ICYMI

On today’s episode, Rachelle and Madison discuss the latest news about Chrissy Teigen and Courtney Stodden. Earlier this week, Stodden, who rose to fame as a teenager in the early 2010s after marrying middle-aged character actor Doug Hutchison, came forward saying that they had been harassed on Twitter by Teigen, who sent tweets wishing for their death. Teigen has since apologized, but this news highlighted the disgusting ways people used to talk about young girls on the internet, and how Teigen’s online presence has never been as kind and lovable as she wants you to believe.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John. Support ICYMI and listen to the show with zero ads. Sign up to become a Slate Plus member for just $1 for your first month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rachelle and Madison discuss Elon Musk’s episode of Saturday Night Live. Specifically they break down the ”Gen Z Hospital” sketch, where everybody seems to be speaking in internet slang, and the backlash to it. Rachelle explains how all the language used isn’t just from the internet or from Zoomers but from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). This isn’t a new thing, of course—white Americans have been appropriating Black culture for as long as America has been around—but as this Paper magazine article by Rob Dozier points out, the internet has made it particularly easy for those words to lose their original context.Podcast Production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.Support ICYMI and listen to the show with zero ads. Sign up to become a Slate Plus member for just $1 for your first month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Rachelle and Madison discuss Facebook upholding their ban of Donald Trump from their platform—sort of. Then they interview someone about their own experience getting banned: legal journalist Rachel Stone, who was banned from Twitter after she jokingly threatened the man who cautions you to take a break from scrolling through TikTok. Finally, the debut of our new segment Galaxy Brain, where we explore some of the wildest theories on the internet, starting with a listener email about the word cheugy.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Madison and Rachelle answer a couple of listener questions in a new segment we’re calling Read Receipts. First, they explore the origins of the “this shit bussin’—sheesh” meme that’s all over TikTok and why teens are getting their parents to do it. Then Rachelle digs into the drama currently embroiling the fan-fiction website Archive of Our Own, explaining whether the nonprofit’s latest fundraising drive is a scam (it’s not), and why the site both is and isn’t a safe haven for marginalized fans. If you'd like to read more about Sexy Times With Wangxian you can do that here.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.Support ICYMI and listen to the show with zero ads. Sign up to become a Slate Plus member for just $1 for your first month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Rachelle and Madison explain the controversy surrounding an NFT of Chadwick Boseman’s head that was connected to, but not sanctioned by, the Oscars. Then they run through a series of High-Speed Downloads covering why Ryan Gosling trended last weekend, Mark Zuckerberg’s sunscreen photo, a flash of TikTok drama involving Doja Cat, and the celebration of Ed Balls Day.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.Support ICYMI and listen to the show with zero ads. Sign up to become a Slate Plus member for just $1 for your first month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Madison and Rachelle pour one out for Yahoo Answers. To remember the site’s important place in internet history, they’re joined by J.T. Sexkik, the creator of the infamous video “How Is Prangent Formed.” They talk to him about his earliest memories of the question-and-answer forum, its wildest moments, and what the internet is losing with its demise. Plus, we exorcise our IKEA shopping demons with a little help from TikTok comic Scott Seiss.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.Support ICYMI and listen to the show with zero ads. Sign up to become a Slate Plus member for just $1 for your first month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode, Madison and Rachelle discuss how the phrase “body positivity” has lost all meaning. They talk about how the body-positivity movement started as a way to advocate for fat acceptance, including with respect to such tangible issues as healthcare and employment, but how the phrase has been co-opted into memeable soundbites on TikTok and Instagram that serve no real purpose beyond gaining likes and follows. (At least Lizzo gets it.) They also share how an excessive focus on body-consciousness has followed them their whole lives, and examine why the recent focus on “body positivity” on social media has distracted from actual issues. Plus, they run down what happened with Demi Lovato and that frozen yogurt shop.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.Support ICYMI and listen to the show with zero ads. Sign up to become a Slate Plus member for just $1 for your first month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode, Madison and Rachelle talk to Rolling Stone senior writer EJ Dickson about PissTok, a new TikTok trend in which people are making jokes about urination kinks. She recently reported on the videos, which have attracted tens of millions of views, for her magazine. They discuss how kink has become memified, what this says about the rise of sex positivity in mainstream discourse, and whether or not it’s a step in the right direction. Also, Madison places a call to Apple support.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.Support ICYMI and listen to the show with zero ads. Sign up to become a Slate Plus member for just $1 for your first month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Rachelle Hampton and Madison Malone Kircher discuss the latest development in the world of The Bachelor and how it all plays into the show’s relationship with social media. First they dig into the news that former Bachelor Colton Underwood has come out as gay on Good Morning America. Then they get into the show’s love-hate relationship with Instagram, examining how the series has become a launchpad for influencers and explaining how social media has become its public editor, leading to everything from this year’s casting of the first Black Bachelor to host Chris Harrison’s ouster.To read more about Underwood's season of the show, check out our producer Daniel Schroeder’s piece on the subject.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.Support ICYMI and listen to the show with zero ads. Sign up to become a Slate Plus member for just $1 for your first month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode, Rachelle Hampton and Madison Malone Kircher look at the way the COVID vaccines have seemed to develop online personalities. They discuss how the memes and merch inspired by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson can actually encourage vaccine hesitancy—which is all the more disappointing since there are actually some pretty informative TikToks out there about COVID-19. Next, they speak to a few Slatesters who might not have purchased vaxx merch but definitely made their own reckless online purchases, by buying things through targeted Instagram ads. Do these impulse buys ever bring us the joy we think they will?For more on this topic, check out “How Pfizer Became the Status Vax” by Slate’s Heather Schwedel.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.Support ICYMI and listen to the show with zero ads. Sign up to become a Slate Plus member for just $1 for your first month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Rachelle Hampton and Madison Malone Kircher start with a couple of High Speed Downloads: Madison summarizes the latest online drama surrounding self-help guru Rachel Hollis (featuring Harriet Tubman), and Rachelle chronicles the Kardashian fury that was unleashed after somebody posted an untouched-up photo of Khloe. Then, an exclusive interview with Dion Beary, a writer and online community builder who founded the Tumblr blog This Is White Privilege. They talk with Beary about where that blog began, its impact on online discourse, and why he stepped away.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.Support ICYMI and listen to the show with zero ads. Sign up to become a Slate Plus member for just $1 for your first month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode, Rachelle Hampton and Madison Malone Kircher report from the latest front in the battle between millennials and Gen Z. First, they trace the conflict back to its origins in skirmishes over middle parts and skinny jeans. Then they speak to culture writer Jenny G. Zhang, who recently encountered the fury of thirtysomethings when she tweeted about what using reaction GIFs says about your age.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John. Support ICYMI and listen to the show with zero ads. Sign up to become a Slate Plus member for just $1 for your first month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the latest episode, hosts Rachelle Hampton and Madison Malone Kircher talk to Mya Johnson and Chris Cotter, two teen TikTok stars who created a dance challenge set to Cardi B’s No. 1 hit “Up.” Fellow TikTok creator Addison Rae appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to perform their dance, along with seven other popular TikTok dances, without giving credit to any of the creators. A Twitter user tweeted a side-by-side video of Chris and Mya’s original choreography and Addison’s Tonight Show performance, demonstrating just how watered down the moves had become.Chris and Mya are here to discuss how the two first linked up, what they thought about Addison Rae’s performance, and the experience of watching their moves go viral without them.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.Support ICYMI and listen to the show with zero ads. Sign up to become a Slate Plus member for just $1 for your first month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of ICYMI, Slate’s new podcast about internet culture, hosts Rachelle Hampton and Madison Malone Kircher get lewd. (Sorry, Mrs. Hampton.) First, they read some erotica about the big, unstuck boat. Then, they explain why Lil Nas X’s supposedly shocking turn—stripping for the devil in his new video for “Montero” and selling “Satan Shoes” with blood in them—is really just the logical next step for the “Old Town Road” rapper.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.Support ICYMI and listen to the show with zero ads. Sign up to become a Slate Plus member for just $1 for your first month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the second episode of ICYMI, Slate’s new podcast about internet culture, hosts Madison Malone Kircher and Rachelle Hampton take listeners on an all-access tour of Clubhouse, the invite-only audio app that already has millions of users, including everyone from Elon Musk and Drake to Oprah and Joe Rogan. Madison somehow ends up taking a shower with hundreds of other users? The app also doesn’t allow people to record and publish audio, so this episode will probably get us banned.Then, they try a new segment that we’re calling High Speed Download, in which each of them must try to summarize all of the drama of a recent internet story in 60 seconds or less. This time: the sagas of relationship guru Derrick Jaxn and Jensen Karp, aka Cinnamon Toast Shrimp Guy.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the first episode of ICYMI, Slate's new podcast about internet culture, hosts Rachelle Hampton and Madison Malone Kircher make sense of two recent controversies about online celebrities. First, they explain the recent drama around Kylie Jenner’s call for her followers to donate to a makeup artist’s GoFundMe—and how it connects to a whole year of influencers failing to read the room during the pandemic. Next, they dig into the reckoning currently roiling YouTube, recounting the rise and fall of David Dobrik, and analyzing why an allegation in a recent Insider report has put “Gen Z’s Jimmy Fallon” in hot water.Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join hosts Rachelle Hampton and Madison Malone Kircher as they gaze deep into the online abyss—and tell you what’s gazing back. New episodes drop every Wednesday and Saturday starting March 24th. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.