Shows
Diabolical LiesSabrina Carpenter & the Politics of Pop Star SexualityThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.diabolicalliespod.comIn this conversation…When Sabrina Carpenter shared the album cover for her highly anticipated seventh studio album, Man’s Best Friend, the internet suffered an algorithmic nosebleed. An extremely high-stakes cultural debate unfolded: Was the photo (and correspondingly, her entire vibe) supposed to be funny? A form of edgy political satire? Or was Carpenter cashing in on our cultural history of fetishizing domestic violence/pedophilia/women’s suffrage/[insert infuriating clickbait term here]?In response to the foamin...2025-06-2925 min
Diabolical LiesBonus: Media's Mamdani MeltdownThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.diabolicalliespod.comIn this (bonus) conversation…Reporting live from the basement where Annie Lowrey is chained to a radiator while a six-foot-tall sentient copy of Abundance holds a gun to her head, Caro & Katie review four pieces in major newspapers and magazines that were published in the days leading up to the New York City mayoral race when it became clear that the progressive Democrat who somehow managed to lead the polls without throwing trans people or immigrants under the bus mi...2025-06-2710 min
Diabolical LiesLiv Schmidt & the Sexless Allure of SkinnyTokIn this conversation…SkinnyTok is full of contradictions: You’ll hear you need to work hard to lose weight so you can be effortlessly chic; you’ll discover a world of corporeal obsession in which attaining a “hot body” is the ultimate form of pleasure. So why does it all feel so sterile? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.diabolicalliespod.com/subscribe2025-06-151h 52
Diabolical LiesTaking Sex Differences SeriouslyThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.diabolicalliespod.comIn this conversation…In 2015, Caro took a politics course at the University of Virginia called “Sex Differences.” This is her story. *law and order theme music*2025-06-0126 min
Diabolical LiesThe Kurious Kase of Karoline LeavittIn this conversation…Six years and five Trump press secretaries ago, The Guardian reported that, thanks to Trump’s ceaseless tweeting, the press secretary position had become “redundant,” an anachronism from a quainter era of politics when presidents didn’t preside like mad kings over their own social media platforms. So what should we make of Karoline Leavitt and the role she’s performing in this political theater?What is Diabolical Lies?Diabolical Lies is 100% listener-supported culture and politics podcast designed to make you smarter, saner, and infinitely more unbearable at your next family gathe...2025-05-181h 50
Diabolical LiesWho Wants Kids?This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.diabolicalliespod.comIn this conversation…Over the last several months, the policy agenda of the pro-natalist right has become startlingly clear. What’s much less clear, though, is how the left plans to counter such red-pilled pro-baby and pro-family rhetoric—or if the left even wants to counter this rhetoric.2025-05-0437 min
Diabolical LiesKatie & Caro Shoot the Shit: Bonus April Grab BagThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.diabolicalliespod.comIn this conversation…Katie & Caro answer questions from our paid subscriber chat of Dirty Little Liars, like:* Who would be your dream guest on Diabolical Lies (if you ever get over your narcissistic obsession with being the only two people yapping)?* Are you actually joining DSA (Democratic Socialists of America)?* What are the logistical challenges around setting up the charitable aspect of the business?* What’s an issue you’ve recently change...2025-04-2712 min
UnladylikeGender War Games Pt. 1: Womanosphere Rising with Diabolical LiesIs feminism dead—or just shadowbanned? In part 1 of the Gender War Games miniseries, host Cristen Conger and Diabolical Lies co-hosts Caro Claire Burke and Katie Gatti Tassin dissect how feminism got hyper-commodified, beauty became capitalism's favorite control tactic, and reactionary gender politics took center stage. From antifeminist burnout to algorithmic aesthetics, what's behind the right-wing, conspiratorial rebranding of women and gender—and who's profiting off it? (00:00) Feminism Under Siege(01:34) Womanosphere Rising?(02:56) Diabolical Lies podcast(04:12) A Femininity Crisis?(07:40) Feminine Hierarchy and Gender Panic(13:45) Reactionary Femin...2025-04-2344 min
Diabolical LiesThe Rise & Fall of CapitalismIn this conversation…It’s the best system we’ve tried so far! It’s just human nature! It’s the force that drives innovation! …or is it? What if capitalism isn’t pushing us forward anymore, but holding us back from the future that we could have? Diabolical Lies investigates. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.diabolicalliespod.com/subscribe2025-04-202h 46
Diabolical LiesWhat Trans Athletes Actually Mean for Women’s SportsThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.diabolicalliespod.comIn this conversation…You asked, we answered. Today we’re talking about the latest, greatest moral panic of our time: Are trans athletes ruining women’…2025-04-0641 min
Diabolical LiesMAHA Moms & the Politics of “Wellness”In this conversation…The “MAHA Moms” insist their healthy living movement is all about “the children,” who you’ll quickly learn are being “poisoned” by all the “toxic” ingredients in our food supply or corrupted by the crooked doctors in our medical system. But which kids is this really for?This episode is a Tour de Grift that explores some of the most notable figureheads, their claims, and how this information metastasizes—so that even @CrunchyMom6969 ends up sharing vaccine misinformation between enema cleanse updates. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this w...2025-03-232h 54
Diabolical LiesHot Chicks, Wings, and the Liquidation Sale of AmericaThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.diabolicalliespod.comIn this conversation…What does it mean to “run the government like a business” in America today? In today’s episode, we scrutinize the fetishization of “efficiency” and the American businessman, the role this valorization played in the ascendancy of our current “leaders,” and what everyone’s getting wrong about how business is done in America today—through the lens of a recent bombshell report that “breastaurant” Hooters is filing for bankruptcy.Got questions? ask@diabolicalliespod.com.References in the E...2025-03-0945 min
Diabolical LiesLily Phillips & the Politics of Sex WorkIn this conversation…Let’s get spicy, y’all! Today, we’re talking about the politics of consensual sex work, through the lens of a recent, extremely viral documentary that covered sex worker and OnlyFans influencer Lily Phillips’s 100-men-in-a-day sex stunt. If you haven’t watched the documentary yet, we’ve embedded it in this post for your easy viewing pleasure. And yes, this documentary is safe for work; the curse words are censored and there’s no actual nudity. The same cannot be said for the podcast episode. You’ve been warned!A note: this convers...2025-02-232h 14
Diabolical LiesWhat is a Woman? The Shifting Gender Aesthetics of the "New Right"This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.diabolicalliespod.comIn this conversation…A woman’s appearance has always been inseparable from her message in politics. So what does this latest, conspicuous shift signal? In this episode, we’re taking a question the New Right is obsessed with—what is a woman?—and answering it by analyzing the aesthetic transformations of the women they tolerate becoming prominent and visible within their coalition.2025-02-0930 min
Diabolical LiesA Tale of Two AlgorithmsA few days ago, shortly after the TikTok ban was lifted, we recorded this conversation about the dueling algorithmic histories of TikTok and Facebook, the strange mirror world they provide for us to understand US vs. China sentiment, and the crack-in-the-universe moment that RedNote offered the world.In the time since we recorded, a few major news stories have broken:* TikTok users are reporting that TikTok is now removing comments including #freepalestine and labeling them as “hate speech”* Meta is under fire for allegedly requiring people to follow the POTUS and VP Instagram acco...2025-01-261h 33
Diabolical LiesLuigi Mangione & the Making of an American TerroristThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.diabolicalliespod.comThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit diabolicallies.substack.com.Since the passage of the US PATRIOT Act in 2001, the culture of anti-terrorism in the United States has proven fertile ground for at once legitimizing a threat as extreme and delegitimizing the context which produced it. So what does it mean when it’s a label deployed more often for college protestors and disgruntled Florida moms than murderous white supremacists?2025-01-1226 min
Diabolical LiesHow "Reactionary Feminism" Infiltrated the MainstreamFeminism is in the midst of an identity crisis: What is feminism? What does it mean to “be a feminist”? The gap has created an opening for a few media-savvy writers and thinkers to refashion the movement in their own image: a “women’s rights” movement that uses anti-capitalist language to make things like unprotected sex and unpaid labor look like liberation.For notes, citations, and bonus reading, check out diabolicallies.substack.com and select this episode. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus e...2024-12-292h 22
Diabolical LiesEvie Magazine, Ballerina Farm, & the Yassification of Christian NationalismThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.diabolicalliespod.comIn this conversation...Evie Magazine bills itself as a “Cosmopolitan for conservatives,” but is that the best description for this editorial mission? Spoiler alert: No! Today’s sprawling conversation explores every nook and cranny of this dumpster fire of a “media company,” as well as the… uncanny, let’s say, timing of Hannah Neeleman becoming an Evie cover girl and the beneficiary of a glowing NYT puff piece, all in a matter of days. 2024-12-1544 min
Diabolical Lies"The Men Are Not All Right"...Right?In this conversation…Caro & Katie dive headfirst into the “male loneliness epidemic,” “the boys are not all right,” “feminism hurts men” discourse to understand which right-wing think tank’s research suddenly indicates The Men™️ are struggling, its curious timing, and the frustrating tendency of all the coverage to completely gloss over the core problem.References in this EpisodeOf Boys and Men, by Richard Reeves, the man who has penned most of the mainstream coverage on this issue, like this one in the Wall Street JournalThe CNN segment featuring Scott Galloway, “Young Men...2024-12-011h 41
Diabolical LiesWhat a Viral Tradwife Rant Reveals About Gen Z's Alt-RightThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.diabolicalliespod.comIn this conversation…Caro & Katie engage in a close read of the viral Free Press debate TikTok that stars a young woman angry she can’t live on a homestead, and accidentally discover it’s uniquely emblematic of the sort of right-wing radicalization we’re witnessing en masse in the United States.2024-11-1730 min
Diabolical LiesAbortion: Say It With Your ChestIn this conversation…Caro & Katie talk about abortion in America, starting with leaders in the evangelical church recognizing it as a political tool in the 1970s with which to gain power in the face of unwanted desegregation, to the profound discomfort that modern politicians across the spectrum express about the subject—that is, until maybe, right now. It turns out that American women have never actually been guaranteed the freedom to get an abortion, and to begin changing that, we need a new moral framework.References, Bonus Reading & Timestamps, Oh MyReferences“A...2024-11-031h 37
Diabolical LiesThe Liberal-to-Brave-Independent-Thinker™ PipelineThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.diabolicalliespod.comOur first bonus episode! The first 40 minutes of this conversation are available to everyone, but if you'd like to become a subscriber, join us on Substack or Apple Podcasts.In this conversation…A critique of work that best illustrates different elements of the, “I used to be a liberal, but…” media personality that purports to have invented a bold new form of centrist, independent thinking—but upon further inspection, it’s…just conservatism, often cloaked in the language of th2024-10-2039 min
Diabolical LiesThe *Real* Reason Republicans Are Desperate to Impregnate YouIn this conversation…Two pre-menopausal females break down the replacement theory panic disguised as Reasonable! Political! Concern! and why it’s completely unnecessary and counterproductive to entertain the pronatalist conversation on their terms: that is, litigating the validity of having (or not having) children. It is not, and has never been, about the kids. Bonus ReadingThe Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow, which really puts the whole “the traditional, natural order is the nuclear family with the man at the helm” into historical contextSisters in Hate by Seywa...2024-10-061h 31
Diabolical LiesTaylor Swift, Injectables, and Other Genres of Magical ThinkingIn this conversation…The picture heard ‘round the Reddit Popular page has reignited the internet’s favorite form of is-that-misogyny? debate: Ladies, are we allowed to talk about what may or may not be happening on Taylor Swift’s face? Plastic surgery speculation is an online sport in its own right, but the real story is what it tells us about our culture’s attitude toward cosmetic procedures (and the “feminist” way to participate) that the mere suggestion ignites such a fervent defense of Swift’s honor. The grand, widely celebrated deception of dermal filler is the foundatio...2024-09-221h 26
Diabolical LiesBlake Lively is ContentWhat began as a debrief about the ongoing, deeply ridiculous moral panic surrounding a number of celebrities this summer morphed into an expansive discussion about the truth of “celebrity,” what it means to be famous, how we distinguish content from art, and why the context-collapse of algorithms is wreaking so much havoc on our brains.Bonus Reading“Why Is Everyone Mad at Blake Lively?” by Alex Abad-Santos for Vox“Blake Lively on Fame, Family, Good Fortune—And Becoming a Glamorous Jewel Thief for Baz Luhrmann” by Andrew Sean Greer for Vogue“Chappell Roan Co...2024-09-081h 28
Diabolical LiesBama Rush Post-Mortem: Patriarchy Rocks, Dudein this episode: caro & katie debrief on the bama rush / rushtok phenomenon, through the lens of katie's experience going through alabama rush 10 years ago and the deconstruction process that followed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.diabolicalliespod.com/subscribe2024-08-181h 31
Diabolical LiesBlonde Highlights Are Gender-Affirming Care101s on the latest gender panic event at the Olympics“The Right-Wing Campaign to Purge Women from Women’s Sports” — The Intercept“Boxer in Controversy Over Eligibility Lets Her Gloves Do the Talking” — New York Times“Imane Khelif and Western Delusions of White Innocence” — Al Jazeera“Imane Khelif Fights The World's Greatest Boxers—and Bigots” — Qasim Rashid Substacksome helpful 101s on debunking gender panic/trans hysteriaThe New York Times's War On Trans Kids — If Books Could Kill podcastAlok Vaid-Menon interview — Man Enough podcast “No link between tr...2024-08-0855 min
Diabolical LiesAgriCulture WarsIn this conversation* What even is free will?* What the follow-up article means about the response* The Venn diagram between fundamentalist Christianity and white supremacy is a circle* Where we go from hereWe’ll be releasing these types of conversations as the zeitgeist allows. Subscribe for more!ResourcesPrimary cited sources Meet the Queen of the ‘trad wives’ (and her eight children)My day with the trad wife queen and what it taught me (second article, audio e...2024-07-301h 15