ICYMI

In 1992, a Minnesota-based software company known for its educational hit  The Oregon Trail  released another simulation-style game to school districts across the country.  Freedom!  took kids on a journey along the Underground Railroad, becoming the first American software program to use slavery as its subject matter. Less than four months later, it was pulled from the market. In this episode, we...

From Goodreads scandals to relationship prompt Twitter, the internet has been rife with trends to get mad about. On today’s episode, Candice Lim is joined by Vox’s Alex Abad-Santos and journalist Sylvia Obell to audit everything they lived through online in 2023, discussing the good, the bad and the truly unhinged. This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and R...

On today’s episode, Candice Lim is joined by Kristen Meinzer ( Daily Fail ,  How to be Fine )  and Tre’vell Anderson ( FANTI ,  What A Day )  to recap the year in celebrity breakups. Lately, it feels like everyone in Hollywood is breaking up, but have there really been that many more celebrity splits than usual? Was  Scandoval  really proof that love is dead or have we been placing celebrity coupl...

On today’s episode, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim are joined by Slate culture writer Nadira Goffe to conclude their list of the top internet moments of the year. In their  previous episode , Rachelle and Candice memorialized Elon-held Twitter, the most famous submersible online and reunions that shouldn’t air live. But no moment superseded the viral drama, cultural legacy and aquatic meme-ifcat...

On today’s episode, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim announce their top internet moments of the year. Is it the  MirandaSings  controversy? The  Shein influencer factory  tour? The internet boyfriend wars of  Al Pacino vs. Robert De Niro ? They bring their picks and ruminate on the year of Elon Musk and  OceanGate . This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and...

On today’s episode, Candice Lim is joined by journalists  Bomani Jones  and  Tamerra Griffin  to cover the biggest moments of sports that happened online this year. From basketball stateside to women’s soccer abroad, the internet has a way of picking up the little moments you don’t see in a stadium and making major waves about them. It’s the reason why an athlete’s behavior in one singular moment...

On today’s episode, Candice Lim is joined by culture journalist  Cat Sposato  to run down this year in concerts, from the Renaissance alien to the perils of standing room only. They get into the value of concert films, how internet standom translates to venue fandom and why pop stars have become the target of flying objects. This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice...

On today’s episode, Candice Lim is joined by NPR producer  J.C. Howard  to walk through his personal experience of buying a car. The heyday of Toyotathon and Happy Honda Days are being replaced by car reviewers who have become influencers (and dealers) for major brands. From CarTok to CarTube, vloggers like  EverydayChris  and  Gjeebs  are not only upending the dealership model, but also creating...

On today’s show, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim are joined by writer, producer and former video blogger  Franchescha Ramsey  to discuss the return of Colleen Ballinger. Ramsey was last  on the show earlier this year , decoding the firestorm that engulfed Ballinger, better known as her alter ego MirandaSings. After a four-month hiatus and a now-infamous  ukelele “apology” video,  Ballinger has re...

On today’s episode brought to us by Slate’s  The Waves , we’re digging into the Bravo network. From  Below Deck  to Selling Sunset to  Vanderpump Rules , the Bravo TV network is a reality television behemoth that has made millions on the backs of its female cast members. But is it actually good for women? ICYMI founding host  Rachelle Hampton  and culture writer  Shamira Ibrahim  discuss the curre...

Today, Rachelle and Candice celebrate ICYMI’s third annual Friendsgiving episode. They’re joined by  Weight For It   host Ronald Young Jr. and ICYMI producer Daisy Rosario to run down the internet moments that made them laugh out loud this year. They cover viral moments such as the adventures of George Santos, gamer thirst traps and little girls singing iconic jingles. This podcast is produced by...

In this episode, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim are joined by writer, comedian and  Glamorous Trash   host Chelsea Devantez to break down this watershed year of celebrity memoirs. The trio crowns the best and the worst titles, dissect what separates a good memoir from a great one, and reveal the shocking figure who has appeared in way more memoirs than you’d expect. This podcast is produced by S...

On today’s episode, Rachelle and Candice are joined by Patrick Marlborough to discuss their recent essay for Slate,  “The Death of the Internet as a Haven for People With Autism.”  They wrote, “Things began to shift, if imperceptibly at first, with the advent of social media, and the steady corralling and corporatization of that otherness, weirdness, fun, and joy.” On the show, Marlborough describ...

In this episode, Rachelle and Candice map out what happened when TikTok food personality  Keith Lee  traveled to Atlanta and ignited a  culinary controversy . Lee is a former MMA fighter-turned-influencer who has been taking food tours around the country, ranking their cuisine and posting his reviews on TikTok. He was tasting restaurants in Atlanta when the itinerary took a turn for the worst: bad...

On today’s episode brought to us by  WBUR’s  Endless Thread , co-host Ben Brock Johnson and producer Nora Saks look at the Lofi Girl phenomenon. At least 13 million YouTube users subscribe to the channel Lofi Girl. Created by the mononymous French music producer Dimitri,  Lofi Girl  is a 24/7 livestream of an anime girl studying in her room and listening to lofi hip hop. For many, she’s become the...

In this episode, the co-hosts of Slate’s ICYMI , Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim, join Prudie (Jenée Desmond-Harris) to answer letters from readers about whether the following categories of people are unreasonable: moms who bring their kids to wineries, boyfriends who refuse to hard launch their girlfriends on social media, and husbands who are suspicious of their wives’ friendships with single m...

In this episode, Rachelle Hampton is joined by Slate staff writers Nitish Pahwa and Nadira Goffe to discuss their  respective   pieces  about Hasan Minhaj. Since the New Yorker published their article on  Minhaj’s “emotional truths,”  the comedian has been at the center of a media firestorm that led to him publishing h is own 21-minute response video . In the resulting discourse, questions have be...

On today’s episode, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim are joined by Amy S. Choi, co-host of  The Mash-Up Americans  podcast. They talk about the burgeoning phenomenon of immigrant mom TikToks, videos and sketches that showcase the hilarious and loving ways children see their immigrant parents. They ask why immigrant moms get more online love than immigrant dads, and how these videos are healing bot...

On today’s episode, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim walk through DJ Envy’s latest legal troubles, which include seminars, flipping houses and a Ponzi-like scheme. Then, they’re joined by legal affairs reporter  Meghann Cuniff , whose extensive coverage of the Tory Lanez trial crowned her the Batman of Black Twitter. Cuniff talks about her first internet memory, how she ended up covering the Lanez...

On today’s episode, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim dive into the saga of Jon Romano. At the age of 16, Romano walked into his high school with a shotgun in an attempt, he says, to commit law-enforcement-assisted suicide. Though no one was killed in the ensuing violence, a teacher was shot and injured. Romano pled guilty to attempted murder and reckless endangerment. He served 17 years in prison...

On today’s show, Rachelle and Candice hang out with Teen Vogue associate editor Aiyana Ishmael. They dive into Aiyana’s internet diary, which includes an early Timothée Chalamet fandom, her  Dance Moms  obsession and  dressing up like Bella Hadid  for a week. This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton. Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If...

On today’s episode, Rachelle and Candice answer a question from a listener about a viral pesto recipe. Susi Vidal, a 25-year-old food influencer, posted  a simple recipe for pesto on September 1st . Since then, the introduction to her video which goes “Call me crazy but I’ve never liked store-bought pesto” has been used as a launching pad for wild stories about everything from terrible breakups to...

On today’s episode, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim dive into the decades-long transformation of LinkedIn from a website for digital resumes to a social networking platform whose devotees have earned the name LinkedIn Lunatics. Founded in 2003 and sold to Microsoft for $26 billion in 2018, LinkedIn has become an inescapable feature of the job hunt. But while the site is ostensibly founded on prof...

On today’s episode, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim talk to writer Cyrena Touros about Dracula Daily, a newsletter that emails bite-sized passages from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel to more than 235,000 readers.   As an epistolary novel,  Dracula  is broken into letters written between May and November. Dracula Daily emails those letters to readers, who have now created a book club-like fandom rife wi...

On today’s episode, Rachelle and Candice discuss if movies should be posted on TikTok, why eavesdroppers are turning brunch into an unsafe space, and how a scamming minister almost got away with alleged fraud. This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton. Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FA...