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Culture Study Podcast

Culture Study Podcast

When Convenience Actually Kinda Sucks

Sep 23, 2026 · 1h 22m

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About this episode

Over the last six years, our conversations on Culture Study have often circled back to a handful of recurring themes: contemporary work culture, burnout, optimization culture, intensive parenting, the often hollow pull of the algorithm, the tattered social safety net, and the desire to engage more with the world (and community) around us. We're fun, I promise! And today we're going to weave together so many of those threads in an intricate conversation about the broken promises of convenience culture. Gabe Bullard started writing Against Convenience years before "friction-maxxing" became a thing. He's thought deeply about the bad time bargains of conveniences large and small, and he's…