If you happen to glance at the Apple podcast
title in the description for today's deep dive
before you hit play, you probably noticed it
reads a bit like a search engine's dream. It
really does. Yeah, and it is packed with all
these heavy hitting SEO keywords. Things like
let's go Brandon meme origin and dark Brandon
explain. Political internet memes. Right. And
NASCAR crypto lawsuit. But we didn't just throw
those in there for the algorithm. No, we really
didn't. Because today we actually are looking
at how a single. possibly misheard sentence at
a 2021 NASCAR race managed to spawn one of the
most pervasive political slogans of the decade.
And we are tracking how it sparked a massive
multi -million dollar cryptocurrency lawsuit
and how it eventually morphed into a laser -eyed
presidential alter ego. It is a wild ride. Our
source material today is a comprehensive Wikipedia
article that meticulously tracks the Let's Go
Brandon phenomenon and its unexpected counter
-meme, Dark Bandon. And our mission here is to
unpack the fascinating life cycle of modern political
internet memes. We want to understand how they
are born, how they bypass traditional media to
just spread like wildfire, and how they're ultimately
weaponized, monetized, and co -opted. But before
we get into the weeds of race cars and meme coins
and Internet culture, we do need to establish
some very strict ground rules for you, the listener.
Yes, very important. The source material we're
examining today contains highly politically charged
content, involves passionate and honestly often
vitriolic viewpoints from both the left wing
and the right wing. Specifically regarding former
President Joe Biden and his critics. Exactly.
So we want to make it completely. unequivocally
clear to you that we are not taking any sides
today. None at all. We are not endorsing the
viewpoints of the critics chanting the slogans,
nor are we endorsing the viewpoints of the politicians
co -opting them. Right. We are simply here as
your guides, reporting impartially on the ideas,
the timeline, and the history exactly as they
are contained in our original source material.
Okay, let's unpack this. Because to really wrap
your hand around how this all blew up, we have
to travel back to the fall of 2021. September,
to be exact. Right, the early days. Now, if you
follow politics even casually, you probably remember
the basics of how this started. There was a very
clear, very vulgar anti -Biden chant, F Joe Biden,
that started organically breaking out in large
crowds. Yeah, it was everywhere. It was reported
at college football games across the American
South. It spread to places like the University
of Wyoming. It popped up at the Ryder Cup. Right.
and it was even chanted at a Megadeth concert.
It was essentially this decentralized expression
of political frustration. There was no single
organizer. Right. No campaign manager passing
out flyers. Exactly. It was just a raw, unpolished
chant catching on in these large, rowdy group
settings. But raw vulgarity has a hard ceiling
in mainstream culture. You can't broadcast it
on daytime television. Politicians generally
can't say it into a microphone on the House floor.
Right. So for a sentiment like that to cross
over from a rowdy football stadium into the mainstream
political discourse. it really needed a catalyst.
Which brings us to October 2, 2021, the inciting
incident at the Talladega Super Speedway in Alabama.
Right. So the Spark's 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series
race has just ended. The winner is a driver named
Brandon Brown. OK. And NBC sports reporter Kelly
Stavost is interviewing him live on the broadcast.
Now, in the background, the crowd is loudly chanting
that exact same vulgar anti -Biden phrase. And
it is very audible to the viewers at home. Very
audible. But Stavost, who is wearing a heavy
broadcast headset, tells the audience. You can
hear the chants from the crowd. Let's go, Brandon.
What's fascinating here is how the sheer ambiguity
of that single moment allowed the phrase to transcend
normal political channels instantly. What do
you mean by ambiguity? Well, was it an honest
mistake? An Associated Press journalist later
noted that the chant was genuinely difficult
to make out, especially if you're wearing a noise
-canceling headset at a very loud racetrack.
Oh, sure. That makes sense. Or... As many critics
of the president quickly speculated, was it an
intentional media cover up designed to conceal
anti -Biden sentiment on a live national broadcast?
Wait, so the ambiguity was actually the feature,
not a bug. I mean, if she had just ignored it
or if she had correctly identified the vulgarity
and apologized for the language, does this whole
thing just die right there on the track? Almost
certainly. Because of that ambiguity, because
it could be framed as the media lying to the
public in real time, the phrase instantly became
a dual purpose weapon. I see. On one level, it
was a sanitized, family friendly way to hurl
a very vulgar insult at the president. You could
say it anywhere. Right. You wouldn't get bleeped.
Exactly. And on a second level, it functioned
as a built in. protest against perceived liberal
bias in the mainstream media. By saying, let's
go, Brandon, you were signaling to everyone else
that you believe the media was trying to silence
conservative voices. Wow. It was a two for one
political statement perfectly wrapped in a catchy
slogan. And it caught on immediately. I mean,
it jumped from Twitter to clothing to billboards
to banners flown behind airplanes. It was everywhere.
But to really understand why human brains latch
onto a phrase like this so hard, we have to look
at the linguistic mechanics. Our sources include
an analysis by John McWhorter. Right, the linguist.
Yes, he's a linguist writing for The Atlantic,
and he introduces this concept called a lanifa.
Yes, lanitha is a linguistic term that originated
in southern Africa. It refers to the substitution
of a forbidden word. Okay. And McWhorter uses
it to explain why Let's Go Brandon is so sticky.
He compares it to military slang, like the term
snaff. Which stands for situation normal, all
effed up. Exactly. Or to political poor man toes
like cuckservative, which blends cuckold and
conservative. McWhorter argues this isn't just
mindless name calling. It's a wild intersection
of language, politics, wit and creativity that
allows people to participate in a shared inside
joke. I have to push back on that a little bit,
though. I mean. Brilliant and creative feel like
strong words. You think so? Yeah. Isn't this
just the linguistic equivalent of middle schoolers
giggling because they figured out how to curse
without the teacher sending them to the principal's
office? That's a completely fair pushback. And
on the surface, it absolutely has that juvenile
rebellious appeal. Right. But linguistically
speaking, the brilliance McWhorter is pointing
to isn't about the maturity of the phrase. It's
about the efficiency of the in -group signaling.
Signaling. Yes. When you use a Hlonifa, you are
instantly identifying yourself as part of a specific
tribe. You are communicating a complex set of
shared grievances about the president, about
the media, about censorship, and just... Three
words. Oh, wow. When you put it like that. Right.
The human brain loves a secret code, especially
one that the outgroup is forced to hear but can't
officially punish you for. And that desire to
signal your tribe completely took over pop culture.
It jumped from an inside joke into a massive
monetization engine. It really did. By mid -October,
just weeks after the race, it was dominating
the music charts. A rapper named Looza Alexander
recorded a hip -hop track. called Let's Go Brandon,
that went viral on TikTok and shot to number
one on the iTunes store top hip -hop rap songs
list. And then a conservative Christian rapper
named Bryson Gray released his own track with
the same title. That one also hit number one
on iTunes and debuted at number 28 on the US
Hot 100. What is particularly notable about Bryson
Gray's track is that the music video included
lyrics referencing COVID -19 vaccine efforts
as lies. Okay. So YouTube actually took the video
down for medical misinformation. Which I imagine
didn't slow the meme down at all. Not even a
little. In the ecosystem of internet memes, censorship
is often just fuel. The removals only validated
the rebellious nature of the meme for its supporters.
Right, of course. By late October, iTunes had
different Let's Go Brandon songs sitting at the
number one, two, four, and eight spots on their
charts simultaneously. That is insane. It even
reached the point where Kid Rock released a single
in early 2022 called We the People that featured
the chant right in the chorus. And it wasn't
just music. We saw bizarre political applications,
too. You had Congressman Bill Posey singing on
the House floor, Ted Cruz posing with a sign.
And then a Colorado candidate named Dave Williams
actually sued to have Dave Let's Go Brandon Williams
listed as his official name on the ballot. He
failed, but he actually sued for it. Think about
that for a second. It asks you, the listener,
to consider just how strange it is when an inside
Internet joke bleeds into official government
records and billboard charts. It totally blurs
the line between Internet trolling and real world
legislation. It absolutely does. Well, we've
been talking about how a meme gets weaponized
for politics and profit. But there is a massive
ripple effect when Internet culture collides
with real world business. And that brings us
back to the actual human being at the center
of this. Best hard driver, Brandon Brown. Yes.
Brandon Brown. Initially, you thought it was
kind of funny. He tweeted to all the other Brandons
out there. You're welcome. Let's go. Right. A
very good natured response. But that amusement
faded incredibly fast when the financial reality
set in. Brown found himself in an impossible
position. He is a Republican, but he stated publicly
that he had zero desire to be involved in politics.
He just wanted to drive his race car. Exactly.
But suddenly the greatest achievement of his
professional career was completely overshadowed
by a partisan culture war. And worse, it became
a massive financial liability. Corporate sponsors
are historically very risk averse. They didn't
want to touch his racing team because his very
name was now indirectly associated with a vulgar
political. Which led to an absolute crypto catastrophe.
Because traditional sponsors were fleeing, Brandon
Built Motorsports was struggling financially.
So in late December 2021, they announced a sponsorship
deal with a cryptocurrency token called LGB Coin.
LGB obviously standing for Let's Go Brandon.
Right. And the sources refer to it as a right
wing ERC -20 token. For those of you listening
who aren't actively day trading crypto, can we
explain what exactly an ERC -20 token is? Sure.
To break that down simply, an ERC -20 token is
essentially a custom cryptocurrency built on
top of the existing Ethereum blockchain. Okay.
The reason that matters is that you don't have
to build a whole new blockchain from scratch
to launch one. Anyone with a bit of technical
know -how can mint an ERC -20 token very quickly
and cheaply. So a low barrier to entry. Very
low. And during this era, we saw an explosion
of meme coins. These were tokens with no underlying
utility or intrinsic value. They were driven
entirely by Internet hype and cultural relevance.
Just pure speculation. Exactly. An LGB coin was
designed to capitalize on the sheer viral momentum
of the phrase. So the racing team announces this
meme coin as their primary sponsor. But NASCAR,
who had previously stated they didn't want to
be associated with politics on the left or the
right, steps in and explicitly rejects the sponsorship
in January 2022. And the fallout from that rejection
was messy. It was highly litigious and devastating
for the investors. What happened? An investor
named James Koutoulis threatened a massive lawsuit
against NASCAR and called for a boycott. Eventually,
in September 2025, Koutoulis and the Let's Go
Brandon .com Foundation filed a suit against
NASCAR seeking a staggering $76 million in damages
for the rejected sponsorship. $76 million? Yes.
They argued NASCAR's rejection destroyed the
value of the coin. Ultimately, it jury in Miami
-Dade County ruled in NASCAR's favor in October
2025. But NASCAR wasn't the only one getting
sued over this. In April 2022, a class action
lawsuit was filed in Florida by a plaintiff accusing
the LGB coin cryptocurrency company and its promoters
of running a pump and dump scheme. Right. And
those promoters included Brandon Brown, NASCAR
and political commentator Candace Owens. What
exactly does a pump and dump scheme look like
in a legal sense? A pump and dump scheme is a
form of securities fraud. Legally, the plaintiffs
are alleging that the creators and promoters
of the coin intentionally made false or misleading
statements to create a buying frenzy. Oh, that's
a pump. That's the pump. They hype it up, say
it's going to the moon and get regular retail
investors to buy in, which artificially inflates
the price. Once the price peaks, the insiders
who hold a massive amount of the coin sell off
their holdings. That's the dump. Wow. This crashes
the value of the coin, leaving the regular investors
holding completely worthless digital assets.
The lawsuit alleged that the defendants disguised
the scheme as a legitimate sponsorship. It is
just staggering. A muffled interview at a racetrack
derailed a man's racing career and sparked years
of multimillion dollar federal litigation. It
really shows how volatile this stuff is. But
I want to pivot here because memes aren't just
weapons or financial tools. Yeah. They're subjective.
Yeah. Once language is out in the wild, it can
be interpreted in entirely unintended ways. Right.
And our sources have one genuinely wholesome
story. that proves this yes the story of brandon
brundage in 2022 he was a nine -year -old autistic
boy who started seeing the let's go brandon signs
everywhere okay but he had no idea what the political
meaning was he just saw his name and assumed
all these people were cheering for him which
is such a beautiful misunderstanding it completely
changed his outlook the perceived encouragement
actually inspired this little boy to try swimming
and riding his bike without training wheels that
is amazing His mother, Shaletta Brundage, was
so moved by this unintended positive consequence
that she wrote a children's book called Brandon
Spots His Sign. And eventually, the young boy
actually got to meet the race car driver, Brandon
Brown. Oh, wow. It highlights a really important
concept. Language, no matter how politically
charged or cynically deployed, only holds the
meaning that the receiver gives it. I really
love that story. OK, here's where it gets really
interesting. Because in politics, every action
has an equal and opposite reaction. Enter Dark
Brandon. Ah, yes. We've talked about how the
right weaponized Let's Go Brandon. But to understand
the counter -meme, we have to talk about dark
magia and a very specific internet aesthetic.
Right. To understand Dark Brandon, you have to
look at the visual language of the internet at
the time. Dark Mangiate was an aesthetic promoted
by figures like former U .S. Representative Madison
Cawthorn. Right. It suggested that Donald Trump
would return to power with a vengeance. And it
heavily utilized what our sources call a fashwave
aesthetic. Let's define that because fashwave
sounds incredibly niche. It is, but it's highly
influential. Yeah. Fashwave is a portmanteau
of fascism and synthwave. Visually, it blends
the neon, grid -lined, retro -futuristic look
of 1980s synthwave music with dark authoritarian
political imagery. It features heavy shadows,
glowing neon colors, and often characters with
glowing laser eyes. Laser eyes, right. It's meant
to look edgy, intimidating, and hyper online.
In response to this, online progressives created
Dark Brandon simply to parody that intense conservative
aesthetic. They took the Let's Go Brandon meme
and mashed it up with this sinister fash -wave
look as a joke. So it starts as an online joke
by progressives. But the real turning point happens
in the physical world in September 2022. President
Biden gives his battle for the soul of the nation
speech in Philadelphia. Yes, the staging of that
was striking. Very striking. He was framed in
front of a brick background, illuminated by deep
red lighting, flanked by two uniformed Marines.
Our sources note that The Guardian called the
aesthetic dark, and New York Magazine said it
prompted numerous comparisons of Biden to Hitler
and Satan by conservatives. Right. The right
started using the dark brand and laser eye imagery
to genuinely mock him, framing him as a sinister
authoritarian figure. But this is where the political
jujitsu happens. Historically, when a politician
is painted as a villain or an authoritarian by
their opponents, the instinct is to retreat,
to soften their image and to act defensive. Sure.
You try to look harmless. Exactly. Instead, Biden
supporters and eventually the official Biden
campaign itself did the exact opposite. They
embraced the villainous alter ego. Why does that
work? Why lean into the villain trope? Because
it completely disarms the attack. Reclaiming
a negative meme is a classic power play tactic.
Right. By co -opting the narrative, they took
an aesthetic meant to paint the president as
a dangerous threat and flipped it to project
strength and competence. Wow. An Agence France
press journalist wrote that it rebranded Biden
from an ineffectual grandfather figure to a kind
of political terminator. It allowed his campaign
to celebrate legislative victories with an edge
of online swagger that his typical branding completely
lacked. That the campaign leaned in hard. They
put dark Brandon imagery complete with the glowing
red laser eyes on their website's 404 error page.
They started selling official merchandise, mugs,
T -shirts, you name it. And the financial impact
was staggering. It really was. According to the
campaign, dark Brandon merchandise accounted
for more than half of the online purchase revenue
on Biden's official website store. It was a massive
fundraising engine born out of an insult. And
the president himself started participating in
the joke. In August 2023, Biden posted a reel
on Instagram where he took a sip of coffee from
a mug featuring the dark Brandon laser eyes.
That single video went viral with over 9 million
views and half a million likes. He even used
it to troll one of the biggest pop culture events
of the year. In February 2024, right -wing circles
were floating a conspiracy theory that Super
Bowl LV8 was rigged for the Kansas City Chiefs
to boost Biden's reelection. Right. The theory
involved Taylor Swift and Travis Kelchie being
part of a deep state plot. Right after the Chiefs
won the game, Biden's account posted a picture
of Dark Brandon with the laser eyes and the caption,
just like we drew it up. It is a masterclass
in using weaponized irony to diffuse a conspiracy
theory. By claiming responsibility for the absurdity
as Dark Brandon, the administration made the
conspiracy theorists look foolish without ever
having to issue a formal, serious denial. Very
clever. But as our sources point out, there is
a very delicate life cycle to these things. Reception
of the meme eventually became mixed. Right, because
at the 2023 White House Correspondents Dinner,
Biden put on aviator sunglasses. and actually
joked about Dark Brandon to the crowd of journalists
and politicians. And many Internet culture critics
argued that that moment inherently killed the
meme. The unwritten rule of the Internet is that
memes derive their power from being subversive.
Right. They belong to the subculture. Exactly.
Once the establishment officially adopts the
joke, explains it, and prints it on official
campaign mugs, it ceases to be cool. The edge
is just gone. So we've gone from a crowd chanting
a vulgar phrase at a football game to a misheard
quote. a NASCAR track in Alabama, to a $76 million
cryptocurrency lawsuit, to number one rap hits,
and finally to a laser -eyed presidential alter
ego driving official White House merchandise
sales and trolling the Super Bowl. It's an absolutely
insane journey for a single phrase. So what does
this all mean? If we connect this to the bigger
picture for you, the listener, it reveals a profound
truth about the modern information ecosystem.
We are traditionally taught to think of language
as something we use to describe our culture.
But in the Internet age, language consumes culture.
Yeah, that's a great way to put it. A single
adaptable phrase supercharged by the mechanics
of in -group signaling has the kinetic energy
to destroy a race car driver's corporate sponsorships
while simultaneously funding a presidential campaign.
It shows how porous the borders are between online
trolls digital finance and the highest levels
of executive power. It really makes you look
at every trending hashtag, every meme coin and
every political slogan a little differently.
Right. You start to see the machinery behind
the joke. It does. Which leads to a final lingering
question for you to consider. This raises an
important point about the future of political
discourse. In the cases of both Let's Go Brandon
and Dark Brandon, political campaigns were mostly
reacting to and co -opting organic accidental
Internet phenomena. But now that political operatives
have seen exactly how effective and lucrative
these viral memes can be, what happens when they
stop waiting for happy accidents? What happens
when politicians and their super PACs start using
artificial intelligence and coordinated troll
farms to artificially engineer these cultural
viruses? moments from scratch. Moving forward,
how will you know what's a genuine grassroots
movement expressing real frustration and what
is just a manufactured meme explicitly designed
to manipulate you? A slightly terrifying but
entirely necessary question to leave you with.
Thanks for diving deep with us today.