Strongmen, Algorithms, Stans and Kendrick Lamar: How the War for Attention reached Davos
Can We Have Your Attention?Show Notes
Has President Trump’s foreign policy become the ultimate celebrity beef?
Claire and James unpack how Trump uses international relations to flex his strongman image. They explore the collision of geopolitics and Stan culture, asking whether algorithms reward this spectacle and what world leaders can learn about dealing with Donald Trump from the Kendrick Lamar vs Drake feud.
Plus analysis on how devoted fanbases are cultivated online and how algorithms have accidentally changed politics. What happens when diplomacy descends into diss tracks? How should world leaders respond when the attention economy dictates global power? We take a look at the new rules of engagement.
Trump “torched allies” with leaked screenshots and trolling https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-america-allies-eu-diplomats-greenland/
A bit more on Stans and the music industry - required reading for, well, anybody working in influence https://www.soundspheremag.com/news/stans-are-changing-the-music-industry-as-we-know-it-but-how/
Wired (4 Nov 2025): “It’s been a year since Trump was elected. The Democrats still don’t get the internet.” https://www.wired.com/story/do-democrats-get-the-internet-yet/
Not a new problem - from MIT Technology Review: older liberals are quick to celebrate Stans when they affect conservatives, but they don’t understand them or their motivations: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/23/1004336/tiktok-teens-kpop-stans-trump-resistance-its-complicated/
Supreme Court rejected Trump’s use of Illinois state militia to support ICE https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/12/supreme-court-rejects-trumps-effort-to-deploy-national-guard-in-illinois/
About The Show
Can We Have Your Attention? explores the unseen forces that shape what we see, what we buy, and who we become. Hosted by Claire Coady and James Wickham, we dive into the mechanics of the Attention Economy to understand how value is created (and manipulated) in a distracted world.
Production Credits:
Hosted by: Claire Coady & James Wickham Produced by: Phonogram https://www.phonogram.co.uk
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