TikTok is filled with wonders. It’s SO weird. It can make you feel like the algorithm is telling you something you don’t even realize about yourself….or it serve you a whole bunch of cyst draining videos. In order to answer your questions about WTF is happening in your feed, I knew I needed a weird internet aficionado who also understands the way our tech platforms actually work. I needed Katie Notopoulos. Join us as we talk about the parallel dimension that is TikTok Live, the difference between Reels and TikTok content, those bizarre “bugs all over me” videos, nail tapping ASMR, the clean girl aesthetic, and SO MUCH MORE.

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• Read all of Katie’s great and weird reporting over at Business Insider

• Follow Katie’s weird reels on Instagram

• Some Chainsaw Testing

• CLEAN GIRL AESTHETIC

• MORE CLEAN GIRL

• SICK ROPE CUTTING

• The vaguely Patrick Bateman ASMR clean living guy on Instagram

• A classic in the hoof cleaning genre

• My favorite sheep herding dog guy

• One of the fake bug videos (I PROMISE IT’S FAKE)

• Why is Paul Mescal so hot

• Sydney Sweeney (and Gen-Z Stardom)

• Learning to craft / make things / hobby-around-the-house

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE

• Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)

• Contemporary ideas of self-care

• Buy Nothing groups and/or the current state of the secondhand market

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (this is the subscriber-only form!)

Trad Wife Discourse is everywhere. It’s been everywhere for a while, in part because it offers a twisted fantasy of ease to women who are attempting to negotiate life, and family, and career in a society whose policy is actively hostile to women working outside the home. But I’ve seen a spike in interest in the ramp-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, where a Trump victory — paired with the explicit goals of Project 2025, J.D. Vance, and Christian Nationalism in general — will make trad wife life just, well, life. It doesn’t happen overnight. It happens incrementally, as choices are very slowly taken from you, or made more attractive. To get to what lures women into this life, and just how difficult it is to escape, I wanted to talk to someone who gets it in a way that those lurking in the Instagram comments simply cannot. So today we’re talking with Tia Levings, who left her trad wife life and, through a bunch of therapy and processing and support, figured out how she wanted to tell her story.

Content Warning: In our conversation, we talk explicitly about emotional and physical abuse and coercion. If you’re not in a place where you want to listen to that discussion, I’d suggest skipping this episode.

• Tia Leving’s book, A Well-Trained Wife, is an absolute must-read. As Melody put it: I’m not even a memoir person and I devoured it. You can find it here.

• You can find more about Tia, her work, and how to book her for interviews here.

• Tia’s Fundie Baby Voice TikTok (I also recommend exploring the rest of Tia’s Toks)

• Tia is also in the Amazon Prime documentary Shiny Happy People, about the Duggars, Bill Gothard, and the Institute for Basic Life Principles. Here’s the trailer:

• I didn’t talk about this in the episode, but I highly recommend Seyward Darby on the place of trad wives in the white supremacist vision of the future

• My piece on Trad Wife Life as self-annihilation and some reflections on the recent Ballerina Farms discourse, which ramped up after we recorded this episode

• Why is Paul Mescal so hot

• Sydney Sweeney (and Gen-Z Stardom)

• Learning to craft / make things / hobby-around-the-house

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE

• Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)

• The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)

• Contemporary ideas of self-care

• Buy Nothing groups and/or the current state of the secondhand market

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

How do the politics of taste and HGTV shows intersect? Why do we watch, why do we feel the way we do when we watch, and how is taste shaped in the process of watching? When Jonathan Menjivar, host of the fantastic podcast Classy, told me he wanted to talk all things HGTV, I was thrilled. In this episode, we discuss the aesthetics of “quiet luxury,” Ben and Erin Napier vs. Chip and Joanna Gaines, the newly ubiquitous neo-farmhouse look and so much more.

• Listen to Classy and read my interview with Jonathan about the making of the show and “Am I Classhole??” here

• You can read my big feature on life in Waco in the post-Fixer Upper world here

• One of my favorite interviews I’ve ever done in Culture Study = talking to Rebecca Lee Potts about the “shiplap frontier”

• When I interviewed Ben and Erin Napier for Townsizing

• Jonathan mentions Donald Judd furniture— here’s a sketch of a Donald Judd stool that costs $3,200

• The culture of conspiracy theories!

• Why is Paul Mescal so hot

• Sydney Sweeney (and Gen-Z Stardom)

• Learning to craft / make things / hobby-around-the-house

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE

• Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)

• The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)

• Contemporary ideas of self-care

• Buy Nothing groups and/or the current state of the secondhand market

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (this is the subscriber-only form!)

A seven-part Netflix docuseries on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders called America’s Sweethearts? Oh my god, WHAT a rich text. The uniform, the dances, the body norms, the coded language, the particular feminine ideals, the intersections with Texas culture and evangelical culture — there’s just so much there. And I was thrilled when Sam Sanders and Zach Stafford, two of the co-hosts of the indispensable Vibe Check, agreed to help answer all of your (excellent) questions. (We couldn’t get the rights to Thunderstruck, but you can just imagine it playing over the intro and on repeat forever.)

• LISTEN TO VIBE CHECK, IT’S SO GOOD!!! Plus: Sam’s IG and Zach’s IG

• Caitlin Dickerson’s fantastic piece in The Atlantic that includes the “Who Am I….?” page from the DCC handbook that Sam reads in the episode

• The jump split that tears up the hips!

• How much money to NFL cheerleaders get paid? It’s complicated.

• Alex Sujong Laughlin makes the case for cheerleader unions in Defector

• Why is Paul Mescal so hot

• Sydney Sweeney (and Gen-Z Stardom)

• Learning to craft / make things / hobby-around-the-house

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE

• Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)

• The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)

• Contemporary ideas of self-care

• Buy Nothing groups and/or the current state of the secondhand market

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (this is the subscriber-only form!)

How are romance writers — and the recent romance boom — chipping away at the norms of Big Publishing? Does self-publishing lead to more diverse authors and characters? How has Amazon both expanded and limited the market? That’s what we’re grappling with in today’s episode.

Back in June, romance novelist Nisha Sharma broke down all the tropes and trends of contemporary romance. Next month, we’ll have the owners of a romance bookstore explaining the the big (and complicated) business of romance-only bookselling. And today, we have Christine Larson, author of Love in the Time of Self-Publishing, walking us through the labor dynamics of romance publishing. If you like thinking about different ways of organizing labor, you’ll find all of this fascinating — and if you’re a romance fan, it’ll make you think a lot about which books end up in front of you and why. You’re gonna love it.

• Find Love in the Time of Self-Publishing here and learn more about Christine’s work here

• Janice Radway’s foundational scholarly work on romance: Reading the Romance

• Chris’s recent romance rec: We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian

• A good summary from 2021 of what went down within the Romance Writers of America organization

• Since we recorded this episode, RWA has filed for bankruptcy

• WHAT’S GOING ON WITH PODCASTS! This is kinda meta, but we’re doing a whole episode about the current state of the podcast industry, so you can take that general theme in any direction you’d like.

• Sydney Sweeney (and Gen-Z Stardom)

• Learning to craft / make things / hobby-around-the-house

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE

• Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)

• The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)

• Contemporary ideas of self-care

• Buy Nothing groups and/or the current state of the secondhand market

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (this is the subscriber-only form!)

J.Lo is, as we say in the Culture Study universe, a rich text. There is so much history, so many layers of accumulated meaning, so many relationships, and so little in terms of actual revelations. She gives so much and yet offers so little! Chelsea Devantez is a celebrity memoir aficionado, a humor writer, and a newly-minted J.Lo scholar — and the absolute perfect co-host to unpack all of your J.Lo questions, like why does Mariah hate her, why can’t she and Ben be happy, what the hell is going on with the new movie, and what does she actually want?

• Follow Chelsea Devantez on Instagram, listen to her celebrity memoir podcast Glamorous Trash, and buy her new memoir, I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This

• Gloria Swanson’s memoir, Swanson on Swanson

• J.Lo on In Living Color:

• J.Lo in Selena:

• J.Lo and Ja Rule, “I’m Real”:

• J.Lo’s “TELL ALL” memoir

• Chelsea’s TikTok about the Bennifer wedding cups

• J.Lo’s 73 Questions:

• The upcoming “season” of Bama Rush

• Sydney Sweeney (and Gen-Z Stardom)

• Learning to craft / make things / hobby-around-the-house

• Trad wives, featuring a co-host who used to be one

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE

• Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)

• The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)

• Contemporary ideas of self-care

• Buy Nothing groups and/or the current state of the secondhand market

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (this is the subscriber-only form!)

Why do jeans make us FEEL THINGS? I mean, I have a lot of feelings about the “going out top,” but at least I no longer have to deal with it. Jeans, they’re still here in my wardrobe, making me feel uncool. It’s the actual garment, sure, but it’s also a garment in constant fashion flux — and almost always designed to fit one sort of (thin) body. There’s no one better to talk about big jeans feelings than Virginia Sole-Smith, who’s written a four-part series on ‘jean science’ and the relationship between jeans production (and jeans ‘norms’) and anti-fatness. Whether you’re clinging to your comfort jeans or trying to figure out what shoes to wear with a barrel leg or banishing jeans from your closet, this episode is for you.

• Virginia’s *FOUR-PART* JEAN SCIENCE SERIES!!!*

• Our previous episode with Amanda Mull re: why clothes suck now

• Follow anti-diet stylist Dacy Gillespie (mindfulcloset) on Instagram

• The Universal Standard Ponte Pant! (there are several)

• Corrine Fay tries the swim romper

• Katie Sturino does a jeans try-on round-up

• Jordache jeans ads from the 70s, 80s, and 90s

• Follow Virginia on Instagram, subscribe to Burnt Toast, and listen to the Burnt Toast Podcast

• The upcoming “season” of Bama Rush

• Sydney Sweeney (and Gen-Z Stardom)

• Learning to craft / make things / hobby-around-the-house

• Trad wives, featuring a co-host who used to be one

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE and ROMANCE BOOKSTORES

• Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)

• The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)

• Contemporary ideas of self-care

• Buy Nothing groups and/or the current state of the secondhand market

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

Most people I know think the monarchy — any monarchy — is pretty ridiculous. And yet: most people I know also know a lot about Meghan Markle and followed the #whereiskate conspiracy theorists at least part way down the rabbit hole. They’re rich celebrities, sure, but they’re also embodiments of empire in decline — and I wanted to think through how royal fascination manifests differently depending on where you live, how you were raised, and identification (or lack thereof) with “your” generation of monarch. Hannah McGregor and Marcelle Kosman are scholars, podcast hosts, and Canadians — and the perfect people to navigate all of your questions about colonial hangovers, misogynoir and Team Meghan vs. Team Kate, and when and how we’ll actually see an end to the monarchy. I loved this conversation, and I think you will too.

• Listen to my appearance on the Athleisure episode of Material Girls and listen to Material Girls just generally! (Recent episodes include: Disney and Pinkwashing; Dirty Dancing and Nostalgia; Gilmore Girls and Normporn; Bridgerton and Reading the Romance, SO MANY GOOD ONES)

• Melody and I absolutely died when we found the Charles-as-Tampon on SNL skit; it’s even better than I remembered:

• My piece on #WhereisKate and the botched comms management around her decision to retreat from public life:

• Ellie Hall’s piece in BuzzFeed comparing headlines about Kate and Meghan

• The upcoming “season” of Bama Rush

• Sydney Sweeney (and Gen-Z Stardom)

• Learning to craft / make things / hobby-around-the-house

• Trad wives, featuring a co-host who used to be one

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE and ROMANCE BOOKSTORES

• Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)

• The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)

• Contemporary ideas of self-care

• Buy Nothing groups and/or the current state of the secondhand market

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (and here’s the subscriber-only priority form)

Sephora teens are teens who hang out at Sephora — and they’re a point of cultural anxiety because 1) they’re buying a lot of makeup and skincare products and 2) we have complex and contradictory feelings about when we should start caring about makeup and skincare products, even though absolutely everything in our culture tells young people they should’ve started caring about these things yesterday. Do Sephora Teens just want a public place to hang out without their parents? Didn’t we also play around with makeup at their age? But wait where are they getting all of this money? I I was so thrilled when Elise Hu — author of a whole book on the contemporary skin care industry and mother of three teen/tween girls — agreed to come on as co-host for this episode… and I can’t wait for your thoughts.

• Follow Elise Hu on Instagram and read her interview with Culture Study re: her book Flawless

• Direct link to Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital (code CULTURE gets you 10% off)

• Elise’s piece in The Atlantic re: Sephora Teens

• Elise’s installment of NPR’s Life Kit on how to create a skin care routine

• Sydney Sweeney (and Gen-Z Stardom)

• Learning to craft / make things / hobby-around-the-house

• Trad wives, featuring a co-host who used to be one

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE and ROMANCE BOOKSTORES

• Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)

• The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)

• Contemporary ideas of self-care

• Buy Nothing groups and/or the current state of the secondhand market

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (and here’s the subscriber-only priority form)

After our GREAT discussion of A Court of Roses and Thorns we realized we wanted to talk a lot more about romance: about the so-called “boom” and what’s fueling it, of course, but also about various tropes (sick bed, forbidden romance, grumpy protagonist), race and cultural specificity, the level of “spice” and how it shows up on the page, and how to manage your own romance reading behavior. Melody heard Nisha Sharma speak at Romance GenreCon last year and knew she was the person to address so many of your questions. Whether you’re new to romance like me, don’t read it but are interested in why other people do, or have immersed yourself in the genre for years, I promise there’s something in this conversation that’s going to stick in your head for days.

• Nisha Sharma!!!! Follow her on Instagram and TikTok, and here’s links to all her recent books and upcoming events

• You can pre-order The Letters We Keep and Marriage & Masti at Bookshop.org— promo code CULTURE gets you 10% off

• Or for pre-order swag, order from Doylestown Bookshop  

• Maya Rodale’s Dangerous Books for Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels Explained

• “Canon building is empire building”

• Janice A. Radway’s Reading the Romance

• Lee & Low Books Diversity Baseline Survey

• MONSTER THEORY

• A very fun round-up of Fabio romance novel covers, by the numbers

• A 2018 piece on cartoon covers “tricking” people into reading romance

AND NOW, A LIST OF EVERY BOOK RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE

• The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

• For Real by Alexis Hall

• The Candid Life of Meena Dave by Namrata Patel

• You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

• The Roommate by Rosie Danan

• The Partner Plot by Kristina Forest

• Queen Takes Rose by Katee Robert

• Destiny’s Captive by Beverly Jenkins

• Double Exposure by Rien Gray

• Beach Read by Emily Henry

• Bride by Ali Hazelwood

• That Prince is Mine by Jayci Lee

• A Rogue by Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean

• Say You’ll Be Mine by Naina Kumar

• Rock Hard by Nalini Singh

• Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver

• Power Play by B. P. Gilmore

• Collide by Bal Khabra

• Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young

• Chloe Liese for disability representation

• Kimberly Lemming for cozy monster romance

• Morning Glory Milking Farm by C. M. Nacosta

• Sydney Sweeney (and Gen-Z Stardom)

• Learning to craft / make things / hobby-around-the-house

• Trad wives, featuring a co-host who used to be one

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE and ROMANCE BOOKSTORES

• Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)

• The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)

• Contemporary ideas of self-care

• Buy Nothing groups and/or the current state of the secondhand market

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (and here’s the subscriber-only priority form)