This Sh*t is Banana Cats

April 17, 2024·38 min·2 clips

The Ontario NDP's Banana Cat TikTok — a sad cat in a banana costume crying about hospital wait times — reached 568,000 views, described as 'confidently surreal' in a way political parties never attempt.

Jesse Brown starts first. His appeal is direct, salesy, and more personal than the usual host housekeeping, with a reminder that Canadaland gives away podcasts for most of the year. Then the politics arrives. One host brings up Jagmeet Singh's 2021 TikTok presence as the obvious comparison for Ontario NDP content. The praise has limits. Singh may have had the best TikTok among the leaders, but the host says most people would probably say it did not turn into votes. That leaves the Ontario New Democrats with the awkward question. Are they making entertaining online material, or are they making something that can move an election? Nobody quite lands the answer. The host allows that the work may just put something interesting into the world, which is not the same thing as winning votes. The PC comparison makes the contrast sharper. Government content is described as the opposite of scrappy, likely seen by many more people, and aimed at hope rather than combat. Even "pugilist" gets tried on and then set aside. It sounds close, but the Ford material being discussed is heavier, not exactly aggressive. The clock adds pressure. Ontario's next general election is placed in early June 2026, with a six-week campaign imagined before it. The forecast is blunt: one host thinks the Ford government may not do much of anything. The excerpt then slides back into the business end: show-note links, membership, ad-free listening, Amazon Music, and Acast ads.

As heard by us

A sharp Ontario politics episode on TikTok-era opposition messaging and Ford's steadier, lower-drama path to reelection.

Wag the Doug turns Ontario politics into a question of attention: who gets it, what it is worth, and whether online charm can become votes. The strongest thread is the Ontario NDP's TikTok problem, framed through Jagmeet Singh's 2021 federal campaign, where strong social video…

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Why you'd press play

For when Ontario politics feels less like a policy briefing and more like a battle over attention.

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