People Stuff

Dan and Michael Never Could Have Been Contenders (feat. Justin Dang) | Competition, Hiring Hell, and Finance Club Hunger Games

Competition used to be for sports and maybe college admissions. Now it’s for internships, student clubs, networking coffee chats, LinkedIn visibility, and apparently sleep scores monitored by the national security state. This week on People Stuff, Michael and Dan are joined by Brown University senior and Product Management Club leader Justin Dang to talk about what happens when every institution starts operating like a tournament bracket. Along the way: * A party argument escalates into a threat of violence. * Dan explains why modern hiring systems have become ritualized suffering. * Justin walks through the reality of tech and finance recruiting, where students apply to hundreds of jobs and spend months networking strategically. * Michael argues that universities are now “clubs all the way down.” * Oura Rings drift toward military-surveillance infrastructure. * The Fourth Amendment gets aggressively workshopped. The episode explores a central question: if nobody actually knows how to identify the “best” people, why are modern institutions so obsessed with ranking everyone constantly? Also discussed: meritocracy theater, grade inflation, referral hiring, junior golf, exhausted student leaders, networking psychosis, and why finance clubs increasingly resemble tiny consulting firms run by sleep-deprived 20-year-olds. If modern life feels like one endless competition, this episode is for you. That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people. If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com [https://www.people-stuff.com/]   Credits Produced by Gabe Bullard Music by The Endless Bummer Art by Siobhan Henegan Marketing by Bryan Haut Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle. You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism. So go to people-stuff.com [https://www.people-stuff.com/]

Home Is Where the Asset Is: FIRE Roommates, Haunted Houses, and Billionaires Who Don’t Pay Taxes

This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael tackle one of the great contradictions of modern life: why Americans treat houses simultaneously as sacred homes, speculative assets, retirement plans, emotional support animals, and deeply cursed money pits. Along the way: FIRE enthusiasts buy a house without an inspection and immediately discover foundation problems; a listener wants to know the most important room in a home; another listener discovers that buying a charming old house may also require becoming the kind of person who owns tools. The conversation spirals into robber barons, billionaire tax avoidance, HGTV ideology, HOA fascism, structural anthropology, Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis of the Berber house, and why private equity firms should probably not own entire neighborhoods. Also discussed: * Why “homeownership” increasingly means “becoming an unwilling asset manager” * The anthropology of haunted houses * Why economists accidentally destroy everything they touch * Whether swinging a hammer makes you a man * Why every old house is secretly a graduate seminar in suffering * The cultural logic of Home Depot * Why billionaires should pay taxes instead of buying yachts large enough to avoid shame As always, Dan and Michael remain anthropologists who know stuff about people. People Stuff. That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people. If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com [https://www.people-stuff.com/]   Credits Produced by Gabe Bullard Music by The Endless Bummer Art by Siobhan Henegan Marketing by Bryan Haut Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle. You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism. So go to people-stuff.com [https://www.people-stuff.com/]

Dan and Michael Get Back in the Saddle (with Jennifer Van Tiem) | Horses and the Anthropology of Riding

Horse girls. German cowboys. Private equity bowling alleys. This week on People Stuff, we take on horses—not just as animals, but as cultural objects, status symbols, and surprisingly effective therapists. Joined by medical anthropologist Jennifer Van Tiem, we explore how an eight-year-old’s horse obsession spirals into real estate searches, why the Western refuses to die (it just changes costumes), and what exactly is happening when a prey animal becomes your emotional support system. Along the way: * Barrel racing as unexpectedly egalitarian sport design * The anthropology of hobbyist subcultures (including German Plains reenactors) * Why horses don’t lie—and why that’s a problem for you * Bowling alleys, private equity, and the collapse of third places * Domestication, co-regulation, and who’s actually in control Chapters 00:00 Intro 02:10 Fresh Hell: Political shoe rituals 08:45 Horse girls and equine obsession 22:30 Westerns, Germany, and Karl May 38:10 Fixing Bowling (and third places) 47:50 Why horses bond with humans 58:00 Outro If you’ve ever wondered why horses inspire lifelong devotion—or how a genre about the frontier became a global fantasy—this episode has answers. Some more satisfying than others. Remember: we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people. That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people. If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com [https://www.people-stuff.com/]   Credits Produced by Gabe Bullard Music by The Endless Bummer Art by Siobhan Henegan Marketing by Bryan Haut Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle. You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism. So go to people-stuff.com [https://www.people-stuff.com/]

Is It Really Human Nature? Gender, Boys, Parenting & Bad Anthropology | People Stuff feat. Agustín Fuentes

This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael are joined by Princeton anthropologist Agustín Fuentes—author of Sex Is a Spectrum and Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You—to ask what human nature actually means, and why people keep using it to justify behavior they don’t want to examine too closely. We cover: * Why Lord of the Flies is bad anthropology * Scout camp pranks, masculinity, and whether boys are “naturally” violent * Looksmaxxing, incel language, and why young men are hitting themselves in the jaw with hammers * Why Gen Z men are getting weird about gender roles * Parenting anxiety and whether your 3-year-old really needs $400/month gymnastics * Why gossip is stronger than capitalism * Why “human nature” is often just culture wearing a fake mustache Plus: Michael tries to fix Gen Z, Dan defends gossip as civilization, and we discover that humanity may just be pre-crab evolution. We’re anthropologists. We know stuff about people. That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people. If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com [https://www.people-stuff.com/]   Credits Produced by Gabe Bullard Music by The Endless Bummer Art by Siobhan Henegan Marketing by Bryan Haut Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle. You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism. So go to people-stuff.com [https://www.people-stuff.com/]

Dan and Michael Read a Book: Why We Treat Books as Sacred (and When They’re Just Trash)

This week, Dan and Michael talk about books. Along the way: * A library purge shocks a 10-year-old (and maybe you) * A listener in prison asks the ultimate question: what should I read? * The anthropology of book bans, book burning, and moral panic * Why most books are disposable commodities (yes, really) * How to build a reading list without losing your mind Plus: * Why Moby-Dick is still worth it * The case for genre fiction and “low” literature * Books as status objects, conversation markers, and physical artifacts * A fake Karl Marx signature that somehow becomes… meaningful And in “Fixing Shit”: We finally solve the most annoying sound in modern life: the backup beep beep beep. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by what to read—or quietly judged someone by their bookshelf—this episode is for you. We’re anthropologists. We know stuff about people. That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people. If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com [https://www.people-stuff.com/]   Credits Produced by Gabe Bullard Music by The Endless Bummer Art by Siobhan Henegan Marketing by Bryan Haut Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle. You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism. So go to people-stuff.com [https://www.people-stuff.com/]