Slate Culture Feed

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Parker Molloy, writer of The Present Age. After Elon Musk implemented updates to his Grok chatbot that encouraged it to be more sexually explicit, certain users began directing it to publicly remove clothing from not just photos of women, but also children. In addition to being a violation of Twitter’s own policies, it’s also against the law—and yet, nobody in power is stopping it. Musk and the platform have managed to dodge any accountability for the misstep, and keep claiming to have fixed the problem without actually changing anything. Even worse, what starts as an X problem may eventually plague the rest of the internet. This podcast is produced by Daisy Rosario, Vic Whitley-Berry, and Kate Lindsay. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chameleon: That’s long been the word used to describe David Bowie, pop music’s shapeshifting extraterrestrial. He shifted personas, genres, and looks, emerging from swinging London with psychedelic folk before steamrolling through glam rock, disco, funk, new wave, alt-rock, and even jazz.Less remarked was Bowie’s savvy about shifting through commercial phases—he wore pop stardom like a costume, too. He drifted in and out of the spotlight, and on and off the charts, before one final chart-topping farewell 10 years ago this month.Join Chris Molanphy as he takes us from station to station across the chart career of David Bowie, on a journey from Starman to Blackstar.Get more Hit Parade with Slate Plus! Join for monthly early-access episodes, bonus episodes of "The Bridge," and ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe directly from the Hit Parade show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/hitparadeplus to get access wherever you listen.Podcast production by Kevin Bendis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Kathryn Jezer-Morton, writer of The Cut column Brooding, and author of the viral article, In 2026, We Are Friction-Maxxing. Over the past fifteen years, technology has attempted to “fix” every small inconvenience in our lives, which has rendered us completely unable to endure basic hurdles such as sitting in silence, navigating unfamiliar social social interactions, and doing any kind of creative thinking. To reverse this, Kathryn proposes we “friction-maxx,” and rebuild our tolerance for the very things that, it turns out, make us human. This podcast is produced by Daisy Rosario, Vic Whitley-Berry, and Kate Lindsay. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are really lucky to get lots of listener suggestions for the show, more good questions than we can possibly answer in a mailbag episode once or twice a year. So we’re starting a new segment we call… Decoder Rings Back! Every month, host Willa Paskin will personally call up a listener to answer their question. In this inaugural installment of Decoder Rings Back, Willa calls up listener Dustin Malek about his cultural mystery: Why did the Mona Lisa, of all paintings, become the most famous in the world, bar none? Willa shares the story of daring heist that turned Leonardo da Vinci’s enigmatic smiling subject into a celebrity.Future episodes of Decoder Rings Back will only be available to Slate Plus subscribers. So if you want to be sure not to miss them, sign up for Slate Plus! You’ll get exclusive episodes and ad-free listening not just on our show, but all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. This episode was produced by Max Freedman. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.Sources for This EpisodeCumming, Laura. “The man who stole the Mona Lisa,” The Guardian, August 5, 2011.Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. “Stealing Mona Lisa,” Vanity Fair, April 16, 2009.Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection, Bison Books, 2010.Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci, Simon & Schuster, 2018.Roberts, Sam. “Happy Birthday to the Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa and Took It to Italy,” The New York Times, October 7, 2022.Sassoon, Donald. “Mona Lisa: The Best-Known Girl in the Whole Wide World,” History Workshop Journal, Spring 2001.Sassoon, Donald. Mona Lisa: The History of the World’s Most Famous Painting, HarperCollins, 2016.“The Theft That Made The 'Mona Lisa' A Masterpiece,” NPR, July 30, 2011.Zug, James. “Stolen: How the Mona Lisa Became the World’s Most Famous Painting,” Smithsonian Magazine, June 15, 2011. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Podcasting is a privilege as Steve is joined by Dan Kois and Rebecca Onion to unpack and cackle at the domestic thriller schlockfest The Housemaid. Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried star in the Paul Fieg-directed tale of two women facing off to rule the McMansion roost.Next, Seyfried proves she’s got the range as the panel joins the chorus appraising her performance in The Testament of Ann Lee, the epic tone poem and musical biopic about the founder of the Shakers directed by Mona Fastvold. Finally, Julia hops on the call to join a conversation with Alia Hanna Habib, the influential book agent who is divulging hard-won publishing world insights in a new book Take It from Me and in the Substack Delivery & Acceptance.In a Slate Plus bonus episode, the panel addresses a listener questioner from a U.S. history teacher about syllabus-worthy pop culture.EndorsementsDan: The Ruth Asawa retrospective at MoMA which illuminates the work and life of the prolific artist.Rebecca: A bunch of books including Canticle by Janet Rich Edwards, The Ax by Donald E. Westlake, and True Grit by Charles Portis.Steve: The essay "East Side Story" about Marty Supreme by Nawal Arjini in the New York Review of Books.---Email us your thoughts at culturefest@slate.com. Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch. Production assistance by Daniel Hirsch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the 1950s, about 50% of patients who died in a hospital in the U.S. received an autopsy. Today, that figure is in the single digits, which is a big loss according to two people who care a lot about this topic: One is Dr. Alex Williamson, an forensic and pediatric pathologist who performs autopsies and talks to families of the deceased about what he learned in the process. The other is Sam Ashworth, a novelist who went looking for a storytelling device and found an obsession. This week, both men explain why autopsies are important and what they can teach us about living. Sam Ashworth’s novel ⁠The Death and Life of August Sweeny⁠ is available now. This episode was produced by Cameron Drews.Get more Death, Sex & Money with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of DSM and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Death, Sex & Money show page on ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠ or ⁠Spotify⁠. Or, visit ⁠slate.com/dsmplus⁠ to get access wherever you listen.If you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠ and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosts Alex Kirshner, Lindsay Gibbs, and Ben Lindbergh unpack a thrilling wild-card round of the NFL playoffs. Lindsay’s Panthers are out, John Harbaugh has been fired, the reigning champions exit early, and Caleb Williams grated some cheese.The panel is then joined by soccer journalist Hayden Van Brewer to explain how Manchester United have gotten so abysmally bad over the years. To close, Lindsay and Ben ask Alex to break down the College Football Playoffs and the upcoming championship game.On the bonus episode, available exclusively for Slate Plus members, the panel talks about the new viral queer hockey romance, Heated Rivalry.NFL (4:52): Bye Eagles, ByeMan U (20:35): Bent and brokenCFB (38:41):  How Indiana reached the top(Note: time codes are only accurate for Slate Plus members, who listen ad-free.)Get more Hang Up and Listen with Slate Plus! Join for weekly bonus episodes of Hang Up and Listen and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Hang Up and Listen show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or visit slate.com/hangupplus for access wherever you listen.You can email us at hangup@slate.com.Podcast production and editing by Kevin Bendis, with production assistance from Patrick Fort. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by internet culture writer Christianna Silva, who recently covered the TikTok Awards while wearing America’s new favorite device: Meta Glasses. Meta Glasses are just one AR wearable, but their revenue tripled in 2025, and 2026 looks even bigger. However, wearing your phone on your face comes with completely new etiquette, and privacy concerns are at an all time high. Now, anyone could be filming you—and you’ll never know what they’re doing with it. This podcast is produced by Daisy Rosario, Vic Whitley-Berry, and Kate Lindsay with help from Benjamin Frisch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by meme historian Aidan Walker to discuss “the great meme reset.” Internet users, exhausted by social media brain rot, declared January 1, 2026 as an official “reset.” They want a clean slate, and most importantly, to return to the meme style of the 2010s—back when memes had “substance.” But can we really go back? Or is it time to imagine what a post-brain rot world can look like?This podcast is produced by Daisy Rosario, Vic Whitley-Berry, and Kate Lindsay with help from Kevin Bendis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Julia and Steve welcome guest host Sam Adams to deconstruct the aggravating, yet strangely charming, table tennis phenom on the make that is Marty Supreme. Played with “BDE off-the-charts” (Steve’s words) by Timothée Chalamet, the unceasingly shameless hustler may just be an avatar for our age.Speaking of avatars, we can’t avoid discussing Avatar: Fire and Ash, the latest installment of James Cameron’s immersive mega-franchise. Once again, the big blue folks peopling Pandora drew boku bucks at the box office… but do the Avatar films have any “cultural impact”? And what does “cultural impact” even mean? New Yorker staff writer Michael Schulman steps into the cultural cage match to debate this long-simmering internet argument.On this week’s bonus episode for Slate Plus subscribers, the hosts take up a listener question about “cultural bran muffins,” the bits of culture you know would be good for you if only you could get them down. The hosts confess their bran secrets.EndorsementsSteve: The essay "Two Pins and a Lollipop" about Judy Garland by Bee Wilson in the London Review of Books.Sam: The album Penthouse by the band Luna, particularly the song  "Chinatown."Julia: Slate's beloved annual tradition Movie Club which for its 2025 edition gathers film critics Bilge Ebiri, Alison Wilmore, Justin Chang, and our very own Dana Stevens for a rollicking exchange about the year in film.---Email us your thoughts at culturefest@slate.com. Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch. Production assistance by Daniel Hirsch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.