We’re back with another edition of What’s Resonating – a daily newsletter from the Magnitude Media team that delivers a data-driven snapshot of the stories, trends, and messages shaping online culture and politics.

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Now, let’s dive in.

What’s Resonating

• Sports as political content

• Karmelo Anthony’s verdict

• Immigration across political leans

Today’s Takeaway: Yesterday’s conversation was largely anchored by Game 3 of the NBA Finals, but that story split sharply by political lean. Neutral and cultural pages drove huge engagement around fan fights, Trump’s attendance, and viral Knicks/Spurs moments, while left-leaning pages used Trump’s appearance to mock him and connect the game to politics. Right-leaning pages were more focused on the Karmelo Anthony verdict and broader pro-white and anti-immigrant talking points. FIFA also cut across tracked posts from yesterday, with official World Cup clip content performing well, while left-leaning posts about the tournament focused on immigration issues and criticism of the organization.

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Yesterday on Social Media

🟦 Left-leaning accounts

• Left-leaning pages mocked Trump going to Game 3 of the NBA Finals:

  • The Other 98% said that Trump is the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game and got booed so loudly that ABC couldn’t cover it up. (277,000 likes, 8x average likes)

  • The Democrats posted side-by-side images of Trump sleeping and Obama smiling at NBA games. (113,000 likes, 8x average likes)

  • Hasan Piker joked that Trump got booed, fell asleep, left early, and caused the Knicks to lose. (1.5 million views, 4x average likes)

• Left-leaning pages discussed FIFA and the World Cup:

  • The Other 98% listed immigration issues related to World Cup participants and fans over the last 48 hours. (118,000 likes, 6x average shares)

  • Covie posted: “A FIFA referee has spent more time in federal custody for being Somali than anybody on Epstein’s list who raped kids.” (135,000 likes, 18x average engagements)

  • Hassan Mafi said FIFA is “ass” and shared a meme criticizing the organization for banning Russia but not Israel. (127,000 likes, 25x average engagements)

  • Magnitude’s View: We’ve seen left-leaning World Cup content gain traction over the past week, especially when posts tied the tournament to immigration and foreign policy. From June 1–9, left-leaning pages generated 3.4 million engagements across 751 World Cup posts, averaging about 3x more engagement per post than right-leaning pages, though still well below the average engagement from neutral pages that were driven mostly by the official World Cup account. Left-leaning pages are standing out among political pages by using the World Cup to highlight their priorities and criticize the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and FIFA’s perceived willingness to accommodate it. Of the top 10 left-leaning World Cup posts during this period, eight focused on immigration or foreign policy-related criticism. One focused on affordability and one focused on an alleged sexual assault by a World Cup player from 2009. Aymen Hussein, an Iraqi football player, summed up the feeling of many left-leaning posts when he asked, “Why is America hosting the World Cup if it is so hostile to foreign nationals?”

• Ian Lightfoot posted an 8th video to his series, “famous male abusers who still haven’t been canceled as much as a woman who doesn’t smile enough.” (1.1 million views, 3x average likes)

• Harry Sisson replied to a tweet about Trump firing all federal employees tasked with prosecuting corruption with, “This should be a career-ending scandal. But life under Trump is so hellish, it’s not even front-page news.” (141,000 likes, 16x average engagements)

• Social Security Works posted that Mike Johnson claimed that programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security need to be “adjusted and fixed.” (58,000 likes, 26x average shares)

🟥 Right-leaning accounts

• Right-leaning accounts reacted to Trump being at Game 3 of the NBA Finals:

  • The New York Post drew attention to Kai Trump as people booed Trump. (8.9 million views, 20x average likes, most-liked right-leaning post)

  • Fox News reported that despite the added security due to Trump’s attendance, massive brawls broke out in NYC following the Knicks’ loss. (1.6 million views, 17x average shares)

• Right-leaning pages commented on the Karmelo Anthony case:

  • LiveNOW from FOX reported that Karmelo Anthony was found guilty of murder. (3.3 million views, 21x average likes)

  • End Wokeness responded to a Karmelo Anthony supporter who asked, “What do I tell my 5 boys? What do we do now!?” with “Uh… don’t murder?” (179,000 likes, 11x average engagements)

  • The Babylon Bee posted the headline: “Nation Shocked as Jury Rules You Cannot Stab Someone in the Heart for No Reason at All.” (243,000 likes across two platforms, 18x average engagements on Twitter)

  • Creator Jeffrey Mead commented on the “telling” reactions to Karmelo Anthony’s verdict from other Black Americans. (1.6 million views, 7x average views)

  • Magnitude’s View: This news cycle was over a year in the making for the right. In April 2025, many major right-leaning pages amplified the story of Austin Metcalf’s death, citing racism against white people as a key motivating factor. While conversation around Anthony’s upcoming trial has been limited over the last year, new updates on the case have led public interest to hit new heights. The right’s strategy of finding specific legal fights for its key culture wars is not new. Even Elon Musk’s recent push for justice for UK teen Henry Nowak in the last few weeks is a prime example of how certain right-leaning pages elevate a specific violent-crime case into a broader culture-war fight, especially when they believe it can be framed around “anti-white racism.”

• Right-leaning pages amplified racist and anti-immigrant narratives

  • The New York Post shared a clip of a high school valedictorian who quoted Ye but omitted the last two words, “especially Hitler,” before a school official took the mic from another student who tried to call it out. (4.8 million views, 19x average likes)

  • Elon Musk posted that there are “VASTLY more hate crimes, especially aggravated rape and murder, per person by Blacks against Whites than the other way around.” (220,000 likes, 4x average engagements)

  • Conor McGregor posted, “Ban immigration from the 3rd World now. Help them from where they are. As we have done over the years so many times beautifully, and nobly. They cannot come here any longer.” (122,000 likes, 8x average engagements)

• Elon Musk amplified a Nick Shirley post in which Shirley showed up at a California woman’s home and claimed voter records listed her as a 126-year-old who had voted in 51 elections, a claim the woman denied knowing anything about (193,000 likes, 3x average engagements)

• David J Harris Jr. posted a photo of a billboard that read “President Trump is trying his best to give this country back to the people, and half of the country is too stupid to appreciate it.” (131,000 likes, 25x average likes)

🟨 Neutral (Political) accounts

• Neutral pages reported on Game 3 of the NBA Finals

  • Latinus shared a clip of a brawl outside of Madison Square Garden after the game. (18.7 million views, 142x average shares)

  • CNN also posted an interview with MD Hossain, who went viral for his chant, “My mayor Muslim, my bagels Jewish, my Christian Dior, Knicks in four!” (9 million views, 20x average likes)

  • BBC News reported Trump was the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game and got booed. (3.5 million views, 9x average likes)

    • CNN posted a video of Trump describing the reception he received from the crowd as “amazing.” (6.2 million views, 10x average shares)

• Neutral pages continued to report on Somalia’s referee, Omar Artan, being denied entry into the U.S.

  • Al Jazeera English reported that he was removed from the World Cup roster after being denied entry into the U.S., and Somalia’s football federation said Artan had a valid visa and that the decision deprived the country of a historic World Cup debut. (5.5 million views across two posts, 7x average likes)

  • Latinus (3.7 million views, 6x average likes) and Brut shared the news. (1.3 million views)

• Marcus DiPaola said a high-ranking military whistleblower claimed bipedal aliens have visited planet Earth. (2.1 million views, 9x average likes)

• WFAA shared videos of people crying and screaming at each other outside of the courthouse after Karmelo Anthony received a guilty verdict. (2.7 million views, 200x average likes)

🟨 Neutral (Cultural) accounts

• Cultural pages shared content about the NBA Finals:

  • Bleacher Report shared clips of the Spurs getting physical with the Knicks in Game 3 (6.2 million views, 18x average shares) and amplified a clip of Cardi B saying she was sitting right next to “the opps” (the Spurs bench). (5.6 million views, 12x average likes)

  • ESPN shared a clip of Victor Wembanyama weighing in on fans getting attacked outside of Madison Square Garden (3.7 million views, 17x average likes) and a video of Law & Order: SVU’s “Benson and Stabler” (Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni) “on the case” and pointing at the court after Josh Hart’s flagrant foul. (1.4 million views, 16x average shares)

  • TMZ posted videos of New York Knicks fans attacking Spurs fans after the Game 3 loss. (4.4 million views, 11x average shares)

• The official FIFA World Cup page shared several popular clips from past tournaments.

  • IShowSpeed and the FIFA World Cup page posted a collab teasing the streamer’s upcoming “World Cup Tour.” (14.8 million views)

  • FIFA World Cup also posted photos of the World Cup trophy. (804,000 likes)

• Olivia Rodrigo teased her upcoming album “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl so in Love.” (2.1 million likes, most-liked tracked post)

• E! News posted a clip of Taylor Swift and Randy Newman performing “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” at the “Toy Story 5” LA premiere. (2.4 million views, 145x average shares)

  • Entertainment Tonight also shared the clip. (1.2 million views, 11x average shares)

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