Nostalgia Trap

Spoiler alert! I recorded this livestream about an hour after finishing this movie, so this is me attempting to untangle my thoughts about it. A complicated, funny, scary, and beautiful contemplation about revolutionary praxis (worst word in the world), One Battle After Another is definitely worth your time. I explain why here. Follow/subscribe to our Patreon for access to all our bonus content an...

This week Justin joins me to consider the dialectical nature of our 2025 reality, as we examine the utopian and dystopian properties of Bad Bunny Super Bowl discourse, the rise of Zohran Mamdani, and the accelerated unleashing of AI slop upon a world of hungry little piggies. Are we in heaven, or are we in hell? Why not both? Subscribe for a FREE 7 day trial to listen to this whole episode, plus g...

The Supreme Court is scared of crossing Trump; Stephen Miller wants to declare the Democratic Party a terrorist organization; an ICE raid in Chicago lays the groundwork for a new era of authoritarianism; late night TV says goodbye; microplastics are giving everyone cancer; and we're all awaiting an economic crash at a scale the world has never seen. Cheers! Click here to listen to this whole episo...

This week on the Nostalgia Trap Livestream: Conspiracy theory mind-melt reaches the upper echelons of power, AI-generated savagery plunges further into the toilet, Chuck Schumer and Zohran Mamdani flirt with the limits of liberal possibility, a shocking violation of the 1st Amendment that's NOT Jimmy Kimmel (so no one cares), plus some delightful Cuban piano grooves! Listen to the whole episode he...

On this week's News Trap update, Justin joins me to discuss the question on everyone's mind: when is the fever gonna break? As the cartoonish reality of Trump's second term takes on increasingly demented dimensions, we game out how larger forces, particularly the insane bubble that is the AI economy, are stirring in the background, threatening an imminent meltdown that promises to flip the script...

On this week's livestream I talk about the deceptive power of the Kirk memorial, the postmodernity of conspiracy culture, the ironic twist of right-wing cancel campaigns and, of course, Jimmy Kimmel. Plus I share some juicy bits from Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland . Join the Nostalgia Trap Patreon and hear the whole episode, along with all our weekly bonus conte...

The fallout from Charlie Kirk's assassination continues to mutate into an escalation of the right's multi-front authoritarian campaign. On this episode, I talk with Judd Legum , journalist and creator of two of the most important  independent progressive publications of the past two decades: the political news site ThinkProgress (RIP!) and the current Substack newsletter Popular Information . We t...

America is taking a turn into a dark cul-de-sac, and many liberals are hoping that Stephen Colbert and John Oliver's sunnier version of the national id will somehow, magically, win the day. But will it? Has it ever? Listen to the full episode here!

Here's our attempt to put Charlie Kirk's assassination in the context of the algorithmic dream world we inhabit, the queer libidinal dimensions of love and murder, and the larger politics of incompetent maniacs in the driver's seat of global power. This is a preview clip from a much longer and wider-ranging discussion, for Nostalgia Trap subscribers. Listen to the whole episode with a FREE 7-day t...

Like many hip youngsters of my generation, at some point in my twenties I got Jazz-pilled by Beat literature, with writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg name-dropping bop-era musicians like Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and many more, sending me to Limewire to download mp3s of 1950s and 1960s Jazz. In recent years, my casual appreciation has turned into a more...

It's hard to believe, but today it's been 20 years since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, a mega-event that, in hindsight, seems like a critical moment for understanding our current reality. This week Justin and I talk about Katrina as a wormhole into a dark present, as we reflect on several threads from the disaster in New Orleans, including climate capitalism, "organized abandonment," racia...

NOTE: This is a cross-post of my new podcast, 120 MONTHS, all about '90s music. I think Nostalgia Trap listeners will dig it. Follow the links to keep up with all our episodes! --------- After listening and re-listening to the  playlist for January 1990 , I couldn't stop thinking about The Sundays. Their album  Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic  stood out, not just as the best album of that month,...

February 1990 was a wild month in music, with new album releases from Oingo Boingo, Everything But the Girl, The Cramps, Primus, The Highwaymen, Midnight Oil, and Guided By Voices.  All paying subscribers (at any level) of Nostalgia Trap get a full 120 Months Substack subscription: https://www.patreon.com/nostalgiatrap Listen to the February 1990 playlist:  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7cJqeG...

Global capital is currently putting more resources into building AI infrastructure than any other mass project in human history, with little evidence that AI can ever turn the kind of profits needed to make it all worth it. Why? Justin Rogers-Cooper brings the data and the perspective to the AI masterplan, offering some ideas about what's REALLY going on with the tech gambit, how the risk is being...

I'm very excited to present the very first episode of my new podcast/YouTube channel/online content thing, 120 MONTHS. This is a project that I've been wanting to do for a very long time. Along with my good friend John Lombardo, I'm listening to all the major music releases of the 1990s, IN ORDER, month by precious nostalgic month, from January 1990 to December 1999. I know, it's A LOT. But what e...

Was 1999 the inflection point in American culture and politics? Writer Ross Benes joins me this week to talk about his book 1999: The Year Low Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted Our Bizarre Times . Ross's work connects the trashy Americana of Jerry Springer, pro wrestling, Insane Clown Posse, and a million other bits of carnival weirdness to the larger political economy of the late 90s, and...

The Jeffrey Epstein saga continues to have legs, and this week Justin and I talk about what makes the story so appealing and operative for so many Americans, as we interrogate the elements of storytelling, virality, sex, and power that control our attention and shape our reality. Along the way we've got takes on South Park, the Coldplay viral video, the Moscow Idaho murder trial, Tony Soprano, Zoh...

Philip Seymour Hoffman is a towering figure in American cinema whose death in 2014 left a big gaping hole in the culture. I really think there has never been anyone really like him, before or since, on the screen. In this conversation, Justin Rogers-Cooper joins me to reflect on Hoffman's body of work, the particular power he brought to his performances in a wide range of movies, and the profound...

Van Jackson, foreign policy writer and host of the excellent podcast Un-Diplomatic , joins me to freak out about ICE arresting local college professors, MAGA's Jeffrey Epstein fissures, Andrew Cuomo aiming to spoil Mamdani's victory in NYC, Trump sending weapons to Ukraine, and the overall Third Reich vibes that America is currently giving. As the ever-rising waters of tyrrany begin to splash onto...

Remember the heady days of Abercrombie and Fitch's utter domination of the young, white middle class fashion market? What was that about? This week I'm joined by Ethan Lascity, an assistant professor and director of the fashion media program at Southern Methodist University, to discuss his book The Abercrombie Age: Millennial Aspiration and the Promise of Consumer Culture . Ethan helps me understa...

Anyone with a brain and heart probably feels deeply conflicted about the Fourth of July, a celebration of American freedom that frequently feels crass and hollow in the context of an ever-expanding American cruelty. So I thought I would reflect on the some ideas about drugs and counterculture today. I share some new details of the CIA's MKULTRA mind control experiments, and read Allen Ginsberg's e...

Zohran Mamdani's win in NYC accelerates a civil war for the soul of the Democratic Party; ICE storm troopers refuse to take off their masks; Trump's bombing of Iran within the larger strategic maneuverings of world powers; the historical ingredients necessary for getting away with genocide. Listen to the full episode here!

Xaq Frohlich is Associate Professor of History of Technology at Auburn University. His work focuses on issues relating to food and risk at the intersections of science, law, and markets. In this conversation, he joins me to discuss his book From Label to Table: Regulating Food in America in the Information Age , a fascinating history of how Americans have navigated food and health issues through c...

Is the fight against Trump's rising authoritarianism in the streets? Or in the courts? Why not both? At the five month mark, Justin joins me to survey the damage, and to assess the left's strategies in resisting an assault on our collective rights and dignity. Along the way, we consider Stephen Miller's nihilistic and libidinal hatreds, the Roberts' court's "fuck you" attitude toward the Constitut...

What happened to the idea that "conservatives can't do comedy"? Much to the horror of liberals, the past decade has witnessed the rise of a right wing comedy industrial complex, primarily found on podcasts, whose personalities and attitudes are inextricably linked to the success of Donald Trump's populist conservative project. This week I talk with Nick Marx, co-author of the book That's Not Funny...