Landline with Mary Mahoney

Landline is the podcast where pop culture gets some context. Hosted by historian Mary Mahoney—your millennial friend with too many interests and not enough friends willing to talk on the phone—each episode calls up guests to connect today’s celebrity culture, internet trends, TV, music, and movies to the histories that explain why it all feels so familiar. Blending non-boring history, sharp cultural analysis, and the intimacy of a private phone call, Landline helps listeners make sense of the present by dialing into the past. Want more Landline? Join the patreon. You’ll get a weekly newsletter and bi-weekly episodes delivered to you all for free. For $5 a month, you can get a bonus episode, a weekly newsletter of links and recommendations, chat with other listeners about all things pop culture and history, suggest topics for future episodes, and more! You can find the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Landline with Mary Mahoney is a history podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 23 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Landline with Mary Mahoney, a history show with 23 episodes published.

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  Landline with Mary Mahoney

  Will You Light My Candle? Revisiting Rent 30 Years Later with Kait and Renata of The Worst Bestsellers Podcast

  Aug 17, 20261h 18m

  Happy 30th anniversary, Rent. I've been waiting 525,600 minutes for this one. This week on Landline, I hand my nostalgia tour over to Kait and Renata of the Worst Bestsellers podcast. They teach me about the history of Rent, including the behind-the-scenes drama. We get into everything: the wood-burning stove I'm genuinely concerned about, Jonathan Larson's death the night before Rent opened off-Broadway, a plagiarism lawsuit that I still can’t believe, the infamous fan who faked a terminal illness to get rush tickets, and what it was like to tape bootlegs, wade through early Rent message boards, listservs, and write fan fiction. Kait and Renata first met online as Rent fans, and I’m so glad they could join me on this journey through the history of Rent, which asks: what was this, what did it mean then, and what does it mean to us now? Thirty years later, does Rent hold up? Kind of. Does it still make us feel things? Absolutely. Note: Paid members will get a bonus segment with Kait and Renata’s hot takes on Rent. Hint, one involves Joey Fatone and stunt casting.  Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney   Timestamps 00:00 — Cold open: "You two said off mic that you really loved the film" 00:18 — Welcome to Landline, meet Kait and Renata of Worst Bestsellers  04:23 — So what is Rent, actually? We talk about the hot plate. 06:52 — Jonathan Larson, his death, and the real AIDS crisis backdrop the show was written into  13:45 — The legal drama begins: the Billy Aronson handshake deal  22:21 — The tragedy: Larson dies the night before Rent's off-Broadway opening  28:37 — Rush tickets, sleeping on the sidewalk, and the birth of Rent fandom (message boards, fan fiction, listservs, taping bootlegs) 32:37 — The infamous fan who faked a terminal illness to get close to the cast  54:37 — The plagiarism lawsuit: Sarah Schulman vs. Rent  1:03:01 — The Rent Live 2019 disaster (Renata won a contest and lived to tell it)  1:09:19 — Where Rent sits with us now, on its 30th anniversary Transcript Full episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f2QodlDoxGF8t044yTwnOdh6sFby5l9UkXIVZteBKQ0/edit?usp=sharing   Follow Landline: Instagram: @landlinewithmary Tiktok:@landlinewithmary YouTube:@LandlinewithMary Website: https://landlinewithmary.com/   Connect with Mary: Website: www.marymmahoney.com Instagram: @mimimahoney Email: landlinewithmary@gmail.com   Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney   Connect with Renatta and Kait, and Worst Bestsellers Podcast: Website: https://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/   Instagram: @worstbestsellers   Renata’s Instagram: @renatasnacks   Kait’s Instagram: @fourteenacross Love the show? Please leave a rating and review! It helps other listeners find Landline. Sponsor Message:  Landline is sponsored by Libro.Fm . Listen to your favorite books and support your local bookstores! (Link: https://tidd.ly/40tPrKb )  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  Landline with Mary Mahoney

  A Room of Our Own: A Very Deep Dive Into Bedroom Culture with Rachel Moss

  Jul 20, 202655 min

  Bedrooms have always been sacred ground for girls; the one square footage where you got to decide who you were before anyone else weighed in. This week I'm talking to Rachel Moss, author of In the Girls' Room: Essays on Bedroom Culture from the 90s to Now , about the long, weird, footnote-worthy history of what girls actually do behind a closed door: making zines, starting bands, papering walls with posters of their heroes, filling notebooks with genuinely bad poetry. We go from the Riot Grrrl scene in 90s Olympia and Kathleen Hanna's outsized (and under-credited) cultural footprint, to the moral panic of Reviving Ophelia and the Cassie Bernall myth, to Tavi Gevinson and Rookie Mag, all the way up to "bed rotting" as bedroom culture's more depressed, more online cousin. It's a conversation about privacy, creativity, and what happens to a private space once the internet — and your own phone — starts listening in. Grab your zine scissors, we're getting into it. Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney   Timestamps 00:08 — Intro: what "bedroom culture" is, and welcoming Rachel Moss 02:28 — Rachel's zine shelf and the joy of meeting a fellow zine person 03:04 — Making zines in secret in rural Ohio, and the Courtney Love conspiracy zine detour 05:26 — Defining bedroom culture: making, consuming, and archiving 09:21 — Where it starts: the 1950s "invention" of the American teenager 10:40 — Riot Grrrl 101: Olympia, Kathleen Hanna, and Bikini Kill 14:18 — Sadie Benning's bedroom video diaries and the tangled Riot Grrrl web (Le Tigre, etc.) 17:26 — The dark side: Prozac Nation , Reviving Ophelia , and the Cassie Bernall myth 22:51 — Shared family computers, Net Chick , and the first wave of girls building websites 28:35 — Rookie Mag, Tavi Gevinson, and Petra Collins' uncredited influence 36:00 — Bed rotting, depression, and Qualeasha Wood's 2025 gallery performance 44:44 — Building Internet Bedroom , staying independent, and resisting the algorithm 53:32 — Where to find Rachel's book, Substack, and Instagram Transcript Full episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19mENoNtmGvp4XVh_7MELEsh1laxpvIVMx-meN9-OaZk/edit?usp=sharing   Connect with Mary: Website: www.marymmahoney.com Instagram: @mimimahoney Email: MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.com Connect with Rachel Moss: Order Rachel’s books here: https://www.internetbedroom777.com YouTube: Rachel Moss (@internetbedroom)  Instagram: @girlgutters Substack: https://internetbedroom.substack.com Love the show? Please leave a rating and review! It helps other listeners find Landline. Sponsor Message:  Landline is sponsored by Libro.Fm . Listen to your favorite books and support your local bookstores! (Link: https://tidd.ly/40tPrKb ) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  Landline with Mary Mahoney

  Little House on the Prairie, The Bicentennial, and How History Came Alive in the 1970s with M.J. Rymsza-Pavlovska

  Jul 6, 20261h 13m

  I sat down with historian M.J. Rymsza-Pavlovska, author of History Comes Alive , to figure out why America decided to throw itself a birthday party in the middle of Watergate, and what that has to do with the strange, sputtering rollout of the 250th happening right now. We get into Nixon hijacking a nonpartisan commission, a very wagon train crossing the country to meet Gerald Ford, and the queer and Black history organizers who used the bicentennial's grant money to build the public history field as we know it. It turns out nostalgia isn't good or bad, it just is, and the receipts are more interesting than the fireworks. This month’s patreon episode is a 411 episode on the bicentennial. Join the $5/month tier to hear it now.  Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney   Suggest a future episode topic here: https://www.patreon.com/MaryMahoney/posts/running-list-of-159302658?collection=1744255   Timestamps 00:08 – Welcome, and why the bicentennial matters for America 250 02:05 – MJ on stumbling into a dissertation topic nobody else wanted 06:32 – How Americans went from watching history to living inside it 14:23 – Reenactment, Reagan's Oval Office for kids, and "Hippies Living History" 20:37 – 1966: Johnson forms the first bicentennial commission 29:12 – Nixon takes over and wants fireworks, not history 32:56 – Philadelphia's World's Fair collapses under its own weight 34:33 – The People's Bicentennial Commission crashes the Boston Tea Party 38:26 – The Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation and the fight for historic sites 1:04:05 – MJ's hot take: the 250th is just the 1893 World's Fair with worse merch Transcript Full episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nuDQ8GbcGKv4DmoAJ3jkPUutO8dpuDzq2oFO3SCnWpY/edit?usp=sharing   Connect with Mary: Website: www.marymmahoney.com Instagram: @mimimahoney Email: MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.com Connect with M.J. Rymsza-Pavlovska: Website: https://mjrymszapawlowska.com/   Book: History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  Landline with Mary Mahoney

  Vanilla Ice, the Queen, and 8,000 Alphabet Noodles: The 411 on the Bicentennial

  Jul 2, 20266 min

  America is turning 250 this year, and to make sense of the chaos of America 250 (Vanilla Ice on the National Mall, a Confederate flag at the Great American State Fair) I had to go back to the last time we tried this. The Bicentennial, 1976. LBJ started with an earnest planning commission. Nixon gutted it and replaced them with his buddies. Sound familiar? The country was exhausted by Watergate, Vietnam, and inflation, so we reached for nostalgia instead. Little House on the Prairie, anyone? On this episode, I take you on what The Bachelor would call "a journey" through the highs, lows, and huhs? of the bicentennial. On tap: why America is so obsessed with celebrating itself and what that's looked like in the past, the mission and merch of the bicentennial, the protests, and, inexplicably, the queen.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  Landline with Mary Mahoney

  The Field Guide to Nepo Babies with Fran Hoepfner

  Jun 22, 202656 min

  This episode, I chat with Fran Hoepfner — critic, Vulture writer, and author of The Field Guide to Nepo Babies — to trace nepotism from the medieval Catholic Church all the way to Bronny James and Kai Trump. They get into who's doing it right (Ben Platt's Rachel Zegler solidarity era, Romy Mars booking a helicopter and owning it on TikTok), who's doing it wrong (Jack Schlossberg, reheating his family's nachos), and whether Jesus Christ is technically a nepo baby. Spoiler: it depends on your theology (but it’s also making me want to rewatch Jesus Christ Superstar). Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney   Timestamps (00:00) Cold open / Fran's cat Bandit joins the show (03:10) The meritocracy myth and why nepo babies make us angry (08:08) Ben Platt's PR redemption arc (12:29) How nepotism started in the Catholic Church (hi, Borgias) (15:10) Was Jesus a nepo baby? (20:00) Emeril Lagasse IV and the "no seriously he earned it" profile (28:21) Bronny James and the tragedy of an impossible legacy (32:06) Chet Hanks: performance art or just vibes? (35:24) Jack Schlossberg, least favorite nepo baby, explained (43:38) Fran's favorites: Laura Dern, Jason Schwartzmann, the Gummers (48:18) Kai Trump's "just a regular girly" era and Tiffany Trump's strange tragedy (53:23) The takeaway: don't apologize, don't be boring, and if you have money, do something good Transcript Full episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11ghO5c8muWn77GzbPfNGP84l06ixrr8RNt4URRQDdn8/edit?usp=sharing   Connect with Mary: Website: www.marymmahoney.com Instagram: @mimimahoney Email: MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.com Connect with Fran: Read Fran’s Book! The Field Guide to Nepo Babies ( https://bookshop.org/a/102042/9781523530465 )  Subscribe to Fran Magazine: https://franmagazine.substack.com/   Website: https://www.franhoepfner.fyi/   Instagram: @franhoepfner    Love the show? Please leave a rating and review! It helps other listeners find Landline. Sponsor Message:  Landline is sponsored by Libro.Fm . Listen to your favorite books and support your local bookstores! (Link: https://tidd.ly/40tPrKb )  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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