In this episode of People Stuff, Dan and Michael discuss and/or are informed by:

“The Speed of Human Thought Lags Far Behind Your Internet Connection, Study Finds” in the NYTimes by Carl Zimmer https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/science/speed-of-thought.html

The Gift by Marcel Mauss

Taboo by Franz Steiner

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Ever wondered why people still warn you to check your kids’ Halloween candy for razor blades — even though it’s never actually happened?
Or why politicians say, “a lot of people are saying…” when they clearly made it up?
In this week’s episode, Dan and Michael Heard It Through the Grapevine, our resident anthropologists dig into how rumors, myths, and moral panics shape our everyday lives.

They unpack the folklore behind Halloween candy scares, explore how gossip and political speech both rely on indirect attribution, and dive into what it means when your suburban neighborhood suddenly becomes deer country.
From Levi-Strauss and Santa Claus to Donald Trump and talk radio, this one’s equal parts anthropology, humor, and exasperation at the human condition.

🎧 In this episode:

The anthropology of Halloween and the myth of poisoned candy

How politicians use marketing psychology to sell ideas

Why gossip is dying (and what we lose with it)

The strange suburban ecology of deer and hunters

What ancient festivals and modern politics have in common

Works Cited

The “Lloyd’s List Shipping Podcast” https://www.lloydslist.com/the-lloyds-list-shipping-podcast

“Father Christmas Executed” by Claude Lévi-Strauss https://aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/LEVI-STRAUSS_1995_Father_Christmas_Executed.pdf

Rabelais and His World by Mikhail Bakhtin https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262520249/rabelais-and-his-world/

“The Dead Baby Joke” by Alan Dundes https://www.jstor.org/stable/1499238

“A feral science? Dangers and disruptions between DIYbio and the FBI” by Michael Scroggins https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0308275X231157559

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Key Themes and Topics:

The decline of democracy and rise of tech authoritarianism

Curtis Yarvin and the myth of the “CEO monarch”

Liberal democracy vs. fascist aesthetics

Student politics and the mirror of national elections

Organizational governance and consensus decision-making

Airline inequality and the anthropology of travel

Humor, politics, and why anthropology still matters

Keywords

Why democracy feels broken in 2025

What is Curtis Yarvin’s neo-monarchism?

Funny political podcast about democracy

Anthropology meets politics podcast

What’s wrong with student elections?

Consensus decision making in activism

Airline class inequality explained

Comedy podcast about society and governance

Works Cited

In this episode of People Stuff, Dan and Michael discuss and/or are informed by:

An article in the Times about that rigged Texas lottery: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/us/rigged-texas-lottery.html

A profile of Curtis Yarvin in the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/curtis-yarvin-profile

“Does the “New Economy” Measure Up to the Great Inventions of the Past” by Robert Gordon https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.14.4.49

“Election” (the movie) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126886/

“The Tyranny of Structurelessness” by Jo Freeman https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

This week on People Stuff:

What Fresh Hell: “Unsinkable” — Dan on Titanic déjà vu and the myth of technology.

Question 1: UFOs, drone swarms, and why mystery still matters.

Question 2: Body doubles, tacit knowledge, and classroom conspiracies.

Fixing Shit: Dan fixes “ostracism.” Could democracy use a reboot?

Question 3: True crime, Pacific Northwest serial killers, and paranoia.

💬 Got a question for Dan and Michael? Leave a voice memo or message at https://www.people-stuff.com/

In this episode of People Stuff, Dan and Michael discuss and/or are informed by:

“Unsinkable” by Daniel Mendelsohn https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/04/16/unsinkable-titanic-iceberg

“Removing Knowledge” by Peter Galison https://dash.harvard.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/7312037c-4c4a-6bd4-e053-0100007fdf3b/content

“On the Phenomenology of Giant Puppets Broken windows, imaginary jars of urine, and the cosmological role of the police in American culture” by David Graeber https://davidgraeber.org/articles/on-the-phenomenology-of-giant-puppets-broken-windows-imaginary-jars-of-urine-and-the-cosmological-role-of-the-police-in-american-culture/

“The Bridge [Broen på dansk]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_(2011_TV_series)

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

In this episode of People Stuff, Dan and Michael discuss and/or are informed by:

Stacy’s Mom.

Ritual and Mantras: Rules Without Meaning by Frits Staal

The Rites of Passage by Arnold van Gennep

The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Strucutre by Victor Turner

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael get their hands dirty—literally and intellectually.

💥 They tackle the big questions:

Should you go to college or learn a trade?

What’s it really like working in a modern factory?

Why are oil field jobs impossible to fill (and even harder to keep)?

Along the way, they talk about:

The myth of “college as transformation”

How AI is reshaping universities (and cheating’s golden age)

The decline of unions and the lost art of solidarity

Fixing professional sports through relegation (sorry, NFL fans)

And yes—what happens when your HR department gets too anthropological.

👷‍♂️ From Texas high schools to South Carolina factories, to Bakersfield oil fields, this episode explores how work shapes identity, class, and meaning.

Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
03:00 – Forbes 30 Under 30 and the Theil Fellows fiasco
08:00 – College vs. Trade School
22:00 – Life on the Factory Floor
38:00 – Fixing Sh*t: Professional Sports Edition
46:00 – Oil, Labor, and Truth in Job Ads
59:00 – Outro + Fake Sponsor (Robot Plumber)

Works Cited:

“30 under 30-year sentences: why so many of Forbes’ young heroes face jail” by Arwa Mahdawi https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/apr/06/forbes-30-under-30-tech-finance-prison

“Breaching Experiments” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaching_experiment

Studies in Ethnomethodology, by Harold Garfinkel (you may want to bookmark this one; Michael brings it up a lot)

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

This week on People Stuff, anthropologists Dan and Michael get their hands dirty with the real weirdness of modern life — from politicians oversharing on social media to waiters wanting crypto paychecks to a man who just keeps adding doors to his house.

We’re asking the big questions:

Should politicians be more boring online?

Is crypto a union-busting fever dream?

How many doors are too many doors to the spirit realm?

And can you really fix vaccine hesitancy with darts and cash?

Along the way, Dan and Michael explore why algorithms flatten culture, how anthropology explains “weird” behavior, and what liminality has to do with your living room. It’s people being people — and us trying to make sense of it.

Timestamps:
00:00 — Intro: Touching grass, anthropologist-style
02:10 — What Fresh Hell: AI reading med school applications
08:35 — Question 1: Politicians and the bread-posting problem
18:45 — Question 2: Unionized waiters and the crypto crusade
30:20 — Fixing Shit: How to end vaccine hesitancy (dart guns included)
42:00 — Question 3: A contractor, a house, and too many doors
53:10 — Fake sponsor: Hyperreality™ — where billionaires graze
56:00 — Outro and credits

In this episode, Dan and Michael discuss (and/or are informed by):

The Paranoid Style in American Politics, by Richard Hofstader (https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/)

Boba Fett, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boba_Fett

Dog the Bounty Hunter, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_the_Bounty_Hunter

The Rites of Passage, by Arnold Van Gennep

The Ritual Process, by Victor Turner

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Timestamps:

00:00 – Intro: What is People Stuff?

02:00 – What Fresh Hell: Baseball cards, blind packs, and CT scanners

08:00 – Question 1: Politics, podcasts, and the red-pill relationship

20:00 – Question 2: Anti-vaxx cousins and the anthropology of purity and danger

34:00 – Fixing Shit: How to fix college admissions (spoiler: lotteries)

44:00 – Question 3: Food, family, and why your boyfriend refuses tamales

56:00 – Outro: Fake sponsors & final thoughts

In this episode, Dan and Michael discuss:

Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson

Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas

“Techniques of the Body” by Marcel Mauss

Outline of a Theory of Practice by Pierre Bourdieu

Human Nature and Conduct by John Dewey

And, the “Parkerization” of Wine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Parker_(wine_critic)#Impact_on_the_supply:_the_%22Parkerization%22_of_wine

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Highlights

The cultural power of brutal honesty in hiring (and why job posts should repel as much as they attract).

Vampires as symbols of modern alienation and eternal cool.

Fascism as a false cure for loneliness and economic despair.

Monsters as mirrors of humanity’s deepest fears and longings.

A defense of national parks and public lands.

Segment Breakdown

00:00 – Intro: Brutal honesty and vampire week preview

06:00 – What Fresh Hell: The war on empathy

12:00 – Question 1: “Can I be a vampire?”

27:00 – Question 2: “Why are people still obsessed with Nazis?”

48:00 – Fixing Shit: Saving public lands

57:00 – Question 3: “Why do we keep making monsters?”

1:08:00 – Outro: Fairy Circles™ and the existential loneliness of humanity

Dan and Michael discuss the following works:

Living Right: Far Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe by Agniezska Pasieka

The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 by William Allen Sheridan:

https://archive.org/details/naziseizureofpow0000alle\_m2p7

The Jersey Devil: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey\_Devil

The Sopranos e3 ep11, "Pine Barrens:" 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0705272/

What We Do in the Shadows: 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7908628/

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com