It's Been a Minute

The cultural supremacy of the influencer seems to be waning. 

For nearly a decade, they’ve become a fount of cultural commerce, affecting how to live, what to buy, and who to follow for advice. But a backlash – against everything from expensive shopping hauls to the very persona that built an influencer's brand – is leaving many questioning their cultural relevance. So what’s going on with influencers – or better yet – who’s going to replace them? To understand this cultural shift, we’re chatting with Ira Madison III, host of The Feedback with Ira Madison, to figure out what happens when the influencers lose influence.

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Have some people forgotten how to behave at music festivals?

Summer is peak music festival season, and that means many of us are braving huge crowds and sweltering heat to see a bunch of artists we love in one place. But is there a decline in social decorum in these concert settings? From using phones to being in the front row to navigating crowds, our friends at Pop Culture Happy Hour are sharing personal and passionate takes about music festival etiquette.

For more episodes on culture and social etiquette, check out:
How should we behave online?
The social etiquette of sharing location
Is your neighborhood riddled with dog poop?

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Welcome to the age of ‘Broke TV.’

It seems like the days of prestige TV shows about the wealthy elite have been replaced by the vocal majority: the downwardly mobile.

New Yorker TV critic, Inkoo Kang, noticed that her favorite shows so far this year all focused - in some respect - on the people whose lives have been financially squeezed beyond recognition by the very elite we used to enjoy watching.

Building resentment about the shrinking middle class, a hopeless job market, and few political pathways towards change has made our entertainment reflect a devastating reality back to us. Inkoo joins the show to break down how we got to this point and the fine line between entertainment and catharsis on screen.

You can read Inkoo’s article, ‘Welcome to the Age of Broke TV’, here.

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Do you have what it takes to be "High-T?"

Service members are about to find out, as Defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the military will be screening men for low testosterone, a hormone found in both women and men that supports bone mass development, red blood cell production, energy levels, and more. It's an important marker of overall health in men, but will it push the United States military to the 'leading edge of lethality' as promised by Hegseth? To get into the facts and fictions around testosterone, Brittany is joined by NPR health correspondent Will Stone, and Dr. Helen Bernie, Director of Sexual and Reproductive Medicine and associate professor of urology at Indiana University.

Want more on gender and health? Check out these episodes:
Boundaries, bodies, and better sex
The key to thriving later in life: menopause

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What does it mean to be ‘working class’? 

It’s a term that we hear often (especially around election time), but more specifically, who are we actually talking about? According to labor economist Kathryn Anne Edwards, host of the Optimist Economy podcast (@optimist_economy), the working class is a group of people who have the least amount of pay, benefits, and protections in the labor market. In this week’s episode of It’s Been a Minute, host Brittany Luse chats with Kathryn about what economists, politicians, and everyday people get wrong about the working class.

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