
Willa Paskin
4
APPEARANCES
4
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012
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Aug 11, 2026
Is Culture Stuck? (From Decoder Ring)
10:55
11:08

Willa PaskinGUEST
And she started out of the blue, not off the radio or anything, singing a song that I did not know she knew.

Willa PaskinGUEST
My daughter was not born when the song Milkshake by Kelis was first released in 2003 and became an inescapable top 10 hit.
S
12:41speaker_5SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
And by 1987, it was this.
lonelygirl15 and when lies could be fun
44:42
44:49
44:52
45:04
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49:58
Ryan BroderickHOST
Which is gonna be really unfortunate for the show that you and I are watching together from, because there's no way that the characters are good enough to sustain that mystery box.

Willa PaskinGUEST
But actually, I don't even know that it's just about characterizations of those things.

Willa PaskinGUEST
Like, I think with wrestling, with Real Housewives, like, part of it is people are interested in thinking about what's real and what's fake, but it doesn't, it doesn't resolve it for you.

Willa PaskinGUEST
Like, when you people watch reality TV, you're like, "I know this is scripted," but also you're like, "But no, that person is authentically showing me something about their personality, or they must really hate each other." Like, I talked to a reality TV producer once who was like, "People think they're knowing, and they are so naive about it." Like, they're like, "Oh, it's all fake," and then they buy all the shit.

Willa PaskinGUEST
People s- say, "Oh, I know it's fake," and then they, like, fully think they know those people and something real about them, which they really may, because that's sort of like the pleasure of all those things-

Willa PaskinGUEST
... because basically what is gonna happen is, like, for, essentially, this is like 2006, probably for, like, the next 10 years, right? People keep being like, "Oh, we should just be able to make TV," like, in the class...
The Slate Culture Gift Guide
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33:14
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35:13
Dana StevensGUEST
(laughs) Willa, it's occurring to me that your whole gift selection is, like, Is It Cake?, the TV show.

Willa PaskinGUEST
I kind of can't stand that show, although my kids like it, but also, like, yes, 100% I'm like...

Willa PaskinGUEST
I want everything (laughs) to look... to not be cake, or to be cake, be cake, but be something that it's not.

Willa PaskinGUEST
Um, so these ones- And not to be plugging, but I mean, you know, Is It Cake? is kind of a cultural mystery, so, you know, it really ties into what you covered.
Dana StevensGUEST
There's something about destroying the perfect facsimile of the orange is satisfying too.
How Tupperware took over our homes, with Decoder Ring
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B
12:11Bob KeelingGUEST
He was able to make it more malleableAnd softer, and he could even add certain dye colors to it to make it more attractive.

Willa PaskinGUEST
Earl named this promising new material Poly T and set out to find a use for it.

Willa PaskinGUEST
One day, Earl saw a paint can with its resealable lid, and he realized something like that would be really useful for food.

Willa PaskinGUEST
1940s housewives would improvise, sometimes putting leftovers in a bowl and covering them with a shower cap.

Willa PaskinGUEST
Earl saw an opening for something better, and so using his Poly T material, he set about creating a new kind of storage container: unbreakable, attractive, and with an airtight, resealable lid.

Willa PaskinGUEST
He named the resulting product Tupperware, and by 1946, he was ready to start placing his first products, including the pastel-colored Wonderbowl, in department stores, where they promptly just sat on the shelf.
15 MINS LATER
B
28:36Brownie WiseSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Your Tupperware lady has the freshest ideas for locking in freshness.