Society & Culture Episodes

Kitchen gadgets, food allergies, dinner party etiquette, hospitality, beans, and why cooking is really about people.

An anthropologist, a game show champion, and an increasingly unhealthy relationship with television investigate why celebrities feel like friends, whether violent media changes us, and what TV is doing to modern human life.

Why do people in Los Angeles spend half their lives in cars? Is the Valley actually part of LA? And what does it mean that one of America's most disaster-prone cities keeps rebuilding itself? Dan, Michael, and guest Saanchi Shah explore the culture, contradictions, and enduring weirdness of Los Angeles.

Why do we camp if we're not actually trying to survive? Dan and Michael explore the culture of the outdoors, from suburban dads dressed for an expedition at school pickup to couples arguing about whether hiking and hunting are basically the same activity. Along the way they unpack camping, outdoor identity, public lands, conservation, and the strange modern dream of escaping civilization while carrying civilization on your back.

Anthropologist Gretchen Pfeil joins Michael and Dan to explore privacy, shelter, office design, and the hidden social rules that shape how people move through buildings, cities, workplaces, and everyday life.

Michael and Dan explore the anthropology of Home Depot, DIY culture, power tools, construction work, and why home repair projects inevitably spiral into chaos. Featuring medieval student jails, table saw trauma, commodity fetishism, and multiple unnecessary trips to the hardware store.

This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael ask a deceptively simple question: what is a home? Unfortunately, modern America has several conflicting answers. A home is a sanctuary. A speculative asset. A retirement plan. A personality test. A tax shelter. A haunted structure slowly collapsing under the weight of deferred maintenance and financial ideology.

Equine obsession, Western mythologies, and why horses are better at reading you than you are.

“Human nature” is one of those phrases people use when they want to stop arguing. Boys are just like that. Men are naturally competitive. Women are better at caregiving. Kids need expensive enrichment classes. Gen Z is becoming weirdly conservative about gender. It’s just human nature. …except anthropology says: probably not.

Stress is biological, cultural, symbolic—and everywhere. Dan, Michael, and guest scientist Michelle Rensel tackle hunting anxiety, high-school panic patterns, the cult of self-discipline, and why everyone feels one layoff away from catastrophe. Smart, funny, and a little too real.

Dan and Michael welcome genetic counselor and professional vegetarian Saanchi Shah to explore why humans attach so much identity to food — from paleo diet mythologies to prepper gardening obsessions to the gym bro who thinks raw meat makes you a better person. Also: a stolen 18-karat gold toilet, fixing public restrooms, and whether one can literally become pizza.

This week on People Stuff, anthropologists Dan and Michael get very, very lost — in Carmel-by-the-Sea, at the dinner table, and even among the dead.

When is it okay to discipline someone else’s kid? Are gender roles actually “natural,” or are we just swimming in Disney IP? And what do you do when your child’s imaginary friend starts sounding less… imaginary? This week on People Stuff, anthropologists Dan Souleles and Michael Powell take on communal parenting, playground ethics, gender development, TikTok surveillance culture, immigration panic, and the unsettling anthropology of imaginary friends. Drawing on cross-cultural child-rearing, gender theory, and just enough totemism to keep things weird, they offer advice that is empathetic, skeptical, and occasionally alarming. Remember: we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people.

Hope, self-deception, elephant grandmothers, and the archaeology of our trash age.

This week on People Stuff, anthropologists Michael and Dan take a wrecking ball to democracy itself — from Curtis Yarvin’s neo-monarchist fantasies to student-body elections gone full Nixon. In this episode: What Fresh Hell: The Texas Lottery “rigging” that proves math isn’t the problem — lazy officials are. The Big Question: Is democracy actually broken? Michael and Dan unpack the anti-democracy ideas of Curtis Yarvin, the myth of the “CEO king,” and why liberal democracy still matters (plus, what’s more important — air conditioning or AI?). High School Power Plays: When student-body elections turn into campaign nightmares, what’s a parent to do? Hint: Go negative. Hard. Fixing Shit: Dan redesigns airline boarding for a more egalitarian sky, while Michael says the real fix is fewer flights — and fewer heat domes. Freedom and the Endless Meeting: Activism and consensus — when “everyone has a say” means you never leave the meeting. Plus, a fake sponsorship you’ll wish was fake: Technof…