by Slate Podcasts
Decoder Ring is the show about cracking cultural mysteries. In each episode, host Willa Paskin takes a cultural question, object, or habit; examines its history; and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters.
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🇺🇲
Publishing Since
4/30/2018
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April 9, 2025
The infamous annual ritual of spring break—where thousands of college students head to the same warm location and go crazy—can seem like it’s always been here. But it hasn’t. The spring break phenomenon is a holdover from midcentury teen culture that has endured by changing, just enough, to be passed from one generation to the next. In this episode we’re going from the beaches of Fort Lauderdale to Daytona, from the movie screen to the TV set, from MTV to Instagram reels, from its start to its surprisingly recognizable present, as we follow the evolving, self-reinforcing rite that is spring break. You’ll hear from former MTV staffers Doug Herzog, Salli Frattini, Alan Hunter, and Joe Davola, along with John Laurie, Kaylee Morris, and Slate writer Scaachi Koul. This episode was written by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd and produced by Katie. It was edited by Evan Chung, Decoder Ring’s supervising producer. Our show is also produced by Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Thank you to Bob Friedman and Allan Cohen, producers of Spring Broke; David Cohn, Derreck Johnson, and Ivylise Simones. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at [email protected], or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Sources for This Episode Koul, Scaachi. “From ‘Girls Gone Wild’ to ‘Your Body, My Choice’,” Slate, Dec. 13, 2024. Laurie, John. “Spring Break: The Economic, Socio-Cultural and Public Governance Impacts of College Students on Spring Break Host Locations,” University of New Orleans Dissertation, Dec. 19, 2008. Mormino, Gary R. Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams: A Social History of Modern Florida, University Press of Florida, 2008. Schiltz, James. “Time to Grow Up: The Rise and Fall of Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale,” The Florida Historical Quarterly, Fall 2014. Spring Broke, dir. Alison Ellwood, Bungalow Media + Entertainment, 2016. Thompson, Derek. “2,000 Years of Partying: The Brief History and Economics of Spring Break,” The Atlantic, March 26, 2013. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
March 26, 2025
Look in the nonfiction section of any bookstore and you’ll find dozens of history books making the same bold claim: that their narrow, unexpected subject somehow changed the world. Potatoes, kudzu, soccer, coffee, Iceland, bees, oak trees, sand, chickens—there are books about all of them, and many more besides, with the phrase “changed the world” or something similarly grandiose right there in the title. These books are sometimes called “microhistories” or “thing biographies” and they’ve been a trope in publishing for decades. In this episode, we establish where this trend came from, figure out why it’s been so persistent, and then we put a bunch of authors on the spot, asking them to make the case for why their subjects changed the world. The writers you’ll hear from include: Simon Garfield (Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World) Mark Kurlansky (Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World) George Gibson, publisher of Cod and Dava Sobel’s Longitude Historian Bronwen Everill Slate writer Henry Grabar (Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World) Gastropod co-host Nicola Twilley (Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves) Tim Queeney (Rope: How a Bundle of Twisted Fibers Became the Backbone of Civilization) Leila Philip (Beaver Land: How One Weird Rodent Made America). This episode was written by Willa Paskin and produced by Evan Chung, Decoder Ring’s supervising producer. Katie Shepherd and Max Freedman also produce our show. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Thank you to Joshua Specht, author of Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America; Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World; Tina Lupton; Dan Kois; and Nancy Miller. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at [email protected], or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
March 12, 2025
Truck Nutz is a brand name for the dangling plastic testicles some people affix to the bumpers or hitches of their vehicles. Also sold as Bulls Balls, Your Nutz, and other brand names, these plastic novelties have a powerful symbolic charge and are often associated with a crass, macho, red state audience. But truck nuts are a surprisingly complicated signifier whose symbolic power is increasingly divorced from their real-world usage. On this episode, we talk to owners and users of truck nuts, investigate the origins of the accessories, and deconstruct the meaning of these oft-joked-about symbols. We’ll also take a tour of other novelty testicle products, including Bike Balls (testicular bike lights), Gunsticles (plastic testicles for guns), and Neuticles (prosthetic testicles for neutered pets), to better understand the maligned symbolism of truck nuts. Links and further reading on some of the things we discussed on the show: Ad for Monster Truck Nuts Truck Nutz Prank Call Elie Mystal’s writing on truck nuts for Above the Law Austin Vasectomy in Austin Texas This episode was written by Willa Paskin and edited and produced by Benjamin Frisch. Decoder Ring is produced by Katie Shepherd and Max Freedman. Evan Chung is our supervising producer. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at [email protected]. Or you can also call us now at our new Decoder Ring hotline at 347-460-7281. We love to hear any and all of your ideas for the show. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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