Swim with the Bait - It's a Thing 348

·26 min·2 clips

Junji Ito's horror manga features a town cursed by spirals and fish controlled by a bacteria called 'death stench'.

The episode begins with the hosts discussing folk sayings from brownielocks.com before transitioning to their main topics. They first examine how Junji Ito's horror manga has become a cult phenomenon, with specific works like 'Uzumaki' and 'Gyo' featuring bizarre concepts. Next, they analyze the competing viral trends of mysterious drones over New Jersey and the Luigi meme cultural moment, questioning whether one distracts from the other. The conversation shifts to fashion with the mustache-mullet hairstyle emerging as a dominant 2024 look alongside the wolf cut for women. The hosts then explore how millennial parents are publicly debating whether to tell their children about Santa Claus, reflecting generational attitudes toward honesty. They discuss the linguistic trends of 'unserious' and 'unhinged' becoming positive descriptors for contemporary behavior. Listener feedback includes connections between Jethro Tull's album art and goblin core, swimming with pigs in the Bahamas, and the popularity of Pokemon TCG Pocket among workplace teams. The episode concludes with patron shoutouts presented as a creative reinterpretation of historical paint descriptions.

As heard by us

Strange sayings, revived haircuts and mummy paint make for a lively round of cultural pattern-spotting.

Molly Wood and Tom Merritt bounce between folk sayings, revived haircuts and the macabre history of mummy paint, treating each as a problem of cultural labeling.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You'll hear two hosts turn baffling folk sayings and the mustache-mullet comeback into signs of the times.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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