Slate Culture Feed

The app-ification of dating has made meeting people even more difficult. But no one ever talks about what comes after: when you are in a relationship with someone, and have brand new digital etiquette to decipher. When do you hard launch? How much should you post each other? And is it really that bad if they’re still liking other people’s thirst traps? On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is join...

In the mid-1970’s, a small college radio station created an evening program catering to a new socioeconomic group referred to as the “new Black middle class.” The show was called “The Quiet Storm” and it grew so popular that an entire genre of music would spring up alongside it.  Artists like Anita Baker, Luther Vandross, and many more would find massive success in the genre, performing smoot...

***GET TICKETS TO OUR LIVE SHOW HERE !!!!*** An uncomfortable amount of the internet has been influenced by Barstool Sports. Many prominent online figures, particularly women, hail from the website, and the media company has planted its flag in everything from internet culture to crypto. Upon reading founder Dave Portnoy’s memoir, however, all Scaachi Koul found was an angry man made up of grudges...

Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon is one of the most played, purchased and praised albums of all time. Yet its enduring legacy might be its supernatural chart longevity. Officially, the 1973 long-player has spent nearly a thousand weeks on the Billboard album chart. But that number probably understates its past performance, not to mention its future potential, with new generations of teenager...

Most of us use GPS—the Global Positioning System—on a daily basis: to find our location when we’re driving, running, shopping, dating, and so much more. But GPS is even more important, and more vulnerable, than you think. In the last few years, GPS interference has been reported all over the world, from war zones to shipping routes to public squares. What was once the fanciful plot of a Bond movie...

Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have expanded from letting people bet on just sports to everything from political events to reality TV, and even the weather. But by injecting financial incentives into things like disease outbreaks, we’re even more susceptible to bad actors and manipulation. On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by creator Austin Evans to talk about the spread of pre...

Jim Tierney, pet tracker, has worked on more than 250 lost pet cases around New York City. Jim says once a dog is lost, their behavior changes. “They become less like your pet, and more like a wild animal.” In this episode Jim talks with Zoe Azulay about his tracking method, what it’s like to work with distressed pet owners, and why he didn’t become an animal lover until after his divorce. Death,...

GET TICKETS TO OUR LIVE SHOW HERE !!!! As even more countries adopt social media bans for under-sixteen-year-olds, not only does one recent survey confirm they’re not even effective, but they also risk ruining the best parts of the internet. In today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined again by internet culture and tech writer Tatum Hunter to discuss how kids have been responsible for defining...

Kylie Jenner and Mark Zuckerberg are trying to rebrand Meta Glasses as some kind of girlboss fashion accessory, even though women are the ones most likely to be the victims of their invasive technology. While Meta plows forward with this new collaboration, the glasses continue to be abused by users taking advantage of its covert filming capabilities, often by filming women without their knowledge...

This week, listeners share what it’s like to plan a dream wedding when money and family relationships lead to conflict and compromise. We hear from couples with vastly different ideas of what they wanted to spend, about opinionated parents and in-laws, and tips from people who managed to spend less. This episode first ran in 2023 and includes new updates from some of the happy couples.  Podca...

As sex becomes more online, not only does it become more solitary, but also more surveilled. For instance: Back in December, OpenAI announced that they’d allow adult users to have erotic conversations with ChatGPT. On today’s encore episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by porn historian Noelle Perdue , author of the Porn World newsletter. While advances in AI and sex surveillance are intended to d...

A eulogistic weepfest? A “valediction forbidding mourning”? A conscious unthroupling? All of the above? Believe it or not, the time has come for Steve, Dana, and Julia to convene the Culture Gabfest panel for the very last time.  Before saying goodbye, they look back at the very first piece of culture they ever gabbed about on their inaugural episode in February 2008: the film Juno . Does the...

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick, creator of The Trend Report , to talk about how so many of our favorite influencers have started to retire. Glitter and Lazers deleted her entire digital footprint , and longtime vlogger Zoella has not posted since January, and parasocial fans are having to reckon with the fact that anyone they love online could just disa...

It seems like the only time you hear about new statues these days is when something goes horribly wrong. Unfortunate bronze renditions of Lucille Ball, Cristiano Ronaldo, Dwayne Wade, and many others are always going viral, becoming a fixture of late-night shows and mocking comment sections. Is the internet too harsh a critic? Or is American statuary a total bust? In this episode of Decoder Ring,...

A lot has happened in Jeff Hiller’s life since he was last on the show in 2024.  Last year he won an Emmy for his role on the HBO show Somebody Somewhere and then went viral for his sincere and funny acceptance speech. He’s had featured roles in the AppleTV hits Pluribus and Widow’s Bay and joined the revolving cast of the Broadway show Celebrity Autobiography . And his memoir Actress of a Ce...

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...