Culturally Determined is leaving BhTV, so here's how to keep following the show ... Tom Friedman's controversial column, "Biden-Cheney 2024?" ... Why Israel's anti-Netanyahu coalition could never happen in the US ... Aryeh's defense of Fried

More Than Meets the Eye (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Milton Lawson)

Jan 10th, 2022 1h

The strange history of the Transformers action figures ... Diving into Transformers: The Movie (1986) ... Unicron, the giant planet-eating robot god voiced by Orson Welles ... Why the film is more than a glorified toy commercial ... Does th

Creating Content for the Algorithm in the Sky (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Douglas Lain)

Jan 3rd, 2022 1h

How Doug came to run the leftwing book publisher Zer0 Books, and why he got kicked out ... Dave Chappelle, cancel culture, and the attention economy ... Doug narrates his ejection from Zer0 ... Doug's new company, Diet Soap Media ... How B

Online Vibes Edition (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Max Read)

Dec 27th, 2021 1h

Max's new newsletter, Read Max ... The significance of Buzzfeed's underwhelming IPO ... Where are the cool kids online? ... Private equity squeezes a bit more blood from online media ... What is web3? And is it bullshit? ... Why Melania Tr

Riding the Waves of Prediction Markets (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & David Rees)

Dec 20th, 2021 1h

David's podcast, Election Profit Makers ... Riding the waves of political prediction markets ... David: I don't think there's a limit to the depravity of the GOP ... Weighing the odds of American politics ever becoming normal again ... Can

The Many Mistakes of "Newark" (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Erin Schwartz)

Dec 13th, 2021 1h

The many disappointments of The Many Saints of Newark ... Was any Sopranos prequel doomed from the start? ... How the opening scene undermines a key theme of the series ... Clumsy dialogue, broad acting, and flashes of the classic Sopranos

Holding Out for a Hero (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Matt K. Lewis)

Dec 6th, 2021 1h

Is it still possible for America to have a great leader? ... Why the pandemic sparked division instead of unity ... Why Obama was not a transformational president ... Will America just muddle through? ... Matt sees possibility on the anti-c

Memes and the Left (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Mike Watson)

Nov 23rd, 2021 1h

Mike's new book, The Memeing of Mark Fisher: How the Frankfurt School Foresaw Capitalist Realism and What To Do About It ... Subconscious narratives today and in interwar Germany ... Walter Benjamin and Herbert Marcuse in the digital world

Live from New York, It's Class Struggle! (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Seth Simons)

Nov 16th, 2021 1h

Seth's newsletter covering comedy from the left, Humorism ... Seth: Saturday Night Live is conservative ... Is being hired by SNL a Faustian bargain? ... Lawsuit alleges SNL ignored Horatio Sanz's sexual abuse of a minor ... The bizarre na

How Social Media Swallowed Real Life (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Justin E. H. Smith)

Nov 8th, 2021 1h

Justin: It is morally imperative to not say true things on social media ... Why Justin loves Substack ... Pros and cons of writing without an editor ... AOC's real audience at the Met Gala ... Are social media editors purposefully riling up

Special Thriller Edition (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Kat Rosenfield)

Nov 1st, 2021 1h

Kat's new novel, No One Will Miss Her ... Writing YA vs. adult fiction ... A narrator speaking from beyond the grave ... The subtle art of crafting a twist ... Kat reviews Hillary Clinton's new thriller novel ... Who are all these politic

"Dead Jews" and Living Jews (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Dara Horn)

Oct 18th, 2021 1h

Dara's new book, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present ... Anne Frank, Jewish self-erasure, and the actual lessons of the Holocaust ... Unique features of Jewish literature and history ... The case for Jewish anger ... Th

The Bard of Twitter (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & William Shakespeare)

Oct 11th, 2021 1h

A new YouTube channel for Culturally Determined ... Meet the man who tweets as William Shakespeare ... The most secret and most grave truths of @Wwm_Shakespeare ... Spying a kind of hope in Shakespearean ambiguity ... Have you heard the jok

War of Shadows (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Gershom Gorenberg)

Oct 4th, 2021 1h

Gershom's new book, War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East ... How Gershom rediscovered forgotten heroes from Bletchley Park ... Fascist mythology and Italian colonialism ... The

Returning to Roth (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Jacques Berlinerblau)

Sep 27th, 2021 1h

How #MeToo shaped Jacques's new book, The Philip Roth We Don't Know ... Jacques: Roth aimed to obliterate the critic ... Is it unethical to write a nasty fictionalization of an ex? ... Three levels of analysis of the misogynist charge ...

Small Moments of Delight (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Sophie Haigney)

Sep 20th, 2021 1h

Sophie's exploration of the use and misuse of "the Irish goodbye" ... The strange joy of watching a Picasso painting fall to the ground ... NFTs and the question of authentication ... What makes an object a valuable collectible? ... Sophie

The Nickelodeon Generation (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Katie Baker)

Sep 13th, 2021 1h

Katie's recent essay, "Nickelodeon’s Generational Divide" ... Children's entertainment that didn't pander ... The early '90s as a midpoint in the shifting cultural battle of kids vs. parents ... The ultimate childhood dream: the Super Toy

Reconsidering Online Disinformation (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Joe Bernstein)

Sep 8th, 2021 1h

Joe's new essay on online disinformation ... Does advertising actually work? ... Joe: Maybe the real critique of Facebook is that it's a worthless product ... The ivermectin craze and the end of media gatekeeping ... How do you solve a pro

"The White Lotus" and Black History (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & John Ganz)

Sep 6th, 2021 1h

Why John hated The White Lotus ... Is the show more of a farce than a satire? ... Debating whether the staff was thinly characterized on purpose ... John critiques the show's treatment of race and class ... Why the 1619 Project made so man

"The Netanyahus," a Novel (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Joshua Cohen)

Aug 27th, 2021 1h

Joshua's new novel, The Netanyahus ... How Harold Bloom inspired a novel about Bibi Netanyahu's father ... Other influences: Philip Roth, classic sitcoms, and Yiddish anecdotes ... Jewish assimilationism vs. Jewish identitarianism ... The s

The Intellectuals Who Went Trumpist (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Laura K. Field)

Aug 23rd, 2021 1h

Laura's essay, "What the Hell Happened to the Claremont Institute?" ... Background on Harry Jaffa and the West Coast Straussians ... Why did many East Coast Straussians become NeverTrumpers? ... Michael Anton, the cosplaying conservative int

Arendt, Trump, and Truth (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Rebecca Panovka)

Aug 16th, 2021 1h

Rebecca's essay on how Hannah Arendt was misread during the Trump years ... A capsule biography of Arendt ... The real meaning of Arendt's famous line about "the ideal subject of totalitarian rule" ... Rebecca: Trump's lies were mostly "boa

Pandemic Poetry (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Leigh Stein)

Aug 9th, 2021 1h

Leigh's new poetry collection, What to Miss When ... How the collection emerged from lockdown ... Leigh's poem "Simulation Theory," which was inspired by a MeaningofLife.tv episode ... Leigh's essay, "Sympathy for the Girlboss" ... Women t

TikTok Influencers and American Despair (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Barrett Swanson)

Aug 2nd, 2021 1h

Barrett embeds at a TikTok "collab house" ... Pleasant young people who are starstruck at themselves ... Why are so many college students anxious and depressed? ... Joan Didion and despair ... Barrett and his brother's unusual journey to a

Nine Nasty Words (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & John McWhorter)

Jul 26th, 2021 1h

John's new book, Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever ... The original profane words: damn and hell ... The four-letter big ones ... How donkeys and buttocks got the same name ... The nasty word we still euphemiz