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First, it was a meme with weird AI-generated cockroach pictures. Then, it became a youth movement that is genuinely freaking out the Indian political establishment. So how far can the Cockroach Janata Party take it? For this episode, I hit up documentary filmmaker Angad Singh and asked him why young people are putting on cockroach masks and getting into the streets. In short, it started with an of...

If you're Chinese, ChatGPT has probably offered to 'steadily catch' you at least once. But what why does it keep saying that? And why is 我会稳稳地接住你 a meme (instead of making people mad)... and by the way, will Chinese college students boo at their graduations? Zeyi Yang is a senior writer at WIRED, and his article was the inspiration for this. See below for more of his work! oh, and welcome...

has your school told you how bad this hack really was? My guest Ian Linkletter called this the 'Biggest Privacy Disaster in History', and he stands by that. He's been warning about Canvas/Instructure for years. We get into why having your data on a service with 9,000 other schools is a bad idea, why extortions could go on for another 20 years or more, and what students and teachers can do next. mu...

I'm talking about the US military here (which is also the nation's largest employer, period). Dan Ming has been covering our military for a while, and he's got some insight here: back in 2021, he spoke to Sgt First Class Jessica Haut just as she had decided to transition. He's kept in contact with her since, and just recently interviewed her again. So now that Trump's Executive Order has effective...

David Z Morris has been covering cryptocurrency for over a decade. And now that Trump has announced a ‘crypto reserve’, you’d think he’d be excited. But a lot of crypto experts think it’s all a pretty bad idea, and David has a hunch it probably won’t happen anyway. We also talk a bit about the ‘crypto czar’, David Sacks, and what role he may play in all of this. (recorded March 4, 2025, on twitch....

NOTE: at 31:30 we're talking about an AI-generated video of Trump sucking Elon's toes. Someone was playing it on TVs at HUD. Greg Walters, News Editor at Crooked Media, joined the stream to talk about DOGE, and why despite the outrage, it's probably sticking around. You can check out the newsletter we reference here: https://crooked.com/newsletters/what-a-day-fork-in-the-doge/ And here's clip from...

three quick facts: 1. Canada *does* have a fentanyl problem. 2. But less than 1% of the fent coming into the U.S. is from there. 3. And Mexican migrants aren't bringing it in, either. I talked with Manisha Krishnan, who's been covering drugs and drug policy for nearly a decade, about what kind of weird political games are happening, and who is losing those games. A bonus fact: Trump doesn't seem t...

Angad Singh interviewed one of the 4.9 million people who Canada might now be asking to 'go home', now that Trudeau is out. His piece is on YouTube, and you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5vRl23p0Zw

This one was recorded just after the Olympics. I was talking about having b-boys and b-girls in the Olympics and how that was kiinida complicated now and then our guest, documentary filmmaker Mustafa Mirza comes in with potentially the most important thing that’s happened in Pakistan sportswise in a long time, and what happens now that javelin is on the map for the 5th largest population in the wo...

warning: you’re about to listen to two journalists talk about the news. But the news sucks! you say — so why should we care? Well, this $250 million deal might have just made it worse. Counterintuitive, but Matt Pearce (ex LA Times) has a pretty compelling argument. We talk about this, and AI, and a bunch of other stuff. Keep in mind that this is a pretty complicated topic, and there are some othe...

Chaos Town has been documenting the wildest parts of Portland for a year now. From stripper yoga to the 'penis bush lady' to sideshows – and now, the best look at what is truly happening in Portland's $4m graffiti war. if you haven't already watched their documentary, do that first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7npnxP_6poA In the doc, Chaos Town embedded with an up-and-coming writer rappelling...

Prisons are constantly going on lockdown because of staff shortages, which means that prisoners can't use the phones. This makes tablet computers sold to incarcerated people are all the more crucial to let their loved ones on the outside know they are safe – but Gaby Caplan has discovered in her reporting for WIRED that federal prisons nationwide seem to have enacted a policy of disabling the mess...

How do you make a documentary about Gaza … when they won't let you into Gaza? A mix of OSINT, protests, and Whatsapp calls with a journalist trapped in Rafah. Seb Walker (former DC Bureau Chief of VICE News) hosted a documentary called A Hidden War , from Scripps News and Bellingcat. And yes, we talk about Kendrick v Lamar (a tiny bit), but mostly Macklemore. We get into what it was like to talk t...

The campus protests are a recent news obsession in the US. But did you hear when a couple students (and former Israel Defense Force members) allegedly sprayed a chemical that sent a number of protesters to the hospital? This was back in January, but it took AJ+ over two months to finally put out a report. There's a reason for that, which we get into in the podcast. This is the definitive account o...

As respected sports shows like HBO’s Real Sports die, and ESPN and Sports Illustrated are continually gutted, a new form of sports coverage is rising: shows run by the athletes themselves. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, but there are some caveats. This session’s guest is Joshua Hersh, former correspondent and senior producer at VICE News, and current editor at Columbia Journalism Review. Yo...

Krishna Andavolu and his show Weediquette on VICE helped pioneer not only a new generation of weed reporting, but also helped shift attitudes toward marijuana policy, legislation, and culture. He jumped on the stream to talk about his past work, the current state of weed in the US, and to make some predictions about how cannabis may figure into the 2024 election as a Biden campaign strategy. Here'...

It's been a weird few weeks on the Internet. I brought on Jason Koebler, cofounder of 404 Media (and former EIC of Motherboard, VICE's tech vertical), to talk about it. The topics are all from 404media.co . Here are the links: Pornhub pulling out of Texas: https://www.404media.co/pornhub-blocked-texas/ A cop looking for books to ban in an library: https://www.404media.co/police-bodycam-shows-sheri...

the 'uncommitted' vote in Michigan is starting to surprise people, including the organizers of the movement itself. I brought on Evan (former VICE News, CNN, and other places), currently at NOTUS.org, to talk about his reporting on the activists. Read the article he co-authored here: https://www.notus.org/biden-2024/uncommitted-delegate-biden-super-tuesday Other articles referenced: [NPR] 'Uncommi...

There's a lot going on in videogames. People upset about about the 'black guy haircut', 8000+ layoffs, and Nintendo is suing people with potentially awful repercussions. So let's get into it. Trone Dowd is a freelance journalist with bylines at IGN, VICE, and NY Daily News. Find him on Twitter and IG at @theloniusly

Some context: first, this was recorded the day after the official collapse of VICE News. My guest, Tess, had just been laid off, along with just about everyone else. And in a full circle moment, we’re talking about the Proud Boys, a group founded by the guy who was also a co-founder of the company we both used to work at. The first few minutes are us talking a bit about the state of the industry,...

These buildings have been abandoned for 5 years, and then someone decided to spraypaint their name on it. Then a bunch of people followed. Now, there's a price tag … but why? It's been all over the news recently, but we've mostly heard from city officials, police, and commentators. Matthew Stromberg actually interviewed some of the artists behind the pieces. You can read his piece on Hyperallergic...

where is culture heading? what about black culture? who's going to make money off of all this? plus, a postgame about my interview with TikTok's CEO. Steven Roberts has done work for MTV News, VICE (that's where I know him from), ESPN, NBC, and I'm probably forgetting some here. Here's his site: https://www.itsteven.com i do these live: twitch.tv/dexdigi

Hey, there's a war happening. Are you gonna stop buying breakfast cereal? I brought on Michael Learmonth, former Editor in Chief of VICE News, to talk about how the 'brand safe' industry is killing journalism, making us dumber and more annoyed ...and also hurting brands in the process. There's no definitive answers in here (but maybe some ideas), especially if you care about where your information...

Camilo Hannibal Smith is a TK Camilo Hannibal Smith is a culture writer who has been covering Lucha Libre all over the US for years. He came through to talk about why there's a surging popularity of this (not just Mexican!) art form and sport in the South, and his recommendations for what to do if you go (you should!). follow him at http://instagram.com/@camilohannibal Camilo's most recent article...

Try googling anything about Sudan right now, and you'll see a bunch of headlines talking about a 'forgotten war'. (If you just want to hear the part about the soda, it's at minute 42.) That word, 'forgotten', pops up a lot, and it's not an overstatement. How did we get to the point where a war that has dragged on for 250+ days, has 5 million people at risk of extreme hunger, and was referred to by...