Editor’s note: Welcome to another segment of “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney,” now a regular Contrarian Boston feature. Today, we take a look at Spencer Pratt, whose wild AI-generated video portraying himself as Batman and Karen Bass and other candidates as super villains has gone viral, shaking up the LA mayoral race.
Emily Rooney was joined by Media Nation’s Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University, Jon Keller, the political analyst for WBZ-TV News, and Scott Van Voorhis, editor and founder of Contrarian Boston.
And thanks to Tonia Magras, principal owner of Hull Bay Productions, who produced today’s piece. Tonia was the supervising producer for “Beat the Press” when it was on GBH and is the principal owner of Hull Bay Productions.
If you would rather use a different platform, you can also watch “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney” on Contrarian Boston’s YouTube channel.
Emily Rooney: All right, next up, you would have to be of a certain generation to have ever watched a reality show called “The Hills,” which I think was on in the mid-’90s or something like that. But if you did, then you must recall Spencer Pratt. He was the cast member who went bananas after discovering another cast member had made fun of his wife and her perfume line or something. Anyway, his house in Pacific Palisades burned down, and his parents’ house. That wasn’t funny. And then he came blaming the city government, and then he launched this campaign to challenge LA Mayor Karen Bass.
No one was paying much attention to him until this AI-generated video of Pratt appearing as Batman out to combat evil supervillains like Karen Bass, Governor Gavin Newsom, and even Kamala Harris. So this video has received widespread attention, even internationally, and it’s clever. Well done. But what’s not being reported is Pratt’s obvious temperament issues. You can go back and watch the episode where he went crazy.
[01:10:37.490]
Not being reported? The fact that he literally has never had a job. It took him 10 years to graduate from college, and he was a believer in the Mayan apocalypse, thinking the world was going to end in 2012. And he allegedly gave away all his money. He said he gave away $10 million. I don’t know if that’s true. And then of course the world did not end. But I find what’s fascinating, Scott, I’ll start with you, is that this AI-generated piece, which was done by some in-house guy who’s really good with, you know, with AI. He did it very cheaply—he isn’t hiring some of these, you know, one of these, you know, consultants that are charging a million dollars for an ad. It just went viral as a video. But you look at the comments now that this video has generated internationally—“If I were in LA, I’d vote for him” — because it’s so clever, but it has nothing to do with the candidate. And my issue is that the reports about the video have not included the details about who he is.
[01:11:40.210]
Scott Van Voorhis:
Yeah, I mean, that’s a lot of context there that people need to know. But he’s— here’s an example of somebody who’s taking advantage of a new form of communication technology. Trump did it with Twitter. That’s fueled his rise. This guy’s figured out how to do it with AI/ And I don’t know, crazy is in right now. I mean, you got a lot of crazy candidates out there, and somehow people are interpreting it as like, well, you know, you must be more genuine, you’re just saying what you really think. I mean, so, I mean, you think how could this guy have a chance? And yet he just might, just because he’s figured out how to use AI to his advantage, and he’s adept at pitching himself. But hopefully people will take a closer look.
[01:12:30.920] - Speaker 2
Emily Rooney: Well, Dan, as you pointed out, I mean, he’s not wrong about everything. The video is clever and it’s engaging, but he brings up some serious issues, including homelessness, drug use, the high cost of housing, the fact that the city was not prepared for the fire that burned down Palisades, the fact that Mayor Karen Bass was on a European trip, um, when the houses were burning down. He’s, he’s not wrong about everything, but does he have a platform?
[01:13:02.650] - Speaker 3
Dan Kennedy: Well, I’m, I’m sure that no place in this country would ever elect a completely unqualified reality TV show to an important political office. No. Uh, you, you know, I mean, sometimes we get lucky. Jesse Ventura was not that bad as governor of Minnesota. Uh, Arnold Schwarzenegger was not that bad as governor of California. Ronald Reagan. And, uh, well, Ronald Reagan had quite a bit of political experience by the time he became president. But then sometimes we get extremely unlucky, unlucky, and we’re all dealing with that now in the form of, uh, President Donald Trump.
[01:13:39.960] -
Emily Rooney: Uh, you know, honestly, and by the way, everything had been reported about Donald Trump, including all his sexual dalliances, and it still didn’t matter.
[01:13:47.040] - Speaker 3
Dan Kennedy: And it still didn’t matter. And, uh, I, I think that probably even if it’s not being well reported nationally, Imwould think that, uh, voters in Los Angeles are probably pretty aware of the controversies about Spencer Pratt, and they may end up voting for him anyway just because of, uh, all of the problems they’re having there. It isn’t just homelessness and drug addiction. It’s, um, the inability to rebuild after the fire, uh, which is something that Spencer Pratt has gotten caught up in. Uh, he has a, uh, a trailer on his property and he hasn’t been able to rebuild. And somebody was trying to make fun of him recently for saying, well, you don’t even live in LA, you live well outside the city. And he just went crazy. He said, “ Why do you think I’m living outside the city?” So, you know, a lot of problems. People are desperate. He may very well end up sliding into office, so we’ll see how he does.
[01:14:48.450] -
Emily Rooney: Well, my issue is more with the media, Jon, that, you know, you gotta put it in context, you know, not just report about this video. He, he, he wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if it hadn’t been for the video.
[01:15:02.180] -
Jon Keller:
Well, come on, Emily, context and truth are two casualties of the internet era, to put it politely, long dead at this point.
Emily Rooney: I don’t want to hear you call it a sewer again.
Jon Keller: Oh yeah. Hey, I was right about that, right? Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while. But look, you know, the series of how-to books, Woodworking for Dummies, Computer Programming for Dummies. This is Politics for Morons, uh, in the sense that, you know, this guy is not qualified to be mayor. Not that the qualifications of professional politicians like Karen Bass or the city councilwoman who’s also a leading candidate in the race make them such a great gift from God. But this guy is a kook and, you know, shouldn’t be allowed within 100 yards of the mayor’s office at City Hall. But, um, you know, we live in the TikTok era and in the internet era where, remember the terrorist, Houthi terrorist was sending out TikToks from his vantage point and their assaults on ships and got nicknamed the Houthi Cutie. Remember that? That was a big, you know, this kind of garbage is what happens. And, uh, I liked your point about how media reporting on this clown out in LA and his viral video, uh, should be adding more context. I think people should also be pointing out that in the AI video, these political figures— Kamala Harris, Karen Bass, Gavin Newsom— are pelted at one point with tomatoes.
Emily Rooney: And if you sort of look at it, it looks like they’re being shot. And, you know, like in a shoot-’em-up movie where the blood explodes. I found that kind of disturbing. Maybe it was just me reading into it. But, you know, God forbid this kind of imagery becomes an even bigger political currency than it already is.
You know, I hesitate to admit this, but I’ve become kind of addicted to the New York Post, and they, uh, they have done quite a bit of reporting on Spencer Pratt, including, you know, some— something that his sister posted on, I don’t know, TikTok or one of those things that— and she got so much— she aid he was a moron, basically said he was so too dumb to be mayor, but she got so much pushback she had to, you know, get rid of all her social media. But you know, at least, at least the New York Post had that, you know.
Jon Keller: What a mess. We— when we turned on that sewer, Emily, we lifted the lid on a whole bunch of horrible, horrible side effects.
