We are back to wrap up this week's minisodes on the demise of physical media with a brief chronicle of the most vicious device ever created. The smartphone!

Vicious in the sense that it ruthlessly killed its biggest competitor in less than a decade and then began killing other everyday devices that had enjoyed their place in the consumer marketplace for decades.

The smartphone takes no prisoners and shows no mercy.

Our last full week of minisodes is here, detailing the change in our media consumption habits that hits an interesting inflection point in 2008.

First, we examine how rapidly our physical media of choice changed over a few decades. Or in some cases,  in the course of a couple of years.

One question that might be impossible to answer: What comes after streaming media? And how fast will it take over?

Our next minisode, shining a light on the country's financial health in 2008, has us taking a deeper look at the perpetrator of the biggest Ponzi scheme in US history, Bernie Madoff.

How could someone swindle so many people out of so much money?

As it turns out, rich people and the people regulating wealth aren't actually that smart.

You think things are bad now? They could always be worse. 

Case in point: The Great Recession.

In 2008, the global financial system spun out of control, pushing the US and other developed nations to the brink of another depression. 

We avoided that fate, but at a significant cost. What will the current affordability crisis cost us?

Besides credibility on the world stage and the lives of American soldiers, of course.

***UPDATE***

Some technical difficulties scuttled the original episode. However, that has been corrected. So please enjoy this episode as usual. THANK YOU!

-------------------------------------

Our next episode of The Outsiders examines how the tools of digital activism and online protest were co-opted by the oppressors and turned against The Outsiders in just a few years.

And how in less than a generation, the idea of digital activism has fundamentally changed for the worse.

But it's not all bad, right?! Right?

*insert Padme Amidala and Anakin Skywalker meme here*

Our first political minisode of 2008, The Mirror Twins, is here!

Surely there's nothing that Barack Obama and his public nemesis, Donald Trump, share in common. Right!

Right?!

*Insert Padme Amidala and Anakin Skywalker meme here*

The March of Minisodes is upon us, and so is a brand new year! This time, we are tackling the latest year of our challenge, 2008. 

For many of us older folks, 2008 feels like only yesterday. Yet, despite that sense of recency, it was a year of pivotal beginnings and endings—many of which flew under the radar at the time.

Pause that special edition VHS and have a listen to The Year of Firsts and Lasts.

As it turns out, the physics-defying Einstein-Rosen Bridge in my apartment receives multiple frequencies from across different times. This one is from exactly 44 years in the future, believe it or not!

So, without further ado, I present a Chicago-based movie review show featuring two aging Gen Alpha culture critics: From The Balcony.

We close out our 1991 coverage by examining the most dangerous weapon ever unleashed on the American public: RAP MUSIC. That's right — not the threat of nuclear war, not the crack epidemic, not even a backmasked Judas Priest record begging every child to join their local Satanic Church — Rap.

Our next 1991 pop culture episode is live. This week, we're looking at how cinema diverged sharply from its past — and discuss whether or not that divergence still holds today.

We're highlighting three movies from 1991 that show how studios and filmmakers were positioning their movies along three distinct tracks, and give the hallmarks for each: