The Discourse

MomTok cannot, in fact, survive this one. SLOMW Season 5 is here, and C + C are bringing you the freshest takes West of Salt Lake City. We're talking Mikayla's glow-up, TFP's breakdown, and everything in between.Grab your dirtiest soda and your longest extensions and settle in for our very first reality recap.

SOUND ISSUES FIXED! Mark Zuckerberg is evil. Social media is soul-destroying. Water is wet. Tell me something I don’t know! Despite our collective disdain for the careless and money-hungry antics of Meta and friends, the social media giants have enjoyed over two decades of near immunity from legal recourse thanks to a little legislative life preserver called Section 230. Last month, all that changed. After Meta was found guilty in TWO landmark lawsuits targeting the platform for its exploitative and addictive design, legal experts and tech execs across the country are reeling, wondering what comes next. The question on everyone’s lips: Is this big tech’s big tobacco moment? The jury’s still out. But who better to probe this unprecedented legal maelstrom than C + C? (Don’t answer that!)In addition to the minutiae of internet regulatory policy, we also cover: ➡️ What’s actually legal and illegal on the internet ➡️ The slot machine-ification of social media➡️ FMK: McKinsey, Meta, and Lockheed Martin ➡️ The book that made Courtenay concede to her lifelong opp➡️ Why social media addiction is NAWT your fault➡️ The new cast of SLOMW OC (somehow relevant)Buckle up! The Discourse is about to get… meta ;)

On May 23rd, 2024, your favorite pod host, Courtenay, summited Mt. Everest. Today, she finally entertains the question on everyone's lips: Why??! Short answer: She didn't want to go to grad school. Long answer: Well...you'll have to give it a listen!In part one of this two-part series, we'll dive into the discourse surrounding this highly controversial mountain, including how much it costs, how to train for it, the "luxurious" base camp amenities, and how dangerous it really is. Cecile will offer her perspective on the difficulty of supporting your loved ones' terrifying dreams, and how to resist any Tonya Harding-esque urges to play saboteur. Climb on!

This started as an episode about influencers and ended with a fight over the (debatable?) nazi tendencies of pronatalists. Buckle up—the discourse is about to get a little spicy 👀

As its compelling literary content has bled through the cracks of our cultural discourse, BookTok has transformed from merely an internet subculture to a powerful market force that has upended the publishing world as we know it, debatably revived the brick-and-mortar bookstore, and fueled the production of some of the most popular movies and TV shows of the last few years - including the hit new series "Heated Rivalry." What started as a benign TikTok subculture composed of (mostly) women who make and consume content about books has since become a cultural watershed: Is the TikTokification of literature a harbinger of intellectual decline, or a glimmer of hope for a dying medium? Before taking on the intellectual merits of smut, Courtenay & Cecile take a trip into the belly of the beast, starting with some delicious prose depicting a taboo dive bar hookup. We define some terms—"tropes," "spiciness," and "MCs" among them—and try our best to get acquainted with the source material. Next, we start in on the critiques: Is BookTok glorifying consumerism? Can you judge a writer by their number of Instagram followers? Is the publishing industry failing its readers by serving them unedited slop? We take a look at a few major scandals, including the discourse around "Lightlark," the viral video-turned-YA novel that divided the BookTok community. Finally, we look at what the experts have to say: Is there any inherent value in reading, or is it no better for your brain than bingeing the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives? (The answer—according to journalists and psychologists—might surprise you!)