Slate Culture Feed

Podcasts are everywhere. They’re more popular and influential than they’ve ever been. But at the same time, what makes a podcast a “podcast” has never been more confusing.

Until recently, the definition of “podcast” was clear: audio distributed over the internet. A podcast was something you listened to, not something you watched. But now, almost all of the most popular podcasts have video, too. And most of these podcasts share a video-friendly format: two or three people chatting behind big bulky microphones.

You may have noticed that our podcast, Decoder Ring, does not have video, so these developments have given our team, like many other podcast-makers, no shortage of anxiety. In this week’s episode, we’re embracing our inner chatcast: host Willa Paskin and supervising producer Evan Chung trace the history and evolution of podcasting through their own histories with the medium, and wrestle with their complicated feelings about the state of the format in 2026.

You can watch video of Willa and Evan’s conversation here:

https://youtu.be/JHhQM8IrK7k?si=aOv2BGoSuYhIGF-G

This episode was produced by Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Our intern is Phoebe Mulder. Video production by Micah Phillips. Special thanks to Amanda Dobbins, Leon Neyfakh, Nick Quah, Ben Richmond, Amber Robinson, Susan Matthews, Mary Harris, and Mia Lobel.

If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.

Sources for This Episode
“How YouTube Ate Podcasts and TV,” Galaxy Brain, Dec. 12, 2025.
Kang, Jay Caspian. “CNN’s ‘Podcast Look’ and the Slow Death of Cable News,” The New Yorker, March 24, 2026.
Quah, Nicholas. “Will Video Kill the Audio Star in 2025?” New York Magazine, Dec. 31, 2024.
Testa, Jessica. “It Was Just a Podcast. Now, It’s Kelce Land,” The New York Times, Apr. 24, 2026.

Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.
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How many apps does it take to raise a child in 2026? Not only are parents navigating countless WhatsApp groups and summer camp platforms, there’s also a whole world of Reels, subreddits, and Facebook groups filled with advice. Often, however, the answers just lead to more questions. On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by What Next: TBD host Lizzie O’Leary to talk about the parenting side of the internet, and how understandable anxieties play out online.

This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay.
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The pay-what-you-want business model is mostly found in museums and churches, but this week we’ll hear from entrepreneurs and artists who are implementing it in unlikely places. Guests include: Katie Bishop, owner of Principles G.I. Coffee House in Brooklyn, musician Jeff Rosenstock of Bomb the Music Industry!, and Aimé Nuñez, owner of Pegasus Creative Reuse in Dallas.
We also hear from Shelle Santana, assistant professor of marketing at Bentley University, who studies the PWYW model and tells Anna why its success is so confusing to economists.
Podcast production by Cameron Drews.
Right now, we’re running a deal on Death, Sex & Money Plus memberships! Sign up to get bonus episodes of DSM and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Visit slate.com/dsmplus and use promo code DSM50 to get 50% off your membership – a full year of Death, Sex & Money Plus for $59.
If you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com.
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Many women are hiding their boyfriends online, or losing followers if they hard-launch. Some go as far as to say having a boyfriend “feels republican.” Is this heterofatalism gone too far, or a long-overdue correction to the patriarchy? On today’s encore episode host Kate Lindsay was joined by writer and content creator Josh Lora, who also goes by TellTheBees. Josh’s Substack essay, Boyfriendland, was cited in the viral Vogue article written by Chanté Joseph, “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?”

This podcast is produced by Daisy Rosario, Vic Whitley-Berry, and Kate Lindsay.
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When an actor opens their mouth to sing in a movie, chances are high that the voice you hear will be their own. Even in music biopics, movie stars without much singing experience regularly go to great lengths to impersonate the most beloved vocalists of our time. Why not simply play Johnny Cash or Bruce Springsteen’s actual recordings, the reasons why we care about them in the first place? When the world is full of beautiful singing voices, why force Pierce Brosnan to bray his way through Mamma Mia?

What you hear when an actor unhinges their jaw is a matter that Hollywood has been negotiating since the dawn of sound. So in this episode, we’ll learn about the “ghost singers” of classic Hollywood musicals, find out why they went extinct, and why today’s music biopics so often fudge the music. Then we leave Hollywood for Bollywood, where the rise of the celebrity “playback singer” shows what can happen when good singing is the highest priority.

In this episode, you’ll hear from Slate’s pop music critic Jack Hamilton; musicologist Dominic Broomfield-McHugh, editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical; Stephen Cole, co-author of a memoir by the ghost singer Marni Nixon; Isaac Butler, longtime Slate contributor and scholar of American acting; and Nasreen Munni Kabir, who has written several books on Hindi cinema and curates Indian films for the UK’s Channel 4.

This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman. It was edited by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.
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