Tasteland

We call three L.A. residents to discuss going 20–30 MPH over the speed limit, the fragile state of the company town, local L.A. media, bad mayors, and plenty more.

Hosts Francis Zierer and Daisy Alioto are joined by:

Paula Mejía is a Colombian American writer and editor. She’s written about art and culture for The New Yorker, New York Magazine, GQ, NPR Music, Oxford American, The Paris Review, Rolling Stone, The New York Times and more. 

Raihan Anwar was a co-founder of FWB and also has his own fragrance business in addition to being a coffee connoisseur. He’s always building something—lately LLMs, automation, and marketing at Wispr Flow.

Tasbeeh Herwees has 15 years of culture reporting experience, with bylines in the Los Angeles Times (and Image Magazine), GQ, Teen Vogue, The Fader, VICE, Bon Appetit, Vulture, and more. She’s the publisher of No Bad Days, a newsletter about Los Angeles.

We convene three guests to discuss line culture, the business of line-sitting, tech-enabled reservation sniping, reservation app paydays, and shame.

Hosts Francis Zierer and Daisy Alioto are joined by:

Francky Knapp is a staff writer at Eater, and an award-winning writer with bylines in GQ, VICE, The Daily Beast, and other publications.

Brian Wagner is the founder of Spot, an invite-only restaurant booking app that uses agents to immediately book tables across all the major restaurant booking services.

Jake Leiber is the chef and owner of Chez Ma Tante in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Formerly a partner of the Wythe Hotel and founder of Le Crocodile, he’s been cooking in New York City for nearly 20 years.

Find a full, linked syllabus of all articles mentioned in this episode here.

We convene three guests to discuss prep, the traditions of Americana, the Kennedys, #OldMoney, and the collapse all of these rules and contexts.

Hosts Francis Zierer and Daisy Alioto are joined by:

Caroline Hallemann is the Digital Director of Town & Country magazine, where she writes about culture, society, entertainment, and the world of the rich and powerful. Her work has often focused on the British monarchy, and the closest thing America has to a royal family: the Kennedys. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Sean Monahan is a writer and trend forecaster based in Los Angeles. He co-founded K-Hole, the trend forecasting group, and currently publishes the newsletter 8Ball. You may know him for coining the term “vibe shift.”

Henry Fisher is the founder of Hank’s Americana, a style zine and multimedia art project based in New York City.

Find a full, linked syllabus of all articles mentioned in this episode here.

We convene three guests to discuss 25 years of the iPod, the consumer hardware End of History, and the possibility of a new consumer hardware Cambrian Explosion.

Hosts Francis Zierer and Daisy Alioto are joined by:

Molly Mary O'Brien is a freelance video editor and writer living in Los Angeles, California. She is the writer behind the blog “I enjoy Music,” and the host of a podcast about words about music called “And Introducing.”

Liz Dorman is a technologist, design engineer, and world wanderer. She is a co-founder of Era, a company working to usher in a new era of computing with an intelligence layer for physical devices.

Joy Howard is the Chief Marketing Officer at Back Market, a global marketplace for refurbished electronics. Previously, she’s held similar roles at Lyft, Sonos, Patagonia, Nike, and Coca Cola. Before she got he business degree, she was the vocalist in a shoegaze band, playing with acts like Cat Power and Modest Mouse in the 90s.

Find a full, linked syllabus of all articles mentioned in this episode here.

00:00 The iPod's Legacy and Impact

03:04 Personal Experiences with the iPod

06:00 Nostalgia and Cultural Shifts

08:54 The Evolution of Music Consumption

12:05 The Aesthetics of the iPod

14:55 The Right to Repair Movement

17:57 The Future of Consumer Electronics

21:07 The Afterlife of the iPod

24:07 Generational Perspectives on Music Devices

26:55 The Role of Music in Youth Culture

30:06 The Future of Technology and Human Interaction

In a new format for Tasteland, hosts Daisy and Francis spoke to three expert guests about the state and future of men's media.

We set out to discuss a notion posed by our first guest, John McDermott — that we need The Cut for men.

Over three guest conversations, woven together here, we cover the business, output, and social implications of that position.

John McDermott is a Los Angeles-based journalist covering arts, entertainment, business, and media, with bylines in The New York Times, WIRED, Esquire, the Chicago Tribune, and more. He was an early staff writer at MEL Magazine and previously covered the digital media industry at Digiday.

Alana Hope Levinson is a features editor at WIRED and a writer and editor with deep roots in digital culture, gender, and longform journalism. She previously served as deputy editor at MEL Magazine, overseeing features and special projects, and spent five years running her own editorial consultancy before joining WIRED in late 2025.

Chris Gayomali is a writer and editor currently serving as editor of SSENSE. He was previously articles editor at GQ — and before that, site editor of GQ.com — where he edited features and longform work. He also writes HEAVIES, a newsletter about health, wellness, and modern ways of feeling good. Finally, Chris is the host of a new podcast about steroids and the "Enhanced Games," SUPERHUMAN.

Find a full, linked syllabus of all articles mentioned in this episode here.

00:00 We're Exploring the Future of Men's Media

03:09 The Need for Quality Men's Content

06:07 Woke and Men's Media

09:08 First-Person Narratives in Men's Magazine Writing

11:54 Masculinities in Modern Media

15:07 Social Media's Influence on Men

17:57 Male Representation in Publishing

20:50 The Intersection of Gender and Media Economics

23:57 Opportunities and Challenges Facing Men's Media

39:44 Consumption Patterns in Men's Media

42:30 How Media is Shaping Masculinity

45:49 Economic Anxiety and Male Identity

52:42 The Crisis of Male Identity and Radicalization

57:40 The Need for a New Narrative in Men's Media

01:01:20The Future of Media Consumption and Male Identity

No guest this week. Daisy and Francis discuss the concept of 'The Great Slowdown' as a response to media overload and the desire for deeper engagement with content, the idea of 'vibes gambling' in media, and Dirt's recent contest for essays on health and wealth.

00:00 Transitioning to a New Format

03:11 The Great Slowdown: A Response to Media Overload

05:58 Vibes Gambling: The New Media Economy

09:02 Creating Meaningful Engagement in Media

11:59 Exploring Wealth and Health Through Personal Narratives

15:50 The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health

21:59 The Future of Digital Interaction and Content Creation

Raihan Anwar is a marketing leader for web3 products and communities at scale. He was a co-founder of FWB and also has his own fragrance business in addition to being a coffee connoisseur – all things we love talking about on this pod.

Twitter

Desire Paths

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00:00 Navigating Travel Chaos

02:25 Enter Raihan: The Intersection of Culture and Business

06:01 Exploring Fragrance and Identity

08:53 The Art of Taste and Experience

12:11 Podcasting Landscape and Market Dynamics

15:34 The New Media Landscape

17:16 Web 0.5 and Early Internet Ventures

19:22 Coining Terms and Cultural Commentary

25:37 The State of Web3 and Cryptocurrency

30:03 Guy Hobbies and Their Cultural Significance

31:45 Stripe Press and Innovative Publishing

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by

Elliot Aronow is the host/producer of minor genius, a culture imprint that publishes zines, hosts parties, and occasionally produces very handsome neckties. Inside that there's also a very discreet private studio where he works as an editor/co-conspirator with visible weirdos to ship finished artifacts.

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Elliot Aronow

Instagram

LinkedIn

minor genius

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Timestamps

00:00 A year as a degenerate gambler

04:00 What is minor genius?

08:25 The tension between punk and preppy

18:46 Reading in public

22:25 Scene vs audience

24:49 Jiu jitsu midlife journey

27:25 A scene memoir

33:08 Never going to be a Beastie Boy

37:42 Artifacts of the 2020s

41:18 What sucks about menswear?

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers

Jesse Hirsch is editor of Offrange. He has spent years working as a journalist focused on food and agriculture, most recently as managing editor at The Counter. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle, Bon Appétit, Eater, and other outlets.

Offrange is a digital publication covering American agriculture, food production, and natural resources. We publish three original stories each week, a monthly podcast, and a weekly newsletter.

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Jesse Hirsch 

Offrange

Twitter/X

Instagram

LinkedIn

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Timestamps

00:00 Laptop at the cinema

04:15 Sod and cranberry bog

07:15 Offrange and its mission

15:35 Knowing when to rebrand

19:57 The best meal of 2026

21:45 Covering agriculture vs food

27:27 The farming and agriculture audience

33:40 Diversification of writers and contributors

35:45 The evolution of agricultural journalism

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers

No guest this week on Tasteland, so Daisy and Francis discuss books they haven't read, iPods, a sad monkey, and the state of modern media startups.

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Daisy

Francis

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Timestamps

00:00 Monitoring the situation

02:35 The barbell of modern media

09:11 The 4 revenue streams of a media startup

13:33 Sober in New Orleans

18:26 Health is wealth

24:45 A bit vague

26:59 Texting less, going out more

28:54 25 years of iPod brain

32:46 Punch, the monkey

38:25 Stolen taste

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Our intro song, Night Life, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers