Society & Culture – Popular podcasts

  • What makes you a heretic? Journalist Andrew Gold believes that, in an age of group-think and tribes, we need heretics - those who use unconventional wisdom to speak out against their own groups, from cancelled comedians and radical feminists to cult defectors and vigilantes hunting deviants.

    Learn from my guests how to rebel, think differently and resist social contagion. From Triggernometry's Francis Foster and the world's most cancelled man Graham Linehan to ex-Hasidic Jew Julia Haart and gender critical atheist Richard Dawkins. These are the people living with the weight of their own community's disappointment on their shoulders.

  • If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

  • The Megyn Kelly Show is your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures today. No BS. No agenda. And no fear.

  • Why am I making a podcast? The best answer I can come up with is that I feel like Iโ€™ve been failing my entire life, so I can speak from plenty of experience. Sure, I was on The X Files and Californication, I wrote some books and made some music. But I also got a literal F in The New York Times. I had a high-profile divorce and a magical mystery tour through rehab. So now I want to get into the way that failure looms over all of us and really shapes who we are. Whatโ€™s good about that, whatโ€™s bad about that, whatโ€™s holding us back in shame? Lots to unpack here. So join me and some cool guests from sports, tv, politics, business and beyond starting May 7, wherever you get your podcasts โ€“ and weโ€™ll get into it.

  • Fresh Air from WHYY, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio's most popular programs. Hosted by Terry Gross, the show features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.

    Subscribe to Fresh Air Plus! You'll enjoy bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening - all while you support NPR's mission. Learn more at plus.npr.org/freshair

  • Something Was Wrong is an award-winning docuseries about the discovery, trauma, and recovery from crime, shocking life events and abusive relationships.

  • Mobilizing students on 2,000 college and high school campuses across the country, Charlie has your inside scoop on the biggest news of the week and what's really going on behind the headlines. The founder of Turning Point USA and Twitter's 5th most engaged personality sits down with some of the biggest newsmakers of our time to talk politics, pop-culture, sports, and a little bit of everything else - all from his signature no holds barred, right-of-center, freedom-loving point of view.

  • *** Named a best podcast of 2021 by Time, Vulture, Esquire and The Atlantic. ***
    Each Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation on something that matters. How do we address climate change if the political system fails to act? Has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives? What is the future of the Republican Party? What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness? What does sci-fi understand about our present that we miss? Can our food system be just to humans and animals alike?

    Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

  • Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner uncovers the hidden side of everything. Why is it safer to fly in an airplane than drive a car? How do we decide whom to marry? Why is the media so full of bad news? Also: things you never knew you wanted to know about wolves, bananas, pollution, search engines, and the quirks of human behavior.

    Join the Freakonomics Radio Plus membership program for weekly member-only episodes of Freakonomics Radio. You’ll also get every show in our network without ads. To sign up, visit our show page on Apple Podcasts or go to freakonomics.com/plus.

  • Soul Boom is a series of intimate conversations hosted by Rainn Wilson exploring meaningful and inspiring topics that tickle the mind, heart and soul. Never too precious, yet unafraid to touch on the profound, Soul Boom digs into the core of the human experience: creativity, spirituality and psychology. Bringing to the conversation some of the most brilliant and heart-felt artists, thinkers and doers, Soul Boom guides the listener toward transformation on both a personal and societal level. Also, laughs. 

  • My name is Nick Viall and I host The Viall Files, a podcast that one anonymous reviewer called “surprisingly insightful and substantive.”

    The Viall Files explores all things dating and love - from post-breakup healing to salacious texts - in our three (and sometimes four) weekly episodes.

    Ask Nick - Every Monday, listeners navigating a challenging yet relatable interpersonal circumstance--from a 2 year situationship to a blowout fight with their mom to a friendship feud to reigniting intimacy after 10 years of marriage--call in for Nick's signature blunt yet compassionate advice. It's ripe with the type of hard truths your friends are too afraid to say, but you're better off for hearing.

    Bachelor Recap - We break down this week's episode of the Bachelor, Bachelorette, or Bachelor in Paradise on Tuesdays. This color commentary is full of hot takes, debates, jokes, and the insider knowledge only a former Bachelor can provide. Nick, Ali and Amanda are joined by special celebrity guests--you'd be surprised how many of your favorite actors and comedians are closet bachelor fans.

    Freestyle - On Tuesday during the Bachelor "off-season," we dive into the hot-button, zeitgeist topics--the latest celebrity drama, trending reality tv shows, new love song/music video that everyone's obsessed with, and occasionally a months-long highly publicized defamation trial between divorced A-list actors. Our lively discussions include takeaways we can all relate to.
    We also have "Texting Office Hours," a segment where we help a caller craft, edit, and press the send button on a nerve-wracking message.

    Going Deeper - Every Thursday, a special guest joins the show for a tell-all interview and to discuss their latest project, their philosophies on love and relationships, plus the most relevant pop culture topics. These episodes conclude with our beloved "Texting Office Hours " segment where Nick, the guest, and our co-hosts team up to give advice to a listener on a message they need help writing.

    The Update Show - The last Friday of the month, by popular demand (and we mean POPULAR) cliffhangers are resolved and burning questions are answered with updates from our most engaging callers. These much-anticipated follow-ups reveal if the caller took Nick's advice and how everything transpired, providing much-needed resolution to the callers' stories that stole our hearts and attention.

  • The "Shawn Ryan Show" is hosted by Shawn Ryan, former U.S. Navy SEAL, CIA Contractor, and Founder of Vigilance Elite. We tell REAL stories about REAL people from all walks of life. We discuss the ups and downs, wins and losses, successes and struggles, the good and bad in a respectful but candid way with our guest. We're better than entertainment, we're the REAL thing. Please enjoy the show.

  • Investigative reporter Matt Katz has been searching for his biological father since he was a little kid. But it wasn't until his 40s that he realized he was on the wrong journey altogether. The true story is wrapped in confusion and secrecy, and in the end it upended the truth about who he is – raising questions about identity, fatherhood, medical ethics and what family really means. But will finding answers make him whole, or just make things even more complicated?

    Inconceivable Truth is an 8-episode series with new episodes publishing Thursday mornings.

  • There’s a reason the History Channel has produced hundreds of documentaries about Hitler but only a few about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bad guys (and gals) are eternally fascinating. Behind the Bastards dives in past the Cliffs Notes of the worst humans in history and exposes the bizarre realities of their lives. Listeners will learn about the young adult novels that helped Hitler form his monstrous ideology, the founder of Blackwater’s insane quest to build his own Air Force, the bizarre lives of the sons and daughters of dictators and Saddam Hussein’s side career as a trashy romance novelist.

  • Dark Downeast: Maine and New England's True Crime Podcast digs into the decades-old and modern day cases that prickle the history of Vacationland and beyond – the unsolved homicides, undetermined deaths, unexplained disappearances and other dark stories of New England.

    Investigative journalist and storyteller Kylie Low gets straight to the story with a mix of narrated episodes and documentary style production featuring interviews with surviving family and friends and insight on the investigations from detectives and sources who know these cases best.

    This is heart-centered, ethical true crime, bringing light to stories you’re not hearing on other podcasts. It is Dark Downeast's mission to honor the legacy of the humans at the heart of each story and bring new attention to the cases still awaiting justice.

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  • Sword and Scale is a true crime podcast covering the dark underworld of crime and the criminal justice system’s response to it. The first episode launched January 1st, 2014 and feature stories of murder, abduction, rape, and even more bizarre forms of crime. It’s the purest form of true-crime where the raw uncensored audio tells the story. Everything from 911 calls to court testimony, interviews with victims and sometimes with perpetrators give listeners a 360 degree look at the seedy underbelly of human nature and so-called civilized society. Told from an everyman's point of view, Sword and Scale goes beyond the news clips and the sensationalist headlines to hold up a mirror to the audience and ask, "Is it us versus them? Or are we just like 'them' too?" Sword and scale proves that the worst monsters are real.

  • Andrew Santino and Bobby Lee present BAD FRIENDS. New episodes every Monday!

    FOLLOW US!

    Bad Friends:
    https://www.instagram.com/badfriendspod
    https://twitter.com/badfriends_pod

    Andrew Santino:
    https://www.instagram.com/cheetosantino
    https://twitter.com/CheetoSantino
    https://www.youtube.com/andrewsantinowhiskeyginger

    Bobby Lee:
    https://www.instagram.com/bobbyleelive
    https://twitter.com/bobbyleelive
    http://bit.ly/SubscribeToTigerBelly

    Official Website: http://www.badfriendspod.com

  • Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) is a weekly show from Jamie Loftus that takes a closer look at the internetโ€™s main characters โ€“ one part reported, one part interviews, and one part Jamie collapsing her permanently internet-damaged brain. Whether itโ€™s an enduring meme or a dreaded Character of the Day distinction, itโ€™s the kind of notoriety that often results in little money, unwarranted attention, and a confusing blurred line of consent. What do you do when you get more attention and judgement than any one person is built to handle? The Sixteenth Minute of Fame is the place where we figure that out, putting people in the context of the moment they've been frozen inside of.

  • Join host Morgan Absher and her team of co-hosts as they scavenge Reddit, listener write-ins, and the rest of the internet to give their hot takes on the juiciest dating, relationship, life, and AITA stories.

    Morgan's IG: https://www.instagram.com/morgsyabsher/
    Listen to exclusive stories: https://www.patreon.com/TwoHotTakes
    Follow along on Instagram: @TwoHotTakes
    Check out our YouTube Channel for full length videos! https://www.youtube.com/c/TwoHotTakes

  • Daphne Woolsoncroft and Heath Merryman discuss haunting details of different disappearance and murder cases week by week. New episodes released every Tuesday and Friday.