You can listen to this cast here.
Spoon radio is a live audio streaming app created by Korean startup Mykoon launched in March 2016. Last year, Korea Tech Desk wrote that its annual revenue surpassed 20.2 million US dollars in 2018, and that its biggest audience is Gen-Z (that’s people born roughly between 1997 and 2012) with over 2.5 million downloads daily. How old are y’all on the stream? Let me know!
On the Google Play store, it has a 4.1 rating with 128 thousand reviews. It’s the number 8 top grossing music and audio app and has over 10 million downloads. The apple store is a little sparser, with only 3.7 stars out of 478 ratings. I’m guessing more android users are on the app than apple, and yes, I’m one of them!
It’s projected by reviewers and publications alike to become even bigger. Tech Crunch said investors are betting big bucks that online radio apps will become successful. An article in 2018 before tiktok became big wrote that an investor in musically made a $17 million US dollar deal with Spoon. TikTok is now big enough to get that one girl who does the dumb robotic dances (her name is Charli D’Amelio) a modeling contract, a feature in Doja Cat’s Say So video, and much more so congrats to her!
I actually accidentally downloaded this app and never got around to uninstalling it. For one of my classes I had to make a radio piece and I really enjoyed it so I decided to check this app out. I’m still getting used to it, but I’m sure that with time this will get better and hopefully more fun to listen to!
I like the app because there’s a whole bunch of different personalities on it. You can check out the responses to my COVID-19 posts on the TALK tab and see what I mean. Just take some time and scroll through some of the streams going on now and you’ll also see who’s out there, what their interests are. You’ll see people of a younger generation, people interested in anime and a lot of people who are sharing their singing, which I think is really cute and wholesome.
Alright, enough talking. Like I said I’ll be playing some music from local artists, so first up is the Boone-based band Self-Help.
Have you heard of the Waffle House index? On Wednesday, March 25th, CNN Business announced that Waffle House closed 420 (blaze it) of its locations amid the coronavirus pandemic. Now, why is that news? Because not only is it bad for those of us who love getting high and downing 40 pounds of fluffy pancakes and corn syrup, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency uses Waffle House closures as a metric through which to determine the severity of natural disasters. Waffle House almost never closes. On Wednesday afternoon, they reported that their sales dropped 70% below normal levels.
Ladies, Gentlemen, and They/Thems, we are now in a Waffle House code red. FEMA administrator Chris Fugate told the Wall Street Journal that “if you get there and the Waffle House is closed? That’s really bad. That’s where you go to work.” Waffle house has a reputation for staying open during extreme weather. Not that waffle house closures should be the first indication that shit’s going south. There’s a whole bunch of other bullshit happening to make us feel like the world is crumbling to pieces around us.
On Wednesday, the 25th, The Guardian reported that a third of the world population is now under lockdown, as mandatory shelter-in-place, stay-at-home, and quarantines are in place. Are you quarantining? Are you social distancing?
You should only be going out to get essentials like food and medicine. Make sure you wear gloves when touching surfaces outside of the house. Take off your shoes before entering your house as well. Once you come in, dispose of the gloves properly by peeling them off and turning them inside out. Make sure you wash your hands for 20 seconds with lots of soap and warm water. Even though grocery stores are still open, employees are now coming down with cases of COVID-19 in Oregon, Washington, New York and Colorado, as reported in The Atlantic on Tuesday.
Even further back, agricultural workers, who are largely Mexican immigrants in the country with H-2 work visas, are still working hard harvesting produce to supply those grocery stores, reported by the Latin Post last Sunday. On Monday, VICE reported that only 16.2% of Hispanic workers, and 19.7% of Black workers are able to work from home. The rest of these Black and Brown workers are in industries like fast food, stocking shelves, and deliveries. For them, there is no option not to go to work for a paycheck, and their employers aren’t closing their doors.
Social distance includes best friends and romantic partners. I remember I was so upset because I had a dick appointment scheduled before I got kicked out of my university housing and public safety prohibited having visitors in our residence halls. Once I got home, I got yelled at by my parents when I tried to go over to a friend’s house. What have y’alls experiences been? I know it’s hard, but the internet and phones are a great way to keep in touch. Now might also be a good opportunity to check in with that old friend you’ve been meaning to talk to!
We’ve got Mellow Swells, a Chapel Hill-based jazz-rock band.
You can find mellow swells on instagram at mellowswells and on mellowswells.com. You can also find them on Spotify.
Next up, we’ve got Truth Club, a band out of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Closures of residence halls like mine have left many students, on both domestic and international scales, without housing, access to food, or health insurance. Has your school or work closed? How has this affected your routine? How are you maintaining a sense of normalcy during this time? I’ve seen a bunch of petitions spreading through social media about students’ missing their graduations, changing grading structures to pass/fail, opinion pieces from faculty arguing for automatic A’s, and demanding that tuition and room and board fees be refunded to university students.
Since borders have been closed and travel has been restricted, I’m worried about the effect this has on trade routes. Will there be a shortage of essential supplies like food and cleaning products? People are already panic buying toilet paper, masks, gloves, and alcohol wipes. This is causing a shortage and the people who need these on a regular basis, people with chronic illnesses, disabilities and the like are paying the toll.
On Thursday, The Guardian reported that ICE detention centers seemingly have no protocol to protect detainees from the virus. Obviously this puts the agents who work there in danger, too. The conditions at these facilities are already subpar. The Guardian reported there are no laundry facilities there, and bathrooms and showers are not regularly cleaned. This isn’t a question of the rights of those detainees — people who interact there, whether they be agents or not, are in danger themselves and when those agents go home, they’re endangering even more people. Regardless of COVID-19, any illness is likely to fester in conditions like these.
Yesterday, the Independent posted that Portugal has pledged to treat migrants as though they are residents in the face of this disease. The virus does not care about immigration papers, it does not care about your socioeconomic status or anything like that. The virus can be transferred to anyone at any time and making the choice not to treat populations is a deliberate choice to endanger more people.
NBC News reported that the disease has infected 24 people at a senior home in New Jersey. It’s likely that a full 94 of residents at the home are infected and who knows the effect on the workers there.
Numbers of cases are rising, and states are already coming up short with the necessary supplies to treat the virus. The president however is throwing his hands in the air and as a New York Times opinion piece posted on Thursday argues, forcing states to scrap for the resources themselves.
On Wednesday, Politico reported that guidelines and regulations created by the National Security Council have been ignored and disregarded by the Trump Administration. This is following the fact that Trump himself disbanded the pandemic response team in 2018.
Quarantine has caused a rise in calls to mental health and suicide hotlines, as Buzzfeed reported Wednesday, after Trump’s press conference caused a stir about a looming economic recession causing mass rates of suicide. This quarantine has also left many people feeling alone and hopeless. Closures of businesses has left many people without pay. Last week, NPR reported that unemployment claims have surpassed 3 million. Congress is now deliberating on a CARES Act, short of Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security. It would give Americans with income of up to $70 thousand an aid check of about $1200 dollars and give unemployment benefits. This is a stimulus package of about 2 trillion dollars, which is the largest in American history.
Many would have thought that the United States out of all countries would be well-equipped to handle an emergency. What has upset many people, like those who have voiced their opinions in a Facebook group that I’m a part of called Creepy Uncle Joe Biden’s Demented Shambling Neoliberal Nightmare, is the unsurprising lack of competence in our leadership that has left us in such a dangerous position.
This crisis is also making even more blatant the issues of our neoliberal system, and many leftists on social media are calling for more social aids like cancellation of student loan debt to stimulate the economy and rent strikes, amongst other things. On Monday, Yahoo Finance reported that Democratic House Reps Iyanna Presley and Ilhan Omar have introduced a bill to cancel $30k in student debt per borrower because of the economic hardship that the virus has placed on us during this time.
Next, we’re gonna listen to Asheville artist Indigo De Souza.
That was Boys by Indigo De Souza, an artist out of Asheville, North Carolina. You can find Indigo De Souza at indigodesouza.com, where you can find a link to the instagram, merch link, twitter, bandcamp, twitter, the show schedule and a spotify link.
Coronavirus was described by UN chief Antonio Guterres as a “threat to all of humanity,” reported in Al Jazeera on Wednesday. He asked for $2 billion US dollars in international aid to help protect us against this. To add, Asian Americans are facing heightened rates of violent racist hate crimes. There have been multiple videos going around social media showing East Asian people being harassed in public, like in grocery stores and in subway cars. Even more concerning is Trump’s dubbing of coronavirus as the Chinese virus, which has dangerous historical precedents. Just Yesterday, USA Today reported that New York’s Commission on Human Rights has seen an increase in reports of racial hate crimesagainst Asians after the disease’s spread to the city.
Two weeks ago, NPR interviewed a man who is currently under mandatory quarantine in Italy. He said that police are asking those who are out of their homes in public to show PAPERS that certify they are free of illness and have a valid reason for breaking the quarantine. I have no doubts that if this were to happen within the next few weeks in the United States, things would become drastically worse.
People may not get sick, but people with no internet access or bank account who have no way of purchasing essentials online being delivered to their doorstep will either starve, lose their minds, or break quarantine and leave their houses to buy groceries. The way the police are in the United States, people will end up getting hurt because of this documentation system. What do you guys think? Do you think the US police would be understanding of those who have no choice but to go out and buy essentials? How do the police feel? Are they in any danger guarding homes?
We’re now supposed to get what resembles a universal basic income, a $1,200 paycheck, unemployment payments, free testing kits. People are calling for a rent strike because landlords are sharing tears on internet forums about not getting their rent. Who knows what violence could break out. But should this violence break out if it’s for people’s right to shelter?
Most people in the US are living paycheck to paycheck. The Federal Reserve did a study on this and about 10 to 15% of Americans do not have the savings to handle a $400 dollar expense. One in 4 families that rent their homes spend more than half of its income on rent. This is a fact. And it isn’t because most people are irresponsible with money, and it’s not because people are simply working low-paying jobs by choice. This has to do with a system of employment and income inequality. It’s astonishing to me that there are grown adults out here who do not understand this. You want to know why unemployment was down in recent years, it was because people were getting multiple jobs to try to make ends meet. The kicker is that still wasn’t enough.
Rent strikes are being planned all across the country, not only from renters but from businesses like the Cheesecake factory. New York and Pennsylvania are among states that have put a pause on evictions.
Let’s all remember to take a deep breath. Wash your hands. Don’t gather. Spend some time getting to connect with yourself.
To conclude, we’ll be listening to a few more tunes. For starters, we have Family Vision, a band from my hometown, Durham North Carolina! Here’s Decay, off of the self-titled project Family Vision.
You can find Family Vision on their bandcamp and familyvision.bandcamp.com, instagram at familyvisionnc, familyvision on soundcloud, and spotify.
Next up is the man we have to thank for bringing all of this local music to our ears, Nick! With his band Flesh Tuxedo. First off here’s the single, Space Jam.
Alright y’all time for the night’s last song! It’s the single Right There by Chapel-Hill based band, Flesh Tuxedo.
You can find Flesh Tuxedo on bandcamp at fleshtuxedo.bandcamp.com and on Spotify.
Just a quick final run through the headlines and a look towards the next broadcast with much more to unpack and discuss for the sake of time:
On Wednesday, Time Magazine reported that Korea is to send the US testing materials. On Friday, India Times wrote that the Earth’s ozone layer is reportedly healing. WBUR News of Boston reported that the secretary of interior ordered the Mashpee Wampanoag reservation disestablished. On Thursday, news website Heavy reported that a white man named Timothy Wilson planned to bomb a Boston hospital during the COVID-19 outbreak. Joe Biden still hasn’t escaped the muck of his sexual assault allegations, as a new victim came forward, reported in on Vox on Friday. On Wednesday, Earth Justice DOT ORG reported that the Standing Rock Sioux of South Dakota are celebrating a victory as a federal judge struck down Dakota Access Pipeline Permits. And lastly, on Friday, NBC news reported that those who owe child support will not be receiving stimulus checks in the mail.
Now, that concludes the very first special episode of my radio show extravaganza! A very special thank you to my listeners and participants in the chat, and each and every one of my friends who helped me promote this show.
If you are an independent musician, email me at kyliealexandramarsh@gmail.com and I’ll play your tunes on my show.
Are you a small business owner? Email me and I’ll promote your business on my show!
If you’re a writer, artist, or photographer, I’ll soon be launching an online magazine portion where people can share their work…basically anything that’s good for a printed, visual format.
I’ll also expand it to include videos if you make online content that you want to be covered! Some audio will be available there as well through soundcloud links.
If you’ve got a pitch, want to collaborate on the show, or have suggestions for what topics you want to be discussed, hit me up on my email address at kyliealexandramarsh@gmail.com. That’s all for now! This is Kylie Marsh, signing off. Bye!
Kylie Marsh 