolutionaries all over the world. Through the distribution and the reproduction of the image of Sinwar, we gain more and more reasons to believe in the resistance, the liberation of Palestine, and like Che Guevara said, “shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.”
Resources:
https://x.com/HumaZhr/status/1847695226380406969
https://x.com/redstreamnet/status/1847281752785457468
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/11/20/palestine-symbols-keffiyeh-olive-branch-watermelon
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/11/13/whats-the-red-triangle-being-used-by-pro-palestinian-activists
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/iconic-photography-che-guevara-alberto-korda-cultural-travel-180960615/
https://www.stevemoretti.ca/post/che-guevara-the-man-vs-the-icon
brat summer
Sept 16 2024
Sixteen years later, 2008 comes back like a fashion trend, and we are once again dancing to songs about parties, drugs, and love. Everyone who remembers music around the recession era remembers the way it sounds: upbeat, fast-paced, excessive use of the word “tonight”. And even if you don’t remember, all the clubs are playing them again. With “brat” being one of the biggest trends of the summer, many of us have realised how much the theme of the album correlates to the general mood of our society.
Some people are concerned that a character like Charli XCX became popular during a time where society is becoming more apathetic and nihilistic, but the truth is, the impact we have in shaping pop music greatly outweighs the impact pop music has in shaping us. If we really are living in such a nihilistic society, we have to understand what the problem is.
What many refer to as the “Great Recession” can be more accurately named as a financial crisis, or a period of economic depression. While the capitalists might have recovered from the Recession, the quality of life for the people (especially in developing countries) was never quite the same. With COVID-19 being an event that took the world by surprise, we see a familiar economic situation with countries worldwide. It’s not a foreign topic amongst friends to complain about the cost of living, rent, or not landing a single job after months of tediously applying. Much like the young adults in 2008, people today also seek escapism. And what better place to escape than in a club, with your head filled with loud music and drugs and alcohol…
“360” and “365” are arguably the most popular songs off of “brat”, its numbers referencing a 360 degree and 365 days of a year, solidifying the theme of the album: a party that goes on forever. In these songs and many others like “Club classics” and “Von dutch”, we hear her making references to clubs, drugs, herself, her friends, and much more. This is juxtaposed by more reflective, more conscious songs such as in “Sympathy is a knife”, “Girl, so confusing” and “I think about it all the time”, all less popular tracks. But we don’t see the comeback of Recession Pop solely through “brat”. Many surprising instances of pop musicians such as Katy Perry or Kesha’s comeback, or Chappell Roan’s sudden rise to fame all point towards the shared desire for quick happiness among the people: “everything good happens after midnight”, “I’m just looking for a joyride//I’m just looking for a good time tonight”. The special focus on “brat” can be attributed to the fact that the party theme becomes more saturated in an album full of club-style music, paired with a marketable visual and other similar elements.
Though “brat summer” may be a symptom of economic depression, I have to say that I spent most of my summer listening to artists like Charli XCX and Chappell Roan, and most importantly, that I had fun sharing this pastime with everyone else on the internet. It’s never detrimental to enjoy art, but it’s even better to be able to immerse yourself in it and then pull yourself away from it to see it from a critical view. Through “brat summer”, we get to understand that the economic depression remains a lingering, intrinsic issue in our society that desperately needs a deep-clean.
Resources:
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/21/recession-pop-explained-how-music-collides-with-economic-trends.html
https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-notebook-4-economic-crisis/#toc-section-4
https://genius.com/albums/Charli-xcx/Brat
Review: "A Film Endless" by Guo Xi
Aug 26 2024
"A Film Endless" is an installation by Guo Xi, located by the riverside of Huangpu behind Shanghai’s West Bund Museum. I stumbled across this installation as I was taking a stroll by the river, trying to read the words on the screen—it turned out to be a poem about the passing of time. With the river flowing in the background, cargo ships slowly passing by, with children running around and laughing, the atmosphere was just right.
The artwork consists of a black border in the dimensions of a movie screen, with a strip of an actual digital screen sitting on the bottom, displaying “subtitles” in both Chinese and English. The description of the artwork reveals that it was the artist’s intention to create a “collective cinematic experience”, where everything we see within the black border—the river, the ships, the people—is the content of a “film”. With the ever-flowing river, ever-changing weather, with different people passing by and the sky transforming from day to night to day, the “film” is truly endless. Not only does it capture the inevitable passing of time, it captures the essence of this metropolis that is Shanghai: a city that is ever-changing. The current view of the West Bund is unimaginable to somebody from ten years ago. In a country like China that chases after Western Modernism like a dog chases after a stick, everything changes with the blink of an eye.
Maybe it’s easier to get sentimental when you’re near a body of water, but when I saw A Film Endless by the Huangpu River, I thought I understood everything the artwork had to offer.