Trend spotting before the label settles.
It's A Thing is a fast, conversational trend-spotting show about odd behaviors just as they harden into recognizable culture. It treats peptides, body doubling, somatic workouts, Black Friday buying, and online ballet discourse as signals worth naming before they get stale.
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It's A Thing is a trend-spotting show for the moment just before everyone has a name for what they are seeing. It notices the small shift. A wellness claim starts moving through feeds, a shopping habit becomes seasonal ritual, a piece of internet behavior suddenly has a label, and the show asks whether that is now officially a thing. The pace is quick and conversational, with enough banter to keep the analysis from turning stiff. It is not trying to forecast the future from a podium. It is sorting the present while the present is still making noise. Recent conversations range from a song video and the what-about-me crisis to peptides, Fibonacci spirals, body doubling, somatic workouts, half-body baths, ballet, opera, beer salt, and Black Friday buying. That spread is the point. Culture gets treated as one big pattern machine, where a cat curled like a nautilus shell and a body-based practice can both say something about what people are reaching for. The show is especially good at spotting when real ideas get stretched into internet magic. Peptides may have legitimate science behind them, but the conversation catches the familiar jump from useful-for-something to sold-as-useful-for-everything. Body doubling gets linked to social accountability, positive reinforcement, and the old animal-brain urge to keep pace with the group. Somatic workouts become part of a broader burnout reaction against high-intensity everything. Even gift guides come with consumerism caveats. The humor is dry but inviting. The skepticism is present without being joyless. It works because the show keeps translating scattered online weather into labels people can actually use.
Made for: For online, culture-curious listeners who like fast explanations of why a habit, product, wellness claim, or pop moment is suddenly everywhere. It especially fits people who enjoy smart banter without academic distance.
What sets it apart: The show turns loose internet static into named, usable patterns. Instead of covering trends as isolated curiosities, it tests examples against bigger social behavior until the shape clicks.
Molly Wood and Tom Merritt talk about things they see become things. You know, like when a thing becomes a thing. It's worth a listen, trust them.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Molly Wood and Tom Merritt turn memes, habits and online reactions into an alert, funny record of emerging cultural patterns.
Molly Wood and Tom Merritt make trend-spotting sound like two alert friends comparing notes. Their conversations move through memes, wellness habits, online reactions and renewed interest in ballet and opera, always asking when a scattered observation has become a recognizable…
A Fibonacci spiral lands on a cat; suddenly you need Molly Wood and Tom Merritt.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A sharp, funny attempt to name the self-centering reflex that makes online conversation exhausting.
The episode zeroes in on the internet's "what about me" reflex, where someone else's point becomes a cue to pull the conversation back toward oneself.
A strange Instagram spiral turns into a smart look at online overreach.
Internet culture gets a sly x-ray as Molly Wood and Tom Merritt trace a Fibonacci-style spiral from a familiar science image into Instagram meme logic: nautilus-shell curves laid over curled cats, parrots, a kitten tail, and someone folded over a computer.
A playful take on why another person's presence can make procrastination feel socially costly.
Body doubling gets a brisk, social reading here: the simple presence of another person can make slacking feel harder, a habit the hosts tie to positive reinforcement, being watched, and the animal-brain pull to keep pace with the pack.
A loose, funny trend chat links somatic workouts, labels, chopstick etiquette, and one vampire-sized detour.
Trend spotting is both the subject and the engine here, as Molly Wood and Tom Merritt talk through the tricky business of finding the right words for a show.
A light, funny spin through half-body baths and the online defense of ballet and opera.
It's A Thing starts with the half-body bath, a warm-water trend one host says she has not seen much evidence for, then slides into the online embrace of ballet and opera after Timothee Chalamet's dismissal of both.
A smart, offbeat look at how plausible science and familiar patterns become internet currency.
Molly Wood and Tom Merritt turn peptides and the Fibonacci spiral into a tidy study of how the internet stretches useful ideas until they can explain almost anything.
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.
Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson trace viral internet stories from Reddit threads to courtrooms.
Molly Wood and Tom Merritt discuss the week's trending topics, starting with the emotional highlights of NASA's Artemis II mission, including the 'moon joy' moment and crater naming.
Molly Wood and Tom Merritt discuss Black Friday shopping and present their Thing Gift Guide with four recommendations.
This episode debunks the myth of whether 100 men could beat a gorilla in a fight, using scientific reasoning.
Molly Wood and Tom Merritt discuss emerging cultural phenomena in their weekly show.
["Molly Wood and Tom Merritt open It's a Thing 415 with Laufey's Madwoman video, which puts Alyssa Lu, Megan Skindel from Cat's Eye, a Summer I Turn Pretty actor, and Hudson Williams from Heated Rivalry into one clip.", "They say Hudson Williams's Peloton ad may have become the bigger thing because Peloton's stock supposedly moved when the video dropped.", "The middle of the episode names the what about me crisis with a Threads moon-naming complaint and a reader gripe about first-person narration.", "Later, Molly and Tom define Kubi, postbiotics, and Alo, then finish with listener notes on Guinness ice cream, oversized cats, Fordite jewelry, and Jean de Poitrine."]
It's a Thing episode 414 centers on Artemis' "moon joy" moment, peptides, and fornite, with Molly Wood and Tom Merritt moving from space coverage to internet oddities.
Molly Wood and Tom Merritt center It's A Thing #413 on body doubling, the Zoom-based habit they describe as "the buddy system for accomplishing stuff." They tie it to ADHD, task paralysis, work-from-home routines, Focusmate, and co-working streams that help people do admin or writing with someone else present.
It's a Thing 412 covers "catching print," the Wall Street Journal's somatic-workout piece, and the meme "this is who you're asking to work nine to five." Molly Wood and Tom Merritt connect that meme to children, dogs, and vet-tech photos, then frame it as a reaction to work demands and return-to-office pressure.
Tom and Rich discuss Molly's risky St.
Molly Wood and Tom Merritt frame Brazilian funk as one of several non-English genres gaining traction, alongside Billboard's coverage of Afrobeat, K-pop, and Bad Bunny.
Tom Merritt and Hollywood discuss Black Friday shopping and share their gift guide recommendations.
Tom and Molly promote Shopify and discuss how their podcast helps listeners understand youth culture trends.
Molly Wood and Tom Merritt discuss the trend of 'honest reviews' and other internet phenomena in their weekly podcast 'It's a Thing'.