Offline Thoughts

Bill Gates is a man with many personas. He is the boy wonder that co-founded Microsoft despite being a college dropout. As the head of Microsoft he destroyed the competition, but eventually had to answer to congress over Microsoft's antitrust and monopolistic practices. Like a chameleon, he reinvented himself as a the world’s most generous man until the late 2010s when his relationship with convic...

Sonya Massey thought there was an intruder in her home and did what any person would do - she called the police for help. Shortly thereafter, after a benign and positive interaction in which Sonya was polite, sweet, had told them 'I love y'all' and thanked them for their service - Sean Grayson, one of the attending police officers, had shot her in the face and killed her while she crouched fearful...

There is a great myth that is sold to young people that tells them that university education will be their guarantee to wealth and financial independence. Millions of graduates out there can attest that is a lie - they are broke despite having undergraduate (and sometimes even postgraduate) qualifications. Does that mean university is overrated? I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments - please...

The Drake vs Kendrick rap beef dominated the music industry news cycle for weeks, with fans on both sides egging on the beef for our entertainment. It is clear that Kendrick won this battle. Kendrick won by showcasing the fundamental ingredient that Drake lacks - authenticity.

There's a conspiracy to make us fat - whether it is through predatory advertising, mass production of addictive junk food or through the intentional spread of misinformation - the food industry needs us to eat to excess. This episode is about how and why the keeps us overweight.

We may not be able to control the big stuff like where we are born, who we are born to, how we look and a million other things. But there ARE things we do control. Whether that is being on time, doing what we said we were going to do or not betraying our beliefs - these things have an outsized effect on our self-identity, our self-esteem, our sense of agency and how we show up in the world.

There are two realities. The first is that most of us work because we need money to live. The second reality is that no matter what they say - employers will always put profits over us, the people. Whether that means replacing workers with checkout tills, relocating production overseas to exploit workers in poor countries or pushing for zero hours contracts that give employees no guaranteed minimu...

People of colour that are born and raised in European countries face an identity crisis that arises from straddling two identities - they are doomed to neither ever be European enough or to fit in with their origin countries. Is this is a self-inflicted wound? What would it mean to relinquish the desperate desire to be absorbed into European culture and instead embrace our true identities? Please...

The formation of the European Union is an epic of good and evil, of conquest, of power, and of empire. Is it a coincidence that the richest 10 countries in the EU are nearly all former colonial powers? Is it a coincidence that the poorest countries globally were formerly colonised? No, these legacies are testaments to the resounding success of colonisation - and that (neo) colonisation has been pr...

Marijuana is one of the only drugs that has the widespread perception of being harmless. After all, it is natural and unlike "real" drugs like heroin or cocaine - it is not addictive. Whilst it may not have the same physiological and biological impact as hard drugs - it does have real consequences to users. The biggest is that is distorts the perception of time and causes users to lose their grasp...

Sometimes you have massaged the truth so much that you begin to lie even to yourself. You minimise the things that have happened to you and the things you have done. In some cases it is to protect yourself from confronting who you truly are and in others it is to preserve more pleasant illusions of your experiences and the people in your life. The problem is that you can't run from yourself foreve...

Andrew Tate is a god-like figure to his legion of fans. He teaches them how to ‘escape The Matrix’, how to make money and how to have unlimited access to women and sex. To the rest of us - he’s a predator charged with human trafficking, forming a criminal organisation and sexual assault by the Romanian authorities. Currently under house arrest but enjoying a following of nearly 9 million followers...

It’s the nation’s most hidden little secret. In the era of sex positivity and destigmatisation of sex in general - is pornography the last taboo? Tune in to this week’s episode to delve into all things pornography. Send any questions and comments to offlinethoughts.podcast@gmail.com and they will addressed in a future episode.

Israel’s attack against the Palestinians since the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas has left over 15,000 Palestinians dead and many more displaced. Israel’s attacks against defenceless Palestinians civilians has drawn protests and demonstrations globally, with increasing scrutiny on US foreign policy that continues to provide Israel with the military aid it uses to kill Palestinians. Tune in to disc...

The online world offers a place for connecting with people from all over the world and for participating in online communities of like-minded people. This, in theory, should mean that we feel more connected than ever. But that is not the case. Loneliness amongst young people, in particular, is increasing and is partly driven by the displacement of offline real-life interactions by impersonal onlin...

Aggressive marketing has conditioned us to believe that gifts communicate the depth of one's affections. The age of social media also means people feel compelled to put on display their most private and intimate moments online for the benefit of the ever present public gaze. Our consumerism has further confused us to believe that the physical tokens we give and receive from our partners - whether...

Consuming a lot of media content about the USA means we all think we know what the USA and what Americans are like. And whilst many of our pre-conceived notions are positive, some are invariably negative. As an African woman who went to a very liberal university that was critical of US power relations - I was expecting the worst. What I discovered on my first trip to the USA was decidedly differen...

Is there an agenda in Hollywood and the wider world to feminize and emasculate black men? Looking at the long roster of back male comedians and actors who have donned women's clothes and make up at some point in their careers (think: Tyler Perry, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, Dave Chapelle and others) it is easy to see why this belief has made it into black popular culture. But is it actually tru...

The soft girl/ soft life era is upon us. Its proponents tell us that grind culture, hustle culture and corporate climbing is an inherently masculine pursuit that leaves women burnt out and out of touch with their core feminine selves. The cure, they say, is to stop the pursuit of money and focus instead on achieving a state of inner peace that can only be attained by a dedication to self-care, rel...

The old adage is true - there is no such thing as a free lunch. In the case of social media platforms, they may be free at the point of use but that is only because it us who are the products for sale. These platforms harvest our data to study our behaviour and subsequently sell this data to advertisers who in turn target us with carefully curated ads based on our consumer profile. These advertise...

This episode dives into the intricacies of workplace relationships and asks the age-old question: Are your colleagues truly your friends? Tune in to explore the blurred lines between professional connections and personal bonds and how these relationships can impact both your career and personal life.

Online content is full of advice on how to meet "the one" and tips on navigating the early stages of relationships. There is less content on what it takes to keep the spark in a long term relationship going. Conventional wisdom tells us being friends with your partner is the most important component in sustaining a relationship. This episode discusses why that is not true and why it is more import...

Intersectionality politics is the acknowledgment that people are complex and that the different facets of who they are impacts their lived experiences in different and complex ways. Within movements and between individual marginalised groups there are shared experiences and goals that binds these groups but, equally, there are power dynamics that cause tensions within and between these marginalise...

Why do we celebrate Christmas? Has the commercialisation of Christmas meant we have lost sight of what makes it special - family time, bonding, togetherness - and made it another occasion for celebrating mindless consumption? Tune in to this week's episode to chat about all the best and worst bits about the Christmas season. I'd love to get your feedback and hear your thoughts and comments at offl...

All that glitters isn't gold. Cassie and P Diddy once upon a time were hiphop royalty and a Hollywood power couple. They were photographed at fancy industry events in expensive jewellery and clothes and always surrounded by lavish luxury. Cassie seemed to be experiencing the princess treatment and we assumed there is nothing that P Diddy wouldn't give her. She was living every woman's fantasy. Tha...