It's Been a Minute

Is fanfiction mainstream now?

If you are anywhere near fan spaces online, you’ve probably seen people talking about fanfiction. And it's also behind some of the biggest books of the last decade – some of the publishing industry's greatest hits are fanfic adaptations. But even as fanfic seeps into the mainstream, there’s a battle inside fanfic communities over whether it should be kept private – and a larger culture war brewing over what gets published and who’s reading it. 

Brittany gets into the gendered, economic, and cultural forces pushing fanfiction to the fore with Ashley Reese, writer, cultural commentator and fanfic veteran, and Eli Cugini, culture writer, Ph.D. student and author of a Defector article called “Fanfiction’s Total Cultural Victory.”

Want to hear more about the state of literacy? Check out these episodes: 
Have we lost the art of reading?
Yes, romance & fantasy novels are political.
Books vs. Brain Rot: why it's so hard to read

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Do you think you have good taste?

Having a good sense of taste is something like a cultural badge of honor: the result of hard work understanding what you find beautiful and why it moves you. Silicon Valley tech bros are latching onto taste as a new buzzword, and some are even suggesting that their products can give you a fast track to refining your own taste.

Brittany is joined by Kyle Chayka, staff writer at The New Yorker, and Kate Wagner, architecture critic at The Nation, to find out whether or not taste can be created from terabytes of AI data. You can read Kyle's piece, titled, 'Why Tech Bros Are Now Obsessed with Taste' in The New Yorker.

Want more about Tech and Culture? Check out these episodes:
The false promise of a tech job.
Can you trust AI search results?

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There's a new beauty trend in town: why are women trying to look...lifeless?

Today’s guest, Jessica DeFino - beauty reporter, critic, and author of the FLESH WORLD Substack - says contemporary glamorization of anti-aging products and long dead icons like Caroline Bessette Kennedy all fall within a macabre beauty trend, what she calls ‘the morgue gaze.’ Ageless, poreless, lifeless beauty inspiration keeps consumers coming back for more numb, frozen aesthetics - forever. Jessica joins host Brittany Luse to break down what the morgue gaze is and why we’re so fascinated with the beauty of lifelessness.

(0:00) The Resurgence of Carolyn Bessette and the 'Morgue Gaze'
(2:03) Aesthetic Immortality: Unpacking the Morgue Gaze's Appeal
(5:49) From Mannequin Skin to Cadaver Fat: The Rise of Lifeless Beauty
(9:41) Billionaire Longevity: Transhumanism, AI, and the Undead Future
(12:59) The Dissociative Pout
(17:58) The Inescapable Grip of Beauty Culture

Want more about beauty? Check out these IBAM episodes: 
The beauty industry has an Epstein problem
Looksmaxxing is teaching men that pretty hurts.
Peptides & the pursuit of the "perfect" body

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Everyone has to make the decision to have or not have kids. There are good reasons for both.

Are you sick of dating? Terrified of how expensive everything is? Frustrated with America's so-called social safety net? Horrified by the state of healthcare? If you answered yes to any of these, you might be one of the many people deciding to go childfree.

Host Brittany Luse is joined by Sarah McCammon, Senior Fellow at Third Way, and Emma Gannon, author of the novel Olive, to explore the reasons people feel like life might be better without a child -- and how that impacts everyone.

(0:00) Why women choose to go childfree
(1:53) The economic & ideological responses to declining birth rates
(6:01) Pushing back against negative assumptions of childfree women
(10:39) How to deal with society's judgment of family size and choice
(17:33) How childfree women shape modern society
(25:45) How culture and policy lag behind women's expectations of life
(31:02) What true childbearing freedom looks like for everyone

Want to hear more about modern womanhood? Check out these episodes: 
Enough is enough. Is it time to leave America?
Why are people freaking out about the birth rate?
The myth of modern "adulthood"

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Why is the government obsessed with whole milk?

In January, the USDA account on X posted a picture, possibly AI generated, of President Trump with a milk mustache. The caption was, “Drink up America. #DrinkWholeMilk.” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted what seems to be an AI video that shows him being transported to a nightclub when he drinks milk. The caption is, “when you take that first sip of whole milk.” Whole milk is also at the top of the new food pyramid. But what’s all this for? How do we make sense of this push for whole milk, especially when milk has some unsavory ideological associations?

Brittany gets into it with Yasmin Tayag, staff writer for The Atlantic who covers science and the future of food, and Andrea Freeman, Second Century Chair Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School and author of the book Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch.

Want more about modern health? Check out these episodes:
Were Americans actually healthier in the past?
The difference between losing weight & being "healthy" 
Is tech making us too obsessed with our bodies?

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