Rolling Stone staff writer Brittany Spanos joins us in the warren this week to walk us through one of our weirder rabbit holes: pop music.

• Matthew’s Katy Perry gaffe
• Taylor is not done, Taylor is never done
• The rise of the new pop girlies
• Katy Perry was bad long before this
• False nostalgia for the Obama era
• We’re all trapped in 2016
• Katy Perry CAN’T fix this
• The Hannah Montana Generation
• You can’t have a nice time anymore.

AI Music fraud story

Chappell Roan VMA performance

Abraham Lincoln Shared Bed with a Man for 4 Years, Fell Into 'Suicidal Depression' When He Left, Doc Says (Exclusive)

Lover of Men trailer

James Buchanan, gay?

Chappell Roan Is a Pop Supernova. Nothing About It Has Been Easy

The David Bowie/ Lincoln poster

A Chapell Roan pet themed cat commercial

Katy Perry can fix this

Welcome to the Hannah Montana Generation of Pop Music

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https://www.patreon.com/RabbitH0lePodcast

In this ep:

• Matthew on the things that get donated to a used bookstore
• Emily on Julie and Julia (2009)
• Matthew on Telegram and France and Elon and Brazil
• The concept of “hate following”
• da new york mets baby love da mets

Biblequest review on board game geek

Half price books

Bonnie’s cookbook store

Seattle bookstore

Microwave cooking for one by marie t smith

Gault on telegram (charging documents)

Nytimes backpage article

Obidiah

Mets reddit

Cyclones seinfeld night

Baseball murder case

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What’s the deal with all of those “pirated” movie and TV clips that show up on TikTok and Instagram? Well, some of them are being quietly breadcrumbed across your feeds by the studios themselves—and it’s proving to be a great way to get people to watch at least one network sitcom.

This week, Emily and Matthew go down the rabbit hole with Alex Cranz, deputy editor at The Verge and host of the Vergecast, and share our deepest darkest secrets: We watch (and like) Young Sheldon.

In this episode:

• Big Bang Theory and weird nerds
• Watching TV on Facebook Reels
• TikTok as cable access
• Content creators and labor laws

Links discussed:

The Nursery Nurse

Young sheldon subreddit

“Bluey moms who smoke weed” Facebook Group

Winnah Basset

Why I left teaching

Kevin Can F*** Himself

Caroline Easom

What’s going on with MrBeast

Japanese reality show documentary

Comrade “Young Sheldon” is a communist

You can find Alex on the Vergecast or on Twitter

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Today’s episode begins with a very long discussion about the perils of buying semi-legal weed in NYC and South Carolina.

We’re here with the incomparable Gita Jackson of Aftermath to discuss Charli XCX, Brat Summer, and the Kamala Harris pop culture moment. Do we keep getting sidetracked? Yes, but it’s an incredible discussion and we do get to Brat and Kamala.

We also get to …

• Gita’s thoughts on Overwatch 2
• Faded Japanese snacks in the bodega window
• Dispensaries with evil auras
• Girl-boss co-opting
• Watching a washed president
• Diet-Coke as slop
• Politics as fandom, fandom as politics

Show notes

The South Carolina weed note

Emily’s Taylor Swift jezebel article

Yes, Kamala IS Brat

Brat Summer Is Dead, Long Live Brat Summer

Aaron Sorkin’s Liberal Fantasy Runs the World

Some Thoughts on Obamacore

Gita on politics and fandom

Mike Binder Thomas Jefferson

You can find Gita and their work at https://aftermath.site/

Our theme music is by Janus Rose

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Before starting rabbit h0le, Emily and I hosted a little show over at Vice called Cyber.

Towards the end of February 2024 we heard a rumor that everyone would be fired and the site would be deleted. It turned out half of that was true. When we knew our days were numbered but before they’d revoked access to everything else, we recorded one final episode of Cyber with Tim Marchman, Anna Merlan, and Mack Lamoureux.

We dished on what it was like to work for Vice, the last days of a failing media empire, and the perils of modern journalism. The episode lived for a few days before, finally, it was pulled from the air.

Of course, we saved a copy of it. Here it is in all its glory.

The rumors of the website’s closure felt very real at the time and many of the journalists who’d worked at Vice were bad about saving their work. We needed a fast way to archive it all. Thankfully, two incredible software engineers—Chris Cummings and Karen Gault—stepped up to help us save everything.

The story of how they did it is our first piece of Patreon content! Click the link below to subscribe and hear the tale in full from Karen and Chris. There might even be a weird aside about Mormon investments in nuclear weapons.

https://www.patreon.com/RabbitH0lePodcast

On Nukes and Mormons

https://dingoranchlabs.com/

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The Habsburg royal family was once the most powerful dynasty in Europe. Now they’re a joke associated with inbreeding, Paradox grand strategy games, and VERY prominent chins. The Habsburgs lost most of their political power in the Great War, but they got to remain rich. And influential.

How influential? Ask journalist Christopher Hooks, who attended a Habsburg convention in suburban Texas. Yes, the Habsburgs have conventions. We had a lot of questions too. Thankfully, Hooks is on hand in this episode of rabbit h0le to answer them.

• What is suburban Texas anyway?
• Royalists, loyalists, and Spanish Carlists in the Republic of Texas
• The Patron saint of World War I
• That Habsburg Way
• The last man of a decaying royal line posting Evangelion
• A two-headed eagle haunting a children’s book
• More thoughts on being electionpilled
• How NOT to create a viral election rumor

Feeling Blessed at the Habsburg Convention in Plano

Dubbie: The Double-Headed Eagle

The Habsburg Way

The Catholic case for Karl’s sainthood

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Joe Arden had a pretty good thing going. As the voice of dozens of romance novel hunks, he commanded the adoration of listeners and high prices from authors looking to put his voice to their fantasies. Fans called him “the king of fuck.”

Then a sexting scandal turned that audience against him. It’s a story that involves BookTok, smut, and a man who built a following while never showing his face. Anna Merlan is here this week to go down the Joe Arden rabbit hole with us. She wrote about Arden’s fall for Business Insider.

• This is how tape works
• Election pilled
• Doing business as your persona
• Star Wars as romance novel
• We explain Bad Dragon to Anna
• Some recommendations for German language prestige TV

Joe Arden, the king of smut, built a career seducing women with his voice. Then, a sexting scandal turned BookTok against him

Flight Attendant / Romance Book YouTuber

The Herbalism Community Is at War With Itself Over Abuse Allegations

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72

The Seattle Kraken embraced thirsty ‘BookTok’ hockey romance videos. It backfired.

Recommendation that Emily forgot to shout-out during the podcast: Two romance novels written by former VICE editor Chloe Angyal.

Theme music by Janus Rose

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We can’t sleep and we ask too many questions. Welcome to rabbit h0le, a spiritual successor to Motherboard’s CYBER podcast.

Over at Vice, Emily and I had been hosting CYBER for a few months before the rug was pulled out from under us and ghouls stripped the company for parts. We felt like we’d just gotten our footing and started putting together a show we were proud of.

And then it was over.

That didn’t sit right so we decided to do our thing. So welcome to rabbit h0le. Every week, Emily and I are going to get in depth into some really weird topics. Sometimes it’ll be cyber security related, sometimes it’ll have to do with internet culture, and other times it’ll be something we just wanna talk about.

Christian influencers? We’re covering it.

A fading medieval royal line holding a convention in suburban Texas? Oh, we’re talking about it.

A scandal rocking the world of romance audiobooks? We’re there.

Crowdstrike? Yes, of course.

Every week, we’re going down the rabbit h0le. Come with us, won’t you?

And if you don’t know who we are …

Emily Lipstein is the Engagement Editor at Streetsblog NYC. She’s got a long career that includes stints at Gizmodo and VICE. Matthew Gault is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in Wired, Time, Reuters, and The New York Times. He also hosts the podcast Angry Planet.

In this episode, we do some table setting and explore Emily’s fascination with the world of Christian influencers.

https://www.reddit.com/r/brittanydawnsnark/comments/1dvrw3f/the_esther_event_that_the_girlies_attended_in_nyc/

https://www.reddit.com/r/brittanydawnsnark/comments/1dsl7ux/the_things_coming_out_of_this_clowns_mouthand/

Video Appendix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-du566FWFU&list=PLG8IbKjUJr6zLSgEDCxWi1XAf04EsdEGI

Our theme music is by Janus Rose.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.