All the Ways We Surveil Motherhood
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When I first heard about Hannah Zeavin’s new book, Mother Media: Hot and Cool Parenting in the Twe...
All the Latest Book & Publishing Trends, Explained
23 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is an audience of people who love books — and people who have thoughts about the culture aro...
Why is Montana So in Love With Itself?
16 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Montana’s unofficial tagline is “the last best place” — which should tell you something abo...
Why Is Katy Perry So Embarrassing?
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At some point in late April, near the apex of the memes and jokes and ridicule of Katy Perry’s rec...
Why Are Men's Clothes All Earth Tones
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why do men wear shirts under their shirts? Are you forever doomed to wear the same clothes as your 3...
How Private Equity Destroys the Companies You Depend On
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Chances are high that you’ve heard about the way that “private equity” has acquired, hollowed ...
Let's Unpack Some Intensive Parenting Trends (In a Way That Will Not Make You Feel Like Crap)
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
People often ask me why I care so much about parenting when I am not, myself, a parent. This questio...
How 2000s Culture Messed Us Up
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Is it weird that I really love talking about all the ways the formative culture of my teens screwed ...
What is SoCal Culture?
28 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For each of these culture-of-place episodes, we look for someone who both adores a place, are very m...
Everything We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Periods
21 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This isn’t a bleak episode about period pain. Yes, we talk a LOT about death cramps — and all s...
The Backyard Chicken Glamour Campaign
14 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tove Danovich is the person to talk to about raising backyard chickens — at least if you want to ...
Unlocking the Allure of Tate McRae
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tate McRae is one of the most popular artists in the world — but millions of my peers have only th...
Boston Culture with Josh Gondelman
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Here at Culture Study we’re launching a new series on culture of place — it could be a state, a...
Complicating the Plastic Surgery Conversation
23 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
So many of you have been asking for an episode on plastic surgery culture for so long — but I kne...
The Immersive Joy of Fan Fiction
16 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Whether you’ve been deep in the fanfic world for years or have only heard others talk about it —...
How a Cookbook Gets Made
09 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is such a delight of an episode! We’ve been wanting to do a big cookbook conversation since t...
WTF is Spiritual Care for the Non-Religious?
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It feels weird to call yourself a “None,” but according to demographers, that’s what I am: one...
Does Running Culture Suck?
26 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why does every person who runs marathon want to convince you that you too could run one? What makes ...
Figuring Out How To Feel About 'With Love, Meghan'
19 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When With Love, Meghan — the Netflix lifestyle show starring Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex —...
The Irishification of Pop Culture
12 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This all started with my desire to do a Paul Mescal episode. A listener suggested we ask Caroline O’...
The Feminist Playground of Historical Romance
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re a historical romance person, all I need to say is: Sarah MacLean is here, and she is ans...
The Enduring Myths of Budget Culture
26 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, I published an interview in the newsletter with Dana Miranda about “budget culture” ...
Approximately 72 Old Movies to Fall In Love With
19 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I love old movies — but I didn’t always! In fact, I needed many years of directed classwork to f...
The Heart of Dad Culture
12 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What makes something ~Dad~? Is it pleated Dockers? A worn baseball cap? Asking (again) if you’ve c...
Fake, Real, Imagined, & Projected CELEBRITY FEUDS!!!
05 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I know a lot about historic Hollywood feuds. I could do an entire episode just on the magazine cover...
Reclaiming "Self-Care" from the Brands
29 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We’re at the point where we know a b******t attempt to commodify our burnout when we see it. No on...
Who Gets To Ski?
22 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I grew up skiing at a mid-size mountain in the middle of Idaho. I wasn’t ever an athletic kid, but...
The Wild and Banal Future of Celebrity Gossip
15 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Let me start with this: this is a dream interview. If, like me, you spent a lot of time in the 2000s...
How Did Thrifting Get So Bad?
08 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thrifting has a smell, but it also has a feel. For me, the feel is of thick, almost indestructible r...
The Rise of Therapy Speak
01 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
No matter where you spend your time, online or off, you’ve encountered some form of therapy speak....
All Your Questions About The Weird World of Kids' Toys
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As an Registered Auntie, I get to watch kids’ toy trends from the backseat. I’ve bought annoying...
The Expansive World of Queer Romance
11 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes we do episodes where I know a fair amount about the subject and end up on a three minute d...
WTF is Going On With That Clothing Brand
04 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What is Quince and why is it everywhere? Who is running Albion Fit? Who buys clothes at Altar’d St...
Why Is It So Hard to Make a Good Blockbuster?
27 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes I forget just how many classes I took on the history of cinema — or that I used to teac...
Nicole Kidman's Resting Rich Face
20 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
I could talk about Nicole Kidman for hours. Very few Hollywood actors have had careers this varied, ...
Women's Sports and Gender Panic
13 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Almost all of the public conversations about sex testing and sports — or, more to the point, who s...
Is BookTok Actually About Reading?
30 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“Most people who complain about BookTok have never seen a BookTok.” Alyssa Morris drops that ins...
Is the Golden Age of Podcasts Over?
23 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A podcast episode on the state of podcasting? Classic Culture Study Pod. At this point in my career,...
Why Are We So Weird About Cancer?
16 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You might look at the question in the title of this episode and think: duh, it’s because we’re w...
Strong Opinions About Trivial Sh*t
09 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You know that feeling when you and a friend get weird and detailed and hilarious about something you...
The Feminine Draw of Contemporary Conspiracy
02 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What’s the difference between a conspiracy theory and gossip? When does joking around about Kate M...
Will MomTok Even Survive This?!?!
25 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You can almost hear the producers trying to sell this show to Hulu: It’s hot Mormon moms… who ar...
Sapphic Pop, So Hot Right Now
18 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve had listeners asking us to do an episode on sapphic pop for months now, and were trying to f...
What It's Really Like to Run a Romance Bookstore
11 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is a dream come true of an episode: we got the owners of The Ripped Bodice to talk to us about ...
Cooking in the Age of Infinite Recipes
04 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is the Culture Study Podcast’s version of a Just Trust Me. It’s difficult to descri...
The Complicated Future of Reality TV
28 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We’re more than twenty years into the current reality boom — and things are getting complicated...
An Incredibly Well-Timed Ben Affleck Episode
21 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Romolini is one of my favorite thinkers about ambition, and workism, and the stories we tel...
Explaining the Best and Weirdest TikTok Trends
14 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
TikTok is filled with wonders. It’s SO weird. It can make you feel like the algorithm is telling y...
A Former Trad Wife on What It Actually Takes To Leave
07 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Trad Wife Discourse is everywhere. It’s been everywhere for a while, in part because it offers a t...
How HGTV Shapes and Refines Our Taste
31 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do the politics of taste and HGTV shows intersect? Why do we watch, why do we feel the way we do...
The Beautiful Cult of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
24 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A seven-part Netflix docuseries on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders called America’s Sweethearts? O...
How Romance Writers Rewrite Publishing’s Rules
17 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How are romance writers — and the recent romance boom — chipping away at the norms of Big Publi...
What Does J.Lo Actually Want?
10 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
J.Lo is, as we say in the Culture Study universe, a rich text. There is so much history, so many lay...
Big Jeans Feelings
26 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why do jeans make us FEEL THINGS? I mean, I have a lot of feelings about the “going out top,” bu...
Royals Gossip and Colonial Hangovers
19 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Most people I know think the monarchy — any monarchy — is pretty ridiculous. And yet: most peo...
The Sephora Teen Freakout
12 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sephora teens are teens who hang out at Sephora — and they’re a point of cultural anxiety becaus...
How Romance Novels Center Marginalized Joy
05 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After our GREAT discussion of A Court of Roses and Thorns we realized we wanted to talk a lot more a...
Are Millennials the Most Nostalgic Generation?
29 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Spoiler: No, millennials are not the most nostalgic generation — we’re just in a deeply nostalg...
There Has To Be a Better Way To Shop Online
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The very first episode of this pod was on how clothes got so shitty — and it prompted a whole bunc...
Why Do We Get So Mad at Celebrities?
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
I spent years of my life studying celebrity images and what makes them meaningful to us. A celebrity...
How Christian Rock Fed the Culture Wars
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you grew up in or adjacent to evangelical culture, the sounds of ‘90s and early 2000s Christian...
How Did Goodreads Get So Bad?
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A platform where you can record what you’re reading and talk to others about what they’re readin...
Taylor Swift and the Tortured Poets Aesthetic
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A listener submitted a question earlier this week that was basically: Why are we talking about Taylo...
The Country Heart of Cowboy Carter
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Who can force a nationwide conversation about musical genre for a whole damn month? Beyoncé can. An...
The Insidious Influence of Moms for Liberty
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Moms For Liberty sucks. I’m not going to even try to soften that statement, because it’s true: t...
We know sitting is bad for us. But what are we supposed to do instead?
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Driving, attending meetings, hunching over laptops, zooming, commuting, absentmindedly scrolling Ins...
Come Drink From the Stanley Cup
27 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As any Pacific Northwest teen from the ‘90s and early 2000s who carted a Nalgene around campus can...
The Intoxicating Ease of Kevin Bacon's Instagram
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
I occasionally encounter someone who asks: Who would follow a celebrity on Instagram? Lady, I WOULD....
Student Loans Are Culture
13 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to think of student loans as culture? First off, it means that we can think of the...
The ACOTAR Chokehold
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve been in a bookstore lately, you’ve undoubtedly seen it: A Court of Thorns and Roses, b...
Your Questions About Butts, Answered
28 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Every so often, I do a Culture Study (newsletter) interview that inspires a LOT of follow-up questio...
What's Bradley Cooper's Deal?
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bradley Cooper would very much like an Oscar. If you’ve been paying attention to Hollywood at any ...
Is Divorce Actually Contagious?
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Maybe you’ve seen it happen, or maybe you’ve just heard it whispered: divorce is contagious. One...
Is Personal Coaching a Scam?
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, there are coaches for everything. Business, fitness, careers, breastfeeding, parenting, ADHD,...
The Bizarre World of Celebrity Philanthropy
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Philanthropy is so weird. Celebrities: also weird. When the two collide, you get something even more...
The Curious Return of 2000s Music
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
At some point in the last year I looked around and realized… 2000s music was EVERYWHERE. Nelly Fur...
The Cult of Cold Plunging
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week I get my “cold plunge curious” partner Charlie Warzel to come on the pod and talk abou...
The Mutated IP of the Mean Girls Reboot
10 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week I’m joined by Michelle Cyca to talk about the trailer for the Mean Girls reboot. You mig...
Rich Dudes Driving in Circles
03 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For the fifth episode of the Culture Study podcast I’m joined by Nicole Washington to talk about a...
The Pernicious Laziness of Paw Patrol
27 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For the fourth episode of the Culture Study podcast I’m joined by Philip Maciak — who manages t...
Why Are We So Obsessed with Taylor + Travis?
20 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Esteemed law professor Leah Litman, co-host of Strict Scrutiny, joins me and Melody to talk about al...
We're All Infrastructure Nerds
13 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For the second episode of the Culture Study podcast, we’re diving into the nerdy and awesome and f...
Why Do Clothes Suck Now?
06 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For the maiden voyage of the Culture Study podcast, we’re taking a hard look at a problem that pla...
Introducing the Culture Study Podcast
27 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Everything is interesting.That idea has guided the tremendously popular Culture Study newsletter, an...