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Slow Burn
30 episodes
Decoder Ring | McGruff Takes a Bite Out of Crime, Part 1 (Encore)
Aug 12, 2026 · 34 min
McGruff the Crime Dog arrived on the scene at the dawn of the 1980s, just as a firehose of anti-drug PSAs was inundating the youth of America. These messages didn’t always work as intended—but they did work their way into the long term memories of the kids who heard them. In the first of two episodes, originally released in 2022, we take a look at PSAs and their strange afterlife through the lens of a trench-coat wearing bloodhound and his bizarre, yet catchy anti-drug songs. We’ll talk to Dan D…
Decoder Ring | The Fight Over Sunlight
Jul 29, 2026 · 52 min
The sun has always been a hot topic. For centuries, we’ve flip-flopped over whether our health depends on soaking up its rays—or shielding ourselves from them. The current conventional wisdom is clear: Avoid sunburns at all costs, using shade, hats, long sleeves, and the highest SPF sunscreen your drugstore has to offer. But in a historical sense, that advice is pretty new. Not long ago, doctors told parents to slather babies in oil and let them roast in the afternoon sun. Tanning was once medic…
Decoder Ring | Weapons of Map Destruction
Jul 15, 2026 · 49 min
Most of us use GPS—the Global Positioning System—on a daily basis: to find our location when we’re driving, running, shopping, dating, and so much more. But GPS is even more important, and more vulnerable, than you think. In the last few years, GPS interference has been reported all over the world, from war zones to shipping routes to public squares. What was once the fanciful plot of a Bond movie—bad guy manipulates GPS to start World War III—is increasingly plausible. How did the world come to…
Introducing First America: “Merciless Indian Savages”
Jul 8, 2026 · 37 min
Here at Slow Burn, we explore the events and people who shaped America as we know it today. As the country marks its 250th birthday this summer, we want to introduce you to the first installment of First America, a great podcast series that explores a truly consequential moment from our nation’s past. We have been told the American Revolution was fought over taxation and representation. First America reveals the real story of why the colonists rebelled, what kind of government they created…
Decoder Ring | We Are Monumentally Bad at Statues
Jul 1, 2026 · 49 min
It seems like the only time you hear about new statues these days is when something goes horribly wrong. Unfortunate bronze renditions of Lucille Ball, Cristiano Ronaldo, Dwayne Wade, and many others are always going viral, becoming a fixture of late-night shows and mocking comment sections. Is the internet too harsh a critic? Or is American statuary a total bust? In this episode of Decoder Ring, host Willa Paskin talks to artist Atalanta Arden-Miller about what’s happened to one of the oldest a…
Decoder Ring | Tina Turner and the Dance That Conquered Australia
Jun 17, 2026 · 49 min
In Australia, no wedding or school dance is complete without the Nutbush, Australia’s unofficial national dance. The Nutbush – a simple line dance to the song “Nutbush City Limits,” by Ike and Tina Turner – has become as stereotypically Australian as kangaroos, boomerangs, and Vegemite. And yet, hardly anyone outside of Australia even knows the Nutbush exists. Here at Decoder Ring, we certainly didn’t – until we started getting emails from Australians asking us to investigate its origins. How di…
Becoming Justice Gorsuch | 3. A Lunch Room for Life
Ep 3 · May 27, 2026 · 54 min
In our final episode, it’s time to talk about Neil Gorsuch and the future of SCOTUS. Host Susan Matthews enlists Slate’s jurisprudence team—Amicus co-hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern—to discuss Gorsuch’s key rulings to date, his unpredictability, and how this textualist will shape this court (and our country) for decades to come. Want more Slow Burn? Join Slate Plus to binge every episode of Becoming Justice Gorsuch—and every season of Slow Burn, including Becoming Justice Thomas. You…
Becoming Justice Gorsuch | 2. The Stolen Seat
Ep 2 · May 20, 2026 · 45 min
When Justice Antonin Scalia died in February of 2016, the Supreme Court appeared to be headed for a 5-4 liberal majority. Instead, a staggering blockade by Senate Republicans and a shocking electoral upset helped steal a seat and clear the way for today’s conservative supermajority. In our second episode, we examine Neil Gorsuch’s politically fraught path to power and his time on the bench so far, including the unpredictability that has made him the high court’s wild card. Want more Slow Burn? J…
Becoming Justice Gorsuch | 1. Man With a Plan
Ep 1 · May 13, 2026 · 37 min
Neil Gorsuch may not be the most well-known justice on the Supreme Court, but he might just be the key to understanding how and why the current court has come to wield so much power over our day-to-day lives. In our first episode, host Susan Matthews examines Gorsuch’s early years, what he took away from his iconoclastic mother’s rocky tenure in the Reagan administration, and how his worldview was shaped by his time on a liberal college campus and in 1980s conservative circles. Plus: the controv…
Season 11 Trailer: Becoming Justice Gorsuch
May 7, 2026 · 2 min
Coming May 13: Host Susan Matthews traces the rise of Neil Gorsuch, from his formative years as a young conservative through his nomination to a “stolen seat” on the U.S. Supreme Court. Through interviews, legal analysis, and archival research, the mild-mannered Westerner emerges as the court’s most unpredictable—and most important—sitting justice. Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members s…
Decoder Ring | Mailbag: Spooky Strings, Phone Menu Options, and Eye Rolls
May 6, 2026 · 54 min
We are lucky to get fantastic questions from our listeners here at Decoder Ring, and in this episode, we’re going to open up our mailbag to answer three of them. What are the origins of an eerie horror film string motif? Why do companies insist on telling callers to “listen closely” to menu options that could not possibly have changed? And when did we start using the indispensable eye roll? In this episode, you’ll hear from historical musicologist Frank Hentschel, as well as Eli Spindel, artisti…
Decoder Ring | How to Make Dollars Make Sense
Apr 22, 2026 · 35 min
Money is everywhere. Money influences just about everything. We think about money all the time. But how much do we really know about it? In this episode of Decoder Ring, we explore the obscure historical forces that make our money what it is and behave the way it does. We ask two simple-sounding questions with surprising answers: Why is our money called the dollar—and where are those dollars really coming from? First, you’ll hear from Brendan Greeley, a veteran finance reporter turned econ…
Decoder Ring | Who Was Lonelygirl15?
Apr 8, 2026 · 59 min
In the summer of 2006, a teenage girl began posting video diaries to a then-new site called YouTube under the handle lonelygirl15. Within weeks she was a phenomenon—even though no one knew the truth of who she really was. The frenzied quest to change that, to solve the mystery of lonelygirl15, would ultimately land her on the front page of newspapers and the covers of magazines. Twenty years on, lonelygirl15 is both an artifact of an earlier online era and an origin point for the internet as we…
Decoder Ring | The Johnlock Conspiracy (Encore)
Mar 25, 2026 · 53 min
For over a century, fans of Sherlock Holmes have been analyzing, debating, and creating new texts with Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters. But when a fan theory emerged about the BBC TV show Sherlock that posited the inevitability of a gay romance between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson—it wreaked havoc on the community. In this episode, which originally aired in 2018, we explore the Johnlock Conspiracy, with help from historians, journalists, and the fans at the heart of the controversial idea…
Decoder Ring | Was "Eyes Wide Shut" a Warning?
Mar 11, 2026 · 47 min
When Eyes Wide Shut opened in the summer of 1999, it was widely considered a disappointment. This final film from legendary director Stanley Kubrick had been sold as an erotic thriller, and potentially even a peek into the real sex lives of its then-married stars, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. But Eyes Wide Shut was stranger than that: a meditative art film whose much-hyped orgy scene is more creepy than sexy, run by a cabal of rich and powerful men who prey on young women. But Eyes Wide Shut ha…
Decoder Ring | A Prune by Any Other Name
Feb 25, 2026 · 45 min
The delicious, healthful prune has long had a cross to bear: It’s best known for making people poop. In the late 1990s, the California Prune Board set out on a quixotic mission to amend this sales-flattening reputation. It would attempt to rechristen this ancient fruit in the hopes the prune could one day be as unencumbered as an apricot, a raisin, or a fig. In a world where every product and person increasingly believes it’s one good rebrand away from changing how they are seen, the story…
Decoder Ring | Making Coal Cute Again
Feb 11, 2026 · 45 min
Three weeks ago, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum shared an unusual tweet: a cartoon image of himself with his arm draped around a giant, anthropomorphized lump of coal. This piece of coal has big googly eyes and a smudge of a nose, and is wearing a safety vest and a hard hat. He is, frankly, adorable—and he has a name: Coalie. When Coalie first appeared on the internet, he went viral—ridiculed on social media, in newsletters, and even on late night talk shows. And that’s because this…
Decoder Ring | Is Culture Stuck?
Jan 28, 2026 · 37 min
It’s a weird time for culture. There is more of it than ever before, it’s more accessible than ever before, but so little of it feels original. New movies are based on old stories, new songs are recycling old hooks, and fashion trends are cycling so fast that everything’s in. Has our culture grown stagnant? The author and culture critic W. David Marx thinks so. His new book, Blank Space, argues that there is a “blank space” in the 21st century where cultural innovation should be. In…
Decoder Rings Back | Why the Mona Lisa?
Jan 14, 2026 · 25 min
We are really lucky to get lots of listener suggestions for the show, more good questions than we can possibly answer in a mailbag episode once or twice a year. So we’re starting a new segment we call… Decoder Rings Back! Every month, host Willa Paskin will personally call up a listener to answer their question. In this inaugural installment of Decoder Rings Back, Willa calls up listener Dustin Malek about his cultural mystery: Why did the Mona Lisa, of all paintings, become the most famou…
The Slate Culture Gift Guide
Dec 17, 2025 · 48 min
Hark, the holiday season is upon us—and with it the most solemn of festive traditions: a gift guide! In this video and podcast special, Slate hosts Dana Stevens, Chris Molanphy, and Willa Paskin beam-in from their collective hearths to deliver unto the internet their favorite gifts for culture lovers this holiday. In addition to sharing gifts, they also discuss the cultural artifact that is the “holiday gift guide,” and its history going back to the early 20th century, up to the modern day. See…
Decoder Ring | Mailbag: Yo-Yos, Sandboxes, and Encores
Dec 17, 2025 · 1 hr 2 min
Decoder Ring listeners write in with some excellent mysteries, and for our last episode of the year we’re solving three of them. Why do children play in boxes full of sand? Why do rock bands pretend like the show is over when everybody knows they’re coming back for an encore? And what was up with those school assemblies where you’d get to skip class to learn about…yo-yos? The voices you’ll hear in this episode include yo-yo masters ”Dazzling Dave” Schulte and Dale Oliver, children’s book author…
Decoder Ring | “Videomate: Men” (Encore)
Dec 3, 2025 · 35 min
Videomate: Men was a VHS tape released in 1987 featuring 60 single men pitching themselves as dates to women on the other side of the TV screen: “The love of your life could be on your TV tonight!” the box reads. In retrospect, Videomate: Men is a bizarre and hilarious time capsule, but at the time it was one of many manifestations of what was known as video dating. To find out how anyone thought this was a good idea, Decoder Ring examines the weird and forgotten world of video dating in the 197…
Decoder Ring | How Protein Muscled Its Way to the Top
Nov 19, 2025 · 40 min
Americans are currently besotted with protein. It’s touted as being good for muscle growth, weight loss, skincare, mental acuity, longevity, and much else besides. It’s sold to men, women, children, the elderly— you can even buy protein for your pets. The protein supplement market alone is worth $21 billion and growing—and extra protein is being added to coffee, cereal, pasta, beer, ice cream, and popcorn. But as frenzied as we currently are about protein, this is not the first protein boom—or e…
Decoder Ring | Cozy Autumn Mysteries
Nov 5, 2025 · 51 min
Autumn may have more cozy signifiers than any other season—though we all have our own favorites. Maybe for you it’s sweater weather, football games, spooky season, apple picking, leaf peeping, or mainlining candy corn. Whatever it is, in today’s episode we’re looking closely at three of these autumnal staples. First, we get to the bottom of a recurring complaint about the taste of the pumpkin spice latte. Then we gaze deep inside the enigma hiding inside colorful fall leaves. Finally we ask some…
Decoder Ring | The Red String Board Conspiracy
Oct 22, 2025 · 47 min
There’s a ubiquitous prop in just about every police procedural and conspiracy thriller: a cork board pinned with documents, newspaper clippings, and Polaroid photos, all connected by a web of red string. They go by many names, including pin boards, string boards, evidence boards, investigation walls, conspiracy walls, and walls of crazy. These boards can be vehicles of insight or manifestations of madness—and in many cases, both. But where did they come from? And can they really solve a crime?…
When We All Get to Heaven | Setting the Table
Oct 15, 2025 · 25 min
In 1993, more than 10 years into the AIDS epidemic, the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco (MCC-SF) tries to remember all they’ve lost. We think about remembering too after encountering an archive of 1,200 cassette recordings of this queer church’s services during the height of the epidemic. Whether you’re a regular church goer or would never step into one, we invite you to spend time with this LGBTQ+ San Francisco church as it struggles to reconcile sexuality and faith in the midst…
Decoder Ring | What the Cuck?!
Oct 8, 2025 · 52 min
Earlier this year, a tweet went out from the official account of the Democratic Party, tagging the Trump advisor Stephen Miller. It was an image of what appeared to be a simple hotel room chair. But for those in the know, it was much more than that: It was a “cuck chair,” an online meme straight out of a popular genre of hardcore pornography in which a man watches his partner have sex with another man. How did we get to a place where the Democrats could flame a political opponent with an image o…
Decoder Ring | Why Do Actors Act Like They Can Sing?
Sep 24, 2025 · 57 min
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…
Decoder Ring | Jane Fonda’s Workout, Part 2: Hanoi Jane’s VHS Revolution (Encore)
Sep 10, 2025 · 48 min
In part two of our special two-part episode, we return to the 1982 VHS tape that created the at-home video industry: Jane Fonda’s Workout. On this episode, originally released in 2020, we deconstruct the tape itself, how it was made, and why anyone thought it was a good idea in the first place. Then we’ll explore how it was possible for an extremely polarizing political activist, despised by some for her activism during the Vietnam War, to become America’s premier exercise guru. It’s a story tha…
Decoder Ring | Jane Fonda’s Workout, Part 1: Jane and Leni (Encore)
Aug 27, 2025 · 54 min
In 1982, the Jane Fonda Workout became the best-selling home video of all time. Over decades, it and its 22 follow ups would spawn a fitness empire, sell more than 17 million copies, and transform Fonda into a leg-warmer-clad exercise guru. And 40 years after its initial release, when the COVID pandemic hit, the workout had a moment yet again. People began doing it alone and on Zoom, tweeting about it, writing about it. So when Jane Fonda agreed to talk to us, we set out to do an episode about i…
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