Episodes
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As an Registered Auntie, I get to watch kidsâ toy trends from the backseat. Iâve bought annoying things (sorry, parent friends) and learned how to play new things (Beyblades, I rule) and passed down precious things (all of my My Little Ponies from the â80s). We could talk forever about the merits of various toys, past and present, but your listener questions this week underline that thereâs also a tremendous amount of anxiety and class signaling absorbed by kidsâ toys.
So this episode, featuring toy expert Youngna Park, has it all: light nostalgia, unpacking the obsession with wooden toys, getting to the heart of why grandparents give âjunkyâ gifts, and, of course, talking about what kids actually like when it comes to toys. If you didnât have Big Toy Feelings before, you will after this one.
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Sometimes we do episodes where I know a fair amount about the subject and end up on a three minute digression about picture palaces. And sometimes Iâve only started to learn about a topic â or read within a genre â and am absolutely thrilled to spend an hour listening to someone elseâs expertise. Thatâs what weâre doing today with queer romance writer Adib Khorram: tackling your questions on everything from how to feel about queer romance written by straight people, why so many romance plots are M/M, where to find great trans romance, and so much more. And as with every episode in our romance series: you do not have to be an avid romance reader to find all of this interesting. (Although this episode might get you interested in becoming an avid romance reader!)
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Missing episodes?
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What is Quince and why is it everywhere? Who is running Albion Fit? Who buys clothes at Altarâd State? Why is Madewell so sad? This is an explainer episode, but itâs also a brands-feelings processing episode, because any time millennials try and talk about how J.Crew or Madewell has changed, theyâre also talking about how their own feelings about fashion have changed. And no one understands the rhythms of brands quite like Caroline Moss, the host and curator of the Gee Thanks Just Bought It extended universe. Listen as we attempt to answer all of your WTF-is-going-on-with-this-brand questions and hold space, as it were, for all of you big brand feelings⊠and tell us what brand still mystifies you!
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To hear more, visit culturestudypod.substack.com -
Sometimes I forget just how many classes I took on the history of cinema â or that I used to teach a class on it! â but then I have a conversation like the one youâre about to listen to and remember: oh right, I am a huge film history dork. This episode, featuring the brilliant Hannah McGregor, travels all over the past, present, and future of the blockbuster, from the theory of the âwhammy,â to Hannahâs book on Jurassic Park, from Barbie to Twisters, from why we started going to the movies to why weâve (largely) stopped. Itâs a ROMP and incredibly listenable â perfect for wherever youâre driving or to have on in the background while you chop one million brussels sprouts.
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I could talk about Nicole Kidman for hours. Very few Hollywood actors have had careers this varied, this delightful, this weird â oh, and sheâs also been married to Tom Cruise. She manages to be both chronically underestimated and overrated, and sheâs recently found herself in a slew of roles where she embodies a slew of different rich white ladies, each miserable in their own specific ways. For this episode, Iâm joined by the great Sam Sanders to talk about our own Kidman Syllabi and answer your questions about her most recent roles, (not) aging onscreen, and what makes her such an effective miserable rich person.
Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Let us know here.
To hear more, visit culturestudypod.substack.com -
Almost all of the public conversations about sex testing and sports â or, more to the point, who should be allowed to participate in womenâs sports â are pretty bad. In many if not most cases, theyâre outright transphobic; even in the âbestâ cases, theyâre still pretty ham-fisted. But Rose Eveleth is having a very different sort of public conversation about sex testing in their new podcast, Tested â one that looks to the way these tests affect the athletes subject to them, and how the concept of fairness in womenâs sports has become so fraught. For todayâs episode, Rose answers your questions about the history of womenâs sports gender panic, why men arenât subject to the same sex testing, and how the Paralympics imagines âfairnessâ in profoundly different ways. I absolutely loved this conversation. I think you will too.
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âMost people who complain about BookTok have never seen a BookTok.â Alyssa Morris drops that insight about two-thirds of the way through the episode, and itâs such a good point that I almost want to make it the title of the episode. Most people have an idea of what BookTok is (people talking about books on TikTok) but no real understanding of the immensity of BookTok. Itâs talking about what youâve read, sure, but itâs also about recommendations, and performance, and the aesthetics of reading culture â and the criticisms of it have a lot more to do with weird ideas about what reading (or talking about reading!) âshouldâ look like.
If youâre interested in reading culture, youâll be interested in this episode â full stop. Let it surprise you! And make sure to check out Alyssaâs BookTok newsletter, which has quickly become one of my favorite reads of the week.
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A podcast episode on the state of podcasting? Classic Culture Study Pod. At this point in my career, Iâve been interviewed on hundreds of podcasts, been adjacent to the production of dozens, been the host of three pods, and even watched a fourth pod go through two years of production only to get axed. The podcasting world is so dynamic, so weird, and so complicated⊠and industry analyst and critic Nicholas Quah is the best person to talk about its shifts, its future, and the best stuff coming out RIGHT NOW.
You asked so many good questions (about ads, about funding structures, about editing) that Nick and I did our best to answer â but I also canât wait to hear your follow-ups, because this world is ever-changing.
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You might look at the question in the title of this episode and think: duh, itâs because weâre weird about death. But cancer is so common, with so many different variations, with so many ways it can touch your life, in ways immediate and lasting⊠that of course weâve figured out ways to be weird about it. Of course there are bizarre metaphors, of course we donât have space for the messy, extended work of recovery; of course there are bizarre tropes and plot lines intended to make cancer more understandable which just make so many people feel like theyâre âfailingâ at cancer when their own experiences donât fit the popular narrative trajectory.
Dr. Stacy Wentworth is an oncologist, the author of the newsletter Cancer Culture, and the host of Less Radical, a new podcast about the surgeon who revolutionized breast cancer treatment â and changed the way we understand cancer today. And I knew sheâd be the perfect person to talk about the way we talk about cancer, all the weirdness that can accompany it, and how that discourse has changed over time.
Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Let us know here.
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You know that feeling when you and a friend get weird and detailed and hilarious about something you deeply (and maybe irrationally) hate, or find ridiculous, or canât stomach in your vicinity? Itâs one of my favorite versions of friendship intimacy â talking s**t about something you shouldnât dislike nearly as much as you do, because that thing is relatively trivial, but that doesnât mean that the thing itself doesnât make you want to bang your head against the wall.
And thatâs what this weekâs episode is: talking about all of your strong opinions about trivial s**t. Our co-host, Krista Burton, came up with the idea â because itâs a regular feature of her excellent and always entertaining newsletter (O Caftan My Caftan!). So join us as we talk about your strong opinions about gnomes, âjourneyâ and âseason,â boarding planes, late-in-life-lesbian-Tok, calling your romantic person âpartner,â mullets, and a very juicy/useful AAA section about almond boomers. I canât wait to talk even MORE about all of your strong opinions about trivial s**t in the comments.
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Whatâs the difference between a conspiracy theory and gossip? When does joking around about Kate Middletonâs abduction turn into something much darker? Are women actually more susceptible to contemporary conspiracy theories â or are we just finally paying attention to it? Cristen Conger, host of the new podcast Conspiracy, She Wrote joins me to talk about Taylor Swiftâs evil twin, BeyoncĂ©âs illuminati connections, Katie Holmes getting impregnated by Scientology aliens, sex trafficking panics, and how to talk to someone when they start directing a conspiracy theory your way. We go deep down the wormhole in this one, friends, but I think youâre gonna love it.
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You can almost hear the producers trying to sell this show to Hulu: Itâs hot Mormon moms⊠who are also swingers. Turns out only one of them was âswinging,â and the swinging was (in her words) âsoft.â But it was enough to get Hulu â and now, millions of other viewers â on board with Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which tracks the interlocking stories of eight Mormon influencers in Utah.
Like so much of contemporary reality television, this show is glossy, melodramatic, unhinged, and addictive. Itâs entertainment, sure, but itâs also a way for us to think through some of our own understandings of marriage, sex, friendship, religion, and feminism â which is exactly what Sara Petersen and I try to work through in this episode. That, and whether Dakota is a paid actor.
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Weâve had listeners asking us to do an episode on sapphic pop for months now, and were trying to figure out who we wanted to co-host. Then Melody sent me a text: I FOUND THE PERFECT PERSON. That person is Trish Bendix, who just published a sprawling look at the past and present (and popularity) of sapphic pop, from Big Momma Thornton to Chappell Roan. I absolutely loved this conversation, where we did our very best to answer your questions about everything from the â80s sound in contemporary sapphic pop to Jojo Siwa âinventingâ the genre. Plus we talk about âConstant Cravingâ at least three times (which Melody had never heard!!!!) Make sure you check out the show notes to links to all the songs we mention in the episode. Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Let us know here.
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This is a dream come true of an episode: we got the owners of The Ripped Bodice to talk to us about all the ins and outs of running a romance-only bookstore. We talk about everything from the genesis of their annual State of Racial Diversity in Romance Publishing Report to their fav recommendations for tweens and teens âŠ..and how they deal with âvintageâ romances in the store. I found everything about our discussion fascinating â plus, if youâre a paid subscriber, you get very good advice on how to recommend books to others!
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This episode is the Culture Study Podcastâs version of a Just Trust Me. Itâs difficult to describe exactly WHY itâs so good, just that after we finished recording (with Lilah Raptopoulos, host of the podcast Life and Art) Melody and I both immediately texted each other with: SO GOOD!!! The episode is ostensibly about figuring out how to cook in the world of infinite recipes, but itâs also about how we pass down recipes (or gatekeep them), recipes as a form of memory making (and retrieval), recipes as heritage⊠capped off with some practical advice about how to organize the recipes you do have (and how to ascertain if a recipe is âgoodâ).
I canât wait for you to listen, and if you donât think youâre a person that invested or interested in recipes: just trust me.
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Weâre more than twenty years into the current reality boom â and things are getting complicated. What are the unspoken and spoken ethics of signing up to become a reality star? What resources (about harassment and protection, about brand deals) should be made available to anyone who signs a reality contract? Are reality stars scabs during strikes â and should they unionize? WHAT MAKES THESE MELODRAMAS SO COMPELLING? WTF IS SCANDOVAL??? Hollywood correspondent Natalie Jarvey joins me to talk through it all.
(And just to be clear, even if youâre not a huge reality television person, this episode has something for you â I watch very little but Iâm very invested in reality melodrama reality labor as labor)
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Jennifer Romolini is one of my favorite thinkers about ambition, and workism, and the stories we tell ourselves about what we must endure in order to find a modicum of security and pride â and she also happens to be a true scholar of all things Ben Affleck. Months ago, I asked her to come on the podcast to talk about the intersection of Affleck and ambition, but we held the episode for a bit to give it some distance from the (also excellent!!) J.Lo episode. But weâd had it scheduled for today for several weeks â and Iâm writing this intro just hours after the news broke that Lopez had filed for divorce.
The good news is that everything Jenn and I talk about re: Affleckâs star image, ambition, striving, his relationship to stardom just generally â all of that still holds true. Just ignore the part when I say that I donât think theyâre going to get divorced. And I canât wait to hear your thoughts.
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TikTok is filled with wonders. Itâs SO weird. It can make you feel like the algorithm is telling you something you donât even realize about yourselfâŠ.or it serve you a whole bunch of cyst draining videos. In order to answer your questions about WTF is happening in your feed, I knew I needed a weird internet aficionado who also understands the way our tech platforms actually work. I needed Katie Notopoulos. Join us as we talk about the parallel dimension that is TikTok Live, the difference between Reels and TikTok content, those bizarre âbugs all over meâ videos, nail tapping ASMR, the clean girl aesthetic, and SO MUCH MORE.
Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Let us know here.
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Trad Wife Discourse is everywhere. Itâs been everywhere for a while, in part because it offers a twisted fantasy of ease to women who are attempting to negotiate life, and family, and career in a society whose policy is actively hostile to women working outside the home. But Iâve seen a spike in interest in the ramp-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, where a Trump victory â paired with the explicit goals of Project 2025, J.D. Vance, and Christian Nationalism in general â will make trad wife life just, well, life. It doesnât happen overnight. It happens incrementally, as choices are very slowly taken from you, or made more attractive. To get to what lures women into this life, and just how difficult it is to escape, I wanted to talk to someone who gets it in a way that those lurking in the Instagram comments simply cannot. So today weâre talking with Tia Levings, who left her trad wife life and, through a bunch of therapy and processing and support, figured out how she wanted to tell her story.
Content Warning: In our conversation, we talk explicitly about emotional and physical abuse and coercion. If youâre not in a place where you want to listen to that discussion, Iâd suggest skipping this episode.
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How do the politics of taste and HGTV shows intersect? Why do we watch, why do we feel the way we do when we watch, and how is taste shaped in the process of watching? When Jonathan Menjivar, host of the fantastic podcast Classy, told me he wanted to talk all things HGTV, I was thrilled. In this episode, we discuss the aesthetics of âquiet luxury,â Ben and Erin Napier vs. Chip and Joanna Gaines, the newly ubiquitous neo-farmhouse look and so much more.
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