Decoder Ring

Slate Podcasts
Slate Podcasts
  • 4,4 (9)
  • Documental

Decoder Ring is the show about cracking cultural mysteries. In each episode, host Willa Paskin takes a cultural question, object, or habit; examines its history; and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  1. 12 d’ag.

    McGruff Takes a Bite Out of Crime, Part 1 (Encore)

    McGruff the Crime Dog arrived on the scene at the dawn of the 1980s, just as a firehose of anti-drug PSAs was inundating the youth of America. These messages didn’t always work as intended—but they did work their way into the long term memories of the kids who heard them. In the first of two episodes, originally released in 2022, we take a look at PSAs and their strange afterlife through the lens of a trench-coat wearing bloodhound and his bizarre, yet catchy anti-drug songs. We’ll talk to Dan Danger, Sherry Nemmers, Joseph Cappella, David Farber, Mike Hawes, and Robin Nelson to discover how the McGruff Smart Kids Album came to exist in the first place. This episode was written by Willa Paskin. It was produced by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd. We had production help from Sam Kim. Editing by Jamie York and Derek John. Decoder Ring is produced by Max Freedman and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Our intern is Phoebe Mulder. Thank you to Wendy Melillo, Dan McQuade, Dale Mantley, Larissa Zargeris, Daisy Rosario, Dave Bledsoe, Larre Johnson, Duane Poole, Ari Merkin, Charles and Karen Rosen, and Eric Greenberg. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. 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 subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    McGruff Takes a Bite Out of Crime, Part 1 (Encore)

  2. 12 d’ag. • Només per a Slate Plus

    McGruff Takes a Bite Out of Crime, Part 1 (Encore)

    McGruff the Crime Dog arrived on the scene at the dawn of the 1980s, just as a firehose of anti-drug PSAs was inundating the youth of America. These messages didn’t always work as intended—but they did work their way into the long term memories of the kids who heard them. In the first of two episodes, originally released in 2022, we take a look at PSAs and their strange afterlife through the lens of a trench-coat wearing bloodhound and his bizarre, yet catchy anti-drug songs. We’ll talk to Dan Danger, Sherry Nemmers, Joseph Cappella, David Farber, Mike Hawes, and Robin Nelson to discover how the "McGruff Smart Kids Album" came to exist in the first place. This episode was written by Willa Paskin. It was produced by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd. We had production help from Sam Kim. Editing by Jamie York and Derek John. Decoder Ring is produced by Max Freedman and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Our intern is Phoebe Mulder. Thank you to Wendy Melillo, Dan McQuade, Dale Mantley, Larissa Zargeris, Daisy Rosario, Dave Bledsoe, Larre Johnson, Duane Poole, Ari Merkin, Charles and Karen Rosen, and Eric Greenberg. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.

  3. 29 de jul.

    The Fight Over Sunlight

    The sun has always been a hot topic. For centuries, we’ve flip-flopped over whether our health depends on soaking up its rays—or shielding ourselves from them. The current conventional wisdom is clear: Avoid sunburns at all costs, using shade, hats, long sleeves, and the highest SPF sunscreen your drugstore has to offer. But in a historical sense, that advice is pretty new. Not long ago, doctors told parents to slather babies in oil and let them roast in the afternoon sun. Tanning was once medically prescribed. Though we’ve lived under it for all of human history, we’ve never quite figured out how much sun is actually good for us. So where has the pendulum landed today? And why does it keep swinging in the first place? In this episode of Decoder Ring, Willa talks to Rowan Jacobsen, author of the new book In Defense of Sunlight: The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure, who argues that our current guidelines have gone too far in emphasizing the risks of the sun. She also speaks with Catherine Cocks, the director of the Syracuse University Press and author of Tropical Whites: The Rise of the Tourist South in the Americas, about how race drove our cultural obsession with suntanning. This episode was written by Willa Paskin and our supervising producer, Evan Chung, who also produced this episode. Decoder Ring is also produced by Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Our intern is Phoebe Mulder. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. 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 subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Fight Over Sunlight

  4. 29 de jul. • Només per a Slate Plus

    The Fight Over Sunlight

    The sun has always been a hot topic. For centuries, we’ve flip-flopped over whether our health depends on soaking up its rays—or shielding ourselves from them. The current conventional wisdom is clear: Avoid sunburns at all costs, using shade, hats, long sleeves, and the highest SPF sunscreen your drugstore has to offer. But in a historical sense, that advice is pretty new. Not long ago, doctors told parents to slather babies in oil and let them roast in the afternoon sun. Tanning was once medically prescribed. Though we’ve lived under it for all of human history, we’ve never quite figured out how much sun is actually good for us. So where has the pendulum landed today? And why does it keep swinging in the first place? In this episode of Decoder Ring, Willa talks to Rowan Jacobsen, author of the new book In Defense of Sunlight: The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure, who argues that our current guidelines have gone too far in emphasizing the risks of the sun. She also speaks with Catherine Cocks, the director of the Syracuse University Press and author of Tropical Whites: The Rise of the Tourist South in the Americas, about how race drove our cultural obsession with suntanning. This episode was written by Willa Paskin and our supervising producer, Evan Chung, who also produced this episode. Decoder Ring is also produced by Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Our intern is Phoebe Mulder. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.

  5. 22 de jul. ·  Contingut extra • Només per a Slate Plus

    Decoder Rings Back | I Was a Fake Victim in a Mock Car Crash

    In high school, our listener Nat Fondell had prosthetic organs applied to him, got placed inside a totaled car, and was zipped into a body bag, very much still alive. It was part of an elaborate assembly meant to warn teenagers about the dangers of drunk driving through the spectacle of a mock car crash. Every year, thousands of high schoolers watch their classmates pretend to die in staged accidents. Nat reached out to us wondering how this tradition arose. What’s the deal with this strange, macabre theater? And what can it tell us about drunk driving in America? This week, Willa Paskin personally calls Nat up with the answers to his questions. It’s the latest installment of Decoder Rings Back, available exclusively to Slate Plus subscribers. This episode was produced by Phoebe Mulder. Our show is also produced by Willa Paskin, Max Freedman, and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. This episode is for Slate Plus members. Join now to unlock it—plus other exclusive Decoder Ring bonus episodes and ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.

  6. 15 de jul.

    Weapons of Map Destruction

    Most of us use GPS—the Global Positioning System—on a daily basis: to find our location when we’re driving, running, shopping, dating, and so much more. But GPS is even more important, and more vulnerable, than you think. In the last few years, GPS interference has been reported all over the world, from war zones to shipping routes to public squares. What was once the fanciful plot of a Bond movie—bad guy manipulates GPS to start World War III—is increasingly plausible. How did the world come to rely so heavily on such an unreliable system? In this episode of Decoder Ring, host Willa Paskin talks to journalist Katherine Dunn, author of the new book Little Blue Dot: How GPS Shaped the Modern World. You’ll learn how GPS works, why it was created, how it became so ubiquitous, and why it’s now under attack. You’ll also hear from Dr. Todd Humphreys, an aerospace engineer who manipulated GPS to trick an $85 million superyacht into following his direction—for science, of course. This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman. It was edited by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Our intern is Phoebe Mulder. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Sources for This Episode  Burgess, Matt. “When a tanker vanishes, all the evidence points to Russia,” WIRED, Sep. 21, 2017. Dunn, Katherine. Little Blue Dot: How GPS Shaped the Modern World, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2026. Dunn, Katherine. “How to Hack a Superyacht,” The Walrus, Jun. 13, 2026. Hopper, Nate. “The Thorny Problem of Keeping the Internet’s Time,” The New Yorker, Sep. 30, 2022. Hopper, Nate. “The Timekeeper of Ukraine,” The Atlantic, Sep. 21, 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 subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Weapons of Map Destruction

  7. 15 de jul. • Només per a Slate Plus

    Weapons of Map Destruction

    Most of us use GPS—the Global Positioning System—on a daily basis: to find our location when we’re driving, running, shopping, dating, and so much more. But GPS is even more important, and more vulnerable, than you think. In the last few years, GPS interference has been reported all over the world, from war zones to shipping routes to public squares. What was once the fanciful plot of a Bond movie—bad guy manipulates GPS to start World War III—is increasingly plausible. How did the world come to rely so heavily on such an unreliable system? In this episode of Decoder Ring, host Willa Paskin talks to journalist Katherine Dunn, author of the new book Little Blue Dot: How GPS Shaped the Modern World. You’ll learn how GPS works, why it was created, how it became so ubiquitous, and why it’s now under attack. You’ll also hear from Dr. Todd Humphreys, an aerospace engineer who manipulated GPS to trick an $85 million superyacht into following his direction—for science, of course. This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman. It was edited by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Our intern is Phoebe Mulder. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.

  8. 1 de jul.

    We Are Monumentally Bad at Statues

    It seems like the only time you hear about new statues these days is when something goes horribly wrong. Unfortunate bronze renditions of Lucille Ball, Cristiano Ronaldo, Dwayne Wade, and many others are always going viral, becoming a fixture of late-night shows and mocking comment sections. Is the internet too harsh a critic? Or is American statuary a total bust? In this episode of Decoder Ring, host Willa Paskin talks to artist Atalanta Arden-Miller about what’s happened to one of the oldest artistic traditions in the world—why so many contemporary statues turn out off-center, off-kilter, and off-putting. The answer takes us from ancient Greece to Nazi Germany to North Korea. This episode was written by Willa Paskin. It was produced by Max Freedman. It was edited by Josh Levin and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Our intern is Phoebe Mulder. Special thanks to the Works in Progress Podcast, where we first heard Atalanta talk about the dismal state of statuary today. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. 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 subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    We Are Monumentally Bad at Statues
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4,4
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Informació

Decoder Ring is the show about cracking cultural mysteries. In each episode, host Willa Paskin takes a cultural question, object, or habit; examines its history; and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fitxa tècnica

  • Canal
    Slate Podcasts
  • Creació
    Slate Podcasts
  • Anys en actiu
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodis
    259
  • Qualificació
    Apte
  • Copyright
    © The Slate Group
  • Lloc web del programa
    Decoder Ring
  • Proveïdor

Més de: Slate Podcasts

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