It’s the last episode of the year. Except we did our year end recap like two weeks ago. So what are we to do this week? Well, how about a regular topic? Who says we can’t innovate on this show 351 episodes in? So, on this NOT end-of-year episode, Mav, Katya, Monica, and Wayne delve…
Tag: politics
e343. 2024 US Election Special
Well, here we are. There’s only one day from the time this episode drops until the US Election. It’s not really a secret how we fall on presidential politics on this show, so obviously we’re going to endorse Kamala Harris. However, we wanted to take a chance to just really talk about the state of…
e336. So, Why Pop Culture?
In all the years we’ve been doing this show we’ve worked under a very basic assumption: Everyone involved as a host, guest, or listener presumes that the pseudo academic discussion of popular culture (with drinking and swearing) is an important activity. We certainly feel that way, and chances are if you’re a regular listener you…
e329. Biographies, Blockbusters, And Biden! What a Week!
It’s been a hell of a week. Ok, let’s face it… it’s been a hell of a summer. This is a pop culture show and so we try to stay current on what’s happening, but the world has been moving so fast that we have been trouble keeping up, so on this week’s show, Mav…
e328. What’s the Deal with Presidential Assassinations?
It’s been a weird week of American politics. And we can’t really keep up. Yeah, we know something big happened this week (the whole shakeup of the democratic nomination) but we recorded this episode last week after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. It oddly feels like old news now. But the thing is, we’re…
e303. Our Lives in Pop Culture
It could be argued that the pop culture that you absorb makes you who you are. That’s certainly true of the hosts of this show. After all, it’s a show about pop culture hosted by pop culture nerds. So obviously we got this way… somehow! But how? On today’s show Mav takes Hannah and Wayne…
e282. Misunderstood Pop Music Politics
A couple weeks ago the RNC presidential primary debates opened with a segment where each candidate got to explain why they best epitomized the conservative values for the real american laid out by Oliver Anthony’s country folk song “Rich Men North of Richmond”. They sounded like idiots, and even more so when Anthony himself released…
e261. PCA2023 After Dark!
After two years being held virtually, and a cancelled conference in 2020, the Popular Culture Association returned to in person conferences for PCA2023. There were some good notes (Mav won a major award for his doctoral dissertation) and some bad notes (Mav ended up catching COVID during the trip) but along the way there was…
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…
e237. So, We Need to Talk About Kanye…
Three weeks ago, Kanye West decided to premiere a line of White Lives Matter t-shirts at Paris Fashion Week… and somehow with that at the starting point pretty much every day since he has somehow managed to become MORE racist and problematic. And so, in the last few weeks, Kanye has continued a persistent stream…