Culture Study Podcast
Episodes
What's Behind All The BIG KOREAN POP CULTURE ENERGY
10 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes I wish I could just have the intro paragraph to an episode be GAAHHHHHHH THIS ONE WAS SO FUN! So this is my version of that: telling you tha...
How to Fall in Love with Birding
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Do you need an episode that's the equivalent of a big, deep, inhale and exhale? GREAT NEWS, TEAM, WE HAVE THE EPISODE FOR YOU. Journalist and urban bi...
What It's Actually Like to Run a Small (Creative) Business
26 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When I went freelance full-time to write Culture Study, I had no idea what I was doing. NONE. It took me several years — and encouragement from my a...
Tracing Cultural Panics with Sarah Marshall (!!!)
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What is it about a particular cultural object — or trend, or perceived trend — that makes people FREAK THE F OUT? Anyone who's looked at histori...
A Very Smart Conversation About Fantasy (and Romance) with Leigh Bardugo
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you're a paid subscriber and haven't yet set up your subscriber RSS feed in your podcast player, here's the EXTREMELY easy how-to .And if you're ha...
Love is Blind as a Cultural Skeleton Key
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you're a paid subscriber and haven't yet set up your subscriber RSS feed in your podcast player, here's the EXTREMELY easy how-to .And if you're ha...
[PREVIEW] Love is Blind as a Cultural Skeleton Key
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you're a paid subscriber and haven't yet set up your subscriber RSS feed in your podcast player, here's the EXTREMELY easy how-to .And if you're ha...
What It's Like to Grow Up With Hoarders
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
People are fascinated by hoarding culture — in part because it presents a reality that's not that distant from our current accumulation habits. Lik...
The Outdoor Gearification of the American Wardrobe
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I can’t tell you how excited I am about this one: Avery Trufelman, host of the beloved podcast Articles of Interest, is here to talk all things OUTD...
How the Manosphere Fuels Climate Change Denial
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What does masculinity have to do with climate change denial? F-ing everything! Daniel Penny, host of the new Drilled podcast Carbon Bros, joins me to ...
Let's Talk About Baseball Culture!!!
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
FIRST OFF — PLEASE TAKE OUR MEMBERSHIP SURVEY!! The podcast only works because of your questions (and episode ideas!) and we want more of them (and...
Why Other People's Screen Time Annoys You
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Maybe your mom endlessly scrolls Facebook every time you visit. Maybe your kid has to be asked six times to get off his tablet. Maybe your friend is a...
Who Gets a Mid-Life Reinvention?
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
By the mid-2010s, Jen Hatmaker had become one of the most important voices in white Evangelical culture. She had multiple best-selling books; she head...
Figuring Out What's Behind Seven Recent Food Trends
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I love talking about food as culture — and like all parts of culture, food has trends that ebb and flow. We asked you to provide us with food trend...
How Algorithms Are Changing the Way We Speak
10 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This one’s a weird one! But it’s also going to elucidate a bunch of bewildering phrases that you might have noticed popping up in advertisements o...
One Gwyneth Episode to Rule Them All
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There aren’t many contemporary celebrities with images layered enough that I could talk about them all day. But Gwyneth? She’s one of them. She’...
Dozens of New-To-You Books for Your TBR Pile
27 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over on the newsletter, our book concierge threads — when people ask for specific book recommendations, and readers then offer their suggestions —...
Don't Mess With Texas Culture
20 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Texas Culture is at least a dozen cultures smashed into one enormous state — with a whopping 254 counties, four sprawling metro areas, 1255 miles of...
The Potent Ideological Stew of Evangelical Church Camp
13 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I first read about Cara Meredith’s book on evangelical church camp over at Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s newsletter, and as soon as I saw “cry night”...
The Ridiculously Interesting World of American Accents
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When your family is from a place with a distinctive, often-mockable accent, and you don’t have that accent but can (and do) readily fall into it as ...
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 Twentieth Century, I knew it Culture Study material. ...
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 around books. Book clubs, BookTok, the popularization...
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 about the way the state thinks about itself. It’s a...
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 recent “women’s empowerment” trip to space, Mel...
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 32-year-old self? Why isn’t male fashion more fun...
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 out, and bankrupted some service, product, or comp...
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 question is always so weird to me — of course I care a...
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 me up? Maybe it’s just cathartic — talking wi...
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 much a product of that place… and are also 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 sorts of other symptoms that accompany menstruation...
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 talk about the culture and discourse swirling arou...
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 the faintest idea of who she is. Alternately, they’...
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 region, a city, so long as it has place-ness. The...
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 knew I couldn’t do it until I had the perfect co-ho...
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 — we’ve worked really hard to make this episode ...
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 the start of the podcast, and when America’s Test...
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 of millions of Americans who understand themselve...
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 running clubs so intimidating? When people get int...
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 — first came out, I knew the only way I wanted to e...
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’Donoghue — author of The Rachel Incident, hos...
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 answering all the questions. If you’re not a histor...
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” — and it became one of the most popular (and di...
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 fall in love with them. But if you’re not in the ...
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 checked your oil? Incompetency in the domestic sphe...
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 covers featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Eddie Fisher, and De...
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 one’s buying the self-care spiel the bath bomb com...
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 skiing — it made me feel fast and really good ...
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 and 2010s reading about celebrity online, Go Fug ...
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 rayon weaves; of dense, mothbally wool; of slick, a...
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. Maybe it comes from a friend who loves processing...
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 things (sorry, parent friends) and learned how to...
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 digression about picture palaces. And sometimes I’...
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 State? Why is Madewell so sad? This is an explainer ...
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 teach a class on it! — but then I have a conversatio...
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, this delightful, this weird — oh, and she’s al...
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 should be allowed to participate in women’s sport...
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 insight about two-thirds of the way through the episo...
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, I’ve been interviewed on hundreds of podcasts, ...
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 weird about death. But cancer is so common, with so...
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 deeply (and maybe irrationally) hate, or find rid...
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 Middleton’s abduction turn into something much da...
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 are also swingers. Turns out only one of them was “...
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 figure out who we wanted to co-host. Then Melody se...
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 all the ins and outs of running a romance-only boo...
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 describe exactly WHY it’s so good, just that after we ...
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. What are the unspoken and spoken ethics of signi...
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 tell ourselves about what we must endure in order to ...
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 you something you don’t even realize about yourse...
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 twisted fantasy of ease to women who are attempting...
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 when we watch, and how is taste shaped in the pro...
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? Oh my god, WHAT a rich text. The uniform, the dance...
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 Publishing? Does self-publishing lead to more diverse a...
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 layers of accumulated meaning, so many relationships,...
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,” but at least I no longer have to deal with it. Jeans...
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 people I know also know a lot about Meghan Markle and...
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 because 1) they’re buying a lot of makeup and skincare...
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 about romance: about the so-called “boom” and w...
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 nostalgic moment in our lives, reckoning (sometimes grace...
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 bunch of you to write in with your questions about how...
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’s actions or words can make or deepen our conne...
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 Rock are as familiar to you as the beginning bars...
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 reading doesn’t sound like a recipe for dystopia. But ...
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 Taylor Swift again???? And I get it: if you’re not a ...
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. And I knew I wanted to be several weeks into that di...
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: they’re an ideologically regressive organization ...
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 Instagram — so much of contemporary life encourage...
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 tell you: WATER BOTTLE CULTURE IS NOT NEW. As pr...
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. I do! I follow celebrities who I actually like an...
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 them as something that’s changeable. Because as muc...
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, better known as ACOTAR, ruling over the paperback 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 questions — and the podcast is the perfect forum to add...
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 point over the last five years, you know this. It’...
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 person in a friend group gets divorced, and sudde...
Is Personal Coaching a Scam?
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, there are coaches for everything. Business, fitness, careers, breastfeeding, parenting, ADHD, MLMs, divorce… even death. Is it b******t? Or i...
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 bizarre. Why should we believe what Ashton Kutche...
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 Furtado. Timbaland. Eminem. 50 Cent. MGMT. In Bama Ru...
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 about how cold plunging suddenly feels like it’s eve...
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 might think: wow, that’s a very small thing to focu...
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 all things F1: what’s behind the recent rise, is ...
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 to be a professor, the television critic for The Ne...