What audiences took away from the Cory Booker's mammoth filibuster speech last week depended on where and how they saw it. Cultural Intelligence can help performative tactics have outsized impact. Given the volume of drama in the news it's hard to believe that it was just last week that Cory Booker made the longest Senate speech in US history, clocking in at 25 hours, breaking Strom Thurmond's racist, anti Civil Rights Act 1957 filibuster speech. But what audiences took away from his mammoth filibuster speech depended on where and how they saw it. For those who saw or heard about Cory Booker's 25-hour stand on broadcast news or traditional print and online media, certain narratives rose to the top. "Record breaking" and "history making" were some of the most common headline trends, along with "anti-Trump resistance" and "rallies Democrats." A popular subgenre of reporting delved into what it takes to go 25 hours without a bathroom break—and how Booker prepared himself physically and mentally for the task. But if you learned about Booker's marathon speech online where most audiences did, a different cultural conversation was happening. Clips from his speech were remixed with pop music, hilarious memes flooded the internet ("If I send this to you it means we're going all night long") and a TikTok Live video of his floor speech was "liked" over 350M times. Vanity Fair called it a "Masterclass in social media savvy" with numbers that "rival TV networks." And there’s a third take: Progressive critics have been quick to point out the disconnect between Booker's high minded marathon against fascism and what happened right after on the Senate floor: Dems allowed confirmation of yet another Trump nominee—and Booker himself voted to approve another $8 billion in arms Trump requested for Israel's continued brutal assault on Gaza. So what does it all add up to? Depending on where, how, and from whom you received this news, you are likely to have a very different version of reality. And that’s sort of the point. Cultural intelligence is about understanding that every moment can have many meanings - not all of which you can control. What we can control is whether we understand our core audience and reach them in ways that earn their trust, while being prepared to acknowledge that everyone is not going to “get it” and don’t have to. If Booker was looking for traditional media coverage reaching largely highly educated, highly partisan audiences, he might be disappointed. But if he wanted to show Gen-Z audiences who live on TikTok (who, according to our research, trust the Democratic Party less than oil and gas companies) that Democrats are actually fighting back against Trump’s excesses ... well then he probably nailed it! How did it land for you? Was your first reaction to Booker's marathon speech positive or negative? #CulturalIntelligence #CoryBooker #TikTok
