Slate Culture Feed

We’re all familiar with the concept of a one-hit wonder, but what about artists who hit it big a second time—and never again? This week on Hit Parade, Chris Molanphy lays out the ground rules for one of pop's most misunderstood chart distinctions and sorts through the roster of this ultra-exclusive club, which counts Gloria Gaynor, Hozier, the Clash, and Dead or Alive among its members. Then, Chri...

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Will Oremus, tech writer at The Atlantic and author of “ The Feel-Good Story of the World Cup Is Too Good to Be True .” While our social media feeds have been flooded with thousands of viral and wholesome moments from the World Cup, Will discovered that a number of accounts behind some of the biggest posts aren’t what they seem. Some are using AI...

The Gabfest’s end is nigh but we’ve still got a few bits of culture to gab upon. This week, Steve and Dana are joined by longtime Gabfest star pinch hitter Dan Kois.  First up for consideration: Pixar’s Toy Story 5 . In this fifth installment of the computer animation studio’s flagship franchise, the threat to the vital bond between toy and child are computers themselves. Will Pixar, of all e...

On today’s episode, in collaboration with No Such Thing , host Kate Lindsay is joined by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devan Joseph to talk about payment apps, and how they’ve changed the way we think about money. Plus, Kate reveals her own payment app predicament, and, with the help of the boys and a handful of experts, brings an unspoken, decade-long Venmo feud to a close.  This podcast i...

Growing up, whenever Anna Konkle's parents fought–which was frequently–she usually sided with her dad. As she got older, she started to see those memories differently. Was her dad actually the bad guy? This week on Death, Sex & Money , Konkle talks about her new memoir, The Sane One , and the challenges of unpacking morally ambiguous memories. She also narrows in on her relationship with her d...

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Bridget Read, a features writer at New York Magazine whose recent piece “ What If It All Came Out? ” reports on the hackers who are weaponizing our extensive digital footprints against us. While public figures have long dealt with embarrassing leaks and exposed group chats, regular people have started grappling with the same problems thanks to the...

Steve, Dana, and Julia gather once more—for almost the last time—to unpack the week’s culture. This week, conversation has to include the cultural, cinematic juggernaut Steven Spielberg and his new film Disclosure Day . Starring Josh O’Connor and Emily Blunt, it’s a sci-fi, action thriller about the longheld Spielbergian obsession: extraterrestrial life. Does it deliver that trademark Spielberg se...

You know the Tootsie Shot. It’s that image that pops up all the time in movies set in a dense city: a really busy midtown street, everyone going somewhere—and smack in the middle of it all is the protagonist. You can find it in Working Girl, Midnight Cowboy, Wall Street , Heartburn , Elf , Bridget Jones’s Diary , The Devil Wears Prada , The Wolf of Wall Street , and so many more. But while it’s on...

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Slate staff writer Nitish Pawha to discuss his piece “ Your TV Is Not Safe .” Apps like Instagram, Substack, and Spotify are making the leap from smart phones to smart TVs , as TVs attempt to compete against scrolling, and the nature of entertainment is changing. But giving over our TVs to these companies even further changes our relationships wit...

Actor Peter Dinklage and playwright Erica Schmidt have been married for two decades, and even though they’ve collaborated on projects, it’s rare for them to do an interview together. That’s why we were so excited when they agreed to join Anna on stage at the Tribeca Festival to discuss how they balance privacy and family, why they wish interviewers would stop fixating on Game of Thrones, and how t...

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay speaks with Rachel Barker, host of Girl on Film on YouTube. The internet has been rich with horror content for decades, but only recently have iconic creepy stories and their creators finally gone mainstream. With movies like Obsession and Backrooms breaking box office records, are YouTubers the next breakout stars for Hollywood?  Get more of ICYMI with S...

If you were watching cable TV around midday at the turn of the millennium, there’s a good chance you saw a commercial for a compilation CD called Monster Ballads . It promised you more than two hours of musical cheese—some of the most over-the-top, cornball, leather-clad romantic jams ever to grace the charts, from “Heaven” to “High Enough,” “Carrie” to “Amanda.” There’s another, more common term...

As you may have heard in last week’s episode, the Culture Gabfest is hanging up its microphones after 18 years of cultural commentary. But before our final episode, we’ve still got much to discuss! On this special guest-packed show, Steve, Dana, and Nadira Goffe have the power! That is the power to get into it with VSFOP Jamelle Bouie about Masters of the Universe , the latest attempt by Mattel to...

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Rachel Karten , a social media consultant and the writer of Link In Bio . Storytimes and other caught-on-camera content frequently goes viral on social media, but now companies have started manufacturing their own skits to secretly advertise themselves. Countless “ambassadors” are telling the same fake stories all over TikTok, with links to brands...

Theo Baker was seventeen when he enrolled at Stanford and stumbled into one of the biggest stories on campus: academic misconduct allegations against the university's president. His reporting eventually forced the president out. In this episode, Theo talks about breaking that story, navigating backlash from classmates and faculty, and what he's learned about the ways Silicon Valley's culture of am...

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by writer Stephanie McNeal to discuss the internet phenomenon of “boy moms.” As an internet culture expert, and recent mother of a boy herself, Stephanie helps break down the reaction to a recent viral post from actress Jenny Mollen, who has publicly compared her sons to “toxic exes” and is already mourning losing them to their eventual marriages. Bu...

This week Steve, Dana, and Julia convene once again—this time with some big news. Also, they make a classic Gabfest episode.  First up, it's the alienating fluorescent buzz, infinite carpeted sprawl, and liminal horror of Backrooms . The new release from A24 is directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons based on his YouTube series which itself was inspired by deep internet lore and a viral piece of...

In Australia, no wedding or school dance is complete without the Nutbush, Australia’s unofficial national dance. The Nutbush – a simple line dance to the song “Nutbush City Limits,” by Ike and Tina Turner – has become as stereotypically Australian as kangaroos, boomerangs, and Vegemite. And yet, hardly anyone outside of Australia even knows the Nutbush exists. Here at Decoder Ring, we certainly di...

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Angelina Mazza whose recent piece in The New York Times details how publishers are “modernizing” previously published books like Pretty Little Liars and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by replacing outdated references to pop culture and technology with artists like Billie Eilish and apps like TikTok. While publishers claim this is to keep you...

Romy Holland is a Berkeley mom whose meet-cute happened at a raucous sex party. That night she had sex with dozens of men, one of which would become her husband. In this episode, Romy talks about the party in question, from the sexy aspects to the much more awkward ones. Plus she talks about what new motherhood does to desire, and the unexpected emotional toll of an abortion that didn't go as plan...

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Ed Zitron, host of the podcast Better Offline and a certified hater of AI. After yet another AI writing scandal, this time involving the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story prize, Kate and Ed take a closer look at tools like Pangram that claim to detect AI writing with 99% accuracy. But if we can’t ever be sure, then no one knows what’s true at all—and...

In 1979, Sister Sledge changed the sound of wedding receptions forever with “We Are Family.” Believe it or not, the Chic-penned banger never made it to No. 1. Steely Dan helped invent Yacht Rock with 1977’s jazzy bop “Peg.” (They would have loved it better if it had cracked the Top 10.) And in 1972, Elton John told a timeless tale of a blue-jean baby, “Tiny Dancer.” Casey Kasem never counted it do...

This week, the OG three Steve, Dana, and Julia dig into the visually stuffed, Marxist smorgasbord that is Boots Riley’s latest film I Love Boosters . Starring Keke Palmer and Demi Moore, the candy-colored agitprop is about exploitation, the fashion world, shoplifting as class warfare, and— as they discuss—perhaps more than one movie can handle.  Next they turn from Marx to Freud and analyze t...

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by New York Magazine features writer Lane Brown whose latest piece breaks down the “clipping economy,” which has become the backbone of the entire internet. Cheaper than traditional advertising, people and companies employ bots and users to generate fake hype for everything from music to TV shows to SNL performances. The internet has become so satura...

Earlier this year we debuted Decoder Rings Back, our new feature exclusively for Decoder Ring Plus subscribers. In each installment, Willa gets a listener on the phone and tries her best to answer their question about a cultural mystery. We have been having a blast making these episodes, and if you haven’t heard them, we think you’re missing out. So in the hopes of instilling some FOMO that motiva...