This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. Willa Paskin hosts the popular Slate podcast ...

Over the holidays I watched “A Christmas Story” for the gazillionth time. One of the scenes in the movie is Ralphie getting his secret decoder ring to unlock the mysteries of the universe. His ring ...

While Endless Thread is on break working on a new season, we recommend checking out Decoder Ring. In each episode, Decoder Ring explores a cultural question, object, or habit; examines its history; ...

Since 2018, Slate critic Willa Paskin has explored bizarre and delightful cultural phenomena from “Baby Shark” to Chuck E. Cheese to try to understand what makes people obsessed with arbitrary ...