Call for Comments: On Puerto Rico

People take to the Las Americas Highway in San Juan, Puerto Rico, July 22, 2019 on day 9th of continuous protests demanding the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. – (Photo by Eric Rojas / AFP)ERIC ROJAS/AFP/Getty Images From Katya: We have another serious episode in the works. On July 18th, Puerto Ricans began protesting in…

Call For Comments: Does Pop Culture Matter? (LIVE show at Wizard World Pittsburgh)

From Mav: Well, this is kind of exciting. We’ve been invited to do a live panel at Wizard World Pittsburgh this week. We’ll be joining together with our good friend Danny Anderson of the Sectarian Review to talk about why pop culture matters on Sunday, July 28th at 12:30 in room 315 at the Wizard…

Call for Comments: Cuteness and Popular Culture

From Hannah: Happily, we’re surrounded by cute things. The Internet was made for photos of cute cats (and hedgehogs and teacup pigs and otters and puppies and wombats and foxes and all the baby animals). How many people have gone to see films like How to Train Your Dragon or The Secret Life of Pets…

Call For Comments: Parallel Media

From Mav: To me, one of the most fascinating things that happens in Hollywood is when two different movies with essentially the same plot come out at roughly the same time. I don’t mean one movie that is a remake of another movie. I mean when two studios come up with essentially the idea as…

Call for Comments: unRavelrying Social Justice Networks

Ravelry.com From Katya: So this one is off the beaten path for the podcast but very much in my wheelhouse. Regular listeners have heard me plug my instagram feed with the caveat that it’s mainly sewing and knitting-centric. One of the biggest parts of the online knitting world is a website called Ravelry. Ravelry is a…

Call for Comments: Online Media Petitions

I mean… to be fair.. they maybe have a point. That is cool! From Mav: Have I mentioned before that I hate petitions? I mean, not all petitions. In the abstract, they’re a good idea. If you need to get a stop light put up in your town, or you’re hoping to get Congress to…

Call For Comments: Mythologizing the Founders

From Hannah: Last year for the fourth of July, VoxPopcast recorded a show based on Captain America’s mythos and how it ties in with patriotism and nationalism. This year, I thought that we might want to consider the way that we’ve mythologized the “founders” of America to the point of superhero status. (I mean, some…

Call for Comments: Transcosplaphobia?

From Mav: A funny “think” happened on my way to the Internet the other day… I was very much wanting to do SOMETHING having to do with Pride Month on our show and had been thinking of a couple of ideas. Well, if you’ve ever heard the show at all, it should be pretty clear…

Call for Comments: Jigglypuff is Still Hanging out in my Yard, Pokemon and AR Three Years In

From Katya: One of the weirdest gaming experiences I have ever had was the release of Pokemon GO in the summer of 2016. I downloaded the game like a good game studies human and messed around with it (until I caught a Jigglypuff, the best Pokemon and decided my career had peaked.) Much of the…

Call for Comments: Comics for Kids?

From Mav: I had an interesting experience at the comic book store Wayne works at this week. I was standing around browsing the new releases when a white woman walked into the store with her 9ish-year-old daughter and asked Wayne and the other employees for help finding comics featuring both Shuri and Ironheart. With Shuri,…