On this week’s show, the panel is first joined by Mark Harris, cultural historian and the author of Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood , to discuss the 96th Academy Awards: a fun, glitzy return to form filled with surprisingly political moments. Then, the three review FX’s Shōgun , a massive epic set in 17th century Japan that many are calling “the new Game of Thrones .” But does it live up to the hype? Finally, the trio examines “Behind F1’s Velvet Curtain,...
Mar 13, 2024•56 min
This month marks not only the third birthday of In Case You Missed It but the birthdays of 75% of the ICYMI production team so what else could we do but host a birthday spectacular? On today’s episode, Rachelle and Candice receive birthday messages from friends of the show like Normal Gossip’s Alex Sujong Laughlin and Kelsey McKinney, Time’s Moises Mendez II, NPR’s Wailin Wong and more. Later in the show, they figure out how well they know each other with an ICYMI edition of GQ’s couple quiz. Th...
Mar 13, 2024•37 min
Like a manager or an agent or a publicist, a stylist has become a kind of must-have accessory for well-dressed, A-list celebrities. It’s just expected that they will have hired someone to select the clothes they’ll wear at public appearances. But this was not always the case. In today’s episode, Avery Trufelman, host of Articles of Interest , will guide us through the collapse of a certain kind of Hollywood glamor; to the rise of a growing, financially rewarding relationship between fashion desi...
Mar 13, 2024•39 min
This week, we’re revisiting an episode about the transitional lives of Uber drivers. Anna and then-producer Katie Bishop hitched multiple rides in the Bay Area and heard stories about immigration, domestic violence, personal finance, and more. Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus . Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com....
Mar 12, 2024•30 min
Joel Anderson, Stefan Fatsis, and Josh Levin are joined by Great Expectations author Vinson Cunningham to talk about the fracas between the LSU and South Carolina women’s basketball teams. They also discuss Steve Garvey, DEI in Florida, and other intersections between sports and politics in 2024. Women’s hoops (3:24): In so many ways, this weekend showed that this sport has the juice. Sports and politics (22:07): How athletes are influencing politics and policy this election year. Afterball (43:...
Mar 11, 2024•59 min
Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim are joined by writer and journalist Fortesa Latifi who has been reporting extensively on child influencer legislation for Teen Vogue. In August 2023, the governor of Illinois passed an amendment to the state’s child labor law that would require parents to compensate their children for their appearances in monetized content. Drawing comparisons to the Coogan Law, several states have followed suit and proposed their own legislation to finally address the privacy an...
Mar 09, 2024•37 min
On this week’s show, the panel returns to Arrakis! First up, the trio reviews Dune: Part Two , the (as the title suggests) second part of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 science fiction epic. In it, Timothée Chalamet plays Paul Atreides, the supposed “messiah” of Arrakis, a hostile desert planet rich in spice, in a fantastic feat of world building and worm-riding. Then, they examine God Save Texas , a three-part docu-series streaming on Max that follows three Texan filmmake...
Mar 06, 2024•54 min
On today’s show, Rachelle and Candice return to the halcyon days of YouTube in 2013, when wholesome youths with names like Zoe Sugg and Caspar Lee and Troye Sivan ruled supreme. Colloquially known as the Brit Crew , these teens and twenty-somethings were some of the first to prove that internet fame could translate into million-dollar empires. And while their influence has diminished over the past decade, their hold on our adolescent brains has lasted a lifetime which is why today’s episode is a...
Mar 06, 2024•43 min
To mark the return of Death, Sex & Money, we’re presenting a live celebration of new beginnings, featuring interviews with comedian and TV host W. Kamau Bell, writer Vicki Larson, Dr. Bonnie Chen, and artist Carissa Potter. You’ll also hear lively music accompaniment by D’Wayne Wiggins of Tony! Toni! Toné! This episode was recorded live at KQED in San Francisco on February 29, 2024. Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our memb...
Mar 05, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Joel Anderson, Stefan Fatsis, and Josh Levin are joined by NFL reporting legend Peter King to talk about the Chicago Bears’ quarterback dilemma, what he’s seen in his four decades covering pro football, and why Bill Belichick refuses to speak to him. Justin Fields and Caleb Williams (4:02): What are the Bears going to do? Peter King looks back (29:48): What stories did he screw up? Which ones does he wish he got to cover? Afterball (50:38): Stefan on D.C. public school basketball powerhouse Jack...
Mar 04, 2024•57 min
Candice Lim is joined by Link in Bio writer Rachel Karten, whose Substack breaks down how Stanley Cups went viral, why the Duolingo owl got a BBL and how “seemingly ranch” hit supermarket shelves. Karten was a social media manager who started her newsletter after leaving Bon Appétit following a racial and labor reckoning in 2020 that exposed — what the publication themselves called — a “ toxic, top-down culture .” Since then, Karten has found a rapt audience of more than 55,000 subscribers who a...
Mar 02, 2024•33 min
On this week’s show, the panel is first joined by Wesley Morris, New York Times’ critic at large, to dissect This Is Me… Now: A Love Story , Jennifer Lopez’s bizarre, nutty, yet utterly delicious self-funded vanity project that cost the singer $20 million to produce. (Wesley wrote a brilliant piece about it for the Times .) Then, the three explore 20 Days in Mariupol , the Oscar-nominated documentary by Ukrainian journalist Mstyslav Chernov that depicts the atrocities of the Russia-Ukraine war t...
Feb 28, 2024•59 min
On today’s episode, Rachelle is joined by her best friend Danielle Hewitt, a producer at Prologue Projects and, formerly, Slate’s daily news podcast What Next. In a deeply revealing exercise, the two go through a selection of the 250 TikToks that Danielle sent Rachelle while the latter was on a six week long social media break. But first, Candice breaks down the highlights of Jennifer Lopez’s new documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told . This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, ...
Feb 28, 2024•41 min
Thirty years ago, a new kind of soda arrived in select stores. Instead of crowing about how spectacular it was, it offered up a liquid shrug, a fizzy irony. OK Soda was an inside joke for people who knew soda wasn’t cool. But what exactly was the punchline? In today’s episode, we’re going to ask how Coca-Cola, a company predicated on the idea that soda is more than "OK," ever bankrolled such a project. It was either a corporate attempt to market authenticity or a bold send-up of consumer capital...
Feb 28, 2024•40 min
Joel Anderson, Stefan Fatsis, and Josh Levin discuss whether court-storming should be banned for good. The Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins also joins to explain why she believes the NCAA is cheapening Caitlin Clark’s scoring records. Finally, they assess the NCAA’s latest legal trouble and what comes next. Court-storming (4:41): Is it even possible to stop students from rushing the court? Clark’s records (22:48): The AIAW’s Lynette Woodard and Pearl Moore deserve respect and attention. NCAA (41:...
Feb 27, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Rachelle and Candice dive deep into the scammer story currently scratching the internet’s itch: Reesa Teesa’s 52-part “ Who TF Did I Marry ?” TikTok series. On February 14, @ ReesaMTeesa detailed the very harrowing story of meeting, dating and divorcing a man she calls “Legion.” She recaps her highly suspicious relationship to a man who courted her in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and allegedly lied about his job, family and previous marriages. From faking phone calls with imaginary si...
Feb 24, 2024•50 min
Barbra Streisand: star of stage and screen. Oscar-winner, film director and TV producer. Culture warrior and meme generator . Yes, all that—but don’t get it twisted: Barbra’s legend rests in her catalog of hit songs—and that voice. Even as culture vultures consume her recent doorstop of a memoir My Name Is Barbra , what’s getting overlooked are Streisand’s awesome musical benchmarks, especially on the Billboard charts. All of those records Taylor Swift has been setting on the album chart, and Bi...
Feb 24, 2024•38 min•Ep. 193
On this week’s show, the panel begins by dissecting Mr. & Mrs. Smith , the episodic remake of Brangelina’s 2005 espionage film. The Prime Video series stars Donald Glover and Maya Erskine as the titular Smiths, spies who become “married” as a part of the job, and explores partnership in the gig economy in a quieter, smaller, and less glamorous version of the original. Then, they review The Color Purple , a movie-musical adapted from Alice Walker’s seminal novel. The film stars Fantasia Barri...
Feb 21, 2024•51 min
On today’s episode, Rachelle is joined by Nadira Goffe to dive into the firestorm engulfing two recent interviews on Shannon Sharpe’s delightfully dishy podcast Club Shay Shay. Katt Williams and Mo’Nique sat down with Sharpe in separate three-hour-long interviews that have set the internet ablaze. Both of the legendary comedians dished about their long-standing beefs with figures such as Ludacris, Oprah, Tyler Perry, Cedric the Entertainer, Kevin Hart, D.L. Hughley, Tiffany Haddish and (somehow!...
Feb 21, 2024•46 min
Joel Anderson, Stefan Fatsis, and Josh Levin discuss whether the NBA All-Star Game is fixable. They also talk about whether Fanatics and Nike are destroying the sports uniform. Finally, writer Abraham Josephine Riesman joins to explain the allegations against wrestling impresario Vince McMahon and why they matter. All-Star Game (3:16): What can the league do to revive what used to be a showcase event? Uniforms (22:53): Baseball players say their new clothes are the pits. What happened? McMahon (...
Feb 20, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim catch up on the latest stories churning the Taylor Swift media machine, from her lawyers sending a cease and desist letter to a college student , to her possibly leading a groundbreaking case against AI deepfakes . Then, they break down the backlash surrounding Emily Mariko, who was criticized by her followers for selling out — and shelling out — a tote bag . This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton. Hoste...
Feb 17, 2024•44 min
On this week’s show, the panel returns to 1985 and reviews The Greatest Night in Pop , Netflix’s star-studded documentary about how “We Are the World” (a charity single performed by USA for Africa, a supergroup comprised of the most popular artists not only of the time, but arguably, ever) came to be and the legendary night it was recorded. Although it features cameos from Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Diana Ross, Paul Simon, Tina Turner, Cyndi Lauper, and more, the documentary manages to be q...
Feb 14, 2024•46 min
Candice Lim is joined by dating culture researcher Lakshmi Rengarajan and culture writer Kate Lindsay to discuss the past, present and future of dating apps. Online dating has been around since the days of dial-up. But apps like Tinder disrupted the market and changed the way we’ve dated for the past decade. Recently, there’s been several trends emerging, from Gen-Z abandoning the apps to baby boomers finding love later in life . So are we witnessing the death of dating apps or have they integra...
Feb 14, 2024•38 min
The eerie similarity of coffee shops all over the world was so confounding to Kyle Chayka that it led him to write the new book Filterworld: How Algorithms Are Flattening Culture . In today’s episode, Kyle’s going to walk us through the recent history of the cafe, to help us see how digital behavior is altering a physical space hundreds of years older than the internet itself, and how those changes are happening everywhere—it’s just easier to see them when they’re spelled out in latte art. This ...
Feb 14, 2024•30 min
Joel Anderson, Stefan Fatsis, and Josh Levin discuss the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win over the 49ers, the performances of Patrick Mahomes and Brock Purdy, and how the new overtime rules played out. CNBC’s Alex Sherman also comes on to explain whether a new multi-network streaming deal will change how we watch sports. How the Chiefs won (3:41): This Mahomes guy is pretty good. Overtime (20:07): Did the 49ers screw up by taking the ball first? Streaming (35:47): What you need to know about the new servi...
Feb 12, 2024•59 min
On today’s show, Rachelle makes her triumphant return. She’s joined by A.W. Ohlheiser, a senior technology reporter and editor at Vox, who recently wrote about the complicated lives and deaths of TikTok’s illness influencers . As Ohlheiser wrote, “These stories — whether held in an archive of personal letters, a widely discussed lecture, or on the For You pages of millions — are all shaped by the expectations of the ‘well.’ Turning sickness into content can get views. And just like any content, ...
Feb 10, 2024•37 min
Barbra Streisand: star of stage and screen. Oscar-winner, film director and TV producer. Culture warrior and meme generator . Yes, all that—but don’t get it twisted: Barbra’s legend rests in her catalog of hit songs—and that voice. Even as culture vultures consume her recent doorstop of a memoir My Name Is Barbra , what’s getting overlooked are Streisand’s awesome musical benchmarks, especially on the Billboard charts. All of those records Taylor Swift has been setting on the album chart, and Bi...
Feb 10, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 192
We’re back with a new batch of cultural mysteries! This year, we’re putting out more new episodes—like many more of them. We’ll be diving down a new rabbit hole every two weeks all year long. Starting with a question hiding in plain sight: why do so many coffee shops look the same? We’re also heading back to the early 1990s to ask if you can successfully sell a soda by celebrating that it’s just… OK? You can hear these episodes and more on Decoder Ring — now in your feed every two weeks beginnin...
Feb 07, 2024•1 min
On this week’s show, Extreme Friends of the Pod and co-authors of The World Only Spins Forward , Isaac Butler and Dan Kois, fill in for Dana Stevens and Julia Turner. The hosts begin by dissecting The Zone of Interest , filmmaker Jonathan Glazer’s audacious movie about the Holocaust that’s told through the lens of Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig as they live their somewhat ordinary lives in a compound outside of Auschwitz. The film has garnered both praise and severe critique fro...
Feb 07, 2024•53 min
Candice Lim is joined by culture critic and reporter Cyrena Touros to break down the battle between Universal Music Group and TikTok. On February 1, UMG started pulling their artists’ music from TikTok after their licensing contract expired. This meant creators weren’t able to interact with music from artists like Taylor Swift, Drake and Olivia Rodrigo. UMG claims this drastic move was necessary to ensure appropriate compensation for their artists and songwriters. But TikTok fired back, saying U...
Feb 07, 2024•32 min
