February 18, 2018
EP. 226 — Why Justin Timberlake AND White Survivalists Are Moving West
If you tuned into The Super Bowl, The Tonight Show, or mainstream radio this month, you experienced America’s most bizarrely fascinating celebrity. That celebrity is Justin Timberlake. He’s spent the past year or so carefully turning himself into “Justin Timberlake, Montana Cowboy”, and that seemingly random choice WOULD be fine, if not for these three things:
1) The transformation’s only Instagram-deep.
2) White men across America are doing the same thing.
3) The reasons behind these white fellas running west aren’t as simple as musical taste/cheap land.
On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt interviews Montanan slash culture writer Anne Helen Petersen about her pioneering examination of The West, our celebrities, and why they’re hiding there. They also break down the myths of the Old West, the realities of why modern white people are flooding it, and why being a “Man Of The Woods” is no substitute for engaging with reality.
Footnotes: https://goo.gl/EhdvWi
Recent Episodes
January 26, 2020
Freedom sucks…and that is why we have to defend it. Because our democracy involves doing a lot of stuff that takes energy, takes time, and lacks that Michael Bay Quality that only a surprise missile launch can provide. So on this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt and special guest Jason Pargin (who writes for Cracked as David Wong) are exploring the ways being afraid of everything (an easy action) can stop us from being free. Discover the decades-long tradition of some Americans wanting to give up everything in exchange for not needing to think, the centuries-long tradition of people inciting fake panics, and the reasonable ways you can help change things for the better.
Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/why-fear-based-democracies-arenE28099t-free-with-jason-pargin/
January 19, 2020
How’s your local shopping mall doing? Have you checked on it lately? Swing by sometime, because its department store might’ve turned into a call center or a hospital or a go-kart track. On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by the one and only Kai Ryssdal (Marketplace, Make Me Smart) for a look at surprising, strange, and shocking stories from all over the U.S. economy. Discover an international pig flu, a 26-word statement that built the modern Internet, and more amazing ways cash is ruling everything around you. By the way, if you’re an American listener, you spent the past few years funding an astonishingly huge bailout. Surprise! Listen for details!
Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/5-parts-u.s.-economy-that-are-stranger-than-you-think
January 12, 2020
Movies, TV, gaming: three things that are theoretically a waste of time. Oh sure, they deliver value in the art sense, and comfort in the goofing-off sense. But what if they’re more valuable than that? What if consuming shows and playing video games (accidentally) turns people into real-life heroes? On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians/writers Caitlin Gill and Alex Watt for a look at the surprising number of times that exact thing happened. They’ll explore stories of regular people who saved a life thanks to skills gained randomly from cartoons, sitcoms, ‘World Of Warcraft’, and more silly entertainment.
Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/9-times-pop-culture-accidentally-taught-people-to-save-lives/