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Culture Changers with Allison Hare

Allison Hare

Culture Changers is where we pour gasoline on fiery topics like power, politics, religion, and relationships (thoughtfully) and find a better way through. I've interviewed people like Seth Godin, Mariel Hemingway, and Jesse Itzler among other notable world-changers. And of course, we are talking cults, trad wives, microtrends, money, faith, and what it actually means to be human right now. Listen, it's time to get up and do something. We've got a world to change!

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32 episodes
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Avg 52 min
English

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#316
Thursday · 52 min
America, you big ol' cult!
Is America one giant cult? That's the question I put to journalist Jane Borden, author of Cults Like Us: Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America. Jane fell into this topic while reporting on cults for Vanity Fair, when she started seeing the same dynamics in American culture, pop culture and politics. Her conclusion: America was founded by groups that look a lot like cults. Let's get into some history!
#315
October 29 · 1 hr 8 min
Escaping a Family Cult: Stella McCormick and Deliver Us From Mother
Church is always supposed to be the safest place you could possibly go, right? Today I sit down with Stella McCormick, author of Deliver Us From Mother: Faith, Fear, and the Family Cult That Broke Me, to talk about growing up in what Stella calls an evangelical, fundamentalist, Christian single-family cult led by her mother.
#314
October 22 · 33 min
Fraud or Failure? Elizabeth Holmes, Elon Musk & You Can See Everything.
Fraud or failure? I just walked out of You Can See Everything and the Musk documentary, and I can't stop thinking about where innovation ends and delusion begins. ⚠️ Spoilers ahead (the biggest ones start around 22:26).
#313
October 15 · 48 min
Is Elon Musk the Greatest Entrepreneur Ever? with Eric Jorgenson
Eric Jorgenson wrote The Book of Elon, built entirely from Elon Musk’s own words. Allison asks the question everyone argues about: is Elon the greatest entrepreneur who ever lived? Eric thinks so, with an asterisk. They get into risk, speed, fear, the “boss from hell” question, and why Eric believes 99.9% of organizations err on the side of too slow or too soft. They also cover Elon’s politics and critics, what people get wrong about him, and why Eric gives the book away for free.
#312
October 8 · 48 min
Midterm Mania: What Political Consultants Actually Do with Michelle Coyle
Political consultant Michelle Coyle breaks down why negative ads actually work, where campaign money really goes, and what nobody admits about corruption until the mic is off. Seven weeks from the midterms, this is the conversation everyone posting about politics needs to hear.
#311
October 1 · 59 min
Death of the Pastor's Wife: What Really Happened to Mica Miller with Jennie Gage
Mica Miller told her friends that if she died by suicide, it wasn't her. It was JP. Netflix gave Death of the Pastor's Wife three episodes, and my repeat guest Jennie Gage watched her own marriage play out on screen. She spent 24 years as the wife of a Mormon church leader, survived her own suicide attempt, and has a theory about what really happened to Mica. This one is harrowing. Trigger warnings on this one: suicide, abuse, and religious coercion.
#310
September 24 · 56 min
She sang at Trump's Inauguration, then Left the Church: Julianna Glasse
Julianna Glasse was a chart topping Christian pop star who sang at Donald Trump's 2017 National Prayer Breakfast and taught tens of thousands of women that their closeness to God ran straight through their husbands. Then her husband found the books she was hiding, threw one on the floor, and told her "this is what happens when you read." She turned his sentence into the title of her new book, lost her marriage, her tours, and her book deal, survived death threats and sexual violence threats from
#309
September 17 · 58 min
Rich and Addicted: Matt Grace and what saved him
Matt Grace grew up with a chef, a housekeeper, and a father who paid for his first prostitute, and by 29 he'd spent a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on sex workers and burned through every drug you can name. Matt spent his career as an interventionist for some of the wealthiest addicts in the country and just released his book, God Doesn't Relapse. We get into the therapist who diagnosed him with an Oedipus complex at nine, the house that became the neighborhood's drug den, the mother who fi
#308
September 10 · 1 hr 9 min
Death of the Pastor's Wife: What Netflix Left Out
JP Miller preached a full sermon less than 24 hours after his wife died - allegedly by suicide - without taking a single question about it. Netflix gave "Death of the Pastor's Wife" three episodes but still left out a lot: the earlier conviction, the first wife whose stories echoed Mica's experience, the third wife already leading worship beside him. I watched the whole thing, went deep into the rabbit hole - and am reporting back here as I noticed some notable patterns that are showing up right
#307
September 3 · 47 min
Healing is Hilarious: Pop culture and comedians with Rachel LaForce
Are you as obsessed as I am with the dumbest headlines of the week? Well, you're in luck! I've got comedian and pop culture whisperer Rachel LaForce on to break down what Spencer Pratt's mayoral run, the $250 Trump bill, and trad wife content filmed at Home Goods actually say about the rest of us. Rachel got sober by accident, spent decades masking her neurodivergence, and built her whole show around one idea: comedy gets you to the truth faster than seriousness does. This is a fast, sharp, occa
#306
August 27 · 1 hr
The Ambition Penalty with Stefanie O'Connell
I grew up thinking if I did everything right, negotiated hard enough, leaned in enough, the outcome would eventually match the effort. Y'all, that was a big old fat lie. Stefanie O'Connell spent years digging into the research for her new book, The Ambition Penalty, and the data is downright shocking. We get into girlboss culture and tradwife culture, and why they're actually selling the same lie in different outfits. We talk about what happens to women who out earn their male partners, and I pr
#305
August 20 · 54 min
Gen X, there's a new Lilith Fair rising
The women who built Lilith Fair were called "angry," "hysterical," "emotional," and dismissed as "a bunch of lesbians" back in the 90s. Turns out Sarah McLachlan and her all-female lineup were way ahead of their time, running the highest grossing tour of 1997. Now the concept is back, and leading the charge is Olivia Rodrigo, using her platform to advocate for women's rights. This is a fun, fascinating, and timely look at how right those women were, and why the fight just picked up way more stea
#304
August 13 · 52 min
Fascinating lies behind our favorite ads
Are you as obsessed as I am about how we are being manipulated by social media, ads, propaganda, politics - and what's real and what's not? Well, you're in luck! I've got ad sleuth Emily Rask from the hit show Lies We Bought podcast on to break it down for us! This is a fun and fascinating exploration into the sinister truth of advertising.
#303
August 6 · 1 hr 5 min
I Found My Dad's Lost Story
My dad passed away last week at 97. Nine years earlier, dementia had already taken his ability to tell us his own story. But in 2012, almost by accident, I recorded an hour-long interview with him using a handheld recorder I used to run for a music blog. I found that tape again the week he died. Milad Rizk was born in Tripoli, Lebanon in 1928, survived World War Two as a kid, and immigrated to the United States at 29 with a Lebanese passport and no money. He spent his career as an international
#302
June 25 · 51 min
Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders Season 3: We can't stop! w/ Mara Davis
Two DCC-obsessed feminists break down America's Sweethearts Season 3 on Netflix. Reece's early retirement and the trad wife speculation, Faith's breakout season (and the ponytail drama), Kelli Finglass's leadership genius, and the feminist paradox of loving a show this problematic. Plus we know who's coming back for next season - maybe.
#301
June 18 · 42 min
DEI Is Gone. Now What? With HR Insider Kevin Calhoun
Kevin Calhoun: Black, gay, doctorate, DEI insider at major corporations. He watched diversity programs get built and then dismantled. Now there's a new kind of Jim Crow The racism in the post-meeting meeting. Here's what you can do about it.
#300
June 11 · 23 min
The Matriarchy
On episode 300, Allison shares the solo episode she recorded right after her mother's death — about the matriarchy, hypermasculine burnout, and what it means to finally be enough.
#299
June 4 · 49 min
Inside a hit comedy podcast with The Commercial Break
Behind the mic with Bryan Green and Krissy Hoadley of The Commercial Break, the comedy podcast ranked #1 in improv on Spotify and Apple with 1,000+ episodes and 50 million downloads. They were in my very first podcast cohort in 2019. This is their origin story and how they made it grow and last.
#298
May 28 · 56 min
The Guru Era is Dead. What comes next? with Dr. Liz Bucar
Are we done with the guru era? We went from prophet to profit.. Dr. Liz Bucar — religious ethicist, Northeastern professor, and author of Beyond Wellness — joins Allison to talk Jay Shetty, Deepak Chopra, disordered eating rooted in bad theology, doing ayahuasca in an Oregon yurt for research, and why dying well might be the most important wellness conversation nobody is having. EP298.
#297
May 21 · 1 hr 8 min
Ex-Mormon, Ex-MAGA, Ex-Tradwife: How Lesbians Broke the Spell with Jennie Gage
She was ex-Mormon, ex-MAGA, ex-tradwife — and it took a group of lesbians to crack 44 years of iron-clad indoctrination. Jennie Gage of Life Take Two joins Allison to talk cult psychology, the Erica Kirk threat, and what happens to your identity when everything you believed turns out to be a lie.

Showing 1–20 of 32 episodes