Episodes

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 Ang…

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 …

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.

Competition has escaped the marketplace and colonized everyday life. Michael, Dan, and guest Justin Dang discuss hiring hell, finance clubs, networking culture, violence, wearable surveillance tech, and the strange systems institutions use to decide who “wins.”

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…