
Decoder Ring: Why Stylists Rule the Red Carpet
Like a manager or an agent or a publicist, a stylist has become a kind of must-have accessory for well-dressed, A-list celebrities. It’s just expected that they will have hired someone to select the c...
13 Mar 202438min

Decoder Ring: The Gen X Soda That Was Just "OK"
Thirty years ago, a new kind of soda arrived in select stores. Instead of crowing about how spectacular it was, it offered up a liquid shrug, a fizzy irony. OK Soda was an inside joke for people who k...
28 Feb 202439min

Announcing Slow Burn Season 9
Hosted by Christina Cauterucci. Coming in May 2024. Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members ...
22 Feb 20241min

Decoder Ring: Why Do So Many Coffee Shops Look the Same?
The eerie similarity of coffee shops all over the world was so confounding to Kyle Chayka that it led him to write the new book Filterworld: How Algorithms Are Flattening Culture. In today’s episode, ...
14 Feb 202429min

One Year: 1990 | 5. The Angry Death of Kimberly Bergalis
Before 1990, there had never been a documented case of a patient getting HIV from a health care worker. Kimberly Bergalis changed that. Her claim that she’d been infected by her dentist would captivat...
21 Des 202352min

One Year: 1990 | 4. Art on Trial
Robert Mapplethorpe was one of the most famous photographers in the world—and one of the most controversial. When his work came to Cincinnati in 1990, it would be at the center of a vicious fight over...
14 Des 202354min

One Year: 1990 | 3. Bush vs. Broccoli
In March 1990, a story broke that shocked the nation: George H.W. Bush had banned broccoli from Air Force One. The frenzy that came next would change the fate of a vegetable—and maybe even alter the c...
7 Des 202336min

One Year: 1990 | 2. Mandrake the Magician
A middle-aged single dad in Chicago was outraged by all the cigarette billboards popping up in Black communities. In 1990, he picked up a paint roller and became an anti-tobacco vigilante. And he did ...
30 Nov 202346min



















