Latest news with #ThisAmericanLife
New York Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Allure of the Mean Friend
On This Week's Episode: What is it about mean friends? They treat us badly. They don't call us back. They cancel plans at the last minute. Yet, we come back for more. Popular bullies exist in business, politics, everywhere. How do they stay so popular? This is a rerun of an episode that first aired in September 2003. New York Times Audio is home to the 'This American Life' archive. Download the app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
The Longest Shortest Time
Credit - After a five-year hiatus, the parenting podcast hosted by This American Life contributor and author Hillary Frank returned with the help of Realm in 2025. The archives, spanning 2010 to 2019, delve into essential topics like whether to get genetic testing before having a baby and interview listeners for some fantastic tales like the twisty series on 'The Accidental Gay Parents.' But a lot has changed in Frank's life and the world of parenting since the show took a break. Frank started the podcast because of her disappointment with her own birth experience, which ended in a three-year-long painful recovery (as outlined in the moving episode 'Rewriting Your Birth Story'). Now her daughter is a teen, and in her first episode back, Frank interviews her child about what she's learning in sex ed. (Spoiler alert: the curriculum is frustratingly focused on anatomy rather than on consent.) Frank says she wants to shine a light on reproductive health in the show's new iteration and tell stories that have to do with attacks on bodily autonomy, how technology is changing how babies are made, how we talk to kids about sex, and new research on periods and menopause. In early episodes, New York Times writer Amanda Hess expounds on her complicated relationship with period and pregnancy apps; YouTuber and avid pilot Xyla Foxlin talks about her battle with the FAA over her birth control; and Sara Reardon, known online as the Vagina Whisperer, answers listener questions about the pelvic floor. All the new episodes elucidate supposedly taboo topics, from receiving bad news on an ultrasound to how our mental health is impacted by hormonal birth control to healing after childbirth, with personal and thoughtful stories. Write to Eliana Dockterman at Solve the daily Crossword
Time Magazine
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
30 for 30
Credit - SportsFor sports fans who prefer thoughtful analysis to hot takes: the award-winning 30 for 30 Podcasts, the audio-only extension of the critically acclaimed ESPN documentary series of the same name. Across 65 episodes, the podcast, which launched in 2017, has taken a closer look at the stories that captivate the sports world and beyond, the kinds of compelling narratives that need more time than SportsCenter could ever offer. In its first two seasons, 30 for 30 covered the 1997 all-woman trek to the North Pole, the birth of UFC, and how football coach and analyst John Madden built a video game empire. Since then, the podcast has dedicated entire seasons to the legacy of rapper and NBA favorite Nipsey Hussle, the dark side of Bikram yoga, the search for forgotten hockey legend Hobey Baker, and the downfall of former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, which inspired the FX docudrama Clipped. In the end, these immersive audio documentaries feel more akin to This American Life than First Take.(See: Girl v. Horse.) With curiosity and enthusiasm, 30 for 30 offers a deeply reported look at the joy, the pain, and the agony that comes with loving us at letters@
CBC
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Atsuko Okatsuka was technically kidnapped by her grandma
Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka is able to make the most difficult life experiences seem funny. When she was eight years old, for example, her maternal grandma suddenly brought her to the U.S., separating her from her dad in Japan. From that point onward, Okatsuka grew up in California, where she lived undocumented for seven years. "All I knew was that my two-month vacation in L.A. turned into three months," she quips in her new stand-up special, Father. "And then, after 25 years — because I'm that afraid of conflict — I finally asked my grandma. I said, 'Grandma, did you kidnap me? Because that's what I feel like happened.'" WATCH | Official trailer for Father: While Okatsuka had long joked that it was a kidnapping, she and her grandma had never actually talked about it. She didn't know for sure what had happened to her until 2023, when she shared her story in an episode of This American Life. "When you investigate a part of your life with a journalist, there's fact-checking and there's research that they help you do," the comedian tells Q guest host Talia Schlanger in an interview. "So that's what helped solidify that it was technically a kidnapping." But Okatsuka, who's incredibly close with her grandma (she refers to her as her "91-year-old best friend"), doesn't see it that way. While the experience left her feeling deeply confused as a child, she's made a career out of finding the humour in her complex past. "I knew it was bad when Ira Glass reached out to me," she jokes in her new special. "You never want to do a This American Life episode. You know why? Because if you do, that means your life was bad!" It really helps to find the absurdity in a situation that may just seem like tragedy. After moving to the U.S., Okatsuka says she experienced "a slow shock" that took a long time to come out of, as she had to quickly learn English and adjust to life in a new country. Her experience was further complicated by the fact that she was living in her uncle's garage along with her grandma and her mom, who has schizophrenia. "I knew she was different," Okatsuka says about her mom. "I knew that I was scared of her. I went through puberty in that garage, you know what I mean? My mom would have her paranoid episodes and hear voices in her head, sometimes seizures…. A garage is not enough space to hold three generations of women." While there is a lot of real trauma in Okatsuka's life, she says she's found it healing to unpack it all publicly onstage, in interviews or on a podcast like This American Life. "It is funny to think about it way later," she tells Schlanger. "When they say time heals, I guess that's what they mean. You know, you can decide to see the levity in something. It really helps to find the absurdity in a situation that may just seem like tragedy."
New York Times
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
My Summer Self
On This Week's Episode: Summer is a time when change seems more possible than ever. But is that really how it works? Can people actually reinvent themselves in the warmer months? 'This American Life' presents stories — and some comedy — about people and their summer selves. This is a rerun of an episode that first aired in August 2016. New York Times Audio is home to the 'This American Life' archive. Download the app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.
