It's Been a Minute

What's the difference between "good" work and "bad" work? And how do we talk about the rise in plastic surgery without dehumanizing people for their choices? Rates of plastic surgery are increasing, and minimally invasive procedures like filler and Botox are even more popular. It's also evident on social media that people (including plastic surgeons) are very comfortable speculating and commenting...

Data from Gallup and the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that Americans are reading fewer books and spending less time reading than ever. There's been reporting on college kids struggling to finish longer texts. And earlier this year, in a viral post, one user lamented their loss of concentration for reading, which led to a larger online discourse about how to approach books again. Brittany revisi...

Anti-intellectualism is on the rise. And by "anti-intellectualism" we mean the backlash to scholars in fields like the humanities. According to two intellectuals, Dr. Ally Louks and Jason Stanley , the humanities help us better connect to other humans. According to a lot of online haters, they're worthless. In November 2024, Dr. Louks recently posted her Cambridge University dissertation online an...

Gen Z is having less sex than previous generations. But why? Well, let's be real. There are a lot of very legitimate reasons why young people are afraid of sex right now, many having to do with recent massive political and cultural changes. Brittany gets into why Gen Z-ers are having less sex with Tobias Hess, contributing writer at Paper magazine and writer of the Gen Zero Substack, and Carter Sh...

Before, during, and after Zohran Mamdani became the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, Republicans and Democrats were both leaning into decades old Islamophobic tropes to delegitimize his candidacy. Meanwhile, young progressives are reclaiming those tropes. Why is Islamophobia politically salient today, and why are both sides of the aisle using it to achieve their own political goals?...

What do Trump, JK Rowling, and some feminists have in common? Based on history, more thank you might think. In this episode, Brittany and KQED's Nastia Voynovskaya explore the roots of modern-day transphobia through the story of one music producer, Sandy Stone. Then Brittany is joined by journalist Imara Jones to get into how Trump and JK Rowling's rhetoric matches some of those early feminists. S...

Republicans have passed President Trump's One Big, Beautiful bill, but is it built on bad faith stereotypes? The legislation guts funding for Medicaid, and for a long time Republicans have been attacking the program as sort of welfare for moochers. Who exactly are these moochers? And could it be you? Brittany is joined by Joan Alker , Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Georgetown Center for...

This season of Love Island USA has the timeline on fire...but maybe not for the reasons y'all hoped. Is it mirroring our dating lives a little too close? To get into the season, Brittany chats with co-owner of Defector Media, Kelsey McKinney and co-host of Scamfluencers , Sarah Hagi , about the glimpses of romance amidst Love Island's largely unromantic current season, and how the show may be an u...

In our 'Your Body, Whose Choice' series, we've focused a lot on the present and the future of reproductive health in this country. And now we'd like to share a look at the past from our sister show, NPR's Embedded . Their new 3–part series, The Network , follows a Brazilian women who discovered a method to have safe abortions, regardless of the law. And, as abortion restrictions tighten in the Uni...

New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani pulled off an astonishing upset this week. In the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, he beat out the long-favored winner, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who conceded the race only hours after the polls closed. The two candidates were of the same party, but held very different positions within it: Cuomo is older, spent more than a decade as Governo...

There's one little statistic that seems to have gained a lot of attention recently: the birth rate. With pro-natalist ideas showing up in our culture and politics, Brittany wanted to know: why are people freaking out? Who's trying to solve the population equation, and how? Brittany is joined by Kelsey Piper , senior writer at Vox , and Gideon Lewis-Kraus , staff writer at The New Yorker , to get i...

Adriana Smith's pregnancy became an ethical and legal quandary. After being declared brain dead, a Georgia hospital kept her on life support without her family's consent because of the state's abortion laws. Now that the baby has been delivered and Smith taken off life support, Brittany wonders: how has the conservative effort to see fetuses as people overshadowed the lives of the mothers who birt...

Many millennials either are already in their 40s or are staring them down. Are they having a midlife crisis? As this generation enters midlife, their lives look really different from their parents' lives: Millennials are more educated and have a higher median net worth , but the generation is also more unequal than previous generations, has higher debt and has lower rates of homeownership and marr...

It's summer! Which means Brittany is going to be... 1) outside, 2) chilling, and 3) reading. So it's once again time for It's Been a Minute's annual summer books episode! Celebrated romance authors Bolu Babalola and Emily Henry return to the show to discuss their summer reading recommendations, ranging from spiteful and salacious to sweet and spicy. Books discussed in the episode: Sweet Heat by Bo...

In a country where birth control access is in jeopardy and women's medical needs have been historically overlooked , how do social media trends like #lutealphase and "cycle syncing" complicate the narrative? This is... Your Body, Whose Choice? And for the next few weeks, we're looking at the cultural, legal, and ideological frameworks shaping reproductive health in America...and what this means fo...

Protests have spread across the country after dozens of workers were swept up in an ICE raid in Los Angeles last week, but the support for the protesters is far from universal. In this bonus episode, Brittany is joined by NPR Immigration Correspondent Sergio Martínez-Beltrán and author of A Protest History of the United States, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall , to discuss what's happening on the ground,...

You may have heard that super viral song on TikTok called "Looking for a man in finance," and yeah, it's fun. But does it speak to people's broader desires to find someone who's more than comfortable financially? Host Brittany Luse is joined by Wailin Wong , co-host of NPR's The Indicator , and Reema Khrais , host of Marketplace's This Is Uncomfortable . They discuss what people are really looking...

So you got 'The Ick?' That feeling of disgust when someone your date does something that you just can't look past. You think it's about them, but is 'The Ick' actually about you? Brittany is joined by B.A. Parker , co-host of NPR's Code Switch, Corey Antonio Rose , a producer for It's Been A Minute, and Josh Rottman , associate professor of psychology and a disgust expert. They discuss what 'The I...

A lot of us have seen how explosive breakup stories have been on social media. From Reesa Teesa's "Who TF did I marry..." to Spritely's breakup song , these posts have been drawing gasps and gaining traction. But is it harmless fun, or an invasion of privacy? When do your personal stories belong on social media and when do they not? To find out, Brittany is joined by Molly McPherson , crisis PR ex...

Is it just us, or are the Pride month vibes a little off this year? Between targeted censorship, legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ health care, and a financial pullout from many corporations, queer people and their allies are celebrating with heavier hearts this year. But perhaps it's a moment to reconsider what "pride" is really for? This week, Brittany is joined by culture journalist Tre'vell Anders...

You may have heard that the U.S. gained 59 new residents last month from South Africa - and that more came this past weekend. They're all white Afrikaners: a white minority group descended from European colonists. Trump has given some of these white Afrikaners refugee status because he claims a "white genocide" is happening against them in South Africa. This claim is untrue. So where is it coming...

The stereotype is that Canadians are kind, but they by and large do not take kindly to President Trump's idea of making Canada our 51st state. As of April , two-thirds of Canadians considered the U.S. to be "unfriendly" or an "enemy," and 61% say they have started boycotting American companies. However, Canadian dislike and distrust of the U.S. is not new. Canadian views of the U.S. have trended d...

After 8 trips to the Super Bowl, 73 year-old former NFL coach Bill Belichick is ready to start a new phase in his career: mentor, college football coach, and now doting boyfriend to 24-year-old Jordon Hudson. But as Hudson also takes an increasingly important role in Belichick's professional life, people are speculating about the motivations behind their union. Why do we care? Brittany is joined b...

A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer, obesity, autism, bipolar disorder, even celiac disease. These conditions are informed by many genetic variants and environmental factors - so companies like Orchid and Heliospect assign risk scores to each embryo for a given condition. These tests are expensive,...

Brittany keeps looking at a new couch online, and every time she goes to buy it she sees an option to "Buy Now, Pay Later," which made her wonder...should she? Here's what she found: Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) loans have become one of the go-to ways to get access to credit fast. Companies like Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay make buying big purchases relatively easy by allowing people to pay in instal...