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 ...

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Why did the mullet become a thing? Why did everybody go crazy over Cabbage Patch dolls? And why would anybody ever go on a reality TV show? These are the typical questions you'd find asked in Slate's ...

Willa Paskin hosts the popular Slate podcast “Decoder Ring” about cracking cultural mysteries. In each episode, Willa takes a cultural question, object, or habit; examines its history; and tries to ...