Strong Opinions About Trivial Sh*t

You know that feeling when you and a friend get weird and detailed and hilarious about something you deeply (and maybe irrationally) hate, or find ridiculous, or can’t stomach in your vicinity? It’s one of my favorite versions of friendship intimacy — talking shit about something you shouldn’t dislike nearly as much as you do, because that thing is relatively trivial, but that doesn’t mean that the thing itself doesn’t make you want to bang your head against the wall.

And that’s what this week’s episode is: talking about all of your strong opinions about trivial shit. Our co-host, Krista Burton, came up with the idea — because it’s a regular feature of her excellent and always entertaining newsletter (O Caftan My Caftan!). So join us as we talk about your strong opinions about gnomes, “journey” and “season,” boarding planes, late-in-life-lesbian-Tok, calling your romantic person “partner,” mullets, and a very juicy/useful AAA section about almond boomers. I can’t wait to talk even MORE about all of your strong opinions about trivial shit in the comments.

Show Notes:

• Subscribe to O Caftan My Caftan!!!!!

• My interview with Krista about her AMAZING book Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America

• BUY MOBY DYKE !!!

• The thread where Melody said she wasn’t going to buy the porch geese costumes

• If you didn’t get the gnome situation like me here’s what we’re talking about

• The British GQ article I reference re: the feelings about the mullet

• How the “green bubble” for Android users has been part of the case against Apple re: “anti-competitive behavior”

• One of those infinitely annoying articles about how there are better ways to board a plane

• Just a hot lesbian chopping wood on Tiktok

• From the AAA: one of my favorite Virginia Sole-Smith pieces about “the grandparents are not okay” re: boomers and diet culture

We’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• The Present and Past of NICOLE KIDMAN (with Sam Sanders!)

• Midwest [Dad] Masculinity / Tim Walz Memedom

• What Happened to the Summer Blockbuster?

• The new Gladiator + Paul Mescal JUST GENERALLY

• Explaining trends on BookTok

• Why does it feel like thrifting sucks now

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (this is the subscriber-only form!)

For today’s discussion: Add your own strong opinions about all the trivial shit we covered!

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• Got a question to submit, a prompt for Ask Anne Anything, or an idea for a future episode? Tell us here.
• Catch up on everything else happening in the Culture Study universe here.
• Transcripts will be available here within 24 hours of publishing.

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