Episodes

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 …

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 anth…

This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael tackle the strange cultural life of books—why we treat them like holy objects, why libraries throw them away, and how to decide what’s actually worth reading.

Hackerspaces, communes, constitutional bugs, and the fantasy of getting people to do their chores.

From UFOs to ghosts to QAnon — an anthropological guide to why humans connect dots that may or may not exist. This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael explore conspiracies, ghosts, elite scandals, and the deeply human urge to find meaning in chaos.

Dan and Michael welcome Jeopardy Tournament of Champions contestant Mike Dawson to explore trivia, fandom, history class suffering, tarot cards, fascist coups, and whether useless knowledge might secretly run society.

Season 3 of People Stuff is arriving soon — theoretically. Dan and Michael read off-season listener mail, confront accusations of academic indolence, hear from a trucker philosopher, and discover what happens when teenagers start demanding anarcho-syndicalist households. Anthropology advice returns…

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 sit down with author and sports historian John Florio to dig into the strange, brilliant, and often chaotic world where sports, culture, and business collide. From the myths we tell about athletes to the politics that shape games on and off the field, this episode cuts through the n…

This week, Dan and Michael accidentally dismantle the U.S. economy with the help of linguistic anthropologist Steve Black. We talk about why everyone thinks a new car should cost $30k (it shouldn’t), why letters of recommendation are medieval hazing rituals, and why quitting your job feels like a m…

“Why are the horses allowed to hit us?”

Anthropologists Dan and Michael take on workplace personality tests, IQ tracking, and pop psychology’s obsession with turning people into types.

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, f…

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.

In this episode of People Stuff, anthropologists Dan and Michael tackle the order of things — from Zen monks who don’t clean corners to kids demanding cash for chores to dads who can’t let go of their stuff. They explore how cleanliness, clutter, and money all reveal what we value (and what we avoi…

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 comm…

This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael grab their metaphorical couch and ask: Why does psychology have such a hold on how we think about ourselves? From men outsourcing their mental health to chatbots, to the moral contradictions of being a baseball fan, to the question of what people did befor…

In this encore episode of People Stuff, Dan and Michael check to see whether the truth is out there by boosting a UFO conspiracy, endorsing the use of body doubles as a high school teaching technique, and offering relationship advice to help you avoid serial killers in the Pacific Northwest. It rem…

In this encore episode of People Stuff, Dan and Michael venture into the wicked and unknown by riffing on the admirable traits of vampires, parsing the stupidity of Nazi stans, and sending a love letter to the Jersey Devil. If your heart lives in the Pine Barrens, this episode is for you.

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

As we are in between seasons, we present this encore presentation of Dan and Michael Go To Ikea. People Stuff is a write-in anthropology podcast. In this episode, Dan and Michael go to Ikea and give advice on furniture shopping and relationships, whether you should make your bed, and how best to br…

Why does one lobster shack have a two-hour line while the identical one across the street sits empty? In this People Stuff special episode, anthropologists Dan Souleles and Michael Scroggins break down why food culture today isn’t about taste—it’s about being seen. From Red’s Eats in Maine to Magno…

Why your neighbor’s parking spot is sacred, your Uber is feudalism, and the Hyperloop is a cult.