Before, during, and after Zohran Mamdani became the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, Republicans and Democrats were both leaning into decades old Islamophobic tropes to delegitimize his candidacy. Meanwhile, young progressives are reclaiming those tropes. Why is Islamophobia politically salient today, and why are both sides of the aisle using it to achieve their own political goals? To answer this, Brittany is joined by Tazeen Ali , a professor of religion and politics at Washingto...
Jul 09, 2025•20 min
What do Trump, JK Rowling, and some feminists have in common? Based on history, more thank you might think. In this episode, Brittany and KQED's Nastia Voynovskaya explore the roots of modern-day transphobia through the story of one music producer, Sandy Stone. Then Brittany is joined by journalist Imara Jones to get into how Trump and JK Rowling's rhetoric matches some of those early feminists. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and...
Jul 07, 2025•22 min
Republicans have passed President Trump's One Big, Beautiful bill, but is it built on bad faith stereotypes? The legislation guts funding for Medicaid, and for a long time Republicans have been attacking the program as sort of welfare for moochers. Who exactly are these moochers? And could it be you? Brittany is joined by Joan Alker , Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Georgetown Center for Children and Families, and Jamila Michener , professor and author of Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid,...
Jul 04, 2025•15 min
This season of Love Island USA has the timeline on fire...but maybe not for the reasons y'all hoped. Is it mirroring our dating lives a little too close? To get into the season, Brittany chats with co-owner of Defector Media, Kelsey McKinney and co-host of Scamfluencers , Sarah Hagi , about the glimpses of romance amidst Love Island's largely unromantic current season, and how the show may be an unfortunate reflection of current dating woes. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collecti...
Jul 02, 2025•20 min
In our 'Your Body, Whose Choice' series, we've focused a lot on the present and the future of reproductive health in this country. And now we'd like to share a look at the past from our sister show, NPR's Embedded . Their new 3–part series, The Network , follows a Brazilian women who discovered a method to have safe abortions, regardless of the law. And, as abortion restrictions tighten in the United States, American women have taken note. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection...
Jun 30, 2025•23 min
New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani pulled off an astonishing upset this week. In the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, he beat out the long-favored winner, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who conceded the race only hours after the polls closed. The two candidates were of the same party, but held very different positions within it: Cuomo is older, spent more than a decade as Governor and positioned himself as a law-and-order centrist. Mamdani is younger, newer to politics and a to...
Jun 27, 2025•19 min
There's one little statistic that seems to have gained a lot of attention recently: the birth rate. With pro-natalist ideas showing up in our culture and politics, Brittany wanted to know: why are people freaking out? Who's trying to solve the population equation, and how? Brittany is joined by Kelsey Piper , senior writer at Vox , and Gideon Lewis-Kraus , staff writer at The New Yorker , to get into how the birth rate touches every part of our culture - and why we might need to rethink our appr...
Jun 25, 2025•25 min
Adriana Smith's pregnancy became an ethical and legal quandary. After being declared brain dead, a Georgia hospital kept her on life support without her family's consent because of the state's abortion laws. Now that the baby has been delivered and Smith taken off life support, Brittany wonders: how has the conservative effort to see fetuses as people overshadowed the lives of the mothers who birth them? This is... Your Body, Whose Choice? And for the next few weeks, we're looking at the cultura...
Jun 23, 2025•15 min
Many millennials either are already in their 40s or are staring them down. Are they having a midlife crisis? As this generation enters midlife, their lives look really different from their parents' lives: Millennials are more educated and have a higher median net worth , but the generation is also more unequal than previous generations, has higher debt and has lower rates of homeownership and marriage . How does that all shape what millennial midlife crises are starting to look like? Brittany fi...
Jun 20, 2025•17 min
It's summer! Which means Brittany is going to be... 1) outside, 2) chilling, and 3) reading. So it's once again time for It's Been a Minute's annual summer books episode! Celebrated romance authors Bolu Babalola and Emily Henry return to the show to discuss their summer reading recommendations, ranging from spiteful and salacious to sweet and spicy. Books discussed in the episode: Sweet Heat by Bolu Babalola Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy The Count of Monte ...
Jun 18, 2025•18 min
In a country where birth control access is in jeopardy and women's medical needs have been historically overlooked , how do social media trends like #lutealphase and "cycle syncing" complicate the narrative? This is... Your Body, Whose Choice? And for the next few weeks, we're looking at the cultural, legal, and ideological frameworks shaping reproductive health in America...and what this means for the near and far future of our families, our personal agency, and our planet. Today, University of...
Jun 16, 2025•21 min
Protests have spread across the country after dozens of workers were swept up in an ICE raid in Los Angeles last week, but the support for the protesters is far from universal. In this bonus episode, Brittany is joined by NPR Immigration Correspondent Sergio Martínez-Beltrán and author of A Protest History of the United States, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall , to discuss what's happening on the ground, and how Americans understand and misunderstand the concept of protest. See pcm.adswizz.com for info...
Jun 13, 2025•17 min
You may have heard that super viral song on TikTok called "Looking for a man in finance," and yeah, it's fun. But does it speak to people's broader desires to find someone who's more than comfortable financially? Host Brittany Luse is joined by Wailin Wong , co-host of NPR's The Indicator , and Reema Khrais , host of Marketplace's This Is Uncomfortable . They discuss what people are really looking for from a man in finance... and whether dating up in class is even possible. This episode original...
Jun 12, 2025•18 min
So you got 'The Ick?' That feeling of disgust when someone your date does something that you just can't look past. You think it's about them, but is 'The Ick' actually about you? Brittany is joined by B.A. Parker , co-host of NPR's Code Switch, Corey Antonio Rose , a producer for It's Been A Minute, and Josh Rottman , associate professor of psychology and a disgust expert. They discuss what 'The Ick' is and what it's really about. This episode originally published December 10th, 2024. See pcm.ad...
Jun 11, 2025•16 min
A lot of us have seen how explosive breakup stories have been on social media. From Reesa Teesa's "Who TF did I marry..." to Spritely's breakup song , these posts have been drawing gasps and gaining traction. But is it harmless fun, or an invasion of privacy? When do your personal stories belong on social media and when do they not? To find out, Brittany is joined by Molly McPherson , crisis PR expert, and Rebecca Jennings , senior correspondent at Vox. They get into what people actually get out...
Jun 09, 2025•18 min
Is it just us, or are the Pride month vibes a little off this year? Between targeted censorship, legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ health care, and a financial pullout from many corporations, queer people and their allies are celebrating with heavier hearts this year. But perhaps it's a moment to reconsider what "pride" is really for? This week, Brittany is joined by culture journalist Tre'vell Anderson , and author and organizer Raquel Willis to parse through the contradictions of Pride 2025. See p...
Jun 06, 2025•18 min
You may have heard that the U.S. gained 59 new residents last month from South Africa - and that more came this past weekend. They're all white Afrikaners: a white minority group descended from European colonists. Trump has given some of these white Afrikaners refugee status because he claims a "white genocide" is happening against them in South Africa. This claim is untrue. So where is it coming from? And why might this claim be politically expedient for the Trump administration? And what paral...
Jun 04, 2025•18 min
The stereotype is that Canadians are kind, but they by and large do not take kindly to President Trump's idea of making Canada our 51st state. As of April , two-thirds of Canadians considered the U.S. to be "unfriendly" or an "enemy," and 61% say they have started boycotting American companies. However, Canadian dislike and distrust of the U.S. is not new. Canadian views of the U.S. have trended down for decades, from a high of 81% of Canadians holding favorable views of the U.S. under Clinton i...
Jun 02, 2025•19 min
After 8 trips to the Super Bowl, 73 year-old former NFL coach Bill Belichick is ready to start a new phase in his career: mentor, college football coach, and now doting boyfriend to 24-year-old Jordon Hudson. But as Hudson also takes an increasingly important role in Belichick's professional life, people are speculating about the motivations behind their union. Why do we care? Brittany is joined by arts and entertainment reporter Shar Jossell and Vox senior correspondent Alex Abad-Santos to expl...
May 30, 2025•16 min
A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer, obesity, autism, bipolar disorder, even celiac disease. These conditions are informed by many genetic variants and environmental factors - so companies like Orchid and Heliospect assign risk scores to each embryo for a given condition. These tests are expensive, only available through IVF, and some researchers question how these risk scores are calculated. But ...
May 28, 2025•23 min
Brittany keeps looking at a new couch online, and every time she goes to buy it she sees an option to "Buy Now, Pay Later," which made her wonder...should she? Here's what she found: Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) loans have become one of the go-to ways to get access to credit fast. Companies like Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay make buying big purchases relatively easy by allowing people to pay in installments over time. But some Americans have taken to using this method for everyday items like groceri...
May 26, 2025•20 min
Children's educator and YouTube star Ms. Rachel has used her social media to advocate for the safety of children all over the world - but when she used her platform to call attention to the plight of children in Gaza, she was accused of being paid by Hamas. This week, Brittany is joined by Defector managing editor Samer Kalaf and The Guardian's data editor Mona Chalabi to unpack why it's suddenly so controversial to advocate for kids. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and ...
May 23, 2025•17 min
Online discourse has become a fun part of enjoying and dissecting big pop culture events. But after seeing all the commentary around Ryan Coogler's Sinners - one of the biggest cultural juggernauts of the year - Brittany has one question: are we in a media literacy crisis? Difference of opinion is one thing, but it feels like some viewers are missing important clues or misreading the film entirely - and it doesn't stop with Sinners . To help work through this, Pop Culture Happy Hour's Aisha Harr...
May 21, 2025•18 min
It's been seven years since the Supreme Court legalized sports betting outside of Nevada . For some, it's a hobby that spices up a game, but for others it's become a side hustle or investing strategy. And in a time where 60% of U.S. households don't earn enough to afford basic costs of living ... that can be a problem. This... is Money Troubles. And for the next few weeks, we're looking into the ways everyday people are trying to make ends meet... and what it says about how our culture views lab...
May 19, 2025•17 min
The highly anticipated federal trial against Sean "Diddy" Combs has begun. The hip-hop mogul is facing charges of racketeering and sex trafficking, and could be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty. So why is his attorney, Marc Agnifilo, telling the court they're going to "take the position that there was mutual violence" in his relationship with the singer Cassie Ventura? Brittany is joined by author Beverly Gooden and Loyola University law professor Laurie Levenson to discuss why "mutua...
May 16, 2025•16 min
Should AI give you a voice? Even when you've been murdered? An AI avatar of a murder victim addressed his killer in court last week , and it may have been the first admittance of an AI-generated victim impact statement in a US court. Chris Pelkey, who was shot in a road rage incident in 2021, was recreated in a video made by his sister to offer forgiveness to his killer. This could mark the start of a new relationship between AI and the law, but will it change the relationship between us and the...
May 14, 2025•13 min
Concert tickets are more expensive than ever, and according to Live Nation, 2023 was the biggest year ever for concert turnout and ticket sales. So why are indie artists turning to OnlyFans to pay the bills? This is PART ONE of our new series, Money Troubles. And for the next few weeks, we're looking into the ways everyday people are trying to make ends meet... and what it says about how our culture views labor, basic needs, and even our favorite pastimes. In this episode, Brittany sits down wit...
May 12, 2025•18 min
The leftward shift of Gen Z women is one of the most dramatic political trends happening right now. Polling data from Gallup found that 40% of young women aged 18-29 self-describe as liberal compared to 28% of the same demographic at the beginning of the century. So what's causing a new generation of young women to move to the left? Brittany is joined by founder of the Up and Up Newsletter, Rachel Janfaza , and New York Times reporter, Claire Cain Miller . Together they discuss what we should ma...
May 09, 2025•19 min
The Trump administration wants their recent tariffs to function as incentives for Americans to produce more of our own goods in our own factories. And one poll shows that 80% of us say the country would be better off if more Americans worked in manufacturing. But why do people on both sides of the aisle want these jobs back so much? What have we lost culturally with the loss of factory jobs that we want to bring back? And ultimately - how does the fantasy of bringing more factory jobs back stack...
May 07, 2025•20 min
They did THAT. The biggest designers and celebrities showed up at the 2025 Met Gala, everyone from Rihanna to Madonna. And in this special bonus episode, Brittany and her guests break down the best and worst looks of the night. Culture writer Shelton Boyd-Griffith , Editor-In-Chief Antoine Griffith , and Brittany award the highs and lows of the night to Teyana Taylor, Rosalia, Colman Domingo, Miley Cyrus, Diana Ross, and more. Who was on top, and who was on the bottom of the list? See pcm.adswiz...
May 06, 2025•20 min
