Tracing Cultural Panics with Sarah Marshall (!!!)

What is it about a particular cultural object — or trend, or perceived trend — that makes people FREAK THE F OUT? Anyone who's looked at historical freakouts knows: it's never really about the thing itself, but more about ideologies that are under threat and in flux. If you challenge the status quo, in other words, there's a high likelihood that you could get swept up in a panic about something that has nothing to do with the way in which you're actually challenging the status quo.

The best person to talk about these sort of freak-outs is Sarah Marshall, beloved host of You're Wrong About and current host of a new CBC limited series on the satanic panic called The Devil You Know. In this episode, Sarah brings her trademark empathy to your smart questions about freak-outs old and new (yes, we talk about kids & screens, but not for the entire episode). This episode was an utter delight to record and I can only hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

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Show Notes:

• Listen to THE DEVIL YOU KNOW on CBC or wherever you get your podcasts!

• More about Sarah's work here

• Listen to You're Wrong About here

• If you missed the episode we did on conspiracy theories last year, it's a great companion to this one

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

• WEIRD ENGLISH WORDS (where do they come from!) with Colin Gorrie, who writes explainers like this one on the word DOG

• Questions About How to Respond When People Ask/React To the Knowledge That You're Not Having Kids

• How Did Everyone Low-Key Become an Influencer? AKA How do you see influencer posting logic creeping into non-influencer accounts

• The Wild Largely Unregulated World of IVF

• Audiobooks!!! (with MVP audiobook narrator Julia Whelan)

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment

• As always, you can submit your questions (and ideas for future eps) here

For this week’s discussion: I'd love to hear your alternate reads on what caused any of the cultural panics we discussed in the show.

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• 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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