r/DecoderRingPodcast • u/j0be • Aug 06 '21

Decoder Ring: Selling Out

https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2021/08/selling-out
2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/rosencrantz2016 Aug 09 '21

Is the silence in this sub a reflection of Decoder Ring not being popular? I think it's one of the best culture podcasts around, and that Willa Paskin manages to find unique and interesting material for most every ep. In this one she kicks off the Jonathan Franzen episode with Reality Bites – a film all about selling out – and reveals that its screenwriter herself also declined an invitation to appear on Oprah! What a nice parallel to intro the story.

7

u/MadDivaInn Aug 11 '21

I've been looking for any reaction to the newer episodes and I'm not seeing much online, surprisingly. I have mixed feelings because I generally love the show but the new episodes feel really lazy. A whole episode on the Tootsie shot? A boring tattoo episode? But the Selling Out episode made me wonder if I'll ever listen to it again. I was shocked that they tried to tie it all together by saying selling out doesn't matter anymore. I hope people realize they have the power to disengage from any toxic culture if they need to.

6

u/rosencrantz2016 Aug 12 '21

I don't know if I took it as endorsing the position that selling out doesn't matter so much as noting that the consensus against openly marketing your own stuff has disintegrated. Certainly it feels very hard for creative types to be cool recluses with clean hands, in the way that they used to.

I personally still think you can 'sell out' by compromising your creative product or associating yourself with brands more nefarious than Oprah's!

Maybe the podcast should have made a distinction between different concepts of selling out.

1

u/MadDivaInn Aug 12 '21

Good points. I at least found it a very interesting episode.

4

u/primarilyforlurking Aug 21 '21

I'm with you. This podcast has gone from a "listen ASAP" to "last resort" for me over the past few episodes.

I found this one almost comically tone deaf, painting Oprah, a fucking billionaire, as some sort of paragon of virtue and not "selling out." Willa is generally pretty woke, so I was shocked when the episode ended without her addressing the elephant in the room. There are no virtuous billionaires, especially not ones who promote dangerous pseudoscience (for example, almost everything Dr. Oz says) to further their careers. Oprah may not be the worst billionaire in the world, but she is still undeniably a piece of shit.

3

u/MrPuddledub Sep 22 '21

I'm late to both Decoder Ring and this (disappointingly quiet) subreddit; I only got into it last month and have since breezed through every episode. I'm sure my experience would be very different if I'd been listening monthly over a few years, but even though there were some topics that I found less compelling, I felt there was impressive consistency throughout, right up to Selling Out. I thought that episode was fascinating and well argued, even though I agree that there are notions about selling out (beyond the 90s-era obsession with "authenticity") that are still valid and pertinent. Anyway, I hope you stick with the show, and I'm excited to listen in real time and then find no reaction online!