The Discourse

The Discourse is back, baby!!! Did you miss us? We sure missed YOU!  …And it turns out we missed a lot else, too. In the few short weeks since we last recorded, the internet has endured a maelstrom of dramas and discourses, ranging from the lighthearted (is iced coffee unprofessional?) to the patently absurd (do lesbian bar owners deserve to live if they don’t conform to my narrow standards of how...

MomTok cannot, in fact, survive this one. SLOMW Season 5 is here, and C + C are bringing you the freshest takes West of Salt Lake City. We're talking Mikayla's glow-up, TFP's breakdown, and everything in between. Grab your dirtiest soda and your longest extensions and settle in for our very first reality recap.

In what one host described as “the juiciest episode yet,” Court, Cecile, and guest-host-slash-armchair-psychologist Linnea regale listeners with tales from the trenches of modern dating.  Featuring:  The time Linnea got serenaded by a famous chef (in a bad way) The time Court was so awkward on a first date that she became the unwitting subject of a friend group betting pool The time Cecile got win...

Another fun-sized installment of The Discourse...with some decidedly not-so-fun subject matter. Speaking off-the-cuff (read: no outline), C + C take on some of the month's hottest controversies, from the mothers suing their surrogates to the online communities spinning wild theories about Lindsay Clancy's husband. They also invent some controversies of their own: Court questions the ethics...

TL;DR: Dead internet theory is true, the influencer recession is upon us, OpenAI brand trip cringe, and the real meaning of AI psychosis.  Courtenay consorts with Cousin Caroline, a friend of the pod and Bay Area native who currently resides in the belly of the AI beast—San Francisco. We discuss how a fringe message-board conspiracy theory became a mainstream talking point and what "dead inte...

In the second edition of the Discourse Digest, C + C cover all the digital debates that are slightly too irrelevant to make their way into a full-length pod—but just juicy enough to bite into on a Sunday afternoon. (ETA: Wishful thinking; I was not done editing til 11pm on Sunday). You'll hear our hot takes on: The cultural commentators who Caroline Calloway thinks are "the fakest bitches...

Andrew Tate, self-avowed misogynist and king of toxic masculinity, was arrested in Miami just last week after being hit with 38 new charges in his long-running battle with the law. He is facing life in prison for sex trafficking, kidnapping, abuse, child pornography, and crimes against fashion. (OK, that last one is fake—but come on, purple capri pants?) As Tate suffers from diarrhea in solitary c...

The rumors are true!!! Welcome to the first installment of our WEEKLY episode series, where we're bringing you a thoroughly digestible version of the online discourse. Today, Court and Cecile catch up on the summer gossip, from Robert Pattinson's leopard print underwear in The Odyssey to young Elle Woods' all-too-relatable experience with the Seattle Freeze. We also indulge in some sis...

What is the meaning behind the suddenly ubiquitous phrase “alpine divorce”? Romantically put, it is “a hike from which only the man returns.” More plainly put: Mountain murder. Courtenay tapped her fav climbing partner and fellow Everest summiteer, Hannah (@hannahclimbsstuff), to join her in unpacking the dark lore behind the mountain-murder discourse. Namely, the strange case of Thomas Plamberger...

**NO VIDEO** After scouring the internet for the juiciest headlines, Courtenay, Cecile, and returning guest host Cousin Caroline play a riveting round of pop culture court where opinions are bared like teeth and knowledge gaps are ruthlessly exposed. This episode comes to you from deep in the Peruvian Andes, but you'd never guess! We remain plugged in to the continental topics du jour, from Taylor...

C + C take on the buzziest release of the year in this special Book Club edition of The Discourse. Yesteryear is writer-cum-podcaster Caro Claire Burke's debut novel, a satirical portrayal of tradwife influencing taken to its extreme. Since its April release, Yesteryear's detestable protagonist and undeniably compelling premise have been the subject of much online discourse.  The book is t...

Why don’t you just get your ass up and WORK? It seems like nobody wants to work anymore!!!! Clock in for today's episode to hear the discourse around remote work, corporate etiquette, Gen Z’s unconventional approach to workplace fashion, and the existential threat AI poses to white-collar careers. We’ll also ~circle back~ to past episodes via some listener feedback—of both the innocuous and hu...

Courtenay’s engaged!!! And more importantly, we've got opinions about it: Lab-grown diamonds? Yes. Danielle Bernstein? No. Mountaintop proposals? Sometimes. Balloon arches on the beach? …Reluctantly. But we’re here for more than just hot takes. Two weeks of expertise in being a fiancée has emboldened Courtenay to take on the entire wedding industrial complex in an attempt to decide whether changin...

SOUND ISSUES FIXED! Mark Zuckerberg is evil. Social media is soul-destroying. Water is wet. Tell me something I don’t know!  Despite our collective disdain for the careless and money-hungry antics of Meta and friends, the social media giants have enjoyed over two decades of near immunity from legal recourse thanks to a little legislative life preserver called Section 230.  Last month, all that cha...

...But there might be a little bit in this episode. In Everest Part 1, we covered Courtenay's decision to climb Everest, her intense training regimen, her therapist's wisdom, and her acclimatization rotations. In this episode, we're taking you all the way to the top—29,029 feet up, to be exact! But first, Courtenay drops some "well, actually" truths about the mountain's b...

On May 23rd, 2024, your favorite pod host, Courtenay, summited Mt. Everest. Today, she finally entertains the question on everyone's lips: Why??! Short answer: She didn't want to go to grad school. Long answer: Well...you'll have to give it a listen! In part one of this two-part series, we'll dive into the discourse surrounding this highly controversial mountain, including how much...

Courtenay, Cecile, and guest host "Cousin Caroline" explore the bizarre and disturbing community of "Looksmaxers"—men who are obsessed with optimizing their appearance by any means necessary. In just under an hour, you'll get a survey of the manosphere, from meth injections to gigchads to Clavicular's wildly nonpartisan reasons for backing Gavin Newsom in the 2028 elect...

This started as an episode about influencers and ended with a fight over the (debatable?) nazi tendencies of pronatalists. Buckle up—the discourse is about to get a little spicy 👀

Gen Z should be at the club...and we don't mean run club! In this week's episode, we dive into the Gen Z sobriety discourse: Alcohol consumption amongst young people is at an all-time low, and everybody is pointing fingers. The TikTok girlies say it's a health-conscious choice, the stoners say it's a substance preference, and Millennials say it's merely the sign of their young...

As its compelling literary content has bled through the cracks of our cultural discourse, BookTok has transformed from merely an internet subculture to a powerful market force that has upended the publishing world as we know it, debatably revived the brick-and-mortar bookstore, and fueled the production of some of the most popular movies and TV shows of the last few years - including the hit new s...