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Hey folks. It’s time for our second cultural weather report. Cyberethnographer, self-proclaimed dandy, and friend-of-the-pod Ruby Justice Thelot joins us to parse where the cultural winds are blowing this month, including the sudden ubiquity of the Labubu, and whether we should read the exploding popularity of these snaggle-toothed creatures as a form of

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience — including access to our CUJOPLEX Discord and our eternal parasocial friendship — we recommend signing up for a paid subscription.

Paid subscribers also get access to The Weather Report, a new monthly episode series where we take stock of where the cultural winds are blowing and tell you what’s rained into our brains. In the first installment, we wax philosophical about Ari Aster’s Eddington, the future of search, and the alleged returned of Butt Rock.

These days, it feels like the web is becoming… less of a web. Websites aren’t getting visitors anymore, employees are worried that they’re going to be replaced by AI agents, and the search tools we used to rely on to pull up the information we need are deliberately enshittifying themselves. It’s like the internet as we know it — fundamentally, a thing that connects people with other people — is being swallowed up by AI and smooshed down into the cramped, impersonal space of a chatbot interface, whether we like it or not.

Or, as New York Magazine tech journalist John Herrman recently put it, “The World Wide Web … has been going through something akin to ecological collapse.” John has been keeping close tabs on these developments in his excellent column “Screen Time,” where he recently reported on the emerging field of generative-engine optimization, or GEO. Think: SEO, but for the AI-consolidated internet.

We invited John on the show for a wide-ranging conversation about the strange new chapter of the internet that is materializing before our eyes—and what our experience of the web might look like a world where conversational AI becomes our main portal to the digital realm. We discuss the shift from SEO to GEO, why we’re all reading Reddit a lot more now, and what we stand to lose (and, in some cases, gain) in a world where we summon our information from chatbots.

Finally, we get into what New York Times writer Mike Isaac is calling the dawn of Silicon Valley’s “Hard Tech” era: a vibe shift away from the consumer-focused, employee-friendly, optimistic culture of the 2010s to the more cutthroat, bossist, AI and data center-obsessed tech culture of the present.

Follow John on Bluesky

Read “Screen Time” at New York Magazine’s Intelligencer

More by John:

“What’s the deal with GPT-5?”

“SEO is dead. Say hello to GEO.”

“The AI boom is expanding Google’s dominance”

“Why you are reading Reddit a lot more these days”

“At work, in school, and online, it’s now AI versus AI”

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What do mullets, SpongeBob stick-and-pokes, and foil-wrapped sandwiches have in common? According to this week’s guest, London writer Clive Martin, they’re all hallmarks of a new type of food-obsessed, young urban professional that Clive calls the “defining person-type of 2025.” You know the type: people who queue up around the block for hours for a taste of the latest Instagram-viral, cartoonishly gigantic Italian sandwiches, in a neighborhood where the old school Italian sandwich shops are being displaced.

Clive calls these people “The Normans,” after a North London cafe-restaurant they frequented for its loving homages to greasy-spoon staples like chippy teas and chicken fingers. But it’s a subculture that transcends international borders, at least in the English speaking world: a distinctly bro-y strain of contemporary foodie culture fueled by viral images of oozing cheeseburgers, indie rock music, Anthony Bourdain hagiography, and upscale, farm-to-table recreations of working class and immigrant food traditions. The plan their weekends around new eateries, walk around wearing restaurant merch, and secretly wish they could they could quit their fintech job and start over as Carmy from The Bear.

Clive is a former colleague of ours from VICE, and one of our favorite observers of contemporary culture—especially when it comes to cities and gentrification. We brought him on to discuss his article for VICE, titled “Meet the Normans,” and how food supplanted music, film, and art as the dominant mode of cultural consumption among young people.

We also get into the subculture’s nature as a kind of masculine reaction to other strains of millennial yuppie food culture, how both the food internet and the bro internet are reshaping our cities, and how the rising cost of living is pushing the gentrification cycle into exurban areas like Upstate New York, Margate, and Joshua Tree. Finally, we share some of our favorite, decidedly not-Norman restaurants in London, Philly, and LA that are still hanging on.

Follow Clive on X @clive_mart1n

Read more by Clive:

“Urban sprawlers: How city folk ruined the countryside” (The Face)

“Ketamine, crime, and chaos: Life in a London party slum” (VICE)

Other relevant reads:

“Welcome to Neo New York, where everything feels old school but isn’t” by Emilie Friedlander (VICE)

“We are all foodies now” by Steven Phillips-Horst (Spike Art)

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Hey pals. It’s 96 degrees in Philadelphia, and LA ain’t much better, so we can probably all agree on one thing: Man, this summer has been a hot one. Like seven inches from the midday sun. We will not be changing our lives to suit your mood, but we are debuting a new monthly series called The Weather Report, in which we take stock of where the cultural winds are blowing and tell you what’s rained into our brains. This month, we wax philosophical about the complicated politics of Ari Aster’s 2020 period piece and “modern Western” Eddington, the supposed return of “Butt Rock,” Andrea’s experiences living in Los Angeles (and traveling abroad) during the ICE raids and protests, the end of Google search, and other observations that we’re excited to share with our paid subscribers.

As we move into August, what cultural weather events are you noticing? Let us know in the comments, and maybe we’ll include it in the next forecast.

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Join us in Philly on Tuesday, 29 for a special book talk with this week’s guest, Jeff Weiss, co-presented by CUJO and Lot 49 Books. The event kicks off at 7 pm, at Fishtown’s Neon Clown Dream Lounge — and will feature Jeff in conversation with Emilie, Drew Millard, and Sadie Dupuis, followed by a book signing, a Britney-themed DJ set by Domino Dancing, and, rumor has it, Britney-themed drinks. Admission is free, but you can pre-order Jeff’s book here to support him and one of the city’s best independent bookstores.

As a younger generation obsesses over Canon PowerShots, low-rise jeans, flip phones, Von Dutch, and other relics of the Y2K era, it’s easy to forget that the 00s were actually a pretty terrible era for pop culture. And while some of that has to do with aesthetics (looking at you, Boho Amnesia Belt), it was especially true when it comes to media. Think: award-winning news anchors contemplating pop stars’ virginities and making them cry on primetime TV; reality shows about celebrities in rehab funded by commercials for dubious diet pills; supermarket check-out aisles lined with magazines asking whether your favorite actor was “hot” or “not.”

Few people got to know that world quite like music writer, friend-of-the-pod, and Passion of the Weiss founder Jeff Weiss, and he just published a book about it. It’s called Waiting For Britney Spears: A True Story, Allegedly, and it’s a semi-fictional account of Jeff’s years working as a young tabloid reporter in the early 2000s, roving the streets of LA with a paparazzi buddy in pursuit of the rich and famous — and the concurrent arc that saw Britney Spears go from America’s Sweetheart to Vegas party girl to conservatee.

You could call it a work of fiction, written as a memoir; a work of non-fiction in the spirit of Joseph Mitchell and the Beat poets; or, as Jeff has described it, “a one-person referendum on the impossibility of knowing the exact truth about anything — especially anything refracted and distorted through the lens of electronic media.” Either way, it’s as much about Britney as it is about the glossy, Ed Hardy-adorned last days of pre-internet media and pop culture at the turn of the millennium — and how that time set the stage for the ruthless, gossip-obsessed cultural climate of the present.

Jeff joins us to talk about his days as a gossip reporter, and why he chose this experimental format rather than a straightforward biography. We also get into how these experiences informed his understanding of the morality (and amorality) of journalism, how the tabloid era paved the way for our current moment in political media, and why a new generation of young people seems so nostalgic for the fashion and music of the early 2000s.

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. For access to paywalled episodes and an invite to our Discord, become a paid subscriber.

Buy Waiting for Britney Spears, and follow the book’s Instagram account. There’s also an official playlist.

Follow Jeff on X and check out his new podcast, The Truth Hurts.

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With a catalog full of art house favorites like The Witch, Spring Breakers, Moonlight, and Uncut Gems, it’s hard to deny that A24 occupies a unique position in the zeitgeist. In a Hollywood landscape that can feel like it’s becoming more risk-averse by the year — see our recent episode with Andrew Dewaard on his book Derivative Media — the artist-forward distributor and studio has become synonymous with a dream that, to many American cultural producers, feels increasingly remote: the conviction that one can doggedly put quality art out into the marketplace and see it actually succeed.

But is A24 singlehandedly saving American cinema, or is that just a carefully crafted illusion, more a testament to the importance of smart brand positioning than to the actual quality of the films in its catalog? We brought on the Las Vegas-based writer and critic Nicholas Russell, author of an excellent essay for Dirt called “​​The Popular Alternative: the State of A24,” to discuss how the company evolved from an upstart indie film distributor to a studio and lifestyle brand in the mold of Disney — albeit one for adults who pride themselves in being savvy cultural consumers.

We talk about how the company successfully commodified the idea of being “a cinephile,” the similarities between the A24 cap and the New York tote, and what Nicholas describes as the longstanding “tension between A24 the studio and A24 the startup” — one recently complicated by a $100 million cash injection from Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital, a major investor in OpenAI. We also try to break down the ineffable A24 “feel” (including the aesthetic elements and political themes the company tends to foreground, and shy away from) and consider the rise of Neon — the distributor behind movies like Parasite, Anora, and How to Blow Up a Pipeline — as the “other popular alternative.”

Follow Nicholas on X and Substack

Read more by Nicholas here

Recommended reading about A24 and the Hollywood system from Nicholas:

"The Life and Death of Hollywood" by Daniel Bessner (Harpers)

"A24's Risky Hollywood Moment" by Felix Gillette (Bloomberg)

Hollywood: The Oral History by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson (Harper Collins)

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This is a free preview of a subscriber-only episode. If you sign up for a paid subscription between now and July 4, we’ll give you 50% off.

For as long as any of us can remember, the NBA has been the cultural North Star of the United States. But according to Ock Sportello, author of a viral Substack article called “Toward a Unified Theory of Uncool,” the league has become a microcosm of the ways that economic risk aversion and image production in the age of social media are rendering the culture at large… increasingly swagless. To celebrate the final weekend of the NBA season, Emilie and boyfriend-of-the-pod/co-host of the excellent new show Macho Pod Drew Millard brought on Ock to discuss how “aura” replaced “coolness,” the erasure of regional identity in the age of globalization, and what the basketball superstars of 2025 have in common with the West Village Girls.

From tariffs on foreign goods to scaling back on US military and humanitarian aid abroad, it’s clear that Trump is intent on moving the country in a more protectionist direction. But what does that look like for pop culture? Think: Kendrick’s “Not Like Us” as an anthem for our time, versus Drake collaborating with lesser-known grime and Afro-house producers during the Obama years.

Critic Jaime Brooks — who you may also know for her work in musical projects like Elite Gymnastics and Default Genders — recently wrote an epic essay exploring the geopolitics of music and entertainment in 2025. The piece is called “Notes on the Canzukian Schism,” and it’s an eye-opening look at the ways the European social welfare system, US military policy, and libertarian free market evangelism have shaped our experiences as both consumers and producers of pop culture over the past century.

Jaime joins us to discuss how her Canadian upbringing — much like Marshall McLuhan’s and Drake’s — gave her a distinct perspective on media and culture in the Anglosphere. She takes us through the history of radio in the UK and US, and how it set the stage for both the genesis of Western pop music and the perennial question of whether art should be funded by markets or the state. We also talk about how the “poptimism vs. rockism” debate overlooks the material realities of the music industry, how being online and being literate have become two entirely separate things, and why community radio may be the last viable path forward for culture.

Want to continue the conversation? For access to our member-only Discord (and the full edition of this episode), sign up for a paid subscription.

Subscribe to Jaime’s Substack, The Seat of Loss

Read more by Jaime

“American Sajaegi” (The New Inquiry)

“The Summer of Love and the Holy Fair” (The New Inquiry)

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In his new book, What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis, writer Malcom Harris examines what is probably our most pressing existential paradox: Both individually and as a society, we’re all so caught up in the struggle to survive under capitalism that we’ve become incapable of taking decisive action to reduce our reliance on carbon and ensure our collective survival. Fortunately, as Malcom sees it, our fate isn’t sealed just yet. And What’s Left lays out, clearly and accessibly, what he sees as the three remaining options for saving the world.

Malcolm joins us to talk about those strategies — which he calls marketcraft, public power, and communism — and why solving the climate crisis requires people from across the left pursuing all three of them in tandem. We also get into why more mainstream political philosophies — like the notion of “Abundance,” popularized by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson and championed by centrist Democrats like Cory Booker — won’t help, largely because of a failure to engage with class politics.

Finally, we zoom out to contemplate what political opposition even looks like in our increasingly inhospitable environment for free speech. Will the left will remain fragmented between Boomers shouting “Hands off NATO” at public protests while college students get arrested for peacefully protesting the atrocities in Gaza? Or is a broader coalition possible?

Want to continue the conversation? For access to our member-only Discord (and all our bonus episodes), sign up for a paid subscription.

Order What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis

Follow Malcolm on X

Read more by Malcolm:

“What’s the matter with Abundance?” (The Baffler)

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During the pandemic, it seemed like the internet, and specifically TikTok, was coughing up one fringe aesthetic after the next: Cottagecore! Trad Cath Coquette! Old Money! Coastal Grandmother! And of course, our personal fave, Dark Academia. We even did a whole episode on it, as part of a larger examinatin of post-pandemic aesthetics.

Fast forward to today, and the churn of social media-born aesthetics seems to have slowed somewhat, leaving behind a landscape that feels more fragmented and difficult to parse. So we’ve brought back our guest for that episode — style writer, trend forecaster, and bonafide Cool Girl Biz Sherbert — to give us a lay of the sartorial land. Along with continuing to co-host the influential fashion and culture podcast Nymphet Alumni, and writing for places like The Face and AnOther Magazine, Biz recently launched a new publication called American Style on Substack (subscribe!), which she says is about “what people are really wearing and why.”

If you’re a CUJO subscriber, you already got a little taste via our Coachella collab with American Style a couple weeks ago. Either way, you’re in for a treat: Biz joins us to talk about American Style’s origin story and what’s she’s learned from documenting what young people are wearing out in the real world, at places ranging from a Deftones concert in Atlanta, to Disney World in Orlando, to a rave in North London. We also get into the state of countercultural and subcultural fashion in 2025; why men and boys seem, for the first time in a long time, to be leading the style conversation; the role that festivals like Coachella play in the wider image-making ecosystem; and the strange staying power of the festival cowgirl.

Subscribe to American Style and follow Biz on Instagram (fka @marcfisherquotes). Listen to Nymphet Alumni on your pod platform of choice.

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