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Artificial intelligence boosters spent the year wedging the tech into our lives – whether we wanted it or not. But one new product brought A.I. from every app and website into the meatspace, forcing you to face it eye-to-eye. Guest: Nitish Pahwa, staff writer at Slate covering business and technology Want more What Next: TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Ne...

2025 might not have been a great year —but the music sure was stellar. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by...

The hosts are on vacation this week! So we're taking you back in time with one of our favorite episodes of the year. Elizabeth and Zak talk with Ash Brandin,  author of  Power On , about managing screen time without guilt or panic. They discuss realistic strategies and why screen time doesn’t define parenting quality. Then, a listener’s question about school tech mandates gets some thoughtful answ...

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz revisit several favorite segments from Gabfests past to celebrate their 20th anniversary: the consequential and eye-opening “don’t call the police” debate, the segment in which John shows Bill Clinton how to apologize with his characteristic eloquence and grace, and that time a data scientist definitively answered the important question: wh...

We can’t make this show without you, our listeners. Today, you can help support Decoder Ring – and get a really good deal. To join Slate Plus for just $59/year, visit slate.com/decoderplus on December 31st and type in the promo code DECODER50 at checkout. Slate Plus members get to listen to episodes of Decoder Ring (and all your favorite Slate podcasts!) with no ads, and get access to exclusive bo...

With rising authoritarianism, terrifying speech crackdowns, and violence in the streets, this year we found ourselves turning to our friends over at How To for advice on  finding peace and excitement in our lives. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by c...

In the waning moments of 2025, Julia, Dana, and Steve say goodbye to the year that was with a beloved annual end-of-year tradition… our listener call-in show! And you delivered some great queries, dear listeners.  The hosts tackle questions about everything ranging from under-dramatized historical eras to Wuthering Heights to wedding registry etiquette. They also zoom out to grapple with a fundame...

Your stories about inheritance: Gwynn wrestles with her mother's will that would cut out her sister; Trevor inherited money from his father and questions about whether his death was planned; and Anna talks to two young people giving away their inherited wealth despite some family opposition. Podcast production by Zoe Azulay Sign up for a full year of Slate Plus for 50% off by using the code DSM50...

If you were to sum up 2025 in a film, which would you pick? The question that nearly wrecked the brain of Slate’s chief movie critic. Guest: Dana Stevens , Slate’s movie critic. Dana’s ten best movies of 2025 . Her review of Sinners . And her review of One Battle After Another . Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all yo...

On this episode: Lucy Lopez , Elizabeth Newcamp , and Zak Rosen are looking back on 2025, but keeping an eye on 2026. They discuss their biggest parenting fails from this year, and what they’re looking to learn and improve on in the new year. Then, it’s poetry night! Each of the hosts wrote poems for the others to cap off 2025. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you won’t want to miss it.  Podcast producti...

Canada and the United States usually have a pretty good-natured sports rivalry—but from hockey to baseball, that was not the case in 2025.  Guest:  Alex Kirshner, contributing writer at Slate, co-host of Hang Up and Listen and the Split Zone Duo podcasts.  Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podca...

Hosts Alex Kirshner , Lindsay Gibbs , and Ben Lindbergh look into their crystal balls and tell us what to look out for in the sports world of the future! Will we see more LeBron? More sports betting scandals? A Bill Super Bowl win? A Trump immigration World Cup incident? Only time and the all-knowing Hang Up hosts can tell. In the second half of our show, we’re sharing Alex’s recent conversation w...

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...