e35. SPOILERS! (and Mystery Boxes)

Ever since the rise of the Internet we have all lived in constant fear of all of our favorite movies, books, TV shows and every other media being spoiled by some jerk who just wants to be the first to ruin everything for everyone else… or maybe he’s just an idiot. It doesn’t matter… once…

e34. FarmSims: Digital Transcendentalism

When we recorded the following podcast, or rather the bulk of it, we were avoiding work, sitting in front of a computer, several feet any roommate, in homes we rented, in North Carolina, avoiding work by talking about farms earned by the labor of our hands only… on a computer keyboard. FarmSims are amongst the…

Call for Comments: Watching/Streaming Cheesey Christmas Movies

From Hannah: Over the past few years Christmas has somehow become synonymous with cheesy Christmas movies from channels like Hallmark, Lifetime, and ABC Family (before it became Freeform). I’m not imagining things — Hallmark, for example, has increased its production of holiday movies to 37 and will add Hanukkah movies to its schedule next year.…

e33. Thanksgiving Politics

If you live in the United States, it was Thanksgiving last week, and that means spending time with family. And lately, it seems that a big part of spending time with family for the holidays is discussion politics…. in detail… disgusting, gross, bloody, racist, misogynist detail… with your drunk uncle who got all of his…

Call for Comments: Mediated Politicking

From Katya: Sick of hearing about electoral politics? Prepare to hear about it some more! (Hopefully not as bad as that family member that we often encounter over the holidays.) Media has always had a huge role in politics. In the U.S., we have the myth that  JFK won the presidency because TV  (which is…

e32. Reboots, Remakes, Revivals

Albert Einstein once said, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Well, honestly he probably never said that… or at least didn’t say it first, but the internet says over and over that he said it, so it must be true. Anyway, if this is something…

Call for Comments: Mystery Boxes, Spoilers, and Fandoms

From Hannah: Before I was on the show, we received a suggestion for a show topic on how popular culture fandoms react to spoilers from listener Jessi Bencloski. Spoilers are tricky, especially in big fandoms such as Harry Potter, Lost, Star Wars, and Game of Thrones. Part of what drives (or drove) those fandoms, especially once fan communities emerged online,…

e30. Monster Mash 2: Breaking Twilight

Way back in August we recorded our first Monster Mash episode where we discussed the place of the Monster and the Monster Hunter in popular culture. That was a great conversation that went all over the place and we swore right then that we would pick it up at a later time. For our final…

Episode 29: Sexy Halloween

“In the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” At least, that’s what Mean Girls would have us believe. The…

Call For Comments: The Return of Monster X

From Wayne: (Deep resonant voiceover): ‟In a world where podcasts have virally assimilated human consciousness, an intrepid band of scholars attempt to dissect the Monster that we have all become.” In August we recorded an episode of VoxPopcast on the topic of “The Monster and The Monster Hunter” with our guests Michael Chemers and Heather Duda. The…