Culture Study Podcast

• Fake, Real, Imagined, & Projected CELEBRITY FEUDS!!!

  I know a lot about historic Hollywood feuds. I could do an entire episode just on the magazine covers featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Eddie Fisher, and Debbie Reynolds circa 1959. But to do any episode on Celebrity Feuds right — particularly one that airs just days before Kendrick Lamar performs at the Super Bowl — I knew I needed a different sort of celebrity feud expert. When Joel Anderson, host of three blockbuster seasons of Slow Burn (including a canonical one on Biggie + Tupac), agreed to come on the show, I legitimately let out a little scream of delight. He has so much knowledge, context, and perspective; this episode is a dream come true. ***Note: This episode was recorded before the Grammys, and we didn’t correctly predict Beyonce’s AOTY win nor Kendrick Lamar’s FIVE awards for “Not Like Us.”***Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Let us know here. To hear more, visit culturestudypod.substack.com

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• Reclaiming "Self-Care" from the Brands

  We’re at the point where we know a b******t attempt to commodify our burnout when we see it. No one’s buying the self-care spiel the bath bomb companies are selling us. But the rhetoric of self-care has crept into the workplace, family dynamics, and TikTok therapy speak, usually divorced from any critique of the systems that make self-care feel necessary in the first place. Pooja Lakshmin MD, author of Real Self-Care, joins the pod to answer your very smart questions about contemporary self-care in workplace trainings, in conversations encouraging everyone to GET A HOBBY!, and in advice to perfectionist women to “lower the bar.” Pooja is so clear-eyed and compassionate — and I think this episode will make you feel seen and challenged. Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Let us know here. To hear more, visit culturestudypod.substack.com

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  48:12
• Who Gets To Ski?

  I grew up skiing at a mid-size mountain in the middle of Idaho. I wasn’t ever an athletic kid, but skiing — it made me feel fast and really good at something. I loved it: the routine, the long slog to the mountain, the Cup of Soup for lunch, the crappy hotels, the freedom. But the ski culture that I grew up with is largely gone, at least in the U.S. — and I’ve spent the last few years coming to terms with how industrial shifts, climate change, conglomeration, the explosion of the unregulated short-term rental market have changed not only who can learn to ski, but who can keep doing it. Heather Hansman, author of Powder Days, is the perfect co-host to grapple with your questions about the future of skiing, ski towns, and ski culture, including all the business nitty-gritty (and a frank discussion of what can make ski people so annoying). This is a ski conversation, but it’s also a conversation about housing, and class, and city planning — and the commodification of hobbies. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts. Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Let us know here. To hear more, visit culturestudypod.substack.com

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  58:03
• The Wild and Banal Future of Celebrity Gossip

  Let me start with this: this is a dream interview. If, like me, you spent a lot of time in the 2000s and 2010s reading about celebrity online, Go Fug Yourself was an essential part of your online diet. Heather and Jessica were simply unrivaled when it came to celebrity fashion in general and red carpet fashion in particular. I idolized them the same way I idolized Lainey Gossip — both of whom I read alongside all of my graduate texts in star studies. The problem with those star studies is that they were always rooted in the past. But The Fug Girls and Lainey, they were doing the analysis now, on celebs who were desperately (and often unsuccessfully) attempting to navigate the new, digital gossip landscape — and that’s how they became part of my dissertation, on the history of celebrity gossip, themselves. That’s why it’s such an absolute f-ing treat to talk to Heather and Jessica about the present and future of celebrity gossip: they have the context. They know the history. We talk about Deuxmoi, sourcing, blinds, accounting for past shittiness, so much. Melody had to jump in like 17 times to make us explain various peak 2000s gossip terms here, so if you were part of that universe (HELLO, TOOTHY TILE) you will love this episode — but if you weren’t, and you just appreciate an introspective look at how celebrity discourse works, you’ll love this, too (in part because Melody made us explain stuff, she’s the best). Note: This episode was recorded just before the Blake Lively/New York Times bombshell so don’t get mad that we don’t mention it!! Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Let us know here. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit culturestudypod.substack.com/subscribe

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  56:09
• How Did Thrifting Get So Bad?

  Thrifting has a smell, but it also has a feel. For me, the feel is of thick, almost indestructible rayon weaves; of dense, mothbally wool; of slick, ancient crinoline; of stiff and generously cut denim. It was the feel of handstitching on a dress made from a pattern, or a cracked logo on a company picnic shirt from 1975. It was not the feel of shopping at Forever 21, even though the prices were approximately the same. Like so many of you, at various points in my life I’ve relied on thrift stores for resilient everyday clothes and delightful dress-up/costume accoutrements. But thrifting has changed dramatically over the last fifteen years — and it’s never been more popular. In this episode, Kelsey Vlamis and I break down all the reasons for its its transformation, from the rise of fast fashion to influencers making haul videos. Plus: there’s a thrifting mystery we’d love to solve; listen and see if you can help us! Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Let us know here. To hear more, visit culturestudypod.substack.com

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