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With so much online content, it can be hard for a meme to stay in the collective consciousness for more than a few days. But one meme this year managed to capture seemingly everyone’s attention - and challenge the definition of a meme altogether.  Guest: Kate Lindsay , host of Slate’s ICYMI podcast.  If you want to support more of this reporting, in 2026 and beyond, consider signing up for Slate P...

This week: We’re celebrating a year full of hot takes! Felix Salmon , Elizabeth Spiers , and Emily Peck , debate and rate the hottest takes they’ve heard this year — like Elon Musk’s claim that there will be no poverty in the future , the idea that Trump’s tariffs didn’t matter – and the collection of fire takes Felix gathered from around the Bloomberg news room.  In the Slate Plus episode: The ho...

Over the past calendar year, the Supreme Court’s center has shifted to the right and then more to the right, and the justices’ decisions have time and again facilitated Trump’s agenda. But the Roberts majority is not simply focused on what the current president wants; it has its sights set on a larger project: voting. Suppressing and constraining and problematizing the core function of democratic...

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by internet culture writer Kat Tenbarge to break down the most important internet moments of 2025. But not just any internet moments—specifically, the moments that fall under the three key themes that emerged in online culture over the past twelve months: brain rot, surveillance, and big tech dystopia. These themes not only defined how we lived life...

The Slate Music Club returns, in this special year-end edition of Hit Parade’s The Bridge! Host Chris Molanphy joins New York Times pop music critic Lindsay Zoladz , and Julianne Escobedo Shepherd of Hearing Things in a critics’ roundtable led by Slate’s own Carl Wilson. They discuss their favorite albums and singles, as well as the trends that shaped music in 2025. Among this year’s big musical q...

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, David Plotz, and special guest Stephen Colbert answer listeners’ conundrums of all kinds: the meaningful, the trivial, and the delightfully absurd. Thanks to all Conundrums contributors: Karl, Elodie, Mitchell, Brian, Phil, Eric, Christian, Kyle, Matthew, Katie, Jesse, John, Bjorn, David, Colin, Alan, Emily, Marie, and Liam! Email your chatters, questions,...

If you need confirmation of Hollywood’s vast influence on mass culture, look no further than the pop charts. From the 1937 classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs through this year’s KPop Demon Hunters , soundtracks have launched hits, defined genres—and sometimes even eclipsed the films that inspired them in the first place. Rock classics, funk jams, rap bangers, even Christmas standards: all bec...

All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode originally aired in September.  We’ve been told that artificial intelligence can write, code, generate images—it can do everything…except feasibly turn a profit. But...

All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from August. More than a thousand rabbis and Jewish leaders have signed a letter calling for Israel to end “the use and threat of starvation as a weapon of war.”...

The hosts are on vacation this week! But we’ve got an episode from What Next for you that we think you’ll love. Conservatives have long complained that teaching American history with slavery and genocide and systemic oppression is just too negative, and the Trump administration has gone as far as attacking the Smithsonian for focusing too much on “how horrible our country is.” But omitting the sha...

After thinking it was lost to the sands of internet time, our team uncovered a 2013 gem from the archives. In the “The Abstract Noun Edition,”  your favorite Gabfesters talk about how we talk. Steve, Dana, and Julia discuss the elements of language: vocabulary, conversation, and voice. In paroxysms of polysyllables, they invoke their favorite writers—and their least favorite linguistic tics—to pro...

All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from August. From the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge, and places in between like Yellowstone and the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, the National P...

On today’s encore episode, hosts Candice Lim and Kate Lindsay are joined by Slate staff writer Aymann Ismail to discuss the controversial YouTube channel, Jubilee. A video of political commentator Mehdi Hasan debating 20 far-right republicans has gone viral, but as Ismail argues in his piece for Slate , it also crossed a line. When political disagreement becomes content and extremism is rewarded w...

When screenwriter Russell Hainline first moved to L.A., his goal was to write high-budget monster movies and thrillers. Then one day, he was prompted to write a Hallmark holiday rom-com, and something clicked. In this special holiday episode, Russell talks about his breakout Netflix hit Hot Frosty and how he found his groove writing movies for the Hallmark Channel. He also gets to the heart of why...

All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from October. In an executive order, Donald Trump declared “Antifa” a terrorist organization. As it isn’t an organization, there aren’t leaders to target, so zeal...

In this Money Talks: Planet Money’s Mary Childs joins Felix Salmon to share what she learned reporting on how private philanthropy is trying to cope with the influx of need now that USAID is gone. They’ll get into the headaches and heartbreaks charitable organizations Givewell and ALIMA are experiencing after the loss of billions of dollars of humanitarian aid, the practical costs of saving lives,...

Hosts Alex Kirshner , Lindsay Gibbs , and Ben Lindbergh look back on 2025, picking their top sports stories from each month—from the Luka trade and torpedo bats to a Trumpy Ryder Cup and OKC’s championship. It's been a year! On the bonus episode available exclusively for Slate Plus members, the panel unpacks Trump’s proposed Patriot Games. January - April (3:51): CFP - Rory May - August (26:58) :...

All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from April. The Trump administration’s actions on immigration and firing the federal workforce have drawn condemnation from all sorts of unions—from building trad...

On this episode: Lucy Lopez , Elizabeth Newcamp , and Zak Rosen are drinking, crafting, and answering listener questions. Find out how to make a Gin Snowball, learn Elizabeth’s surprisingly easy paperbag snowflake method, and learn who Ray Keith is. While getting festive, they talk about toys of yore that changed their lives, ponder how necessary Santa is to Christmas magic, and throw out ideas fo...

All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode originally aired in March. Memecoins are a niche type of cryptocurrency with no intrinsic value. But they remain a popular form of crypto, as seen earlier this year...

This week: The European Commission pushed back its timeline for all EV Europe.   Felix Salmon , Elizabeth Spiers , and Emily Peck are joined by Bloomberg’s Global Automotive Editor Craig Trudell who helps understand how and why the global electronic vehicle transition is unraveling . Then, in a twist move, Truth Social parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, merged with TAE Technologie...

David Plotz talks with Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales about his new book The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things That Last. They discuss how Wikipedia’s culture of assuming good faith and shared purpose became a model for building trustworthy digital communities — and what lessons that holds for companies, social media, and politics today. Wales reflects on how to maintain trus...

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by comedian and writer Youngmi Mayer to talk about a controversy that’s divided TikTok: How should Asian people feel about white people in Asian grocery stores? That’s the question creator Madeline Qi didn’t even mean to ask when she posted her now-viral video, which resulted in call-outs, doxxing, and, ultimately, a conversation too nuanced for TikT...

In mid-March of 2025, ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt and his colleagues started hearing that the Trump administration might attempt a flagrantly lawless publicity stunt, involving migrant men, secret flights to El Salvador, a notorious gulag, and a total disregard for due process. Despite getting word that something was about to happen, and rushing into a Saturday night hearing, and then securing a TRO...

Is the president falling into the very trap that launched him back into office by telling people the economy is actually great when they say it isn’t? Is this partially ballroom’d White House as chaotic as its detractors—and Trump’s chief of staff—say it is?  Guest: Ben Jacobs , political reporter based in Washingon. This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus....