The Pop Culture Salvage Expeditions

These conversations about popular culture are aimed at what it can teach social activists about how to appeal to the masses. It's hugely instructive in that domain. I find the insights of the hosts equally useful in thinking about other aspects of my work: how to interact with coworkers, how to make software that appeals to users. Just great stuff.

A podcast about pop culture could easily lapse into one of two extremes: criticizing it as total trash, or elevating it unthinkingly. The “Pop Culture Salvage Expeditions” does neither, but instead looks at why pop culture is popular, and what we can learn from it for political organizing. I love that the hosts of the show have a good time — this is not some dour dissection of pop culture, they’re enjoying each other’s company and the discussion and the subject itself. Great stuff!

What I appreciate most about The Pop Culture Salvage Expeditions is that in the end Patricia, Steve, and Steve are up front about their alienation from the subject at hand (whether Transformers or T.G.I. Friday’s) — they express out loud that they did not enjoy the experience, that they’d be happy to trash it — and yet still exert the effort to find meaning and usefulness. Their dissections are savvy, thoughtful, and genuine — modeling a kind of analysis anyone could replicate to carry this work forward. I’m excited to see what they subject themselves to next.