Call For Comments: But Baby is it really cold outside? Is it really?

From Mav: It’s the winter holiday season… that means lots of thing for pop culture: It means Christmas movies (which we already have a Call For Comments up for). It means endless consumerism, it means FoxNew turning to discussions on the War On Christmas. It means pumpkin spice everything. And it means Christmas carols… lots…

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,…

e31. Heroes, Villains & Antiheroes

The antihero… just like the hero… except he can kill. Wait… heroes kill too now. In fact they always have. Well maybe it’s that the antihero swears… Actually, heroes swear now too. Is it that the antihero operates outside of the law? Nope, that’s true of heroes too. Well what is it then, and why…

Call for Comments: The Rhetoric of Digital Farming, Anti-Capitalism, and Talking Jellybeans

From Katya: Eric Barone and Chucklefish recently released the popular farm simulator, Stardew Valley, to iOS. The game draws heavily on Harvest Moon, allowing players to grow crops, care for animals, fish, befriend and even marry townsfolk. Having missed the farm sim. craze train (multiple times, in fact), and coming down with a nasty flu…

Call for Comments: Media Reboots, Revivals and Adaptations

From Mav: So we had a topic suggested by a listener, specifically Maximilian, who wrote our theme song (and was on our music of your youth episode). By the way, if it isn’t obvious, you can totally suggest topics for us to use. Anyway, Max requested we do an episode talking about the recent trend…