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 “quiet luxury,” Ben and Erin Napier vs. Chip and Joanna Gaines, the newly ubiquitous neo-farmhouse look and so much more . Join the ranks of paid subscribers and g...
Jul 31, 2024•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast A seven-part Netflix docuseries on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders called America’s Sweethearts ? Oh my god, WHAT a rich text. The uniform, the dances, the body norms, the coded language, the particular feminine ideals, the intersections with Texas culture and evangelical culture — there’s just so much there. And I was thrilled when Sam Sanders and Zach Stafford, two of the co-hosts of the indispensable Vibe Check , agreed to help answer all of your (excellent) questions. (We couldn’t get the ri...
Jul 24, 2024•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast How are romance writers — and the recent romance boom — chipping away at the norms of Big Publishing? Does self-publishing lead to more diverse authors and characters? How has Amazon both expanded and limited the market? That’s what we’re grappling with in today’s episode. Back in June, romance novelist Nisha Sharma broke down all the tropes and trends of contemporary romance. Next month, we’ll have the owners of a romance bookstore explaining the the big (and complicated) business of romance-on...
Jul 17, 2024•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast J.Lo is, as we say in the Culture Study universe, a rich text . There is so much history, so many layers of accumulated meaning, so many relationships, and so little in terms of actual revelations. She gives so much and yet offers so little! Chelsea Devantez is a celebrity memoir aficionado, a humor writer, and a newly-minted J.Lo scholar — and the absolute perfect co-host to unpack all of your J.Lo questions, like why does Mariah hate her, why can’t she and Ben be happy, what the hell is going ...
Jul 10, 2024•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Why do jeans make us FEEL THINGS? I mean, I have a lot of feelings about the “going out top,” but at least I no longer have to deal with it. Jeans, they’re still here in my wardrobe, making me feel uncool. It’s the actual garment, sure, but it’s also a garment in constant fashion flux — and almost always designed to fit one sort of (thin) body. There’s no one better to talk about big jeans feelings than Virginia Sole-Smith , who’s written a four-part series on ‘jean science’ and the relationship...
Jun 26, 2024•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Most people I know think the monarchy — any monarchy — is pretty ridiculous. And yet: most people I know also know a lot about Meghan Markle and followed the #whereiskate conspiracy theorists at least part way down the rabbit hole. They’re rich celebrities, sure, but they’re also embodiments of empire in decline — and I wanted to think through how royal fascination manifests differently depending on where you live, how you were raised, and identification (or lack thereof) with “your” generation ...
Jun 19, 2024•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sephora teens are teens who hang out at Sephora — and they’re a point of cultural anxiety because 1) they’re buying a lot of makeup and skincare products and 2) we have complex and contradictory feelings about when we should start caring about makeup and skincare products, even though absolutely everything in our culture tells young people they should’ve started caring about these things yesterday. Do Sephora Teens just want a public place to hang out without their parents? Didn’t we *also* play...
Jun 12, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast After our GREAT discussion of A Court of Roses and Thorns we realized we wanted to talk a lot more about romance: about the so-called “boom” and what’s fueling it, of course, but also about various tropes (sick bed, forbidden romance, grumpy protagonist), race and cultural specificity, the level of “spice” and how it shows up on the page, and how to manage your own romance reading behavior. Melody heard Nisha Sharma speak at Romance GenreCon last year and knew she was the person to address so ma...
Jun 05, 2024•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Spoiler: No, millennials are not the most nostalgic generation — we’re just in a deeply nostalgic moment in our lives, reckoning (sometimes gracefully, other times less so) with no longer being the Main Character in the generational story. But this moment does give us opportunity to talk about the shape and purpose of nostalgia, how YouTube both amplifies and short-circuits it, and so much more — featuring one of my favorite nostalgia thinkers, Gabe Bullard . We talk about gum commercials, infla...
May 29, 2024•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast The very first episode of this pod was on how clothes got so shitty — and it prompted a whole bunch of you to write in with your questions about how the entire experience of obtaining those clothes became so shitty. Some of it is just what’s going on in the fashion world more broadly (and a continued refusal to believe that anyone larger than a size 12 wants cute, well-made clothes that fit and wants to pay you money for them) but some of it is just the weird ever-changing world of online shoppi...
May 22, 2024•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast I spent years of my life studying celebrity images and what makes them meaningful to us. A celebrity’s actions or words can make or deepen our connection to them — or they can really piss us off. But why? Is it just a classic case of dashed expectations? What makes, oh, Taylor Swift hanging out with Matty Healy so disappointing ? For this episode, I asked celebrity feelings expert Margaret H. Willison to come answer your questions about the broad contours of celebrity-directed anger — and work t...
May 15, 2024•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you grew up in or adjacent to evangelical culture, the sounds of ‘90s and early 2000s Christian Rock are as familiar to you as the beginning bars of Britney Spears “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” The Newsboys, dcTalk, Jars of Clay, Third Day, Jennifer Knapp, Caedmon’s Call — these groups peaked just twenty years ago, but the sound and vibe feels like an archeological find. Same for the crossover “secular” hits from Creed, Lifehouse, Sixpence None the Richer, and Switchfoot. Where did Christian r...
May 08, 2024•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast A platform where you can record what you’re reading and talk to others about what they’re reading doesn’t sound like a recipe for dystopia. But throw in a negligent billionaire conglomerate owner, optimization culture, and a competitive industry in which the line between reader and author is continually blurred… and you have a legitimate book lover’s hellscape. In other words: Goodreads! Today, I’m joined by book lover and book critic Maris Kreizman to talk about the rot at the heart of the plat...
May 01, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast A listener submitted a question earlier this week that was basically: Why are we talking about Taylor Swift again???? And I get it: if you’re not a fan, if her music is not for you, you too might be tired of the ongoing Taylor Swift Conversation. But I’m ultimately less interested in Taylor Swift herself and more interested in the shape of that conversation: what are we actually talking about when we talk about Taylor Swift? We’re talking about work and scarcity, we’re talking about aesthetics a...
Apr 24, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Who can force a nationwide conversation about musical genre for a whole damn month ? Beyoncé can. And I knew I wanted to be several weeks into that discussion — and several weeks into my own relationship with the album — before I dove in myself. I also knew I wanted to talk about it with someone else with a similarly deep and ambivalent relationship with country music: the good, the white, the cold-beer-nation-building, all of it. So I was absolutely thrilled when Elamin Abdelmahmoud agreed to c...
Apr 17, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Moms For Liberty sucks. I’m not going to even try to soften that statement, because it’s true: they’re an ideologically regressive organization that is wielding the idea of “parental rights” to censor books, teachers, and instructional materials. They make it much, much harder for educators to do their jobs — and many of the people most involved don’t even have kids in public schools . But to defeat them, you have to understand what they’re doing — and how they’re doing it. Which is why I wanted...
Apr 10, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Driving, attending meetings, hunching over laptops, zooming, commuting, absentmindedly scrolling Instagram — so much of contemporary life encourages if not outright demands that we sit . But study after study (and maybe just your own body) has told you: this much sitting is not great for us . But what are we supposed to do instead? Can we get rid of the junk wellness moralizing (10,000 steps a day!) and figure out small things that actually make our bodies feel better ? Turns out, yes! And Manou...
Apr 03, 2024•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast As any Pacific Northwest teen from the ‘90s and early 2000s who carted a Nalgene around campus can tell you: WATER BOTTLE CULTURE IS NOT NEW. As pretty much any Grandpa or Boomer Dad can tell you: NEITHER IS STANLEY. But the demand for Stanley Tumblers (and, just as important, the inflated, often misogynistic conversation around it?) That’s (sorta) new. Like everything we talk about on this show: it’s complicated. For today’s episode, we invited Amanda Mull back to the show to unpack the so-call...
Mar 27, 2024•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast I occasionally encounter someone who asks: Who would follow a celebrity on Instagram ? Lady, I WOULD . I do! I follow celebrities who I actually like and celebrities who I find weird and complicated (Gwen Stefani, hi) and celebrities I wrote about or profiled at some point in the last ten years and now know all about their workout routines (hi, Brie Larson). But I didn’t follow Kevin Bacon — until a reel of him dancing , back-lit in his barn, to “Footloose” (in celebration of the end of the Acto...
Mar 20, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does it mean to think of student loans as culture? First off, it means that we can think of them as something that’s changeable . Because as much as we’ve come to think of massive piles of debt as “just the way it is” for a broad swath of people (and more and more every year), there’s nothing inevitable about student loans. Our status quo doesn’t have to be saddling young adults (and/or their parents, and/or their grandparents) with albatrosses of debt, simply to obtain the credentials that...
Mar 13, 2024•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you’ve been in a bookstore lately, you’ve undoubtedly seen it: A Court of Thorns and Roses, better known as ACOTAR , ruling over the paperback bestsellers with all its sequel pals. These books are behemoths. They’re massive. They’ve sold millions upon millions of copies. They’re about faeries. And they’re very, very hot. Culture writer (and lifelong fantasy reader) Kathryn VanArendon k joins me to talk all things ACOTAR , from “is the writing bad” and “is that actually an interesting question...
Mar 06, 2024•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Every so often, I do a Culture Study (newsletter) interview that inspires a LOT of follow-up questions — and the podcast is the perfect forum to address them, particularly when the interviewee is as smart and hilarious and curious as Heather Radke. For today’s episode, Heather and I tackle all your BUTTS questions, like: Why are butts so funny? Isn’t it weird the fossil record can’t tell us how big butts were? Wouldn’t it be awesome if someone told you about hemorrhoids in a very matter-of-fact ...
Feb 28, 2024•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Bradley Cooper would very much like an Oscar. If you’ve been paying attention to Hollywood at any point over the last five years, you know this. It’s evident in the films he makes, the way he talks about them, the cheesesteak food truck he opened for a weekend to keep himself in the press cycle. There’s nothing wrong with wanting an Oscar — what actor doesn’t want one?! — but what happens when that desire becomes the overarching theme of your entire image? The dominant way the public understands...
Feb 21, 2024•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Maybe you’ve seen it happen, or maybe you’ve just heard it whispered: divorce is contagious. One person in a friend group gets divorced, and suddenly it seems like EVERYONE is. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but we wanted to have divorce aficionado Lyz Lenz on the pod to answer all your questions about the way we pathologize divorce. If you like the show, would you share it with a friend who would too? Post it on Instagram. Follow or subscribe to the pod on your podcast app, and/or write us ...
Feb 14, 2024•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, there are coaches for everything. Business, fitness, careers, breastfeeding, parenting, ADHD, MLMs, divorce… even death. Is it b******t? Or is it offering a valuable service? And how can you tell the difference in a totally unregulated space? Jane Marie , host of The Dream , joins me to delve into the world of personal coaching. If you like the show, it is SO INCREDIBLY HELPFUL for our fledging pod if you can share it with others. Send it to your nerdy friend or coworker who’d love it. Po...
Feb 07, 2024•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Philanthropy is so weird. Celebrities: also weird. When the two collide, you get something even more bizarre. Why should we believe what Ashton Kutcher has to say about human trafficking? How did Bill Gates change the very core of his image? What does The Gilded Age teach us about philanthropy and social position? And why does giving feel more and more like shopping ? Amy Schiller joins the pod to work through the tangled knot of modern philanthropy. If you like the show, it is SO INCREDIBLY HEL...
Jan 31, 2024•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast At some point in the last year I looked around and realized… 2000s music was EVERYWHERE. Nelly Furtado. Timbaland. Eminem. 50 Cent. MGMT. In Bama Rush videos. At sports games. In the background of TikToks of teens plaintively yearning to be 2000s teens. In weird animation videos meant for seven-year-old boys. Why THIS music, and why RIGHT NOW? Musicologist Nate Sloan— co-host of one of my favorite podcasts, Switched on Pop — has all the answers, or at least most of them. If you like the show, it...
Jan 24, 2024•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week I get my “cold plunge curious” partner Charlie Warzel to come on the pod and talk about how cold plunging suddenly feels like it’s everywhere, the science (some interesting, some junk) behind it, whether it’s been “bro-ified,” who’s buying those $6000 cold plunge tubs… and how to actually start doing it, if that’s your thing. If you like the show, it is SO INCREDIBLY HELPFUL for our fledging pod if you can share it with others. Send it to your nerdy friend or coworker who’d love it. Po...
Jan 17, 2024•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week I’m joined by Michelle Cyca to talk about the trailer for the Mean Girls reboot. You might think: wow, that’s a very small thing to focus on, what could you possibly talk about for 45 minutes… but just you wait. WHY are they hiding that it’s a musical? WHO do they think is the actual audience for this movie? What happens when millennial content is rebooted for Gen-Z audiences without context? And why is Tina Fey apparently uncancellable? We cover it all. If you like the show, it is SO ...
Jan 10, 2024•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast For the fifth episode of the Culture Study podcast I’m joined by Nicole Washington to talk about all things F1: what’s behind the recent rise, is it in fact Real Housewives of Monaco , what’s the current drama, and so much more . Because this is a conversation between someone with very little knowledge about F1 (me) and someone with an abundance of knowledge about F1 (Nicole) it’s accessible to all levels of fandom. If you’re utterly mystified by the newfound popularity, this episode’s for you. ...
Jan 03, 2024•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
