Slate Daily Feed

Candice Lim and Kate Lindsay are joined by Slate senior culture editor Jenny G. Zhang to discuss @Hubs.Life, an influencer who made content about his 9-5, only to become so successful, he quit. Connor Hubbard first gained traction online for his day in the life videos which were interesting to some, depressing to others. Despite their low entertainment quality, Hubbard’s TikTok videos gained him nearly 1 million followers from people fascinated by his typical life working a corporate job. Then, Hubbard announced he had quit his job to pursue content creation full-time, going as far as renting out a co-working cubicle to continue making content for his fans. Has Hubbard fallen into social media’s relatability trap, and why did Hubs Life’s unconventional attempt at rebranding fall flat for some viewers?This podcast is produced by Olivia Briley, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim, and Kate Lindsay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Trumpian inversion of reality was threaded into so many areas of the law and active litigation this week. Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern joins Dahlia Lithwick to discuss the apparent evaporation of judicial patience for Trump lawyers simultaneously claiming that a signal chat was not classified or subject to record preservation rules, AND the flights to El Salvador that were  filmed for posterity on arrival at a prison were in fact state secrets. Together, they also think through the likelihood of the Supreme Court stepping into the Alien Enemies Act case at this early stage by just taking the Trump administration at its word that those summary renditions were totally legal and constitutionally correct. Next, Dahlia Lithwick talks to Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, about another Trumpian inversion of reality: his executive order titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections”, which in fact is not about election integrity, but instead an extension of the Big Lie election theory that could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters. Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you think of music in the 1960s, some groundbreaking artists probably come to mind: Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and the Jefferson Airplane, for example. But the pop charts paint a very different picture of that decade, which embraced easy listening, groovy bubblegum, novelty and instrumental records—even a guitar-strumming Belgian nun. In other words, the soundtrack of the era was more like Mad Men and less like Forrest Gump.Join Chris Molanphy as he unearths forgotten hits from Bobby Vinton, Kyu Sakamoto, Jeannie C. Riley, and other unlikely chart-toppers, on a still-strange trip through the ‘60s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guest Prudie Kristen Meinzer is joined by Ada Calhoun, the author of Crush and Why We Can’t Sleep.Together, they answer questions about going no contact with your parents permanently, reconciling after a messy divorce, and cutting ties with an ungrateful kid.Want more Dear Prudence? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/prudie-plus to get access wherever you listen.This week’s podcast is produced by Maura Currie, Vic Whitley-Berry, and Daisy Rosario. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Memecoins are a niche type of cryptocurrency with no intrinsic value. But they remain a popular form of crypto, as seen earlier this year with President Trump’s own memecoin. And if it worked for him, then why not our little podcast? Guests: Azeem Khan, advisor to UNICEF’s crypto fund and cocreator of the blockchain Morph.Nitish Pahwa, Slate staff writer covering business and tech.Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Top officials’ mishap in sending classified attack plans sparks laughter and concern. Legal firms face intimidation tactics reminiscent of dark political times. Meanwhile, academia grapples with government influences threatening independence and funding. The hosts dive deep into the alarming erosion of legal norms and explore the implications for higher education. In a lighter twist, they compare childhood risky behaviors to today's TikTok trends, while delving into the intriguing world of meme coins and cryptocurrency.

A concerned mom wonders how her daughter's bathroom habits might affect her self-image. The hosts suggest coping strategies while discussing the importance of normalizing bodily functions. They share humorous anecdotes from potty training and emphasize community support in dealing with grief, especially after losing a pet. The conversation also highlights creative ways to spark children's love for literature through audio adventures, making storytelling a bonding experience.

In this engaging discussion, Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican Congressman and January 6th select committee member, delves into the implications of a leaked Signal chat from Trump administration officials. He highlights alarming concerns about military operations and intelligence risks stemming from informal communications. Kinzinger also examines the conflict of accountability during congressional hearings and the impact of party loyalty on political responsibility. His insights draw a stark picture of the delicate balance between national security and political allegiance.

Look in the nonfiction section of any bookstore and you’ll find dozens of history books making the same bold claim: that their narrow, unexpected subject somehow changed the world. Potatoes, kudzu, soccer, coffee, Iceland, bees, oak trees, sand, chickens—there are books about all of them, and many more besides, with the phrase “changed the world” or something similarly grandiose right there in the title. These books are sometimes called “microhistories” or “thing biographies” and they’ve been a trope in publishing for decades. In this episode, we establish where this trend came from, figure out why it’s been so persistent, and then we put a bunch of authors on the spot, asking them to make the case for why their subjects changed the world.The writers you’ll hear from include:  Simon Garfield (Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World) Mark Kurlansky (Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World) George Gibson, publisher of Cod and Dava Sobel’s Longitude Historian Bronwen Everill Slate writer Henry Grabar (Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World) Gastropod co-host Nicola Twilley (Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves) Tim Queeney (Rope: How a Bundle of Twisted Fibers Became the Backbone of Civilization) Leila Philip (Beaver Land: How One Weird Rodent Made America).  This episode was written by Willa Paskin and produced by Evan Chung, Decoder Ring’s supervising producer. Katie Shepherd and Max Freedman also produce our show. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.Thank you to Joshua Specht, author of Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America; Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World; Tina Lupton; Dan Kois; and Nancy Miller.If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at DecoderRing@slate.com, or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s show, Slate’s Rebecca Onion sits in for Julia. The team discusses Netflix’s current number 1 program Adolescence and what it says about how the descent into incel culture starts young. They then invite Chris Molanphy to talk about Lady Gaga’s new album, MAYHEM. They close out with a discussion on Trump's continued assault against DEI, this time holding funding over the heads of public universities if they don’t end programs that they say advance "racial preferences and stereotypes in education programs and activities."Endorsements:Steve: Lauren Theisen’s review of A Streetcar Named DesireDana: “That’s Life” on the Lady Gaga album HarlequinRebecca: The FallPodcast production and research by Vic Whitley-Berry. Email us at culturefest@slate.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices