As the year winds down, Kathleen Newman-Bremang, Niko Stratis and Rad Simonpillai chat with host Elamin Abdelmahmoud about the pop culture highs and lows of 2024.

Increasing numbers of young viewers are abandoning traditional kids TV shows in favour of creator-produced online content. The Wrap’s TV reporter Kayla Cobb explains the impacts of this shift on both children and the entertainment industry at large. Plus, the ongoing protests against the Giller Prize, this country’s most prestigious literary award, has sent shockwaves through CanLit. Elamin speaks to Noor Naga. She's one of many authors who've boycotted the Giller Prize. She talks about what changed in 2024.

2024 was a year of highs and lows for the video game industry. There was a labour strike, mass layoffs and controversies around diversifying the gaming world. There were also long-anticipated new releases from big franchises and surprise indie successes from smaller developers. Culture writer Jonathan Ore and podcast host and producer Camille Salazar Hadaway join guest host Ali Hassan to talk about how the past year played out in the video game industry. Plus, comedian and culture critic Ashley Ray discusses Jamie Foxx’s new Netflix standuup special 'What Had Happened Was…' and the online reaction to it.

Music journalists Rosie Long Decter and Natalie Harmsen reflect on the year in Canadian music, highlighting the artists, albums, and trends that defined the sound of Canada in 2024.

With the release of the album ‘Missionary’ - the first full-length collabo between Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, music critics Mastermind and A. Harmony join Elamin to review the new release, and how it holds up to the duo’s classic album collaborations - ‘The Chronic’ and ‘Doggystyle.’ Plus, 'The Brutalist' has been nominated for seven Golden Globes and critics are calling it a ‘New Great American Masterpiece.’ But is it really? Radheyan Simonpillai joins Elamin to talk about 'The Brutalist'. 

It’s been a year on the internet. A pygmy hippo in Thailand captured our hearts, a model taught us how to make Cocoa Puffs from scratch, a woman turned a word-on-the-street interview into a media empire — and that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Elamin is joined by culture critics Samantha Cole, Jackson Weaver and CT Jones to look back on everything that went down online this year. 

With news of a lawsuit accusing Jay-Z of raping a 13 year-old girl after an awards show more than two decades ago along with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, Elamin is joined by culture critics Kathleen Newman-Bremang and Rania El Mugammar. They'll discuss the allegations, the online response, and discuss how we might hold space for believing those who come forward with these types of claims, while considering other factors that might sway our moral compass. Plus, Jen Sookfong Lee chats with Elamin about Interior Chinatown, a new show based on the award-winning novel by Charles Yu, and whether the book’s metafictional premise works on screen.

It’s been just over a year since the CBC show The Fifth Estate aired its documentary about Buffy St. Marie, raising questions about her claim to Indigenous ancestry. In this group chat, we explore what's shifted in Indigenous art and music in the past year or so. Our guests are - Marc Meriläinen, an Ojibwe musician and producer who runs a record label called Meriläinen Music. He’s also created a program that aims to verify the identity of Indigenous musicians. And Michelle Cyca, a freelance Journalist and a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Treaty 6. She has done lots of reporting and writing and thinking about false claims of Indigenous ancestry and how they should be handled.  

Moments after we learned that Brian Thompson, the head of a healthcare insurance company, had been shot in midtown Manhattan – the internet was full of speculation about the suspect’s motives. What we did not see coming were the memes or the look alike contests that were held in New York over the weekend. Internet culture reporters Miles Klee and Rebecca Jennings join Elamin to talk about it all. Plus, this past weekend, one of the top-grossing films at the box office was the 10th-anniversary theatrical re-release of Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic Interstellar, a film that was met with a mixed reception upon its initial release in 2014, but has since come to be seen as one of the Oppenheimer director’s most important films. Vulture film critic Bilge Ebiri explains why the film is resonating more strongly today than 10 years ago.

With Taylor Swift’s epic Eras Tour wrapping up in Vancouver this past weekend, the Commotion Group Chat—Toronto Star writer Aisling Murphy, music journalist Suzy Exposito, and Swift Alert app creator Kyle Mumma—convenes to talk about the tour’s massive impact on the music industry, on fan/performer relationships and rituals, on social-media behaviours, and on Taylor herself as she closes this eventful chapter of her career and embarks on another.

'Tis the season for holiday movies, and the group chat is here and they're not all Grinches. Thomas Leblanc, Radheyan Simonpillai and Kathryn VanArendonk wade through what deserves your time and how holiday movies have changed. They also chat with Elamin about The Sticky, the new TV series based on the infamous $18 million dollar maple syrup heist in Quebec.