What Next | Daily News and Analysis

In theory, crowdfunding sites offer an opportunity for anyone to give to any cause, including, say, strangers facing huge medical bills. In practice, crowdfunding suffers from many of the same inequities that led to someone needing to crowdfund to begin with.

Guest: Nora Kenworthy, author of Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare, associate professor at the University of Washington, Bothell.

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The 2021 subreddit-coordinated effort to raise the price of Gamestop stock was, in some ways, a proof of concept: the little guy can get into the market and make some noise. Because even though that “meme stock” rose and fell, the idea of the meme stock went has changed the way our stock market works.

Guest: Alex Kirshner, contributing writer for Slate.

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When Miss USA abdicated her throne, people noticed that the first letters of each sentence of her resignation letter spell out “I am silenced.” Shortly thereafter, Miss Teen USA stepped down with a letter that opens with a quote from Nietzsche. 

What’s going on at the Miss USA organization? Has the idea of a national pageant outlived its usefulness?

Guest: Constance Grady, senior Culture correspondent for Vox. 

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Hit with an $800 million lawsuit, missing Tucker Carlson and Rupert Murdoch, and facing competition from fanatical fringe-right media, Fox News might look to some viewers like it’s slipping. But election years are the network’s bread and butter, and the old “everything is terrible and the Democrats are why” song still resonates with voters. 
 
Guest: Justin Peters, Slate correspondent and author of The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet.

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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme and Rob Gunther.
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What would it take for the Democrats to hold Joe Manchin’s crucial Senate seat in West Virginia?  

Guest: Zach Shrewsbury, Democratic primary candidate for U.S. Senate in West Virginia. 

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