Throughout life, you are bound to hear some of the same cliche pieces of advice over and over. But are cliches so common for a good reason, or are they mostly just outdated advice? This episode, we are analyzing some of the most popular cliches and giving you our hot takes on which ones hold up, which ones need to be taken only in a specific context, and which ones are reductive, unhelpful, or just need to be retired.

We're back this week with our guest host, Caleb, and we're ready to dig into dating over the years. From jousting for a woman's hand, to regency era, to arranged marriages, to free love, all the way through dating app drama, we break down how something so universal as looking for a partner has shifted over time.

Join us this week as we share our top picks for our favorite movies that give us ALL THE FEELS. We're not just talking about movies that make us happy or make us cry. We are choosing our favorite scenes that make us really feel a multitude of emotions and share why they are so meaningful to us. Spoiler Alerts are in effect, so if you hear us mention a movie that you don't want to know about, jump ahead a few minutes.

Those who know us know that we love analyzing personality types and literature. So when we found the chart for the 9 moral alignments, we thought that would be another fun framework to explore. This week, we are talking about the moral alignments and what they mean to us and to our favorite characters. Confession time: When we decided we wanted to record this episode, we soon discovered that we knew very little about the origin of this alignment system, or even the fact that it originated in ...

We're back with another one of our classic episodes. Some fictional characters are widely accepted as beloved or heroic. Some are accepted as unquestionable villains. But today, we are here to shake up what you think you know about your favorite characters. Which characters are overrated? Which fictional couples deserve more respect? Whose story should have ended differently or more controversially? Join us for our hot takes on fictional characters this week. Of course, spoiler alerts are in ...

This month marks a milestone for Chelsea-- who finally released her own original music for the first time. If you've been following us from the beginning, you'll know that this was a long time coming. As Caela is a published writer herself, this week is a celebration of something they both love to do-- write! Join us as we talk about the nuances of different types of writing, self-expression, and artistic mediums. What should a writer be aware of? How do the styles of writing dic...

We're back after our long hiatus and summer break!! In the time since we last recorded an episode, Chelsea got engaged! And as maid of honor, this is big news for Caela as well! So in order to kick things back off in a festive way, we are talking all about wedding traditions this week. We share many of the most popular wedding traditions and break down some of the surprising origin stories behind them. Join us for this fun look at weddings and find out just how many of your favorite wedding t...

Welcome back! This week, Caela, Chelsea, and frequent guest host, Jake, are all in the same room for the first time in 16 months! To celebrate, we are listening to some of our favorite movie scores and trying to answer the question: Why does the music make us feel that way? Join us as Caela shares her favorite instrumental music and Jake and Chelsea attempt to use music theory and other musical knowledge to explain what's REALLY happening when we hear an epic movie score. Join us for thi...

Advertisers once focused all their energy on commercials, print ads, and media. But today's consumers cannot be easily reached by these methods. Today, it is all about the influencers-- social media users and minor celebrities who have curated a following online. But what exactly is an influencer? Why do these people have so much power? How can the influencer culture change the way business is done across many fields? Join us as we dive into influencers and the way they're changing the world....

In today's social and political climate, people have trouble agreeing on not only their opinions, but also on the basic facts that make up the basis of those opinions. Why, in a world where so much information is available to us, is it so hard to know the truth? This week, we are diving into misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, "fake news", gaslighting, the role algorithms play in delivering incorrect information, and why this can happen to even the smartest among us. How can we be...

This week, we are taking a trip back to our childhood! Join us as we go through some popular TV shows of the 1990s and early 2000s to determine which ones hold up today, and which are problematic when seen through adult eyes. We decide which of the fashion, game, and pop culture trends we loved, hated, would want to bring back, or are happy to leave in the past. And we take a look into how the changing trends reflect the changing times, for better and for worse.

It's our third anniversary! Thank you for being such an important part of our listener family! With more than 100 episodes to choose from, where should a new listener begin? Last year we gave you recaps of each prior episode on episode 74. This year, we are continuing that tradition by recapping everything we've discussed since then! While it's been a crazy year for the world, it has been a great year for our show! Join us as we test our memories, recap the last year on our show, and choose o...

Hobbies have kept us all sane this past year. This week, we are excited to welcome back our guest host Mike Walsh (previously heard in our Life Lessons From Sports Episode) to talk about one of his favorite hobbies-- home brewing beer. Mike is here to share how he got involved in home brewing and what goes into this process-- the creativity behind inventing recipes, equipment needed, how beer is made, how to cultivate hobbies like this, and what you need to know to get started!

Imagine this scenario: You're standing next to a railroad track and you see a runaway train with no ability to stop. Up ahead, you see that five workers are stuck on the track and will be killed by the train. You have a lever you can pull that will switch the train to a side track, but on that track, there is one worker who will be killed if you pull the lever. What do you do? This classic ethical dilemma, officially known as "The Trolley Problem", was our starting point for this week's discu...

When we read a favorite book or watch a favorite show, the experience is more than simply entertaining. For many of us, we feel as though we are watching our best friend. But why is it that we create such strong bonds with fictional characters? How can these one-sided relationships help and hurt us? This week, we're digging into the psychology behind why we bond to fictional characters and what that says about us.

Welcome to our 100th episode! We are so happy to have been able to bring you fun and interesting content over the last hundred episodes, and we thank you for being a part of our listener family! At the end of every episode, we remind you all to stay curious. So, we thought it was only fair to practice what we preach. For our 100th episode celebration this week, we bring you 100 things we are curious about! Thank you for joining us over these last hundred episodes, and we look forward t...

Happy February! With Valentine's Day coming up, we thought we'd take a look at some of the most common interpretations of soulmates in literature and mythology. What is a soulmate? How is it different from a twin flame, kindred spirit, karmic soulmate, or life partner? Where do these ideas come from? Join us for this fun look at love and relationships from a unique perspective. And be sure to tune in next week for our 100th episode celebration!!

We're three weeks into the new year. Have you started struggling with your resolution yet? New Year's Resolutions are a popular tradition that people use to look forward to better times and find ways to improve themselves. Why then, do many of us not make it past January before giving up? Why are they so difficult to keep? This week, we're digging into the most common and popular New Year's Resolutions and the struggles with each of them. Join us for new inspiration, strategies for success, a...

2020 is almost over! We made it!! To say that it's been a crazy year would be the understatement of the century. This year has been so wild that in preparing this review, we found we forgot about major news events that happened just a few months ago. This week, we are breaking apart the major events of this wildly unprecedented year and the big lessons and takeaways this year provided. Happy (well-deserved) New Year, sapiophiles!!! We will be back in 2021!

This year, more than any year before, we find ourselves with a lot on our plates. How can we balance all that this year has thrown at us and still maintain health and sanity? This week, we are unpacking the "juggling balls" theory of priorities-- and analyzing our own priorities to determine which tasks are rubber balls that will bounce back if dropped, which are metal balls that will make a lot of noise and be hard to pick back up, and which are glass balls that will shatter.