Apologies for the following rant, but this podcast has driven me to it...
Another review here, one that gave the podcast five stars, asked who needs another dissection of low-brow celebrity-obsessed popular culture masquerading as cultural coverage. I certainly don't. That's why I've stopped listening to these pretentious twits. Using obscure language is a time-honored method of hiding one's lack of insight about a particular topic: take a trite, shallow opinion, hang some polysyllabic words on it, utter it with just the right amount of elitist snark, and maybe a few people will overlook the fact that your opinions are as immature and banal as the 'lowbrow' topics you like to comment on. Thankfully, judging by the reviews posted here, many listeners are not taken in by the ruse. Think these commenters fit your sensibilty? Trust me, the pride that may wash over you as you recognize those difficult words and share in the presenters' sense of gleeful superiority to lowest-common-denominator entertainment culture will fade. Eventually you'll realize you're listening to people who seem to spend a great deal of time consuming this dreck, only so they can point out how far beneath them it is. I don't know what so thoroughly ravaged these people's sense of self-worth that they feel the need to take wildly pompous pot-shots at the easiest targets on the cultural landscape, but I hope it's good therapy for them, because it's certainly not entertaining or interesting to most of the rest of us. And since some of the other reviewers brought it up: George Carlin may not have always been funny, but even at his lowest moments he was wittier and more insightful by a mile than the presenters of this podcast. Perhaps they didn't think Carlin was funny precisely because he skewered the kind not-so-subtle classism on display here, which imperfectly masks what I can only assume is a sense of intellectual insecurity. Listen to the far-superior Slate Political Gabfest instead. They may sound slightly elitist from time to time, but at least they have a reason to be: they are probably smarter than you. And they don't need to whip out a well-thumbed stack of GRE vocab flash cards to prove it.Read full review »
DoppelDeus via Apple Podcasts · United States of America · 05/31/09
More reviews of Slate Culture
Snore. Yawn. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Seriously, who cares what you overeducated 16 year college degree self-proclaimed culture experts think? Regular people don't care and if regular people don't care then you must enjoy listening to yourselves talk. Say something interesting. Too late....Read full review »
Calista Sallinger via Apple Podcasts · United States of America · 06/14/09
The Slate Culture Gabfest is the program I look forward to the most during my weekly podcast schedule. The mix of high-brow and pop culture is incredible fun. Also, the hosts (Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens and Julia Turner) have a great flow and their comfort with one another makes listening...Read full review »
ishmaeldaro via Apple Podcasts · Canada · 09/29/09
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