Shows / Decoder Ring
Decoder Ring
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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Episodes
- Decoder Ring
Custer's Revenge
Custer's Revenge is widely considered one of the worst video games ever made. Originally released as part of a series of Swedish Erotica-branded adult games…
- Decoder Ring
The Fame That Got Away
Today on Decoder Ring: Three stories about fame, and one about monkeys. Are primates susceptible to celebrity endorsements? What does fame do to the mind of a…
- Decoder Ring
Truly Tasteless Jokes
Note: This episode is about offensive material, and so contains explicit and offensive language. Truly Tasteless Jokes were a series of joke books that…
- Decoder Ring
The Philosophy of Vampires
In literature, the choice to become a vampire is a metaphor for transformative experiences. On this episode, we bring you a story from Slate's Hi-Phi Nation…
- Decoder Ring
You Just Lost The Game
When you think about the game, you lose the game. When you lose the game you must declare that you have lost the game, causing all others in your vicinity to…
- Decoder Ring
The Alberta Rat War
Rats live wherever people live, with one exception: the Canadian province of Alberta. A rat sighting in Alberta is a major local event that mobilizes the local…
- Decoder Ring
The Great Helga Hype
In the summer of 1986, both Time Magazine and Newsweek ran blockbuster cover stories on the same subject: a secret cache of provocative, intimate paintings by…
- Decoder Ring
Selling Out
In 2001, Oprah Winfrey invited Jonathan Franzen to come on her show to discuss his new novel The Corrections. A month later she withdrew the invitation…
- Decoder Ring
Tattoo Flash
Time does funny thing to everything, but especially to tattoos. Today, four stories about tattoos whose meanings have shifted with the passage of years…
- Decoder Ring
The Tootsie Shot
You know the Tootsie Shot. It’s that shot from the movies: a really busy midtown street, protagonist smack in the middle of it all, everyone going somewhere…
- Decoder Ring
Who Killed The Segway?
In the year 2000, Dan Kois was a junior book agent working on selling a secretive book proposal called IT, a codename for what would eventually be revealed as…
- Decoder Ring
The Sign Painter
Ilona Granet was a New York art-scene fixture who won the praise of the art world when she put up anti-harassment street signs in lower Manhattan in the mid-…
- Decoder Ring
That Seattle Muzak Sound
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- Decoder Ring
The Invention of Hydration
To say that hydration is an invention is only a slight exaggeration. Back in the 1970’s and ‘80s, no one carried bottled water with them, but by the ‘90s it…
- Decoder Ring
The Soap Opera Machine
Welcome to a brand new season of Decoder Ring! On this episode, we investigate the wild world of soap operas through the lens of one legendary, decades-long…
- Decoder Ring
Decoder Ring Presents The Sporkful’s Mission: ImPASTAble
Right now Decoder Ring is working on a full season of new episodes coming this June, but in the meantime we wanted to share this episode from our friends over…
- Decoder Ring
The Blue Steak Experiment
What took blue food so long to catch on? Today it’s all over the freezer aisle, in candies for kids, in tortilla chips, and novelty foods, but it wasn’t very…
- Decoder Ring
The Cabbage Patch Kids Riots
In 1983, the Cabbage Patch Kids were released, causing widespread pandemonium in toy stores and in the media. How did a children'a toy inspire such bad adult…
- Decoder Ring
Jane Fonda's Workout, Part 2: Hanoi Jane's VHS Revolution
How did Hanoi Jane become Exercise Jane? This is the second part of our two-parter on Jane Fonda's Workout. If you haven't yet, listen to the previous episode…
- Decoder Ring
Jane Fonda's Workout, Part 1: Jane and Leni
When Jane Fonda granted us an interview to talk about her famous workout tape, things didn't go as planned. On part one of a special two-part Decoder Ring, we…
- Decoder Ring
Mystery of the Mullet
The mullet, the love-to-hate-it hairstyle is as associated with the 1980's as Ronald Reagan, junk bonds, and break dancing. But in at least one major way, we…
- Decoder Ring
The Karen
The Karen, a white woman who surveys, inconveniences, and terrorizes, service workers and people of color is a relatively new term in the culture, but her…
- Decoder Ring
The Metrosexual
In 2003, the word "metrosexual", meaning a well-groomed heterosexual man, exploded all over the English lexicon. It invaded the news, TV, and even American…
- Decoder Ring
Gotta Get Down on Friday
Rebecca Black's music video for Friday was Youtube's most watched video of 2011, thrusting the thirteen-year-old Rebecca into a very harsh spotlight. Dubbed…
- Decoder Ring
Unicorn Poop
How did poop get cute? On this episode of Decoder Ring we trace the rise of cute poop from the original Japanese poop emoji to more modern poop toys which rely…
- Decoder Ring
Rubber Duckie
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- Decoder Ring
The Shop Around the Corner
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- Decoder Ring
Friend of Dorothy
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- Decoder Ring
The Stowe-Byron Controversy
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- Decoder Ring
Murphy's Law
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Gender Reveal Party
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Bart Simpson Mania
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Ice Cream Truck
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- Decoder Ring
Pillow Talk
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Chuck E. Cheese Pizza War
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- Decoder Ring
Videomate: Men
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- Decoder Ring
Truck Nutz
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- Decoder Ring
Baby Shark
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- Decoder Ring
The Grifter
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Sad Jennifer Aniston
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- Decoder Ring
The Incunabula Papers
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Hotel Art
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The Paper Doll Club
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The Basement Affair
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Clown Panic
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The Johnlock Conspiracy
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The Laff Box
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