Rehash

We know what boys like, we know what guys want. And that is plausible deniability. Out of the diaristic “artful nudes” of 2010s body positivity, to the horny-on-main boredom of the pandemic, has come a new era in which the “thirst trap” as we once knew it has been thrown into question. In this episode, Hannah and Maia discuss the thirst trap: a delicate art, a science, if you will, of showing hole online, and the ways that our culture has begun to reject it. Based on a comprehensive and definitely 100% accurate study of instagram users conducted by Hannah, the girls unpack a series of shocking discoveries that will have people of all genders and sexual persuasions scratching their heads. Have yearnin' and pinin' really killed the thirst trap? Tangents include: Euphoria season three, and Vinnie Hacker and the giga surf chads. Our Sponsors:* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/rehash* Check out Ruggable and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://ruggable.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

It didn’t seem possible, but Britain has finally found a woman more reviled than Queen Camila Parker Bowles. With the face of a Love Island contestant and the business savvy of PT Burnam, OnlyFans creator Bonnie Blue drives around England in a blue van and beckons barely legal virgins to bang her on camera. On top of banging virgins, banging virgins and their dads, in 2025 she also set out to break a mind melting record of sleeping with 1000 men in 24 hours. She succeeded. In this episode, Hannah and Maia discuss the backlash surrounding Bonnie Blue, and whether she really is stretching parasociality to its logical limits, or reflecting our own hypocrisy back to us with a rather sophisticated brand of ragebait. As hundreds of men in shiesties cue up for their thirty seconds of fame, one has to ask whether Bonnie has created an entirely new specimen: the sex hype beast. Better yet, is Bonnie Blue the Mr. Beast of sex work? Tangents include: Lena Dunham’s new memoir and Australian bus memes. Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:⁠https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusicOur Sponsors:* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/rehash* Check out Ruggable and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://ruggable.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Clavicular. The James Joyce of incel forums. The icarus of looksmaxxing. The Truman Burbank of Kick. The sleep paralysis bouncer of every fifteen year old’s dreams. The sex symbol of 2026? Welcome back to another season of sex on the internet, where Hannah and Maia issue a formal apology for being the nth cultural critics to try a definitive take on the least compelling man of the hour. Clavicular became a media darling after singing Kanye’s “Heil H*tler” at the club, intentionally hitting a man with his cybertruck, yelling the n word into restaurants, and doing the rounds at NYFF. But what he really wants to be known for are his extreme beauty practices, so gender affirming in nature he may have closed the circle on misogyny - the walking answer to: “fellas, is it gay to f*ck a woman?” As Clavicular ascends into his desired state as a hard bodied Chad but nihilistically neuters himself in the process, has he finally realized RS Benedict’s thesis: everyone is beautiful, and no one is horny? Tangents include: Lindy West and the polycule from hell, and SNL as the Vegas residency of comedy. Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:⁠https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusicOur Sponsors:* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/rehash* Check out Ruggable and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://ruggable.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Born from a Japanese tech arms race and immortalized in Fred Benenson’s 2009 masterwork “Emoji Dick,” the emoji has become a staple of the way we communicate. Such that the Oxford dictionary named the cry-laugh emoji its word of the year in 2015. Whether you’d like to convey complex feelings such as “pweeeese” or embellish the end of a dry text message, it’s rare that these little symbols would not make at least one appearance in our daily text conversations. And, like most internet artifacts, early adopters of the emoji believed it had the potential to completely collapse the barriers of language and finally realize McLuhan’s predictions of a “global village.” But is that really so? In this finale episode Hannah and Maia discuss the history of the emoji and all its supposed utopian potential. Tangents include: the unasked-for details of Hannah and Maia’s long-awaited reunion, Canadian mennonite literature, and Hannah’s own personal version of the internet, the Web 1.5.Our Sponsors:* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/rehash* Check out Ruggable and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://ruggable.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Subtweeting, or “the audible sigh of the internet,” if you will, was Twitter’s answer to WASPish passive aggression. Now, people had a platform in which they could not-so-covertly vent about those who had wronged them in as succinct a manner as possible. It was a practice exercised by the likes of Rihanna and Demi Lovato, and managed to garner its very own critics, who derided subtweeting for turning us all into indirect assholes. But was this really the case? In this episode, Hannah and Maia revisit subtweeting, as well as its spiritual ancestor, “vague booking,” to ask whether we were really as annoying as they say we were back on the internet of yore. Are publicly shading someone without naming them, or being cryptic and vague on a Wall post really just signs of society’s increasing inability to communicate, or are they an artistic release for those in need of catharsis? Tangents include, Justin Trudeau being a fame whore, Maia’s childhood obsession with Michael Jackson, and singing “Criminal” by Fiona Apple at karaoke when no one wants you to.Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:⁠https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusicOur Sponsors:* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/rehash* Check out Ruggable and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://ruggable.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Everyone’s always saying “whatever happened to community”… yet no one passes along our chain mail. Chain mail is everyone’s least favourite thing to find in their inbox - an email thread threatening such real life events as being haunted by Michael Jackson, or your crush falling in love with you, unless you pass the email along to 50 other people. But newsflash. The industrial revolution killed culture and chain mail is here to save it. In this episode, Hannah and Maia discuss the folkloric origins of chain as pieces of information passed along by people within shared networks, and question whether it still has a place in these humourless times. After all, there’s always room for c0cktober in our hearts. Tangents include: Gossip Girl’s elliptical soap opera storytelling, and a truly baffling rendition of “Miss Mary Had a Steamboat” performed by the hosts.Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:⁠https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusicOur Sponsors:* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/rehash* Check out Ruggable and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://ruggable.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Isn’t it so annoying when your partner can’t be therapist, lover, parent, and nutritionist all at once? Enter…ChatGPT! After a somewhat inflammatory study released by the nonsecular, ultra-conservative Wheatley Institute found that 1 in 3 young adult men and 1 in 4 young adult women reported having chatted with an AI boyfriend or girlfriend, the think pieces started rolling. And while these numbers might be a little funky, it is true that people in at least the tens of thousands are engaging in romantic and sexual partnerships with their AI chatbots. In this episode, Hannah and Maia, joined by Carrera from Internet Anthropology, scour the r/MyBoyfriendIsAI subreddit to glimpse into the psychology of such people and ask some pressing questions. Are we dating AI because we’re tired of men? Because of covid and our increasing comfort with never being touched? Because the attention economy has made up gluttonous for constant validation? It would be cruel to demonize these people, but when a simple software update can kill your boyfriend in the blink of an eye and chatbots called Daenerys Targaryen are pushing lovesick children towards self harm, you’ve gotta wonder whether these AI companies are actually trying to solve the loneliness epidemic, or worsen it. Tangents include: Maia’s mysterious allergies and drinking culture in the UK. Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:⁠https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusicSOURCES:“COUNTERFEIT CONNECTIONS: The Rise of Romantic AI Companions and AI Sexualized Media Among the Rising Generation,” Wheatley Institute (2025). Cathy Hackl, “Confessions Of A Futurist: I Dated Four AI Boyfriends To Explore The Future Of Dating, Love, And Intimacy,” Forbes (2025). Kashmir Hill, “She Is in Love With ChatGPT,” New York Times (2025).Carrera Kurnick, “Internet Artifacts on Digital Companionship,” Internet Anthropologist (2025). Kevin Roose, “Can A.I. Be Blamed for a Teen’s Suicide?,” The New York Times (2025).Slavoj Žižek, For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor, 2nded. (New York: Verso, 2002).Our Sponsors:* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/rehash* Check out Ruggable and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://ruggable.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

There is no greater candidate for a job with the FBI… than a woman with a crush. A recent study found that Gen Z and Millennials have “alarmingly relaxed attitudes towards online stalking.” But considering we all do it…why wouldn’t we? The term “stalking” (also know as “creeping” or “lurking”) has now take on a colloquial form, as all sorts of people use the internet to gather information about other people: ex partners, future partners, the ex of an ex, prospective employees, people they think are hotter or cooler than they are. But even if “creeping” is not stalking in the technical sense, even if it’s something we all do, why are we so ashamed to do it? In this season premiere, Hannah and Maia ask whether creeping is inherently creepy, and discuss the different affordances of social media that make it the perfect breeding ground for nosiness. As these “mass personal” channels of communication facilitate parasocial relationships of even the closest kind, have we become private celebrities to each other? Or are we all, as we always have been, just massive creeps? Tangents include: Maia’s evil ex-landlord, Hannah’s sorely misunderstood Baby Jane halloween costume, and dramatic readings of some truly diabolical “creeping” anecdotes from the lovely listeners. Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:⁠https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusicSOURCES:Amelia Abraham, “12 People Admit To Their Social Media ‘Stalking’ Habits,” Refinery29 (2016). “CMV: It's not "creeping", "snooping", or "being a creeper" to browse social media content that presumably was put there for exactly that purpose.,” Reddit (2015). Frampton, J. R., & Fox, J, “Monitoring, Creeping, or Surveillance? A Synthesis of Online Social Information Seeking Concepts,” Review of Communication Research, 9, (2021). “Gen Z and Millennials Accept Online Creeping and Stalking as Part of Dating Culture,” GEN Digital (2023). Laura Pitcher, “Are You in a Parasocial Relationship With ‘the Other Woman?’” Digiverse (2023). Morgan Sullivan, “A Love Letter to All My Exes’ Exes’ Instagram Accounts,” The Cut (2022). Our Sponsors:* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/rehash* Check out Ruggable and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://ruggable.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In a time where Sydney Sweeney is spreading her legs for a popular clothing retailer in the name of eugenics, it’s not so far-fetched to imagine that Sabrina Carpenter would also upset people with her latest album cover. Hair blown out, kneeling at the feet of a suited man, and captioned “Man’s Best Friend,” this image of Carpenter sent shock waves across the internet for provoking an already fraught political moment. But was the outrage justified? In this very special bonus episode, perhaps the best one yet, Hannah and Maia ~unpack~ their complicated feelings about the controversy. Was Carpenter’s team, like Sweeney’s, engaging in a conservative grift, or was this another instance of the public’s paternalistic impulse to whip female figures into shape? Is this just another transgressive breakthrough from a popstar, or is there something more nefarious at play? In our image-addled society, why did this one cause such a stir? And did Andrea Dworkin really have a point after all? All this and more on Patreon. Tangent includes: a postmortem on And Just Like That. FULL EPISODE ON PATREON:https://www.patreon.com/c/rehashpodcastOur Sponsors:* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/rehash* Check out Ruggable and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://ruggable.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

For those of us whose “smokey eye” and “blending” skills fell short during the beauty guru makeup regime, Glossier was our saviour. Founded by “super intern” Emily Weiss (who has a brief 3-episode run on The Hills as Lauren Conrad’s more competent counterpart at Vogue), Glossier popularized the “no makeup” makeup look of the mid to late 2010s. With its minimalist branding, it quickly became a cult brand. Glossier was what Apple was to tech, what American Apparel was to fashion. And even better, it was feminist. Rising from the ashes of the beauty guru was the “Glossier girl” - an effortlessly beautiful cool girl who spent all that time she WOULD be doing her makeup…reading. But, in this episode, Hannah and Maia ask whether Glossier was really all that great. Can a makeup brand actually be feminist? Tangents include: the tyranny of “alt” stuffed animals.Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:⁠https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusicOur Sponsors:* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/rehash* Check out Ruggable and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://ruggable.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

People have been trying to reverse the effects of aging since ancient times, and bored rich people have been trying to live forever since, well…forever. But historically the practice has been targeted to people who are actually “aged.” So how did we go from Jane Fonda selling us miracle creams, to retinols marketed towards actual children? As the anti-aging “cosmeceuticals” market explodes before our very eyes, children overrun our locals Sephoras, and millionaires inject litres of their progeny’s blood - it seems the beauty industry has tapped into our collective, all-consuming fear of death, and exploited it to the very last drop. In this episode, Hannah and Maia discuss the emergence of cosmeceuticals and anti-aging “prejuvenation” procedures (preventative botox, morning shed routines, and the retinol epidemic), and their dastardly effects on the human psyche. Tangents include: neighbourly etiquette, Canadian pride, and crying in public. Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:⁠https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusicSOURCES:Charlotte Cripps, “The rise of the skincare tweens: How retinol serums and eye creams took over childhood,” The Independent (2025). Haykal et al, “Prejuvenation: The Global New Anti-Aging Trend,” Aesthetic Surgery Journal Open Forum (2023).Katie Kilkenny, “How Anti-Aging Cosmetics Took Over the Beauty World,” PS Mag (2017).Lauren McCarthy, “Zoom Face is Real - Here’s How to Fight It,” Nylon (2021). Stefan Odenbach-Wanner, “The Biohacking-Code: An Eternal Pursuit of Perfection - The Myth About Living Forever?! From the Fine Line of Self-Optimization to Self-Destruction,” in Innovations in Healthcare and Outcome Measurement: New Approaches for a Healthy Lifestyle, Springer, (2025). Sarah Radin, “The ‘Sephora kids’ aren’t going anywhere,” Vogue Business (2025). Orianna Royle, “Tech billionaire who spends $2 million a year to look young is now swapping blood with his 17-year-old son and 70-year-old father,” Fortune (2023). Danielle Sinay, “Leave TikTok’s ‘Morning Shed’ Trend Alone,” Glamour (2024). Sarah Spruch-Feiner, “Glossy Pop Newsletter: How TikTok democratized retinol,” Glossy (2022). Lauren Valenti, “Why Preventative Botox Injections Could Be Aging You,” Vogue (2025).Our Sponsors:* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/rehash* Check out Ruggable and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://ruggable.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, but rather in the eyes of 500 sl*ts who hold all society’s power and privileges. At least, according to incels. In this episode, Hannah and Maia revisit the loneliest, angriest corners of the internet to explore “looksmaxxing” - a hot wheels-style rebrand of the “glow up”, replete with internet jargon and pseudo-science and a brand new name to make it palatable for men. Birthed deep in the forums of PUAhate, Sluthate, and 4chan, looksmaxxing began as a way for incels to optimize their looks and ascend their social status. But now, it’s everywhere. The looksmax subreddit is rife with people of all genders commenting stuff like “you’re beautiful love <3” and naturally occurring TikTok Chads making a living as “looksmaxxing influencers”. What the hell happened here, and why? Tangents include: Maia seeing Addison Rae on the street, and Hannah and Maia being really annoying during DND. Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:⁠https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusicSOURCES:Joseph Bernstein, “Young Men Seek Answers to an Age-Old Question: How to Be Hot,” The New York Times (2023). Megan Day, “How Manosphere Content Placates Disenfranchised Men,” Jacobin (2025). Riley Farrell, Inside looksmaxxing, the extreme cosmetic social media trend,” BBC (2024). Sarah Held, “incels://cheeks/jaws: On fragile masculinity, fatal body ideals, homophobic homoeroticism and National Socialist aesthetics revisited,” Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, vol. 10 (2022). Alice Hines, “How Many Bones Would You Break to Get Laid? “Incels” are going under the knife to reshape their faces, and their dating prospects,” The Cut (2019). John Mercer and Clarissa Smith, “Aspirational Bodies: Health, Fitness and the Body Project,” in Sexualised Masculinity: Men’s Bodies in 21st Century Media Culture, Taylor & Francis (2025). Our Sponsors:* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/rehash* Check out Ruggable and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://ruggable.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands