What is it about a particular cultural object — or trend, or perceived trend — that makes people FREAK THE F OUT? Anyone who's looked at historical freakouts knows: it's never really about the thing itself, but more about ideologies that are under threat and in flux. If you challenge the status quo, in other words, there's a high likelihood that you could get swept up in a panic about something that has nothing to do with the way in which you're actually challenging the status quo.

The best person to talk about these sort of freak-outs is Sarah Marshall, beloved host of You're Wrong About and current host of a new CBC limited series on the satanic panic called The Devil You Know. In this episode, Sarah brings her trademark empathy to your smart questions about freak-outs old and new (yes, we talk about kids & screens, but not for the entire episode). This episode was an utter delight to record and I can only hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

If you're a paid subscriber and haven't yet set up your subscriber RSS feed in your podcast player, here's the EXTREMELY easy how-to .

And if you're having any other issues with your Patreon subscription — please get in touch! Email me at annehelenpetersen @ gmail OR submit a request to Patreon Support. Thank you for making the switch with us — the podcast in particular is much more at home here!

Side Note: We're experimenting with producing our own (very imperfect) transcripts. You can find it here.

If there's enough demand, we might consider putting in the not insignificant labor to make these super readable — but for now, they're a backup to the podcast, not a replacement for it.

• Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CULTURE and use the code CULTURE to claim your free 3-piece towel set and save over 40% OFF.

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• Go to shopbeam.com/CULTURE, use code CULTURE, and get up to 50% off during Beam’s Cyber Sale

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• Listen to THE DEVIL YOU KNOW on CBC or wherever you get your podcasts!

• More about Sarah's work here

• Listen to You're Wrong About here

• If you missed the episode we did on conspiracy theories last year, it's a great companion to this one

• WEIRD ENGLISH WORDS (where do they come from!) with Colin Gorrie, who writes explainers like this one on the word DOG

• Questions About How to Respond When People Ask/React To the Knowledge That You're Not Having Kids

• How Did Everyone Low-Key Become an Influencer? AKA How do you see influencer posting logic creeping into non-influencer accounts

• The Wild Largely Unregulated World of IVF

• Audiobooks!!! (with MVP audiobook narrator Julia Whelan)

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment

• As always, you can submit your questions (and ideas for future eps) here

If you're a paid subscriber and haven't yet set up your subscriber RSS feed in your podcast player, here's the EXTREMELY easy how-to .

And if you're having any other issues with your Patreon subscription — please get in touch! Email me at annehelenpetersen @ gmail OR submit a request to Patreon Support. Thank you for making the switch with us — the podcast in particular is much more at home here!

I love books with complicated lore. I love plots that interrogate the way power accumulates and spoils — particularly but not exclusively on Ivy League campuses. I love it when a character learns of UNKNOWN POWERS, and I love a good heist. Which means I fell in love with Leigh Bardugo's books immediately. My favorite is Ninth House (and its sequel, Hell Bent) but she is equally well-known for the Shadow and Bone series and the duology Six of Crows, which was just re-released for its tenth anniversary... all of which pop up all over the Culture Study reading rec threads whenever we have them.

So imagine my surprise when Leigh's team heard that Culture Study loved Leigh's work and would we like to have Leigh come on the show? YES, OF COURSE. And listen, I knew this conversation was gonna be great. But I didn't realize it was gonna be this great. We talk about genre, marketing, all the nerdy books she read as a teen, how to think about YA and exposure to the things that scare us, and, of course, whether there's gonna be a follow-up to Hell Bent. As always, we've worked hard to make this conversation interesting to people who aren't familiar with Leigh's work — all you have to be is interested in books, just generally — but if you're a fan, you're really gonna love it.

Side Note: We're experimenting with producing our own (very imperfect) transcripts. You can find it here. If there's enough demand, we might consider putting in the not insignificant labor to make these super readable — but for now, they're a backup to the podcast, not a replacement for it.

• Head to Graza.co/CULTURESTUDY and use CULTURESTUDY to get 10% off your order and get cooking this holiday season with some fresh, delicious olive oil

• To stock up on sustainable cleaning products for yourself, or to give a beautiful, sustainable gift to your friends and family this holiday season, go to Blueland.com/CULTURE and save up to 30% during Blueland’s holiday sale

• Head to moshlife.com/CULTURE to save 20% off plus FREE shipping on the best sellers trial pack or the plant-based trial pack

• Go to shopremi.com/CULTURE and use code CULTURE  at checkout for 55% off a new night guard plus a FREE foam gift that whitens your teeth and cleans your nightguard

• Find all of Leigh's books at Bookshop — and here's how you can buy the new edition of Six of Crows

• Subscribe to Leigh's newsletter here

• Find out more about Leigh's work just generally here; I personally loved this profile in Alta

• Leigh references: The Dragonlance Chronicles, the Louise Erdrich short story "Fleur" which was printed in Esquire but can now be found in Tracks

• I reference Linda Williams' groundbreaking work on melodrama as a mode

• I reference our episode with Sarah MacLean where we talk about how romance writers first books are often their best (and why)

• Just in case you somehow don't know about Bunnicula

• Eldest daughter discourse

• The sociology of NAMES (naming trends, naming assumptions)

• WEIRD ENGLISH WORDS (where do they come from!) with Colin Gorrie, who writes explainers like this one on the word DOG

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment

• As always, you can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

If you're a paid subscriber and haven't yet set up your subscriber RSS feed in your podcast player, here's the EXTREMELY easy how-to .

And if you're having any other issues with your Patreon subscription — please get in touch! Email me at annehelenpetersen @ gmail OR submit a request to Patreon Support. Thank you for making the switch with us — the podcast in particular is much more at home here!

I've never resisted Love is Blind so much as run out of time for it... but then Audie Cornish said she wanted to come on the show to talk about it, and I said: I will watch any reality show, in its entirety, to talk to you about it. (Cornish was previously best known as the co-host of NPR's All Things Considered; now she is best known as the host of CNN's early morning newscast and The Assignment with Audie Cornish). I did my homework and thought I had smart things to say about Love is Blind and then Audie had way, way smarter things to say, specifically about the ways in which this current season functions as a skeleton key for the ideologies battling for dominance in our cultural moment.

Even if you've never watched an episode of Love is Blind, there's a LOT here about how people perform their identities and politics and relationship needs that will snag you — and if you have watched this season (or any season), you're gonna love it even more. What a privilege to have Audie Cornish on-air cackling over reality television, and what a delight!

• Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to Zocdoc.com/culture to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today.

• Take the guesswork out of your dog's well-being. Go to ollie.com/culture and use code CULTURE to get 60% off your first box!

• Go to  https://zbiotics.com/CULTURESTUDY  and use CULTURESTUDY at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics.

• Get better sleep, hair, and skin with Blissy. Use code CULTUREPOD to get an additional 30% off at blissy.com/CULTUREPOD

• Go listen to Audie's fantastic podcast The Assignment

• Follow Audie on Instagram

• You can also catch Audie as the anchor of CNN This Morning, airing weekdays from 6-7AM ET and streaming in the CNN app

• I really appreciate the Love is Blind Reddit and I know Audie and Melody do too

• No I am not uploading my Laguna Beach grad school paper what is wrong with you the writing is horrific

• Contemporary Dating Culture!!! Why does it suck, how can it suck less! (with Jonquilyn Hill)

• Eldest daughter discourse

• The sociology of NAMES (naming trends, naming assumptions)

• WEIRD ENGLISH WORDS (where do they come from!) with Colin Gorrie, who writes explainers like this one on the word DOG

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment

• As always, you can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

If you're a paid subscriber and haven't yet set up your subscriber RSS feed in your podcast player, here's the EXTREMELY easy how-to .

And if you're having any other issues with your Patreon subscription — please get in touch! Email me at annehelenpetersen @ gmail OR submit a request to Patreon Support. Thank you for making the switch with us — the podcast in particular is much more at home here!

I've never resisted Love is Blind so much as run out of time for it... but then Audie Cornish said she wanted to come on the show to talk about it, and I said: I will watch any reality show, in its entirety, to talk to you about it. (Cornish was previously best known as the co-host of NPR's All Things Considered; now she is best known as the host of CNN's early morning newscast and The Assignment with Audie Cornish). I did my homework and thought I had smart things to say about Love is Blind and then Audie had way, way smarter things to say, specifically about the ways in which this current season functions as a skeleton key for the ideologies battling for dominance in our cultural moment.

Even if you've never watched an episode of Love is Blind, there's a LOT here about how people perform their identities and politics and relationship needs that will snag you — and if you have watched this season (or any season), you're gonna love it even more. What a privilege to have Audie Cornish on-air cackling over reality television, and what a delight!

• Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to Zocdoc.com/culture to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today.

• Take the guesswork out of your dog's well-being. Go to ollie.com/culture and use code CULTURE to get 60% off your first box!

• Go to  https://zbiotics.com/CULTURESTUDY  and use CULTURESTUDY at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics.

• Get better sleep, hair, and skin with Blissy. Use code CULTUREPOD to get an additional 30% off at blissy.com/CULTUREPOD

• Go listen to Audie's fantastic podcast The Assignment

• Follow Audie on Instagram

• You can also catch Audie as the anchor of CNN This Morning, airing weekdays from 6-7AM ET and streaming in the CNN app

• I really appreciate the Love is Blind Reddit and I know Audie and Melody do too

• No I am not uploading my Laguna Beach grad school paper what is wrong with you the writing is horrific

• Contemporary Dating Culture!!! Why does it suck, how can it suck less! (with Jonquilyn Hill)

• Eldest daughter discourse

• The sociology of NAMES (naming trends, naming assumptions)

• WEIRD ENGLISH WORDS (where do they come from!) with Colin Gorrie, who writes explainers like this one on the word DOG

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment

• As always, you can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

People are fascinated by hoarding culture — in part because it presents a reality that's not that distant from our current accumulation habits. Like, turn one screw in my brain slightly more to the left, and my dahlia collecting habit becomes something that's widely understood as a social problem. When I heard about Amanda Uhle's Destroy This House, a memoir of growing up in a hoarding household, I knew listeners would want to explore that fine line between "proper" consumption and hoarding, the stories we tell about why people hoard, and the real difficulty in navigating hoarding behaviors by people you love.

Culture Study is now on Patreon! To read about why we moved, go here.

• Use code CULTURE to get 10% off your next order at Bookshop.org

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• Get 15% off OneSkin with the code CULTURE at https://www.oneskin.co/

• Use code CULTURE at jonesroadbeauty.com to get a Free Cool Gloss with your first purchase

• GO BUY DESTROY THIS HOUSE: https://bookshop.org/a/56144/9781668083444

• Follow Amanda's work here: https://www.instagram.com/amanda.uhle/?hl=en

• I reference Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things: https://bookshop.org/a/56144/9780547422558

• I reference my interview with Emily Mester about American Bulk: https://annehelen.substack.com/p/american-bulk

• The episode we did on "over-consumption" of books: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/all-the-latest-book-publishing-trends-explained/id1718662839?i=1000718656026

• BIG KOREAN ENERGY with Mash-Up Americans (Their framework for questions: What is this Korean vibe everywhere in culture, in food, in beauty, in politics? Definitely not complaining, but maybe confused? Well. Do we have the explainer for all of you Korean Americans, Korean Koreans, and everyone who is adjacent to Korean culture -- which is everyone. What are YOUR questions?)

• Contemporary Dating Culture!!! Why does it suck, how can it suck less! (with Jonquilyn Hill)

• Eldest daughter discourse

• The sociology of NAMES (naming trends, naming assumptions)

• WEIRD ENGLISH WORDS (where do they come from!) with Colin Gorrie, who writes explainers like this one on the word DOG

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• As always, you can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

I can’t tell you how excited I am about this one: Avery Trufelman, host of the beloved podcast Articles of Interest, is here to talk all things OUTDOOR GEAR. More specifically: how so much of our everyday clothing became gear adjacent, what the military has to do with all of this (everything), why outdoor clothes still don’t come in plus sizes, gear as Tech Bro status symbol, and SO MUCH MORE. This one’s a multi-faceted delight — the sort of episode you’ll be bringing up in conversation for weeks to come.

• Head to zbiotics.com/CULTURESTUDY and use CULTURESTUDY at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics.

• Go to HelloFresh.com/CULTURESTUDY10FM now to Get 10 Free Meals + a Free Item for Life

• Save 20% Off Honeylove by going to honeylove.com/culture

• Visit shopbeam.com/culture and use code CULTURE to get up to 40% off your order

• LISTEN TO ARTICLES OF INTEREST !!!!

• Follow the newsletter for Articles of Interest here

• The specific Articles of Interest about the zippers

• Jason Chen on GORPCORE

• Loved this piece on visiting the Carhartt company archive

• I Wore A Fleece Vest To Work To See If I Felt Like A Tech Bro

• BIG KOREAN ENERGY with Mash-Up Americans (Their framework for questions: What is this Korean vibe everywhere in culture, in food, in beauty, in politics? Definitely not complaining, but maybe confused? Well. Do we have the explainer for all of you Korean Americans, Korean Koreans, and everyone who is adjacent to Korean culture -- which is everyone. What are YOUR questions?)

• Contemporary Dating Culture!!! Why does it suck, how can it suck less! (with Jonquilyn Hill)

• All things Love is Blind with Audie Cornish

• Eldest daughter discourse

• An ADULT HOBBIES crossover episode with Forever35!

• The sociology of NAMES (naming trends, naming assumptions)

• WEIRD ENGLISH WORDS (where do they come from!) with Colin Gorrie, who writes explainers like this one on the word DOG

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• As always, you can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

What does masculinity have to do with climate change denial? F-ing everything! Daniel Penny, host of the new Drilled podcast Carbon Bros, joins me to answer all of your questions about how the Manosphere and its ideologies of dominion, virility, control, and anti-wokeness collide with climate change narratives. We talk about petro-masculinity, of course, but also how environmentalism became “feminized,” the intersection with “muscular” Christianity, the Spotted Owl, fear of the electric truck, and how the Trump Administration has successfully exploited fears of a cucked, climate-focused nation. This one will piss you off and give you a lot to think about.

• Get 35% off the best blankets of all time at LolaBlankets.com, using code CULTURE at checkout

• Blueland is offering 15% off your first order of cleaning products at Blueland.com/CULTURE

• Try OneSkin with 15% off using code CULTURE at oneskin.co

• If you’re in the market for a beautiful new sofa, dining table or bed, find something beautiful and long-lasting at Article.com.

• You can listen to CARBON BROS and find out more about the podcast here

• Find more of Daniel’s work here and listen to other episodes of Non-Toxic (and the newsletter) here

• A bunch of Chad memes that may or may not elucidate Chad-ness

• Daniel references Dr. Sophie Bjork-James’s work — find out more about it here

• My interview with Kristin Kobez Du Mez on White Christian Nationalism

• I reference my reporting on North Idaho & the spotted owl — it’s in this big feature

• The ridiculous “premature electrification” Super Bowl truck commercial:

• FROM THE AAA: My piece on What Makes Women Clean

• Your Cleaning Story

• BIG KOREAN ENERGY with Mash-Up Americans (Their framework for questions: What is this Korean vibe everywhere in culture, in food, in beauty, in politics? Definitely not complaining, but maybe confused? Well. Do we have the explainer for all of you Korean Americans, Korean Koreans, and everyone who is adjacent to Korean culture -- which is everyone. What are YOUR questions?)

• Cultural panics with THE Sarah Marshall

• Contemporary Dating Culture!!! Why does it suck, how can it suck less! (with Jonquilyn Hill)

• All things Love is Blind with Audie Cornish

• Eldest daughter discourse

• An ADULT HOBBIES crossover episode with Forever35!

• The sociology of NAMES (naming trends, naming assumptions)

• WEIRD ENGLISH WORDS (where do they come from!) with Colin Gorrie, who writes explainers like this one on the word DOG

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• As always, you can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

FIRST OFF — PLEASE TAKE OUR MEMBERSHIP SURVEY!!

The podcast only works because of your questions (and episode ideas!) and we want more of them (and your ideas about bonus episodes, pricing, etc.) It’ll take five minutes tops, and really helps us figure out the future of the entire Culture Study extended universe. Thank you ahead of time, and just click here to take it.

Baseball is so romantic!! There is SO MUCH RITUAL! It’s beautiful, it’s meditative, it’s the very best thing to listen to on the radio. And I’m so glad that we convinced Ali Liebegott [Mets Fan] to come join Melody [Royals Fan] and me [Mariners / Twins fan] to answer all of your questions about baseball culture (and there were SO MANY OF THEM). We talk about how to respond to people who say it’s boring; we talk about the changes in the game over the last two years (and how casual and opposite-of-casual fans feel about it); we talk about MR MET and Homer Hankies and Dadness and being a queer fan of baseball and how long a game should be (Ali says: forever). It’s just a really delightful conversation, and I’m so excited for you to join it.

• It’s Graza’s annual sitewide sale! Time to stock up on olive oil for the year. Discounts are automatically applied at checkout; no code needed.

• Head to Ollie.com/CULTURE, tell them all about your dog, and use code CULTURE to get 60% off your Welcome Kit when you subscribe today

• Head to moshlife.com/CULTURE to save 20% off plus FREE shipping on the Best sellers Trial Pack or the NEW plant-based trial pack

• Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to Zocdoc.com/CULTURE to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today.

• Subscribe to Ali’s newsletter, it’s the fucking best!

• Ali’s piece about Opening Day that moves me endlessly

• Ali’s piece on her tattoos (including Mr. Met)

• Ali’s glorious paintings available for sale (you can’t buy Mr. Met but you can buy this portrait of the ‘86 Mets

• Follow Ali on Instagram

• Running a Small Business — and How to Make It Sustainable & Survivable (with Jen Hewett!)

• All things Love is Blind with Audie Cornish

• Different Modalities of Hanging Out (aka, best ways to hang out with different people) with Mary HK Choi

• What an actually family-friendly society would look like (with Elliot Haspel)

• An ADULT HOBBIES crossover episode with Forever35!

• The sociology of NAMES

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• As always, you can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

Maybe your mom endlessly scrolls Facebook every time you visit. Maybe your kid has to be asked six times to get off his tablet. Maybe your friend is always checking Instagram when you’re out to dinner. Maybe your partner keeps checking their phone while you’re watching a movie together. Or maybe you find yourself doing all the things you find SO ANNOYING when others do them — and know these behaviors are affecting your relationships, but struggle to change them. Are you one of the 510234 moms who submitted a question about feeling guilty being on your phone (even if you’re just reading an eBook!) in front of your kids? Welp, this is the podcast for you.

This isn’t a podcast episode about how ALL SCREENS ARE BAD and YOU ARE BAD FOR ENGAGING WITH THEM. It’s about recasting our relationships with them so that we can have better relationships with each other (which sometimes involves watching a screen… together!) Ash Brandin, founder of the tremendously popular Instagram account The Gamer Educator and author of Power On: Managing Screen Time To Benefit The Whole Family, joins me for a nuanced and deeply empathetic conversation that I know we’ll continue in the comments.

• Go to zbiotics.com/CULTURESTUDY and use CULTURESTUDY at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics

• Try a Blissy silk pillowcase for 60 nights, risk-free, and get an additional 30% off when you shop at Blissy.com/CULTUREPOD and use code CULTUREPOD at checkout

• Visit Article.com/CULTURE to get $50 off your first order of $100 or more

• Try Remi risk-free at shopremi.com/CULTURE and use code CULTURE to get up to 50% off your nightguard at checkout

• Buy Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family here!

• You can follow Ash’s super popular Instagram, The Gamer Educator, here:

• You can find more of Ash’s work here

• Ash on Virginia Sole-Smith’s podcast re: screen time restriction

• My collection of adults interviewing kids about why they liked playing video games (I forgot how good this was!)

• Running a Small Business — and How to Make It Sustainable & Survivable (with Jen Hewett!)

• All things Love is Blind with Audie Cornish

• Different Modalities of Hanging Out (aka, best ways to hang out with different people) with Mary HK Choi

• The history/utility/culture of OUTDOOR PERFORMANCE GEAR with Avery Trufelman (of Articles of Interest)

• What an actually family-friendly society would look like (with Elliot Haspel)

• An ADULT HOBBIES crossover episode with Forever35!

• The sociology of NAMES

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• As always, you can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

By the mid-2010s, Jen Hatmaker had become one of the most important voices in white Evangelical culture. She had multiple best-selling books; she headlined massive women’s retreats; she was an influencer before we really even used that term. But then she broke with Evangelical doctrine when it came to LGBTQ people… and everything fell apart. More accurately, they started to fall apart — because the real life implosion wouldn’t come until 2020, when she woke up to the sound of her husband, a pastor, sending a voice memo to his mistress. Then things really fell apart.

Hatmaker hasn’t spoken publicly about the details of her divorce, but after five years, a lot of therapy, and her five children all entered into adulthood — she’s ready. Her life exploded. But then she was able to rebuild it using her own designs — not the church’s. Today she’s on the pod to answer your complex questions about midlife reinvention: how it happens, all the reasons it can happen, and who gets the “privilege” of pursuing it. I really loved this conversation, and if you like rolling around all the ways we can (and sometimes struggle) to change our lives, you will too.

• Get deep, restful sleep with 25% off sitewide at BirchLiving.com/CULTURE

• Try Beam’s best-selling Dream Powder and get up to 40% off at shopbeam.com/CULTURE, and use code CULTURE at checkout

• Get 35% off your entire order at Lolablankets.com by using code CULTURE at checkout.

• Go to HelloFresh.com/CULTURESTUDY10FM to get 10 free meals, plus a free item in each box for life

• You can buy Awake here!

• Follow Jen Hatmaker on Instagram here:

• Sign up for Jen’s Substack, Notes From The Middle

• The story I wrote in 2016 (the weekend before the election) featuring Jen Hatmaker

• What happened when Hatmaker announced that she was “affirming” of same-sex relationships (also in 2016)

• The big New York Times interview (with David Marchese) that I reference several times

• I reference “the portal” — here’s the Culture Study piece on it

• Running a Small Business — and How to Make It Sustainable & Survivable (with Jen Hewett!)

• All things Love is Blind with Audie Cornish

• Different Modalities of Hanging Out (aka, best ways to hang out with different people) with Mary HK Choi

• Baseball Culture (with Ali Liebegott and Melody as additional co-host!!!)

• The history/utility/culture of OUTDOOR PERFORMANCE GEAR with Avery Trufelman (of Articles of Interest)

• What an actually family-friendly society would look like (with Elliot Haspel)

• An ADULT HOBBIES crossover episode with Forever35!

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• As always, you can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here