Now It's Ruined

In honor of America’s 250th birthday, Kate ruins one of the most consistently idealized figures in American history: George Washington. Content Warning: Violence, gore, slavery, genocide, and rape Support Kate’s Series: https://www.dogoodpoints.com/fund/meat-cute-series Ken Burns documentary, The American Revolution: https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-american-revolution/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid...

Online privacy isn’t just about your cookie settings. Corporations like Facebook have filed some truly creepy patents that reveal their ability to track everything from dust on your camera lens to who you talked to the most at a party. Target may even know you’re pregnant before you do… Kate and Larkin are joined by Ben Silver, who made them stutter, hide, and nearly walk away as he reveals all th...

Happy Pride! In the spirit of the season, Kate tells the story of Alan Turing. During World War II, Turing designed a machine that could decrypt tens of thousands of Nazi communications per month, likely shortening the war by several years and saving millions of lives.  He was lauded as a hero… until it was revealed he was gay. His conviction for “gross indecency” led to the tragic end of a brilli...

Kate acts as the Scully to Larkin’s Mulder as Larkin walks her through the evidence (of varying credibility) for Nessie’s existence. And like Scully, Kate winds up being less skeptical than when she started.  We weren't intending to upcycle this week, but we had a guest drop last-minute and didn't have time to put something else together in a thoughtful way. We'll be back all new on the next one w...

Extra virgin olive oil is one of the most useful, healthy substances on earth. Eating just two tablespoons a day can help prevent heart problems, cancer, and even Alzheimer’s.  But that’s assuming you have real EVOO, which… you probably don’t. And you might have paid the mafia for the knockoff sitting on your shelf. Kate, now an olive oil obsessive, enlightens Larkin on the incredible history and...

Happy 4/20! In honor of the informal holiday, we’re giving you this episode two entire days early! If you celebrate, grab your favorite means of ingestion and listen as Larkin talks all things sticky and icky, breaking down the history of how cannabis was used as an excuse for racism and anti-immigrant sentiment, eventually leading to its criminalization. The movement against this hearty “herb” ha...

Kate and Larkin welcome fashion enthusiast and content creator KP Deluxe, who tells us about the predictably racist, patriarchal origins of sizing in fashion. KP outlines our journey from bespoke, customizable pieces to the fast fashion nightmare of today, and how the realities of women’s bodies were repeatedly ignored in favor of mass production.  Follow KP/Styled Over Substance on TikTok , Insta...

We’re upcycling this week to give Kate a break as she prepares for a panel at Wonder-Con (March 27, 2026 at 6 pm in room 207!). Thankfully we have a timely one for you: The story of the boycott, a great example of community advocacy that’s quite relevant today. Plus, it’s about the Irish, so the fact that it was recently St. Patrick’s day lined up nicely as well!  Get ready to learn about the man...

It’s our 1-year anniversary!!! To thank you for making our first year so fantastic, we finally did the full-length episode on hammocks that we’ve been promising since we started with the mini-sode a year ago.  Kate dives more into the history and culture of the Taino people, including their invention of the hammock, as well as the deeply horrific details of their encounters with the Spanish, insti...

Dodger Stadium is an icon of Los Angeles. The massive structure comes complete with a parking lot that can accommodate 16,000 cars. And that parking lot was built on the remains of a community that was literally dragged from their homes so they could be leveled for new construction.  Join us as Larkin sorts through the tale of displacement and discrimination behind one of the largest ballparks in...

Happy Olympics! Get ready to learn a TON of ruinous stuff about the games, from the unpleasant inventor of the torch relay to how the 1984 games changed the way Los Angeles was policed.  Washington Whistles Network: https://linktr.ee/wa.whistles Support legal aid in Minnesota: https://legalrightscenter.org/ Support the Peoples’ Bail Fund of Minnesota: https://pbfmn.org/ Support the ACLU: https://a...

This week, Kate and Larkin are thrilled to chat with professional cosplayer Alia Pyatt, aka Magical Black Girl Alia, who discusses her experiences as a Black female cosplayer. While her time in cosplay has been overwhelmingly positive, she’s also seen her fair share of racism, sexism, and ableism in the community. Tune in to learn about the rampant gatekeeping that has driven many cosplayers out o...

Gynecological exams and procedures are notoriously unpleasant, and the field is frustratingly under-researched. It seems like it’s already ruined, so why do an episode on it? Well, Larkin has an abundance of unpleasant history to add to the mix, including a long line of men known as the “fathers” of the practice, who committed horrific acts while barely advancing their understanding. From murderin...

New Year’s Resolutions are a common way to set goals for the upcoming year. But they can also cause self-doubt and unnecessary pressure. Anti-burnout coach Rhia Batchelder teaches Kate and Larkin about the puritanical origins of the tradition and gives tips on how to make resolutions that will actually motivate you, without driving you into a shame spiral. Book a free assessment with Rhia on her w...

It’s a Now It’s Ruined holiday special!  Kate breaks the usual format to bring you three shorter Christmas-related ruins. She discusses a cannibalistic scarecrow, the murder-riddled true story behind Good King Wenceslas, and how the Vikings permanently deforested Iceland.  Happy holidays! Special thanks to Elisa Hanssen, aka Elisa in Iceland, for helping us pronounce Icelandic words! Follow her on...

Kate dives into the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping, exploring the crime, evidence, and theories about who was involved. She and Larkin discuss whether they think the man convicted of the crime acted alone, if the kidnapping was an inside job, and whether Charles Lindbergh’s interest in eugenics motivated him to get rid of his sickly child.  CW: Violence against children References The Baby Alice Thumb...

Need a break from your family this Thanksgiving? Come celebrate Now It’s Ruined-style! Larkin busts the idyllic myth of the first Thanksgiving before giving a rundown of how nutritional standards were shaped by the military-industrial complex and horrific experiments on Indigenous Canadian children.  CW: Graphic Violence, Food Trauma, Medical Trauma If you’d like to make a difference to people who...

There are lots of fun facts about bananas: They’re radioactive, they may be the oldest fruit in the world, and they’re technically berries! So how did the bright yellow, comedy-inspiring fruit cause massacres, coups, and human rights violations? It’s a colonialist tale as old as time, full of not-so-fun facts about bananas and the men who steamrolled entire countries in order to sell them.  Refere...

Happy Halloween! We’re joined again by our guest and muse, Erica Vogel, who busts some myths- and tells us some disturbing truths- about the concept of tainted Halloween candy. Where did this panic come from? How many children have been poisoned by candy? Has anyone ever actually found a razor blade in their taffy apple? Wtf is a taffy apple? And what the hell was Ann Landers’ problem with Hallowe...

In honor of Indigenous Peoples' Day, we wanted to dive into the life of the incredible Indigenous American athlete, Jim Thorpe. Despite a life marked with abuse, racism, alcoholism, and loss, Jim became the greatest athlete of the 20th century (we’d say ever), as well as an exceedingly generous member of his community. On top of his athletic accomplishments, Jim created a legacy of selflessness an...

How would you describe Hello Kitty? Cute? Innocent? A cat? You’d be partly right, but hold up on that last one… Larkin walks us through the history and legacy of Hello Kitty, shares some facts about her that make Kate absolutely furious, and describes how a culture of cute helped heal the economy (and image) of post-war Japan. References Yano, Christine R. (2013) Pink Globalization - Hello Kitty’s...

Happy American football season! Let’s talk about head trauma. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease that’s especially common in athletes. CTE has cascading effects that can cause memory loss, aggression, and other disturbing cognitive and personality changes, and football ranks second-highest on the list of sports with the most CTE exposure. This episode will teach...

Since we had “too much fun” in our last episode about emus, Kate decided to bring us back down hard with an episode about a seemingly innocuous topic: Road signs.  We all see road signs all the time. But have you ever wondered who makes them? Then answer is the same as for many products in the United States: Prisoners. This episode covers the history of road signs in the U.S., the history of priso...

In this episode, we ruin (and somehow simultaneously enhance) our first animal, the emu. Larkin tells us terrifying facts about these giant dinosaur birds, then goes into the story of the “Emu War” that took place in post-WWI Australia. It’s a distinctly fun episode that will also depress you with stories of trench warfare and, as ever, colonialism. References https://www.science.org/content/artic...

We're sorry to upcycle again so soon, but we're actually kind of excited because this is one of our favorite things we've recorded. In it, Larkin outlines her effort to track down the red-eyed, child-eating cryptid she talked about in our False Eyelashes episode. It turns out she may have invented a Now It's Ruined original cryptid, the Dusty Werewolf. But her journey to identify it led her to man...