Last week, I shared 10 books that rocked my world in 2024. Today, I’ve got 20 podcast episodes for you. If you think that’s a lot, just be glad it isn’t 40 or 50!
If there was a theme among the books I selected, it was the politics and social philosophy of radical inclusivity—or maybe a glimpse at a future in which a wild variety of personhood is welcome. If my podcast episode selections have a theme, it’s that they answer the perennial question, “What the hell is going on here?”
Some of my selections deal directly with current events (although I avoided election coverage and post-election takes). However, most shed light on today’s technology, business, politics, and culture issues using historical analogs or object lessons. Some selections strike a somber tone, but most are either outright entertaining or punctuated with sarcasm and wit.
If you’re a podcast listener already, I hope you find a few new-to-you shows on this list. If you’re not a podcast listener, I hope you see something here that piques your interest in the medium!
I’ve put all my selected episodes into a Spotify playlist—perfect for an upcoming road trip or transnational flight. But I’ve also linked to a platform-neutral page for each episode as well, so that you can find it on your favorite podcast app.
Happy listening!
“Guest host Hank Green makes Nilay Patel explain why websites are still great” on Decoder
Nilay Patel is the editor-in-chief of The Verge and the usual host of Decoder. In this episode, he hands the host job over to science communicator and YouTube star Hank Green. I trust both of these guys to offer an up-to-date, considered, and politically aware perspective on technology and the business of tech. This episode did not disappoint.
I loved it so much that I wrote about it shortly after listening to the conversation (“Wait, I think you’re platform-pilled”).
“How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka” on Decoder
Also on Decoder, I wholeheartedly recommend this conversation between Patel and journalist Kyle Chayka. Chayka’s latest book, Filterworld, examines how algorithms corral taste. Culture becomes filtered and flattened through our shared exposure to the same outfits, songs, decor, and opinions.
“The Federalist Society” on 5-4
The three co-hosts of 5-4, “a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks,” began the year with a mini-series on The Federalist Society. The Federalist Society started as a law school student group with a mission to encourage debate on campus and grew into the most powerful (and staunchly conservative) legal organization in the United States. Today, at least 5 of the 6 conservative justices on the Supreme Court are or have been FedSoc members.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about or you’ve heard of the Federalist Society but don’t know why it matters or what it is about, this three-part (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) series will help immensely!
“How Christian Rock Fed the Culture Wars” on Culture Study
The salon I go to plays contemporary Christian worship music non-stop. To my mind, this is not music for listening to. It’s music for participating in. While I no longer participate in it myself, I appreciate it on those terms. There was a time when I was the one behind the mic, eyes closed, one hand raised to the sky.
But every time I get my hair cut and colored, I wonder, “Whatever happened to Christian rock?” And by that, I mean songs that are more than an easy-to-sing chorus on repeat. It turns out I wasn’t the only person asking this question!
and guest brought me back to the Creation music festival circa 1999 with this nostalgia-fueled investigation of a formative music genre.
“A Former Trad Wife on What It Takes to Actually Leave” on Culture Study
I listened to a lot of “trad wife explainer” content this year. Because, well, I need someone to explain why this is a thing to me. Most of those explainers were made by researchers and journalists working outside the [genre? movement? lifestyle?]. They were good and useful. However, this episode of Culture Study gave the insider perspective from a former trad wife.
“Tupperware Parties x Cruel Optimism” on Material Girls
I discovered Material Girls through the Culture Study podcast. It’s hosted by two academics who use critical theory to make sense of pop culture. It’s rigorous, personable, funny, and queer—a great combination.
In this episode, the co-hosts look back at the history of Tupperware parties in particular and multi-level marketing schemes in general. Then, they use the theory of cruel optimism to make sense of why these disastrous “opportunities” won’t seem to go away.
“This is not a pyramid scheme” on Endless Thread
It’s a rare thing for a podcast episode to introduce me to a kind of online marketing grift I’ve never heard of. This episode of Endless Thread did just that.
It investigates a trend among internet marketers: selling “master resell rights.” The idea is fairly simple. A marketer creates a course, they then sell that course to others who want to sell the course. Unlike affiliate marketing, the reseller is granted a full and unlimited license to the intellectual property.
It sounded ludicrous to me. So of course, I had to know more.
“The Music Man” on Endless Thread
Earlier on Endless Thread, the team investigated online marketer and pianist Stephen Ridley, who claims his course can teach you the secrets to becoming a skilled piano player. This two-parter (Part 1, Part 2) follows the rabbit hole of Ridley’s sales funnel, talks to students, and traces Ridley’s ties to Scientology. Eventually, they arrive at the perennial question: maybe capitalism has been a grift all along?
“George Gilder and the birth of right-wing Silicon Valley” on In Bed with the Right
There’s been a lot of hand-wringing in recent months about the tech industry’s lurch to the right. Except, it’s always been this way. Despite Silicon Valley innovation being coded as vaguely liberal or even progressive, its roots are in rugged individualism and libertarianism. This episode looks at the man who helped form the valley’s politics.
“Jordan Carroll on science fiction and the alt-right” on In Bed with the Right
There’s a tweet that pops up to make the rounds of the overlap between tech journalists and science fiction writers/readers every so often:
Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale
Tech Company: At long last, we have create the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don’t Create The Torment Nexus
In other words, as exclaimed in this episode, “Read to the end, bruh!”
“Alexis Pauline Gumbs and The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde” on The Feminist Present
This conversation about Gumbs’s new biography of Lorde is uplifting, life-giving, and delightful. The book is on my “to be read” pile, but this episode offered a profound glimpse of an extraordinary life.
“If You Give a Mouse a Cookie… Will He Want a Welfare Check?” on Decoder Ring
Is the beloved picture book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie a cautionary tale about government handouts? That’s what some conservative talking heads have claimed. Are they right? Do I have to close the door on yet another cultural touchpoint of my childhood? Should the mouse get canceled?
I won’t spoil this one for you. But I enjoyed this close read of a cute book!
“The Corruption of Open Source with tante” on Tech Won’t Save Us
WordPress has been in the news. And not for anything good. It’s an extremely tangled story with no real ‘good guys,’ and I was having trouble following it. So I was very glad that host Paris Marx released this conversation with the writer, sociotechnologist, and Luddite tante.
“Who Moved My Cheese?” on If Books Could Kill
Who Moved My Cheese? is a bestseller of epic proportions, and back in my bookstore days, I thought it looked quite stupid. So I never once thought about reading it, even though we stocked at least twenty copies at all times.
It turns out that it was even stupider than I could have imagined. Luckily, Michael Hobbes did the dirty work for me—and then tore it apart with co-host Peter Shamshiri.
“Should you be eating poison oak?” on Unexplainable
People put wild health claims on the internet all the time. Some of them might hold cabinet-level positions soon. But one intrepid reporter decided to put a very particular claim to the test for personal reasons: would eating poison oak allow him to build up a tolerance and keep his painful foraging-related rashes at bay?
The Unexplainable podcast asked him how it went.
“Who’s Afraid of Gender?” on Why Is This Happening with Chris Hayes
Nearly 35 years ago, theorist Judith Bulter published Gender Trouble, the book that launched a thousand moral panics about gender. Earlier this year, they released their first general audience book explaining the arguments in Gender Trouble for the lay reader and addressing many of the criticisms hurled at them.
Chris Hayes, probably best known as an MSNBC host, is trained as a philosopher. So he’s able to tackle this challenging subject with rigor while also bringing the audience along for the ride. It’s a clarifying conversation.
“The Choice” on Tested
This is the first episode in a 6-part series on the history of gender testing in women’s sports. Really, I’m recommending the whole series. Rose Eveleth combined history with biology, current events, and on-the-ground reporting to shed light on today’s gender panic.
