Call For Comments: Is AI art or ‘theft’? Yes and No… probably…

From Mav: So, like a lot of other people I used the Lensa app to make myself a collection of random avatars last weekend. Why? Because all of my friends were doing it and if they were all going to jump off a cliff I would too. And yeah, that sounds silly, but honestly, that’s…

e240. Reality Twitter? (and Politics)

Running a pop culture podcast isn’t easy. One of the biggest problems is that popular culture is a moving target. There’s just… always stuff happening! We can’t really get to it all. Every once in a while rather than pick a stable topic, we like to get together and just do a sort of free…

Call For Comments: Do We Need To Talk About Kanye?

From Mav: A few days ago, friend of the show (and host of the Handsome Genius Club Radio Show) Kingdom James texted me asking if I wanted to do a crossover episode where we talk about Kanye West’s recent nonsense. So I sat down to write it, but wasn’t feeling quite inspired, so I figured…

CFC: Will the Real Ariana Grande please stand up?

One of these people is Ariana Grande. The other is cosplayer Paige Niemann. Which is which? From Mav: The nice thing about having your own pop culture podcast is that sometimes something happens and you’re like “what the actual fuck” and you just want to be given the opportunity to work things out? Well, I…

e204. Viral Grammar: Rhetoric, Semiotics, and Emoji

It’s the episode you’ve been waiting for! The one where we talk about The Emoji Movie! 😝 Ok… maybe not… well, a little, but for good reason. One aspect of popular culture we probably don’t think about very often is communication. Communication is the cornerstone of culture, on the internet or otherwise. In today’s world…

e191. Pop Culture Casserole

As we transition from the fall holidays through the winter ones we’ve noticed that there was a bunch of pop culture things have just fallen through the cracks. Like, really a WHOLE lot of them. And what do you do when you have a bunch of odds and ends left over from Thanksgiving that don’t…

e187. 4x4ward: Overlanding and the Great Outdoors

When you study “pop culture” people automatically think of the MOST popular media that is available of the day. For us living in 2021, that’s largely superhero movies. Of course, if you listen to this show, you know we also frequently talk about music, TV shows, books and video games. But popular culture is much…

CFC: in which Katya learns a new word, or what is Overlanding & am I tacticool though?

Photo by 4x4WARD Photo by 4x4WARD From Katya: My favorite way to introduce Cultural Studies to people is Raymond Williams’ “Culture is Ordinary.” Williams insisted that culture included a person’s or community’s whole way of life. Culture isn’t just the novels, films, games, or general “stuff” of culture but everything that is part of your…

e182. I Fixed That for You, Now GTFO!

If the internet is good at anything, it’s dumping on asked for criticism at other people. Everyone does it. In fact, in a very real way, that’s pretty much what this whole show is. We’re cultural critics. This is cultural criticism. But is there a point when that criticism can go too far? Are there…

e180. So, You Say You Wanna Host a Pseudoacademic Pop Culture Analysis Podcast (with Drinking and Swearing)

Oddly enough, for a show that is devoted to talking about pop culture, one of the things we don’t talk about so much is podcasts. In a way, podcasting might very well be the epitome of pop culture in the current cultural moment… and also… we are one! So, on today’s very special meta episode,…