More Than You Think!

In this sweet 16th episode of "More Than You Think!" we discuss how the USA hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup is a chance for America to unite.

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Creators and Guests

Host
Valerie Gorham
WKNC Podcast Content Creator

What is More Than You Think!?

“More Than You Think!" is a podcast that explores the deeper layers of pop culture, uncovering how today’s trends connect with the political, economic, and social climate shaping our world. Each episode dives into the ways music, media, and cultural moments reflect — and influence — the society we live in. "More Than You Think!" is a podcast produced by WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2 at NC State University.

00:00
Valerie
Hello. And welcome back to another episode of more than you think where we talk about how political, economic and social events are tied to pop culture. Now, last episode, I did tell you guys that this episode we are going to be talking about the World Cup. World Cup. And we are. But before we get started, I just need to say, yes, there is a loud noise in the background. Yes, it is a fan. Because it is super hot. It is the middle of summer. It is early July and Pride month is over. And boo hoo, that's really sad, but it's over. And now straight people are back. But anyways, we're gonna be talking about the World Cup. This World Cup is special to us Americans. Why? Because we're co hosting. Yay.

00:56
Valerie
If you don't know anything about the World Cup, basically, it is the biggest sporting event in the world and usa, Canada and Mexico are co hosting. We're already more than halfway through the World Cup currently, as I am recording this, the US Is still in the game. We have made it to the round of 16 as of last night. And it's really awesome because all three host nations have made it to the round of 16. Mexico is looking really strong. I am manifesting more wins for Mexico, obviously for the US because that's where I'm from. And you know what? Canada. You guys too. Love you guys. Remember when Bad Bunny included Canada in his little speech at the end of the super bowl halftime show? That was awesome. Take me back.

01:41
Valerie
Anyways, the World Cup is happening right now and it is the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States, which is so poetic because so many people are visiting our country for the World Cup. Have already visited. Some people have already gone back home because their teams have already been eliminated. But so many people have come to visit our country. And if you haven't seen people trying our food and being shocked at the portions. Yeah, that's something that is so. Oh, my goodness. British people trying our food and like, experiencing flavor for the first time. England is also still in the tournament, which I have a vendetta against Harry Kane and I really don't like him. I have my reasons. There was something that happened once in a previous soccer game that I just. I can't forget.

02:32
Valerie
And I know everyone's like, oh, he's so good. He's so goaded. I don't care. His forehead is shiny. I don't want to see it. I'm sorry. He's probably a nice guy, but the thing that he did that time, I'm never gonna forget it. We never forget. I will never forget. It was. I have my reasons. Again, just a quick apology for the loud fan in the background. Again, it is freaking hot where I am recording this. So I. I have no other choice because AC is expensive and this is the best that I can do. I'm really sorry, guys. I'm gonna try to my best to like edit this sound out, but it feels really nice, the wind on me. So I'm sorry.

03:10
Valerie
But anyways, let's talk about how the World Cup this year in the US on our 250th Independence Day anniversary is kind of the greatest thing that could possibly happen to us from a political and social perspective. So again, if you haven't seen videos of Europeans coming to our country and trying our food, they're amazing. Go watch them because they're so much fun. A lot of people have been really excited to come to the United States and try our food. I've seen people who were like, really excited to go to Costco. People from other countries are stoked, stoked to come and shop at the Warehouse, like bulk club stores here in the US and that's amazing.

04:00
Valerie
And then of course they go to like restaurants here in the US which, you know, if you don't know about this, in the US compared to Europe, we eat a lot of food and a lot of videos of Europeans or other visitors that I've seen, they've said, like, guys, I understand why the us has so much obesity now. Because I ordered a meal from this restaurant that I have always wanted to try. And it came. It was a huge meal and I didn't think I could eat all of it, but it tasted so good that I ate the whole thing. And if I lived here, I'd probably be fat too. Like the drinks are huge. I saw, I don't know, I don't remember what his name was.

04:45
Valerie
It's this like blonde, super blonde guy on Tick Tock and he was talking about some people who came for the World Cup and they went to a 711 and they were completely taken aback by the size of the Big Gulp, which is like whatever. Like that's a gas station drink. But they were like, wow, this is humongous. They were putting on their heads according to this guy who made the TikTok. And yeah, British people. I like. It's a well known fact, of course, that British people don't have good food, unfortunately for them, because they seem like chill people. Like they're a little bit silly they have that accent, and we all know it's not real, but, you know, they. They don't deserve terrible food every single day. It's like, okay, fish and chips, but the chips don't even have a salt on it.

05:26
Valerie
It's like, not even a grain of salt. Salt, bro. Put some salt on your food for. At least put some salt. I don't know. It's. I don't know why they do that. But, yeah, they come to the US And a lot of them have tried our food, and they've tried freaking soul food. Freaking, like, black food. Oh, my gosh. And they can't. They don't understand. It's like it doesn't make sense to them that something could taste that good. It doesn't. They don't understand how there could be so much food on one plate.

05:55
Valerie
And I think it's something beautiful to see, especially since Europeans, you know, here in the US we all know that, like, there are those certain types of Europeans who don't like Americans, and they think that we're all stupid and that we're all fat and we just eat burgers and fries every day and we clock in for our nine to fives, and then we go home, sit on the couch, and we don't know where anything is on a map, which is true. We don't. But it's fine because we can just look at the map and that's something. Actually, can I just real quick sidebar before I get to my point? Other people from other countries are so obsessed with the fact that Americans don't know the map by heart. It's like, honey, I can just look at the map. Like, sorry. Oh, okay.

06:35
Valerie
Like, okay, Like, I can find it online. I don't need to memorize the map for my daily, like, stuff. Like, I think that's fine. That I don't. That I don't know where everything is on the wall. World freaking map. Because if I need to, I can just look at the map. Like, okay, anyways, back to. Back to my point. So basically what I'm trying to get at here is that people actually coming to our country and like, visiting and saying hello, experiencing our culture, because we actually do have culture. Americans do have culture. By the way, the thing that Americans have that we have is that we do things big. We like to go big. And part of that is the food.

07:19
Valerie
But we also have the music industry here in the US we have the movie industries, Hollywood here in the US we have. We have, like, the biggest entertainment industry, the biggest sports Industries. Most sports, obviously. Again, not soccer, which is the biggest sport in the world, but it's because the US like doesn't have the same soccer culture. The US is a big country as well. We do things big, we go big. It's big. Even our bad stuff is big. Like our poverty, our homelessness. The good stuff is big. The bad stuff is big. Everything is big. So that's what we have as a country. That is our strength and our weakness. And a lot of people are here right now experiencing our country and seeing that it actually doesn't suck. Suck. Despite the president we have, the people here are chill.

08:08
Valerie
The food here is awesome. And I know a lot of you are going to be like, oh my gosh, the food here. Let's, let's try Mexico. Let's try Italy. Yeah, they're going to Mexico too. Mexico has obviously amazing food. And yeah, their food's greasy too. Like, what do you want me to say? It's amazing because it's greasy. It's, it's good. Like you have to add something to your food to make it taste good. Like, hello, I have no idea how the food is in Canada, but I, I assume they have a lot of immigrants there too who open restaurants. So they probably got some good stuff going on over there. Like, hello. And it is beautiful that we are having so many people come and rediscover how cool we are.

08:47
Valerie
And I know a lot of you are going to be like, oh, we're actually not cool. This country is messed up. Yeah, of course it is. But the day to day person that you meet, you bump into someone at the store, they're probably a normal freaking person. The people who are the problem, we know who they are and we don't have to go into detail about it. We've, we, you know who I'm talking about. And these people that I'm talking about, the higher ups, right, they are the ones that try to split America apart. They're the ones that try to divide us. And I want to talk about how the World Cup can fix that because it's actually interesting. So soccer is the biggest sport in the world. Of course, everyone else calls it football. Everyone else also uses kilometers. Screw that.

09:32
Valerie
Of course, you can call it whatever you want. But here in the US we call it soccer, right? Biggest sport in the world. Beloved. Especially in Europe and South America. And it's interesting because that is a sport that countries have that they can unite over. In the US we don't really have that because we don't care as much about soccer. And like, when World Cup time comes around, I mean, I've noticed a little more enthusiasm for the World Cup this time around. Of course, that's probably because we're hosting. But when World Cup time comes around, usually Americans don't really care. I forgot if it was the last World Cup or the one before where the us didn't even qualify, which was really embarrassing. But the US Is not like a soccer country. We like football, we like basketball. Some people like baseball.

10:20
Valerie
I don't really know anyone who loves baseball like that, but I guess some people do. All these other powerful countries in Europe and South America unite over this sport, soccer, and of course they have their own clubs within the country where they can, you know, root against each other and root for their own city or their own team. But when the time rolls around, when World Cup or Copa America or the Euros roll around, these countries are locked in and they are arm in arm. That doesn't happen here in the US because all of our big sports are against each other within the country. Right. It's. It's kind of interesting. So I think that soccer could be something that actually brings the US Together if people would just embrace it.

11:04
Valerie
I think a lot of people see it as like a Hispanic sport or a European sport. And so it's not for us. It's not our thing. We don't want to do it because we're the U.S. we like American football, we like basketball. But how about this? How about you think of it this way? If you're so close minded to doing something just because other countries did it first, how about you think of it this way so that you can actually get involved? If we join the sport and we locked in because we're the US and we have like the biggest gene pool almost in the whole world, then we'd freaking dominate and oh, okay. But we don't have the discipline here. We don't have the culture here. Well, we're the U.S. let's just do it. Like, I don't understand.

11:49
Valerie
I know what everyone's like, oh, my gosh, you're supporting this country. This country. That's so terrible. Yeah, the leaders are terrible. The people, for the most part, were fine. The people, for the most part, I don't think. I'm pretty sure the approval rating for our current administration is at an all time low, so people are at least starting to wake up. I know they should have done it earlier, but like, dang, better late than never. I mean, jeez. And be honest, do you or do you not get patriotic during the Olympics when you see Simone Biles out there jumping 10ft in the air, and you think to yourself, only an American could do that. Because we have every single type of person in this country, so obviously we have the potential to be really good at this soccer thing.

12:37
Valerie
And I, being half Hispanic, I know I've mentioned this before. Oh, she's been. Yes, yes. I have been a soccer fan for basically my entire life. Ever since I was, like, 8 or 9, I think. I don't know. Before that, I was just kind of vibing in elementary school, not really knowing anything, just learning colors and stuff like that, learning to count, learning to spell, adding, subtracting, you know. But then, like, I remember my first World Cup. It was the one where Germany won. I think it was the one in Brazil. And, like, I remember being so happy that entire month because it's so awesome. It's so unifying, even between nations. Like, you're there for one thing, which is to watch that game, which, of course is called the Beautiful Game.

13:17
Valerie
And if you guys watched it, oh, my gosh, you would understand the way these people score, the way these guys move their bodies and use their legs and fight. Like, they fight, you know, not against each other, but for their own team, for their country. It's something really awesome. And before anyone asks, no, Israel did not qualify, bro. The frick. Heck no, man. Get so out of here. Like, seriously. All right, but that's just my two cents. It's. Something in this country is missing. Is, like, that sport that we can. It's, like, basically, like, just asserting your dominance. That's the thing that Argentina was the last World Cup winner, and now they're on their freaking high horse because they still think they're better than everyone else, which everyone dislikes. Argentina. But, you know, Messi's trying to win again. Dictator Mbappe is there for France.

14:13
Valerie
He's trying to win it for France again. But I think the U.S. is going to win because we're. We're the U.S. and we're playing the game. So the U.S. is notoriously divided. Ever since Trump's first presidency, I feel like it's just been a big problem. That was when I started noticing it. Before that, I was, like, 12. So I don't really know if that's just because I didn't know anything or because it was real, but I've noticed with this World Cup, like, a sense of unity, it's the same thing that happens with the Olympics when we actually see our country For. For the beauty, for the nice side, we feel more united, and it's awesome. The big sporting tournament ends, and we go back to our NBA, NFL, NHL, whatever the baseball one is called, and we are now rooting against each other.

15:06
Valerie
And it's interesting because obviously these sports teams are owned by, like, billionaires. And it's like, okay, that's interesting that, like, the billionaires are kind of, in a way, dividing us even further by, like, the team. And I know what everyone's. It's like city pride, state pride. That's cool. That's awesome. But then you don't think of it. You don't think of the other implication, which is, like, you are actually rooting against other people. And I know it's competitive, it's fun. There's nothing wrong with that. They have soccer clubs in other countries, too. They do that, too. But we don't have that sport. We don't have that sport that when the time comes, we are united as a country to try to compete against all the other qualifying countries. That's my. That's all I'm trying to say here is that we don't have that unifying event.

15:55
Valerie
And of course, again, like I said, the Olympics are there, but there are too many sports. It's too many events. It's not one big event that we can all unite for, you know, and of course, that's another reason why they call it the Beautiful Game, because it's so unifying. Like, you can be from two completely different backgrounds, and you still are, like, wanting to support your country because that's where you're from. And it is a really awesome country when you think of it that way. And when you think of how many different people of different backgrounds had to come together to create all those things some people don't understand that. Some people think that it would better if we separated each other based on our backgrounds and based on our cultures and based on other things that are out of our control.

16:40
Valerie
But, no, we should try to unify. We should try to unite. We should try to, like, learn from each other. And that's what this World Cup is doing. And I hope that people can take that away from this World Cup even after it ends, even after we get eliminated, if. If that happens, which we probably will. But whatever. Hypothetically, when the US Is no longer involved with this World Cup, after it's over, I hope that we can remember how exciting it was to have so many people come and experience and enjoy our culture and share with us, because that's what life is all about, like, and that's what the game does. And I think that's probably why a lot of people are so afraid of it and afraid of the us becoming an important player in the game.

17:24
Valerie
But I have hope because I'm already seeing people start to embrace this sport, and I'm already seeing it make. Make people come together. Come together right now. Over me and Paul McCartney ate when he said that for real. And he walked on that street, on that sidewalk, across that crosswalk with his three friends, those four twinks, the Beatles, and they ate with their freaking bowl cuts. And they meant that, like, let's come together. It's beautiful. Beautiful game. Watch the World Cup or else. Or else I'll come to your house. All right, that is what I have to say for today. Yes. The pop culture phenomenon that is the World Cup, biggest sporting event in the world. Us is getting involved, and it is helping us overcome our fear of other people. Yay. Hopefully. And hopefully that sticks.

18:21
Valerie
Hopefully we embrace soccer so that we can embrace others and other cultures, because it is from other people's cultures. And if we embrace other people's cultures, man, that's pretty awesome. All right, that is my two cents. Those are just my two cents. And that is the episode for today. All right, thank you, guys. Go watch the World Cup. Support Team us or whatever other ancestral connections you have. Support those countries, too. Just like I'm doing. All right, until next time. I am Valerie. This has been more than you think. Thank you for listening. Love you. By.
Transcribed by https://fireflies.ai/
pod16.mp3
Meeting created at: 11th Jul, 2026 - 1:46 AM