Slate Culture Feed

Hosts Alex Kirshner, Lindsay Gibbs, and Ben Lindbergh examine the NBA’s growing tanking problem and the league’s ongoing struggle to make the All-Star Game competitive. Then they’re joined by sportswriter, Neil Paine, to discuss the rise of Connor Zilisch, a young NASCAR driver drawing comparisons to Jeff Gordon. To close, Hang Up vet, Josh Levin, returns to talk all things Winter Olympics and what he’s looking forward to in its last week.

Ben also has an Afterball on the Snoop Dogg-ification of the Olympics and sports in general.
On the bonus episode, available exclusively for Slate Plus members, the panel talks about the NCAA's messy player eligibility lawsuits.

NBA (2:39): The race to the bottom
NASCAR (20:40): A new young phenom racing to the top
Olympics with Josh (37:38): Levin crosses the hog line!
Afterballs (01:00:14): Ben drops it like it's hot

(Note: time codes are only accurate for Slate Plus members, who listen ad-free.)

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You can email us at [email protected].

Podcast production and editing by Kevin Bendis, with production assistance from Patrick Fort.
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Here at DSM, we’ve been enjoying Heated Rivalry, the HBO series about two pro hockey players who begin a secret love affair. The show is steamy, but it also highlights some persistent problems in male sports culture, namely, that same-sex relationships are still extremely taboo.
But one TikTok account is trying to change that culture for the better. Sex Ed for Guys was started by athletes at Colby College in Maine, and their videos promote emotional vulnerability and openness, strong male friendships, safe sex, and lots more. This week, Anna talks to three of those athletes (Chris Maichin, Jack Gatjanis, and Mitch Humphrey) and to Adam Howard, their faculty mentor.
This episode was produced by Cameron Drews.
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If you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is [email protected].
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On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by writer Sonia Weiser to discuss her piece, “I Made My Dating Profile Weird on Purpose. It’s Surprisingly Effective.” People have been frustrated with dating apps for some time, but now the rise of AI has made profiles boring and inauthentic. When everyone looks and talks the same, it’s even harder to find a spark. Instead, Sonia and a number of other dating app users have decided to stop taking the apps so seriously, and use them to shitpost their way to finding love instead.

This podcast is produced by Daisy Rosario, Vic Whitley-Berry, and Kate Lindsay.
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These days, country and pop acts regularly invade each other’s territory. But in Nashville during the 1970s, “crossover” was a dirty word. Then came two rising stars who offered up a new hybrid of Americana-style pop.

John Denver infused his folk balladry with homespun lyrics about country roads and wide-open skies. Olivia Newton-John sang over twangy melodies that belied her British-Australian roots. Both faced backlash—especially when they started topping the country and pop charts simultaneously and winning prizes that used to go to Nashville legends.

Eventually, both artists outgrew country music. Denver became a ubiquitous entertainer and beloved Muppet wingman. Newton-John dazzled in the film Grease, then reinvented herself as a leather-clad siren unafraid to get physical.

Join Chris Molanphy as he traces the parallel rise of two country-pop titans from the Rocky Mountains to Xanadu.

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Three weeks ago, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum shared an unusual tweet: a cartoon image of himself with his arm draped around a giant, anthropomorphized lump of coal. This piece of coal has big googly eyes and a smudge of a nose, and is wearing a safety vest and a hard hat. He is, frankly, adorable—and he has a name: Coalie.

When Coalie first appeared on the internet, he went viral—ridiculed on social media, in newsletters, and even on late night talk shows. And that’s because this big-eyed, cute piece of coal was widely understood to be coal propaganda, a tool to soften the coal industry’s image.

But the truth about Coalie is more complicated. His origins tell a story about what it’s like for federal employees to try to do their work while navigating the Trump administration’s agenda. Coalie may be widely seen as a mascot for coal mining, but that’s not what he was made for.

In this episode, you’ll hear from Simone Randolph, Director of Communications for the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE); Sara Eckert, formerly of OSMRE; Slate staff writer Nitish Pahwa; and Leah Stokes, who researches climate and energy policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara and co-hosts the podcast A Matter of Degrees.

Thank you to Daniel Raimi, Tony Ho Tran, and Hannah Northey.

This episode was written by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung and produced by Evan Chung, Decoder Ring’s supervising producer. Our show is also produced by Max Freedman and Katie Shepherd. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.

If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at [email protected] or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.

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