Pop Culture Boner

Hello friends! Another busy fortnight here at HQ. Once again we’ve decided to take a dive into the archives to bring you some classic Pop Culture Boner content. Anyway, it's November so that means your Spotify Wrapped is already in the oven - nothing else you listen to will count for this years edition. It might also be a good time to mention, Wesley's band Lava Fangs have new music out soon...

Anyway, two years ...

This week on Pop Culture we’re taking a closer look at the Sphere at the Venetian. As Las Vegas’ newest and most expensive concert venue, the Sphere is promising concert-goers that it will be the “future of entertainment”. But now that they’re $2.3billion in the hole, have invented a new camera and booked U2 for a residency, what does that actually mean?

Visit the website for episode notes and a full transcript: www.popcultureboner....

Here at Pop Culture Boner we sometimes like to consult the experts. Or at least, someone who is expert adjacent. This week we’re talking to Isobel, an actual lawyer, about Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas’ divorce and custody proceedings. While Isobel is keen to emphasise that she is not actually a family lawyer, she does know more about the Hague Convention than anyone else involved in this podcast, and she has an opinion, so we’re cou...

Hello friends! A lot’s been happening here at Pop Culture Boner Headquarters. Ask Alex about it next time you see her at the pub. Under the circumstances, we haven’t been able to put together a fresh episode for you this week. Instead, we’ve decided to take a dive into the archives and share something from the early days of Pop Culture Boner. 

I thought we could just have some fun this week and revisit Alex’s feelings abou...

In the wake of the arrest of Utah-based ‘mommy blogger’ Ruby Franke and her offsider Jodi Hildebrandt on 6 counts of felony child abuse, we take a look at child stars of the YouTube age. How have social channels like YouTube pushed the format of family vlogging into unsafe territory? Why aren’t child influencers subject to the same labour laws as child actors? What protections are in place to prevent acts of serious harm? 

Visit the...

This week on Pop Culture Boner we look at the history of book banning and the recent rise in right-wing hate groups using libraries and public schools as battle grounds for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. We also chat to Ngozi Ukazu, whose book Check, Please! is banned in Texas, about what it’s like to be an author on Moms For Liberty’s hit list. 

You can find Ngozi on Twitter, Instagram and the grout of the internet. You can pre-order Bun...

This week’s episode of Pop Culture Boner looks at the OceanGate submersible tragedy through the lens of the online discourse that sprung up around it. Between the wreck of the Titanic, missing billionaires, lax safety regulations, international waters, video game controllers and James Cameron, it was 5 days of unbridled digital chaos. We take a look at the timeline to examine why it held our collective attention for so long, and wh...

The alternative title for this episode of Pop Culture Boner was “Pay your writers or Jesse Plemons will kill again”, after the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike turned the beloved Friday Night Lights star into a murderer. But we didn’t want people to miss the joke, so it does what it says on the tin! The WGA is on strike, so we’re talking entertainment unions, solidarity and why management is never your friend. 

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This week on Pop Culture Boner we’re revisiting perrenial topic of the podcast, Matthew McConaughey. We finally read his 2020 autobiography, Greenlights. Did we learn something? Did we talk ourselves in circles? Are we catching greenlights? So many questions. So few answers. 

Note: This episode does contain a very brief content warning for family and sexual violence. You can skip between 14.50 and 17.13 if you want to dodge it. 

Visi...

It’s our first episode back after our little wellness break and we thought we’d share our hot tips for being your most mindful self this week… Just kidding! But this week’s Pop Culture Boner is looking at the wellness industry and social isolation. Why are there so many wellness grifts out there, and why do so many of them want you to cut off all your friends and family?

Visit the website for episode notes and a full transcript: www...

This week on Pop Culture Boner, we’ve accidentally ended up doing another Kardashian based episode following her controversial wearing of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic Happy Birthday, Mr President dress. We did get a little weird with it though - we’re looking at museums, “odditoriums” and the policies that govern the collection and cataloguing of human remains in public institutions. 

Visit the website for episode notes and a full transc...