Everything Is Marketing Now

A single celebrity at courtside can flip a playoff game into a culture argument. We start with Taylor Swift, loop back to Madonna as a blueprint for modern pop fame, and then follow the real thread: why people get so defensive about who “belongs” in sports arenas and why cameras keep choosing celebrities over the action. 

From Dave Portnoy’s complaints about fair-weather fans to the very real pull of seeing famous faces in the crowd, we talk about the power of celebrity culture and the attention economy. That turns into a blunt look at influencer marketing, social media performance, and the uncomfortable feeling that the feed is one long advertisement. We also admit the contradiction: we use podcasts and online visibility too, because in a crowded world even professionals need trust, content, and discoverability. 

Then we go deeper into what’s changing right now with SEO and Google as AI reshapes search, and what that means for anyone trying to be found online. We also touch the darker side of chasing attention, including the pressure on younger influencers and the mental health toll that comes with living on feedback loops. 

If any of this hits home, listen through and tell us where you land: are celebrities ruining sports, or just revealing what sports has already become? Subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find us.

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Hosted by Karen Koehler and Mo Hamoudi, trial lawyers at Stritmatter Law, a nationally recognized plaintiff's personal injury and civil rights law firm based in Washington State.

Featuring Mike Todd, producer, audio engineer, and the Disembodied Voice of Wisdom & Reason.

Produced by Mike Todd and Kassie Slugić.

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Mo Hamoudi
https://www.instagram.com/mo.hamoudi/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mo-hamoudi-77a38733/

Stritmatter Law
https://www.stritmatter.com

Transcript

Taylor Swift After Madonna’s Blueprint

Mike Todd 0:06

So I want to talk about Taylor Swift for a minute. Since we were just talking about Madonna. Okay. I um like I I mentioned on the last one, like I feel like Madonna was a was the template for a lot. And there were artists before Madonna who who were the template for her, I think. But I think Taylor Swift is definitely an example of one of the younger artists who have taken what Madonna did and moved beyond it. Yeah.

Karen Koehler 0:32

Um although Taylor Swift is not a good dancer.

Mike Todd 0:36

I yeah, I don't I have not watched her. I to be honest, like I remember I had a conversation a couple years ago, I think, at the Christmas party, where I was like, I don't know any Taylor Swift songs. And of course, everyone said here this one, this one, and I and I had heard some, I just didn't know that it was her. But uh to get back to what I was originally to talk about, I saw an article

Portnoy’s Celebrity Courtside Complaint

Mike Todd 1:00

about uh the head of Barstool Sports complaining about celebrities who go to the um championship games. You know, right now the Knicks, how many games have they won? Three, four?

Mo Hamoudi 1:17

There's there's five games. They're going to game six, they're up three, one.

Mike Todd 1:20

Okay. So they're doing really well. The game that I watched, which I believe was the game that Dave was complaining about, was when they were behind by an insane amount. Yeah, like 20, like 20, 30 points. Yeah. And then they came back and won. Yes, that's right. At the time that they were behind, it was like the biggest, like the most behind in championship games and basketball. Yeah, yeah. So I we were out to dinner somewhere and the game was playing, and I was watching that going, oh my god, that's interesting, you know. And I was kind of like, it looks like they're gonna lose, you know. And then later that night, my wife, who's from New York, was like, Hey, did you see the Knicks one? The Knicks one, yeah, that's right. Well, the next morning, Dave Portnall was out there complaining about celebrities who go to the games and how they're, you know, fair weather fans are not fans at all. They shouldn't be wearing all the gear and and taking up a courtside seat. And he was complaining about Taylor Swift in particular, because she had been there, and I was like, those guys give so much attention in media attention just by showing up, that nobody should be complaining about that, in my opinion.

Mo Hamoudi 2:32

Yeah, yeah. What do you mean, media attention? Like, what I don't understand that his complaint. That's my point.

Mike Todd 2:37

Like the next morning while he's complaining, there's just as many stories out there just talking about the fact that she was at the game. I see. Or just talking about the fact that Ben Stiller was there.

Karen Koehler 2:47

They're fair weather fans, and like why are they going to the games and diverting attention? And it's the power of celebrity in our in our society.

Mike Todd 2:56

Yeah, which is really powerful right now.

Karen Koehler 2:58

And there's an anti-celebrity sector, and then there's a celebrity sector.

Mo Hamoudi 3:02

And there's the political side to it. Uh well, the famous movie director in New York City, um Spike Lee. Spike Lee has been no Fairweather fan, has been courtside at all Knicks games for decades. Yeah. So is John McEnroe, and he's like a big celebrity. Um, Larry David, same. I mean, I just think that like those are the stars I saw. I didn't even see the Taylor Swift because I was watching the game. I didn't I don't even remember her. I'm sure they showed her at one point.

Mike Todd 3:31

I mean, I didn't see it, but yeah, I'm sure that they showed her because I saw shots of her in the news.

Karen Koehler 3:38

Well, let's just talk about our weird culture and how it's mutating

Influencers And The Embarrassing Feed

Karen Koehler 3:44

and how it's, you know, with the influencers and the celebrity. Uh I mean, this whole it's hard to even look at uh a lot of it. It's so embarrassing. Um, just you know, they're just hawking stuff. And and yet that is they're getting paid for it and they're getting glorified for it. And when I watch it, to me, I am obviously a very stuck up person. Yeah because when I watch it, I just go, I mean, sometimes I'm actually very interested in what they're selling. But normally I'm looking at it and just going, like, this is so shallow. I mean, you're basically you're no different than a door-to-door salesperson.

Mike Todd 4:28

Well, that's what all of this stuff really is when you come down to it. It's all all televised entertainment, pretty much most music these days, and all the social media stuff. Well, that's where I was I'm starting back from our age.

Karen Koehler 4:43

Yeah.

Mike Todd 4:44

When it all started, you know, back when you were young.

Karen Koehler 4:48

Yeah.

Mike Todd 4:49

All TV shows were just ads for a corporation. Like they would all be sponsored by something. And then it moved on to the ads that people would pay for to compete with the people that were sponsored.

Karen Koehler 5:01

Yeah.

Mike Todd 5:03

And then time went on and they went, hey, we can take these celebrities and put them in there, and people are going to pay attention more because they go to the movie, they think, hey, Rock Huxley, he smokes Marlboro Lights. I'm going to smoke those, you know. And uh now it's all it feels like it's all advertising. There aren't people that are entertainment. The entertainment is the advertisement now.

Karen Koehler 5:26

But here, here, let me take this a step farther, okay? Because this is our culture. We are doing

When Marketing Becomes The Job

Karen Koehler 5:32

a freaking podcast. I have social media, and one of the reasons is so that people can get to know me so that if something bad happens, they'll know, wow, that's a really good attorney. And she's judgable and human. And so we're doing the same thing, right? It's the way our society is like, how else do we do it? It's how we can do it. In the old days, we used to just put our ad in a telephone book, and there was a couple pages. Now there's thousands more, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of lawyers, and you know, there's these advertising budgets we've talked before, a million dollars. Well, we don't want to spend any money, so we're just doing it the old self-help way. But it's kind of crazy that focus on it. Now we can be holier art than thou and say, well, our mission is much more noble. We are hawking ourselves so that if people need assistance, they can come to a very good law firm. Um, and that's exactly what we do. That's how we justify it. But we are in a culture that I don't know how you get off of this treadmill that we're on.

Mike Todd 6:42

Yeah, I just the only way I can think of it is the if the internet changes quite a bit.

Google Search Shifts With AI

Karen Koehler 6:48

If if well, Google is changing. Google, okay, I know I'm gonna be geeky here, but Google is changing those little options that you used to see, everything, it's because they're incorporating AI more.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Yes.

Karen Koehler 7:03

So now people that were optimized for Google are scrambling because now they have to. Now, the good thing with a firm that's ours, like, and this is this is a paid advertisement by the Stripmotor Law Firm to the Velvet Hammer Podcast, not the good, for example, in our law firm, we're very prolific. We have a lot of content. Just look at the our freaking podcast. We we just did four episodes in two days because we like talking to each other. So we we do these things and you create the content. Now, if you're a content creator, then that gives you supposedly some leverage on these algorithms and all that plus. I don't know. I don't know enough. What I do know is a lot of people do it and they don't enjoy doing it. We enjoy doing, we're just it's like our sometimes it's our therapy session, right? We just come here like, oh, I need some therapy session. But for many people, it's a job, it's a chore. Um, they're putting on a happy face, they're pretending to show you their lives, and it's all staged.

Mike Todd 8:08

Yeah. I've watched quite a few documentaries now about the younger influencers,

The Mental Health Cost Of Clout

Mike Todd 8:13

and and it's just what you said.

Karen Koehler 8:15

And why are there so many that seem to be committing suicide?

Mike Todd 8:20

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think that that's part I think that there's a lot of emotion that goes into people who are connected to watching the attention that they get from social media.

Karen Koehler 8:35

Yeah. Well, you know, I I agree with you, Mike. The fact that all the celebrities come to the games at the end and they are fair weather fans, they have the privilege of being fair weather fans. And they are free advertisement for these entities that, you know, people are gonna come because they're interested in seeing the game, and they're also interested in getting a glimpse of Tanner Space.

Mike Todd 9:00

Yeah, they want to see Taylor Swift, they want to see their celebrities in at the game.

Karen Koehler 9:04

Yeah.

Mike Todd 9:05

You know? I mean, I mean I think the NBA wants those young women to come too.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah.

Mike Todd 9:13

They're not gonna try and cut any part of their audience out. So I just think it's funny when, you know, the I don't know how old Dave Portnoy is, but he certainly sounds like a boomer to me.

Karen Koehler 9:25

You guys and your anti-boomer stuff.

Mo Hamoudi 9:29

I I you know, part of what I think Dave Portnoy, the more I think about what you're saying, is is that like

Sports As Sacred Space

Mo Hamoudi 9:34

there's like a sanctity in sports about, and it's almost like generational. And he's talking about probably why are these people hijacking this this this like ceremony, this thing. But what's crazy about sports is that you have a bunch of people go into a stadium and they're so psychologically invested in this game passionately. And you know, one of the things I always think about is like none of these athletes know you or really care about you. They like that you're here because you buying tickets, you're the fans and you support them. But I don't see a lot of fans exhibiting that level of passion towards a activity in their own homes, like to their own family members, like the devotion they have to these sports. To me, it's crazy like the psychological component to it. So I think maybe Portnoy is kind of touching on this thing, like, hey, this is our church or like this is our this is our space, our hallowed ground, and and Taylor Swift is showing up in it. I don't want that. Oh, I agree. And I mean, I have to ask, you're a Knicks fan, right? No, you're not? No, no, no. Oh god. No, I'm not a Knicks fan. I'm I'm a basketball fan. Who is there a team you're a fan of? Not particularly. I just like watching the game from the perspective of like seeing human beings do things that seem physically almost impossible. And I go, that's incredible. The other part I like is that it's the the game is I play. It's a social game.

Mike Todd 11:19

Um, I don't know if he's a I don't know if he's a diehard Nick fan. Yeah. But the and that's and I'll I'll be honest, I didn't read the whole thing. I was just kind of taking the the interest of him attacking Taylor Swift for being there, but uh or complaining, not attacking. Um but I think also if you're a hardcore fan of a certain team, that's a little different too.

Karen Koehler 11:43

Yeah, we are a weird species.

Mo Hamoudi 11:46

Yeah, that's all I have to say. We are very weird and people who like want to like watch people like voyeurism, like seeing celebrities. It's like a kind of voyeuristic kind of oh, very much so, and it's that people wanna wanna feel like oh, if I see their drama or their lives, like I'm okay. Or they're trying to be like, I can be that.

Mike Todd 12:14

It's there's there's an idol, yeah. Right. There's part of that there where you I think it's a huge part. You want to be like, or with musicians or writers, actors, you listen to their words and it touches you. If you know, if if if it's a sports person, you're looking at their performance and wanting to perform at that level, you know. I think that's why people are that into sports. I think once you get to somebody like Dave Portnoy, who's involved in an organization that covers all sports, you know, yeah, and all aspects of sports, yeah, you know, he's coming from a position that I was making fun of a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Because he because he should be able to handle that.

Mo Hamoudi 13:01

But but you but you remember when like the Sonics and the Bulls were like Oh god, yes. Okay, right. So like basketball was like off the charts. That was like a generation. You didn't see the cameras, the NBC cameras, panning onto the oh, look, and there's uh this person, this person. No, but when you're one of them. Well, but when you went to LA, there was always, oh, there's Jack Nicholson. Oh, yeah. Right, right, right. Yeah, no. Right, right. And it's like that was Hollywood. That was I think that's now everywhere.

Mike Todd 13:31

No, that's everywhere now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what about you, Karen?

Mo Hamoudi 13:38

You don't like sports? You don't like sports.

Why Karen Can’t Love Sports

Mo Hamoudi 13:40

You used to be married to a semi-pro basketball player, and then you're telling me that you don't care about sports. You used to go to basketball games. Did you ever like sports?

Karen Koehler 13:50

There's sports. Yes, they're cute. I will go to the games. I like to eat and socialize. We went to a football game with Kurt and Anna because he was getting inducted into something. And I I didn't even watch the game. I just sat there and chatted with Anna the whole time.

Mo Hamoudi 14:07

Inducted into something like a Hall of Fame? It was something like the Seahawks Hall of Fame. I mean, like something significant. I think he was having his number put up or something like that.

Mike Todd 14:14

I mean nothing at all. Nothing at all.

Karen Koehler 14:16

But basically, all I have.

Mike Todd 14:18

One of the best Seahawks players of all time. I mean, just you know, nothing.

Karen Koehler 14:21

I respect it. I respect that. I respect it, but it it is it's a game, it's brutal on the people involved. Yes. It's very short-lived. I look at the sadness of it. I hate football because I call it concussion ball. I don't believe it should be allowed. Basketball is very, I mean, you want to talk about being discriminatory. You have to be at least six feet tall to be in that league. Seven being seven foot five apparently is a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

That is true.

Karen Koehler 14:50

That's very discriminatory. Random stuff that we like. And you can only be young to play these games.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

That is true.

Karen Koehler 15:00

And you really can only be male.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Except for golf.

Karen Koehler 15:03

You can only be male if you want people to show up and actually pay you a living wage.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yes, that's very true.

Karen Koehler 15:09

Other than female tennis. Which even, I mean, all of them were disparate pay, everything is so it's male-dominated, it's testosterone based, it's only for the super young. You have to have physical like height requirements, or you know, you can only be a jockey if you're under five foot tall or whatever. I don't know.

Mike Todd 15:33

You ever been starstruck by any movie stars or musicians? Oh, yeah, she has.

Karen Koehler 15:38

Well, I've

Have We Ever Been Starstruck

Karen Koehler 15:38

never seen any because I live. That's what I'm talking about.

Mike Todd 15:41

Have you ever seen any?

Karen Koehler 15:43

I've seen I've seen them on TV and stuff, but I'm not like str I've just we just talked about Madonna.

Mike Todd 15:49

No, but I mean met or been close to. No. That's what I'm talking about.

Karen Koehler 15:53

So my kids, somebody had asked me one time, like, if you could talk to anybody, right? I said you said Madonna. They're like, what not not Barack Obama? Oh no. I mean, I'd rather talk to Madonna. I just love the way she thinks. I like her free I like her personality.

Mo Hamoudi 16:16

Honestly. Well, what about you?

Karen Koehler 16:18

I think that um if you could talk to anybody, who would

Who We Would Talk To

Karen Koehler 16:21

it be? Would it would it be a performer or would it be somebody?

Mo Hamoudi 16:26

Did it have to be alive? No. No. I would talk to Jack Kerouac.

Karen Koehler 16:30

No, it's gotta be someone alive. You can't say something like that.

Mo Hamoudi 16:33

Okay.

Karen Koehler 16:33

Okay. I asked this, it's gotta be somebody alive.

Mo Hamoudi 16:35

He didn't.

Mike Todd 16:36

He picked someone and you immediately said, No, you can't do that. I will go on record as saying that I would have liked to hear what you were gonna say about Kerouac.

Mo Hamoudi 16:45

I mean go ahead. I just I've if you've read Jack Kerouac's writings, he's to me like he his writings reflect so much of who I am. And I would want to know because I come from such a different background than him. I come from a different country. I would want to know where how he got to where he was and get to know that better and have like a drink with him and spend an evening talking until the sun came up about life.

Karen Koehler 17:12

Well, same, but just with McGregor.

Mike Todd 17:13

Interesting that you'd say you want to have a drink with someone who killed himself by being an alcoholic.

Karen Koehler 17:18

Okay, nice Mike. Nice catch. Mike, who would Mike?

Mike Todd 17:21

You're there! Did you stop us? What? No, no, no.

Karen Koehler 17:24

I just Well then I need to hear who you would.

Mike Todd 17:26

Yeah, what about you? What about me?

Karen Koehler 17:28

But that was a good comeback.

Mike Todd 17:30

Interesting. You drank with a guy

Idols, Disappointment, And Celebrity Power

Mike Todd 17:32

who drank himself to death. I think I'll give you two. And one of them I could meet if I tried hard. One is the musician Bob Mold. He's been my favorite, one of my favorite, if not my favorite musician, pretty much my entire adult life. Um, he played in a band called Who's Girdo when I was younger, and he uh has been a soul artist for a long time and is playing in a band called Sugar, which was only around for a few years in the 90s, and they're on tour right now. So I'm gonna get to see my favorite musician. I know people who have recorded with him and who know him, and so I I could have met this guy many, many times. Um I did meet and talk to some of my idols back in the day, and it was always disappointing.

Karen Koehler 18:29

But I was gonna say.

Mike Todd 18:30

Um, but one of one of he's no longer alive, but one of the best studio engineers of all time, I believe, is a guy named Steve Albini. And I was a young, just starting out recording engineer when I talked to him on the phone and realized that my idol was not a nice guy. The other one not alive would be uh Jimi Hendrix. Ah, there you go. Because he approached music much differently than a lot of people, but was still playing in blues and rock at the time when it was just starting. And uh I would like to I would always like to pick somebody's brand like that. But once again, he was kind of a notoriously spacey, hard to talk to person. Yeah. I don't know what that conversation would be like. Yeah. That's good.

Karen Koehler 19:23

Very interesting.

Mike Todd 19:24

All right, all right. Yeah, so that's a power of celebrity. That's a power of celebrity. Good.