Now It's Ruined

Happy Olympics! Get ready to learn a TON of ruinous stuff about the games, from the unpleasant inventor of the torch relay to how the 1984 games changed the way Los Angeles was policed. 

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Minneapolis Mutu...

This week, Kate and Larkin are thrilled to chat with professional cosplayer Alia Pyatt, aka Magical Black Girl Alia, who discusses her experiences as a Black female cosplayer. While her time in cosplay has been overwhelmingly positive, she’s also seen her fair share of racism, sexism, and ableism in the community. Tune in to learn about the rampant gatekeeping that has driven many cosplayers out of a hobby that was once an escape f...

Gynecological exams and procedures are notoriously unpleasant, and the field is frustratingly under-researched. It seems like it’s already ruined, so why do an episode on it?

Well, Larkin has an abundance of unpleasant history to add to the mix, including a long line of men known as the “fathers” of the practice, who committed horrific acts while barely advancing their understanding. From murdering the poor to performing unanestheti...

New Year’s Resolutions are a common way to set goals for the upcoming year. But they can also cause self-doubt and unnecessary pressure. Anti-burnout coach Rhia Batchelder teaches Kate and Larkin about the puritanical origins of the tradition and gives tips on how to make resolutions that will actually motivate you, without driving you into a shame spiral.

Book a free assessment with Rhia on her website, rebuildwithrhia.com, and fol...

It’s a Now It’s Ruined holiday special! 

Kate breaks the usual format to bring you three shorter Christmas-related ruins. She discusses a cannibalistic scarecrow, the murder-riddled true story behind Good King Wenceslas, and how the Vikings permanently deforested Iceland. 

Happy holidays!

Special thanks to Elisa Hanssen, aka Elisa in Iceland, for helping us pronounce Icelandic words! Follow her on Instagram and TikTok.

References

Hans T...

Kate dives into the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping, exploring the crime, evidence, and theories about who was involved. She and Larkin discuss whether they think the man convicted of the crime acted alone, if the kidnapping was an inside job, and whether Charles Lindbergh’s interest in eugenics motivated him to get rid of his sickly child. 

CW: Violence against children

References

The Baby Alice Thumb Guard

https://www.fbi.gov/history/famou...

Need a break from your family this Thanksgiving? Come celebrate Now It’s Ruined-style! Larkin busts the idyllic myth of the first Thanksgiving before giving a rundown of how nutritional standards were shaped by the military-industrial complex and horrific experiments on Indigenous Canadian children. 

CW: Graphic Violence, Food Trauma, Medical Trauma

If you’d like to make a difference to people who are living with food insecurity, che...

There are lots of fun facts about bananas: They’re radioactive, they may be the oldest fruit in the world, and they’re technically berries! So how did the bright yellow, comedy-inspiring fruit cause massacres, coups, and human rights violations? It’s a colonialist tale as old as time, full of not-so-fun facts about bananas and the men who steamrolled entire countries in order to sell them. 

References

https://www.epa.gov/radtown/natu...

Happy Halloween! We’re joined again by our guest and muse, Erica Vogel, who busts some myths- and tells us some disturbing truths- about the concept of tainted Halloween candy. Where did this panic come from? How many children have been poisoned by candy? Has anyone ever actually found a razor blade in their taffy apple? Wtf is a taffy apple? And what the hell was Ann Landers’ problem with Halloween? Hear about all this and more in...

In honor of Indigenous Peoples' Day, we wanted to dive into the life of the incredible Indigenous American athlete, Jim Thorpe.

Despite a life marked with abuse, racism, alcoholism, and loss, Jim became the greatest athlete of the 20th century (we’d say ever), as well as an exceedingly generous member of his community. On top of his athletic accomplishments, Jim created a legacy of selflessness and love, truly living up to the name ...

How would you describe Hello Kitty? Cute? Innocent? A cat? You’d be partly right, but hold up on that last one…

Larkin walks us through the history and legacy of Hello Kitty, shares some facts about her that make Kate absolutely furious, and describes how a culture of cute helped heal the economy (and image) of post-war Japan.

References

Yano, Christine R. (2013) Pink Globalization - Hello Kitty’s Trek Across the Pacific. Duke Univers...

Happy American football season! Let’s talk about head trauma.

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease that’s especially common in athletes. CTE has cascading effects that can cause memory loss, aggression, and other disturbing cognitive and personality changes, and football ranks second-highest on the list of sports with the most CTE exposure. This episode will teach you more about this upsetting diseas...

Since we had “too much fun” in our last episode about emus, Kate decided to bring us back down hard with an episode about a seemingly innocuous topic: Road signs. 

We all see road signs all the time. But have you ever wondered who makes them? Then answer is the same as for many products in the United States: Prisoners.

This episode covers the history of road signs in the U.S., the history of prisons around the world, and how America’...

In this episode, we ruin (and somehow simultaneously enhance) our first animal, the emu. Larkin tells us terrifying facts about these giant dinosaur birds, then goes into the story of the “Emu War” that took place in post-WWI Australia. It’s a distinctly fun episode that will also depress you with stories of trench warfare and, as ever, colonialism.

References

https://www.science.org/content/article/why-did-new-zealands-moas-go-extin...

We're sorry to upcycle again so soon, but we're actually kind of excited because this is one of our favorite things we've recorded.

In it, Larkin outlines her effort to track down the red-eyed, child-eating cryptid she talked about in our False Eyelashes episode. It turns out she may have invented a Now It's Ruined original cryptid, the Dusty Werewolf. But her journey to identify it led her to many fascinating child-stealing cryptid...

Welcome to the episode that gave Kate “the deepest ick” of any we’ve done yet. And don’t worry, it’s not about factory farms or the morality of eating meat. 

We all know bacon and eggs as an iconic breakfast combo. But have you ever thought about why we eat it for breakfast? 

It’s because it was sold to the American public by a master of propaganda: Edward Bernays.

Bernays revolutionized the advertising industry by using psychology to...

In our slightly belated second Pride episode, Larkin discusses the dark history behind the pink triangle, a symbol of activism in the LGBTQIA+ community. Once used by the Nazis to identify gay male prisoners in concentration camps, the symbol was reclaimed in the 80s and used as a call to action during the AIDS crisis. Listen and learn about queer trailblazer Magnus Hirschfeld, which member of Hitler’s regime was openly gay, and Ka...

Content Warning: This episode contains detailed descriptions of a deadly building fire. Listener discretion is advised.

Due to the unexpected passing of Kate's mom, we're upcycling our first Patreon bonus episode so we don't leave you without content for a week. More ruinous content will come your way soon, but we appreciate your understanding and support during this tough time. 

We didn't know much about this tragedy before we resea...

Happy Pride!!! 

In our first guest episode, Kate and Larkin are joined by Erica Vogel, author of the book Advice from Your Trans Aunty and the episodic Substack memoir Blue Sky Bird. Erica has spent the majority of her life solving a wide variety of trials and tribulations as both a closeted and out transgender woman. Drawing from her experiences, her education, and her interactions with thousands of transgender people, she provides...