This week Malena and Mike are joined by Dr Carolina Are, LSE Fellow, digital criminologist, and Sexual Freedom Awards winning Activist of the Year, and pole dancing academic, to talk about her latest paper: The Shadowban Cycle: an autoethnography of pole dancing, nudity and censorship on Instagram.

Preston from The Ordinary Boys joins us to run through what's in his algorithm and how AI has impacted the music industry and broader creative industries, from signwriting through to streaming and live music.

What does it mean to be interesting in a world where everyone has access to the same information?

In this episode, Michael Baggs and Malena Roche are joined by strategist Eugene Healy to unpack the rise of the performative male and the idea of knowledge as capital, drawing on Pierre Bourdieu and modern cultural dynamics.

We explore why, as traditional wealth becomes harder to attain, the middle class is turning to intellectual identity, niche expertise, and cultural fluency as new forms of status, especially in dating and social markets.

From Iran to horoscopes, from spirituality’s rebrand among intellectuals to the pressure to be distinctive on demand, this conversation digs into what it means to build a self that stands out in an algorithmic world.

But there’s a clear tension, how do you cultivate depth without becoming a curated, performative version of yourself? How do you ensure there's not a thousand other reflections of yourself everywhere from Bushwick to Hackney, Collingwood to Nørrebro?

A sharp, wide ranging discussion on culture, status, masculinity, and meaning in 2026.