Inspired by Susan Lepselter’s The Resonance of Unseen Things, the hosts explore apophenia — the human tendency to impose meaning on scattered events — and why conspiracy thinking may be less irrational than we like to believe.

Topics include:

• UFO stories and narrative inheritance
• Why jokes sometimes become political movements
• Costco diplomacy and the petty geopolitics of the UN
• QAnon, Epstein, and the genealogy of conspiracy theories
• How elites maintain legitimacy (until they don’t)
• Ghost sightings, grief, and cross-cultural personhood
• Why conspiracies provide meaning even when factually wrong

Along the way, listeners ask about spirit-protecting neighbors, uncomfortable family revelations, and whether sharing ghost encounters is ever a good idea.

As always, the anthropologists attempt to fix society — this week by solving childcare entirely.

Remember: we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people.

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Why do we care so much about things that don’t matter?

Topics include:

• Why AP European History feels like intellectual hazing
• Trivia as cultural capital (and mild social violence)
• The anthropology of sports fandom and gatekeeping
• America’s extremely weird history of almost-fascist coups
• Microplastics, scientific uncertainty, and modern risk anxiety
• Tarot cards, prediction markets, and contemporary divination
• Why humans keep inventing systems to predict the future

Along the way, the hosts debate whether knowledge should be endured, abandoned, or absorbed slowly like baseball statistics.

If you’ve ever felt intimidated by trivia, excluded by fandom, or haunted by the sense that culture is secretly a giant game show — this episode is for you.

Remember: we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people.

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

In this Season 3 preview, Dan and Michael emerge from their off-season hibernation to read listener messages ranging from supportive to Victorian-newspaper furious. Along the way:

• Programmers at Palantir identify as Hobbits protecting the Shire
• A parent blames anthropology for radicalizing their children
• A long-haul trucker offers perhaps the most sincere defense of creative labor ever received by the show

This episode serves as a warm-up before a 20-episode season featuring jeopardy contestants, horse whisperers, boats (yes, an entire episode about boats), and more cultural analysis disguised as advice.

New episodes begin March 31.

Until then: remember — we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people.

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

We dig into social prescribing, predator-prey symbolism, the high-wire act of modern work, and whether our bodies are betraying us or sending a message we should finally listen to.

Chapters
00:00 — Intro
02:30 — What Stress Actually Is
06:10 — Fresh Hell: Doctors Prescribing Parties
11:45 — Question 1: Buck Fever in the Deer Stand
19:30 — Predator vs Prey Symbol Systems
25:00 — Question 2: High-School Stress Spiral
34:10 — Fixing Shit: The Cult of Self-Discipline
47:00 — Question 3: Catastrophe Thinking for Adults
58:00 — Outro + Fake Sponsorship

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Along the way, we detour through Birkin bag lawsuits, Tommy John surgery, the death of knuckleballing, and the eternal question: Can you force your kid to play sports without turning into a meritocratic ghoul?

As always: we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people. People Stuff.

Chapters:
0:00 — Intro & Why Americans Worship Sports
4:32 — Birkin Bags and the Anthropology of Luxury
11:20 — Prop Bets and the Ethics of Self-Rigging
21:55 — MLB, Corruption & the Luis Ortiz Case
28:40 — AI Officiating & the Death of the Bad Call
37:15 — Children’s Sports & Class Panic
50:22 — Fixing Shit: Baseball Pitchers Edition
58:10 — How to Raise Non-Doughy Kids
1:08:45 — People Ball: Our Fake Sponsor
1:10:00 — Outro & Credits

 Send us your dilemmas: www.people-stuff.com 

Subscribe for more anthropological takes on the weirdness of modern life.

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

In this episode:

🚗 Why millennials think a new car should cost exactly $30k

🧮 Inflation as a vibe, not a natural law

👑 Letters of recommendation: the medieval patronage system we somehow still use

🏛️ First-generation students & the unwritten rules of academia

🤖 Why academic publishing is drowning in AI slop (and rat genitals)

🧑‍💼 How to quit your job without burning your whole life down

🏃‍♀️ Why tech workers accidentally work two jobs at once

Anthropology: because the economy is mostly feelings.

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Featuring:

Horse violence as a disciplinary technology

The Enclosure Movement, Marx, and why Madonna legally can’t stop you rambling through her estate

Corporal punishment, pacifism paradoxes, and why People Stuff is firmly against child-beating but open to beating adults who think child-beating is fine

Billionaire term limits (ten years and then the hoard goes back to the people—no rollover minutes)

HEMA: When history nerds and jocks converge into a Darwinian crab-shaped sword fighter

Utah Mom linguistic innovation, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and Dan’s ongoing war with Vox

Whether horses enjoy trampling (spoiler: yes, they’re smug)

As always, we know stuff about people. Sometimes too much.

Submit your questions or leave us a voice memo at people-stuff.com.

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

They’ll also diagnose Peter Thiel’s end-times theology, dismantle the eugenic logic of IQ tests, and fix the entire school admissions system (again). Plus, a listener wonders: if your friend only speaks in Sex and the City quotes, are they still your friend… or just a Carrie with Wi-Fi?

🔹 Why workplace personality tests are corporate astrology
🔹 The dark history of IQ testing
🔹 How BuzzFeed quizzes became proto-surveillance capitalism
🔹 Why “fixing” education means letting everyone in

As always, it’s academic insight meets anthropological mischief — because we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people.

🎧 Listen now at people-stuff.com or on Apple Podcasts: People Stuff

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Topics include:

Paleo diets and why “we stopped evolving after the Ice Age” is terrible science

When gardening becomes prepping and prepping becomes a personality

The gym bro committed to 100% raw meat, 0% critical thought

The stolen 18-karat gold toilet named America

Why cities need public bathrooms more than they need tech incubators

Are you pizza if you eat pizza? (anthropology says… maybe yes??)

Also: squat toilets, Jain philosophy, steroid economics, and the eternal war between Neapolitan pizza and the casserole known as “Chicago-style.”

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Why do perfect towns feel fake and claustrophobic?

Why do we always sit in the same seat?

And should you really avoid walking on a grave?

Along the way, they explore how humans build belonging through repetition, ritual, and spatial order — and how those same habits can make us feel trapped, haunted, or just plain weird.

Plus: Dan fixes superheroes (they’re fascists), Michael defends ghosts, and everyone learns something about the anthropology of being uncomfortable.

🎧 People Stuff — because we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people.

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

🧹 A Zen priest frustrated by a fellow monk’s bad cleaning habits

💰 Whether kids should get paid for chores

🏚️ How to love a hoarder parent without losing your mind

Plus, in Fixing Shit, Michael fixes Congress by bringing back pork barrel spending (seriously). Along the way, they dust off some anthropological wisdom from Mary Douglas, talk about pollution, capitalism, and the importance of returning your grocery cart.

It’s messy, philosophical, and deeply funny—just the way we like it.

Takeaways 

Cleanliness is culturally specific and varies widely. The concept of the Rapture has been a recurring theme in religious discussions. Zen practices can lead to conflicts in communal living situations. Allowance for chores raises questions about parenting and financial education. Hoarding reflects deeper cultural issues related to consumerism and identity. Memory and emotional connections to objects can complicate decluttering efforts. Cognitive dissonance plays a role in how people respond to failed prophecies. Cultural narratives shape our understanding of cleanliness and order. The relationship between consumerism and identity is complex and multifaceted. Community obligations can conflict with personal expectations in shared living spaces.

Sound bites "

You can't fire your kid!" 

"This is a mutiny!" "

You have too much stuff!" 

Segments:

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Themes 

01:43 The TikTok Rapture and Religious Prophecies 

09:04 Zen Monasteries and Cleaning Duties 

17:19 Exploring Perspectives on Violence and Community 

19:05 Navigating Family Dynamics and Chores 

30:02 Reforming Congress: A Call for Institutional Integrity 

37:08 The Hoarding Dilemma 

38:01 Cultural Reflections on Consumption 

39:53 The Psychology of Stuff 

42:16 Generational Perspectives on Hoarding 

44:36 Memory and Identity in Material Possessions

47:21 Navigating Emotional Attachments to Objects 

49:31 Concluding Thoughts on Clutter and Memory

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Why American parenting anxiety looks bizarre cross-culturally

Aka childhood autonomy, Japanese errand culture, and European stroller norms

TikTok detectives and the collapse of “mind your own business”

Gender identity, performativity, and why pink tea parties won’t destroy society

Judith Butler, trans theory, and early childhood gender development

Why you don’t actually control your kids’ socialization

Immigration panic, economic amnesia, and xenophobia with spreadsheets

Imaginary friends, ancestors, tricksters, and why your kid might not be “imagining” anything at all

Anthropology’s most comforting message: this is all extremely normal

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

🔹 Why men are turning to ChatGPT for emotional advice
🔹 The death of partying — and what it says about American loneliness
🔹 Can you separate baseball from capitalism?
🔹 What shamans and therapists actually have in common

Sound bites

"Alcohol is a social lubricant."

"Fandom is about shared suffering."

"Psychology can't critique society."

Takeaways

Psychology often prioritizes individual adjustment over societal critique.

The decline of social gatherings among young Americans is alarming.

Alcohol serves as a social lubricant, facilitating interactions.

Chatbot therapy raises questions about the nature of self-reflection.

Fandom is deeply tied to shared suffering and community.

Therapy has historical roots in shamanistic practices.

The politics of sports fandom can be complex and contradictory.

Suffering is a common thread in both fandom and therapy.

Psychology struggles with replicability and cultural specificity.

Therapists can be seen as modern-day shamans.

References 

In this episode, we mention and/or are influenced by the following:

An article on the decline of partying: https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-death-of-partying-in-the-usaand?

Beastie Boys -- You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk

Karen V. Hansen -- "A Very Social Time: Crafting Community in Antebellum New England." University of California Press, 1994.

Claude Levi-Strauss "The Effectiveness of Symbols" 

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

“Unsinkable” by Daniel Mendelsohn https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/04/16/unsinkable-titanic-iceberg

“Removing Knowledge” by Peter Galison https://dash.harvard.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/7312037c-4c4a-6bd4-e053-0100007fdf3b/content

“On the Phenomenology of Giant Puppets Broken windows, imaginary jars of urine, and the cosmological role of the police in American culture” by David Graeber https://davidgraeber.org/articles/on-the-phenomenology-of-giant-puppets-broken-windows-imaginary-jars-of-urine-and-the-cosmological-role-of-the-police-in-american-culture/

“The Bridge [Broen på dansk]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_(2011_TV_series)

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Living Right: Far Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe by Agniezska Pasieka

The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 by William Allen Sheridan:

 https://archive.org/details/naziseizureofpow0000alle_m2p7

The Jersey Devil: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Devil

The Sopranos e3 ep11, "Pine Barrens:" 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0705272/

What We Do in the Shadows: 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7908628/

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

1. Are humans individuals or societies?
A tour through Lévi-Strauss, Marx, language as a shared hallucination, and the soul-destroying statistical powers of Pierre Bourdieu. Also: Dan plays a medieval knight facing a bridge troll; Michael slanders anthropology’s early “culture and personality” era.

2. Why do human children stick around so long?
Brains take forever to cook. But also: orcas have fashion, elephants have funerals, and “alpha male” discourse should probably be flung into the ocean. Grandmothers—human and whale—turn out to be the real apex predators.

3. What will future anthropologists think of us?
Trash, plastics, climate collapse, and the high age of petroleum. Also: what survives? Definitely not your pen. Maybe your microplastics. Maybe your LLC.

Featuring:
• Hope as the first lesson of humanity
• Ass-wiping as the second
• Why naming a baby might matter more than conception
• Why anthropology ruins songs
• And why future archaeologists will think we were out of our minds

People Stuff—for everyone who suspects the human condition is 10% personal, 90% inherited nonsense.

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Rabelais and His World by Mikhail Bakhtin can be found here: Rabelais and His World by Mikhail Bakhtin | MIT Press

Find all things People Stuff at: https://www.people-stuff.com/

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Drawing on Thorstein Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption—updated for the Instagram era—they argue that what’s being consumed isn’t lobster, cupcakes, or bagels, but attention itself. Taste turns out to be beside the point. The real question is whether the meal happened publicly enough to matter.

Anthropology says: it’s not about flavor. It’s about status, visibility, and being legible as a person worth noticing.

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

Why do normal people turn feral over parking spaces?
What makes ride-sharing feel both convenient and morally icky?
And how exactly did Elon Musk turn the Hyperloop into the most expensive metaphor for magical thinking?

Plus, Michael explains why gifts are actually acts of aggression, Dan redesigns public drinking laws, and both agree that walking remains America’s most banned activity.

📍Topics include:
– The anthropology of parking rage
– Ride-sharing and privatized public goods
– Elon Musk as modern taboo
– Gift-giving as social warfare
– Beer gardens and failed freedom

🎙️ People Stuff — where anthropologists answer your dumb, beautiful, deeply human questions.

In this episode of People Stuff, Dan and Michael discuss and/or are informed by:

“The Speed of Human Thought Lags Far Behind Your Internet Connection, Study Finds” in the NYTimes by Carl Zimmer https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/science/speed-of-thought.html

The Gift by Marcel Mauss

Taboo by Franz Steiner

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

They unpack the folklore behind Halloween candy scares, explore how gossip and political speech both rely on indirect attribution, and dive into what it means when your suburban neighborhood suddenly becomes deer country.
From Levi-Strauss and Santa Claus to Donald Trump and talk radio, this one’s equal parts anthropology, humor, and exasperation at the human condition.

🎧 In this episode:

The anthropology of Halloween and the myth of poisoned candy

How politicians use marketing psychology to sell ideas

Why gossip is dying (and what we lose with it)

The strange suburban ecology of deer and hunters

What ancient festivals and modern politics have in common

Works Cited

The “Lloyd’s List Shipping Podcast” https://www.lloydslist.com/the-lloyds-list-shipping-podcast

“Father Christmas Executed” by Claude Lévi-Strauss https://aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/LEVI-STRAUSS_1995_Father_Christmas_Executed.pdf

Rabelais and His World by Mikhail Bakhtin https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262520249/rabelais-and-his-world/

“The Dead Baby Joke” by Alan Dundes https://www.jstor.org/stable/1499238

“A feral science? Dangers and disruptions between DIYbio and the FBI” by Michael Scroggins https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0308275X231157559

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

The decline of democracy and rise of tech authoritarianism

Curtis Yarvin and the myth of the “CEO monarch”

Liberal democracy vs. fascist aesthetics

Student politics and the mirror of national elections

Organizational governance and consensus decision-making

Airline inequality and the anthropology of travel

Humor, politics, and why anthropology still matters

Keywords

Why democracy feels broken in 2025

What is Curtis Yarvin’s neo-monarchism?

Funny political podcast about democracy

Anthropology meets politics podcast

What’s wrong with student elections?

Consensus decision making in activism

Airline class inequality explained

Comedy podcast about society and governance

Works Cited

In this episode of People Stuff, Dan and Michael discuss and/or are informed by:

An article in the Times about that rigged Texas lottery: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/us/rigged-texas-lottery.html

A profile of Curtis Yarvin in the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/curtis-yarvin-profile

“Does the “New Economy” Measure Up to the Great Inventions of the Past” by Robert Gordon https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.14.4.49

“Election” (the movie) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126886/

“The Tyranny of Structurelessness” by Jo Freeman https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

What Fresh Hell: “Unsinkable” — Dan on Titanic déjà vu and the myth of technology.

Question 1: UFOs, drone swarms, and why mystery still matters.

Question 2: Body doubles, tacit knowledge, and classroom conspiracies.

Fixing Shit: Dan fixes “ostracism.” Could democracy use a reboot?

Question 3: True crime, Pacific Northwest serial killers, and paranoia.

💬 Got a question for Dan and Michael? Leave a voice memo or message at https://www.people-stuff.com/

In this episode of People Stuff, Dan and Michael discuss and/or are informed by:

“Unsinkable” by Daniel Mendelsohn https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/04/16/unsinkable-titanic-iceberg

“Removing Knowledge” by Peter Galison https://dash.harvard.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/7312037c-4c4a-6bd4-e053-0100007fdf3b/content

“On the Phenomenology of Giant Puppets Broken windows, imaginary jars of urine, and the cosmological role of the police in American culture” by David Graeber https://davidgraeber.org/articles/on-the-phenomenology-of-giant-puppets-broken-windows-imaginary-jars-of-urine-and-the-cosmological-role-of-the-police-in-american-culture/

“The Bridge [Broen på dansk]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_(2011_TV_series)

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

From a bar named Stacy’s Mom (a terrible idea, we all agree) to a gun club trying to rebrand itself into a “Second Amendment Tactical Brigade,” this episode digs into why naming things feels so loaded—and how those labels shape who we are. Along the way, Dan and Michael contemplate QR codes, nostalgia, and ritual theory, all while trying to fix “names” as a social institution.

Come for the anthropological analysis, stay for the fake sponsorships.

Chapters:
00:00 — Intro: The problem with labels
03:15 — What Fresh Hell: QR Codes and the Death of Memory
09:40 — Question 1: “Stacy’s Mom” is not a bar name
19:55 — Question 2: When your gun club becomes a militia
35:20 — Fixing Shit: Names, and why Michael is now a constitutional originalist
46:00 — Question 3: Losing (and finding) yourself at camp
57:10 — Nostalgia Suppositories and designer nicknames
59:00 — Outro

Works Cited: 

Stacy’s Mom.

Ritual and Mantras: Rules Without Meaning by Frits Staal

The Rites of Passage by Arnold van Gennep

The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Strucutre by Victor Turner

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

💥 They tackle the big questions:

Should you go to college or learn a trade?

What’s it really like working in a modern factory?

Why are oil field jobs impossible to fill (and even harder to keep)?

Along the way, they talk about:

The myth of “college as transformation”

How AI is reshaping universities (and cheating’s golden age)

The decline of unions and the lost art of solidarity

Fixing professional sports through relegation (sorry, NFL fans)

And yes—what happens when your HR department gets too anthropological.

👷‍♂️ From Texas high schools to South Carolina factories, to Bakersfield oil fields, this episode explores how work shapes identity, class, and meaning.

Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
03:00 – Forbes 30 Under 30 and the Theil Fellows fiasco
08:00 – College vs. Trade School
22:00 – Life on the Factory Floor
38:00 – Fixing Sh*t: Professional Sports Edition
46:00 – Oil, Labor, and Truth in Job Ads
59:00 – Outro + Fake Sponsor (Robot Plumber)

Works Cited:

“30 under 30-year sentences: why so many of Forbes’ young heroes face jail” by Arwa Mahdawi https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/apr/06/forbes-30-under-30-tech-finance-prison

“Breaching Experiments” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaching_experiment

Studies in Ethnomethodology, by Harold Garfinkel (you may want to bookmark this one; Michael brings it up a lot)

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

We’re asking the big questions:

Should politicians be more boring online?

Is crypto a union-busting fever dream?

How many doors are too many doors to the spirit realm?

And can you really fix vaccine hesitancy with darts and cash?

Along the way, Dan and Michael explore why algorithms flatten culture, how anthropology explains “weird” behavior, and what liminality has to do with your living room. It’s people being people — and us trying to make sense of it.

Timestamps:
00:00 — Intro: Touching grass, anthropologist-style
02:10 — What Fresh Hell: AI reading med school applications
08:35 — Question 1: Politicians and the bread-posting problem
18:45 — Question 2: Unionized waiters and the crypto crusade
30:20 — Fixing Shit: How to end vaccine hesitancy (dart guns included)
42:00 — Question 3: A contractor, a house, and too many doors
53:10 — Fake sponsor: Hyperreality™ — where billionaires graze
56:00 — Outro and credits

In this episode, Dan and Michael discuss (and/or are informed by):

The Paranoid Style in American Politics, by Richard Hofstader (https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/)

Boba Fett, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boba_Fett

Dog the Bounty Hunter, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_the_Bounty_Hunter

The Rites of Passage, by Arnold Van Gennep

The Ritual Process, by Victor Turner

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

00:00 – Intro: What is People Stuff?

02:00 – What Fresh Hell: Baseball cards, blind packs, and CT scanners

08:00 – Question 1: Politics, podcasts, and the red-pill relationship

20:00 – Question 2: Anti-vaxx cousins and the anthropology of purity and danger

34:00 – Fixing Shit: How to fix college admissions (spoiler: lotteries)

44:00 – Question 3: Food, family, and why your boyfriend refuses tamales

56:00 – Outro: Fake sponsors & final thoughts

In this episode, Dan and Michael discuss:

Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson

Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas

“Techniques of the Body” by Marcel Mauss

Outline of a Theory of Practice by Pierre Bourdieu

Human Nature and Conduct by John Dewey

And, the “Parkerization” of Wine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Parker_(wine_critic)#Impact_on_the_supply:_the_%22Parkerization%22_of_wine

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

The cultural power of brutal honesty in hiring (and why job posts should repel as much as they attract).

Vampires as symbols of modern alienation and eternal cool.

Fascism as a false cure for loneliness and economic despair.

Monsters as mirrors of humanity’s deepest fears and longings.

A defense of national parks and public lands.

Segment Breakdown

00:00 – Intro: Brutal honesty and vampire week preview

06:00 – What Fresh Hell: The war on empathy

12:00 – Question 1: “Can I be a vampire?”

27:00 – Question 2: “Why are people still obsessed with Nazis?”

48:00 – Fixing Shit: Saving public lands

57:00 – Question 3: “Why do we keep making monsters?”

1:08:00 – Outro: Fairy Circles™ and the existential loneliness of humanity

Dan and Michael discuss the following works:

Living Right: Far Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe by Agniezska Pasieka

The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 by William Allen Sheridan:

https://archive.org/details/naziseizureofpow0000alle\_m2p7

The Jersey Devil: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey\_Devil

The Sopranos e3 ep11, "Pine Barrens:" 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0705272/

What We Do in the Shadows: 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7908628/

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com

What Fresh Hell:
Michael wonders: what exactly is a tariff, and why do they matter? Dan breaks down the economics, politics, and psychological weirdness behind trade policy — and why tariffs might say more about national insecurity than global economics.

The IKEA Question:
A listener writes in after an IKEA trip threatens to end their relationship. Dan and Michael unpack what IKEA really is — a “heterotopia” where ideal homes and impossible standards collide — and how the store functions as a modern carnival of domestic fantasy. Can any couple survive the maze of Swedish design and relationship self-reflection?

The Bed Question:
Should you make your bed? The hosts dissect productivity culture, moral cleanliness, and the illusion of “self-improvement.” Is making your bed really about respect — or just capitalist virtue signaling?

Fixing Shit:
Michael “fixes” the Olympics — by suggesting they should be nude and chemically enhanced. It’s radical egalitarianism through chaos.

The Ashes Question:
A listener wonders if they can bring their mother’s ashes to their partner’s minimalist family home. Dan and Michael dive into global death rituals — from the Yanomami’s ash soup to Inca mummies — and explore why Western culture avoids talking about death at all. Spoiler: it’s not weird to keep the dead around; it’s deeply human.

Outro:
Sponsored (sort of) by IKEA’s fictitious funerary line, dödsberedskap, and the People Stuff Griefbot™. Because why not keep chatting forever?

Themes & Topics

Anthropology of everyday life

Domestic spaces & consumption

Capitalism, death, and design

Productivity culture and self-help myths

Ritual, grief, and the social life of objects

Humor & absurdism in academia

Works Cited

Swedish Design by Keith Murphy can be found here: Swedish Design by Keith M. Murphy | Paperback | Cornell University Press

Rabelais and His World by Mikhail Bakhtin can be found here: Rabelais and His World by Mikhail Bakhtin | MIT Press

Find all things People Stuff at: linktr.ee/PeopleStuffPod

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.

So go to people-stuff.com