Episode 206 - Steven Olikara

The Cripescast Podcast

Charlie Berens

Comedy Interviews, Comedy

5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 3 July 2024

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With the 2024 election approaching, Steven Olikara returns to discuss the importance of bipartisanship in an increasingly divided political landscape. Early listeners of the Cripescast may remember Steven’s first episode, where he and Charlie dove into the impact that social media and cable news outlets have on our civility. Today they analyze what’s changed since 2020, provide solutions for stopping polarization, and emphasize the importance of a diverse media intake regardless of party lines. Having grown up as a minority in a predominantly white community, Steven still found ways to come together with his peers despite having different backgrounds and worldviews. It’s this upbringing, he explains, that helped prepare him for his work today at Bridge Entertainment Labs, a media company that encourages healthy conversation and disagreement with the goal of healing the divide within our democracy.

Follow Steven on Instagram and X at @stevenolikara, and keep up with his work at @futurecaucus or @bridgeentlabs. Check out everything else he’s up to at stevenolikara.com.

Find us on all platforms at @cripescast and for more information on the show, visit us at cripescast.com.

Donate to Doctors without Borders at doctorswithoutborders.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody, welcome to the Cripescast. I'm your host Charlie Behrens. This is the
0:03.8	podcast where we talk to people for and or from the Midwest, and we are powered by Everlight Solar. Here's today's episode.
0:11.1	Folks, welcome back to the Cripescast. Today my guest is Stephen Olicara. He is a
0:18.0	friend of mine, we go back. He was on episode 14 of the Cripescast.
0:23.2	He is now the president of Bridge Entertainment Labs,
0:26.7	which is all about harnessing the power
0:30.3	of culture shifting entertainment media to sort of transform divisions in America.
0:37.1	So essentially he is looking for ways to use entertainment and media to, you know, to bring people together instead pushing them apart.
0:45.6	I think it's a very important conversation to have these days, especially as you look at
0:52.0	sort of things going on in America's political system right now,
0:57.0	this election that we're having, everyone's at their throats, the Supreme Court,
1:01.0	giving all this power to presidents that frankly don't deserve the power that the
1:08.6	Supreme Court has given them if you want my opinion. But you look at the potential for things like that giving so much power to one
1:18.0	person there's so much riding on the presidency people just get at each other's throats more. It's kind of the recipe for disaster.
1:27.0	Unless you have people like Stephen out there who are looking for just ways to bring people together and get people talking and get people away from social media and making us pick teams. We love doing that in America, whether it's sports teams or
1:55.9	whatnot. But that's what's happening to us, and it is happening to us. We're not
2:00.4	really actively choosing this. The social media sites are designed to draw us in and keep us there longer so we can get served ads and what keeps us there longer? It's anger, it's fear, it's anxiety.
2:17.4	None of it good.
2:18.7	So I think it's good to kind of break that up
2:21.0	a little bit and take a look at ourselves and what we're doing
2:25.4	in hopes of actually changing it and change doesn't really start with the next
2:31.0	president change really starts kind of with ourselves and really looking at
	...

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