Welcome to the Fight Against Brain Rot
Explicit content warning
04/10/25 • 49 min
Welcome to the very first episode of "What the Fuck Did You Learn Today?," a podcast for curious minds who want to keep their brains from rotting. I’m your host, Urania Zed—writer, songwriter, overthinker—and this whole thing started with a half-asleep idea I had right before bed. I texted my friend Sara Collin the next morning and said, “Wanna be my first guest?” We met in grad school, bonded over language and humanities, and now both work in education and communications. Lucky for me, Sara was ready to go that same day—because she’d just read this CNN article about the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad site and was absolutely furious.
In this episode, we talk about why that article hit such a nerve, how storytelling shapes collective memory, and why we need to keep learning. Plus, we get into what it means to really learn something in a world that’s always trying to distract you.
Come for the righteous rage, stay for the brain gains. Let's get into it.
Resources mentioned:
- After a backlash, National Park Service restores old Underground Railroad webpage that prominently features Harriet Tubman, CNN
- The Relativity of Wrong, Issac Asimov, Wikipedia
- Federal Government’s Growing Banned Words List Is Chilling Act of Censorship, PEN AMERICA
- List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests, Wikipedia
- US student journalists go dark fearing Trump crusade against pro-Palestinian speech
- Bluesky
- Actor Ashton Kutcher, CNN in Twitter duel, Phys.org
- Yellow Journalism, EBSCO
- Breitbart
- Media Bias
- BBC
- Economist
- Musk reportedly made several pushes for Trump to back off global tariffs surge
Intro/Outro music, "Peace Arrow," by my band Kicking Down Doors.
Welcome to the very first episode of "What the Fuck Did You Learn Today?," a podcast for curious minds who want to keep their brains from rotting. I’m your host, Urania Zed—writer, songwriter, overthinker—and this whole thing started with a half-asleep idea I had right before bed. I texted my friend Sara Collin the next morning and said, “Wanna be my first guest?” We met in grad school, bonded over language and humanities, and now both work in education and communications. Lucky for me, Sara was ready to go that same day—because she’d just read this CNN article about the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad site and was absolutely furious.
In this episode, we talk about why that article hit such a nerve, how storytelling shapes collective memory, and why we need to keep learning. Plus, we get into what it means to really learn something in a world that’s always trying to distract you.
Come for the righteous rage, stay for the brain gains. Let's get into it.
Resources mentioned:
- After a backlash, National Park Service restores old Underground Railroad webpage that prominently features Harriet Tubman, CNN
- The Relativity of Wrong, Issac Asimov, Wikipedia
- Federal Government’s Growing Banned Words List Is Chilling Act of Censorship, PEN AMERICA
- List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests, Wikipedia
- US student journalists go dark fearing Trump crusade against pro-Palestinian speech
- Bluesky
- Actor Ashton Kutcher, CNN in Twitter duel, Phys.org
- Yellow Journalism, EBSCO
- Breitbart
- Media Bias
- BBC
- Economist
- Musk reportedly made several pushes for Trump to back off global tariffs surge
Intro/Outro music, "Peace Arrow," by my band Kicking Down Doors.
Next Episode
None of Us Is Leaving Here Alive
In this episode, I catch up with one of my oldest friends—someone who has never joined social media. No Facebook. No Instagram. Just a few digital breadcrumbs from AIM to Livejournal, and trailing off at MySpace.
We talk about what it means to reject the feed entirely, especially when the world feels like it’s cracking open. Topics include:
- spiritual death and mental decay
- her refusal to “log on” and lurk scroll
- the psychic toll of being hyper-online during socio-economic freefall
- the fatigue of constant social listening
- and the existential crises we curate like content
She stayed off. I stayed in. And now we’re here, trying to make sense of the ruins.
None of us is leaving here alive. But maybe we can laugh about it before we go.
Books
- Wintering by Katherine May
- A meditation on fallow seasons in life and spiritual death/rebirth cycles.
- Link to book
- Stuff White People Like by Christian Lander
- A satirical cultural commentary mentioned during the Facebook vs. MySpace discussion.
- Link to book
- We Will Not Cancel Us by adrienne maree brown
- A short book about radical compassion and transformative justice, tied to pleasure activism.
- Link to book
- Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown
- Mentioned indirectly as the book that expands on pleasure activism.
- Link to book
Podcasts
- Horror Queers
- A podcast that analyzes horror films through a queer lens.
- Link to podcast
- How Did This Get Made?
- A podcast that hilariously dissects bizarre or bad movies.
- Link to podcast
Websites & Platforms
- Letterboxd
- Social platform for film lovers to review and share film ratings and critiques.
- Goodreads
- A social cataloging site for book tracking, reviews, and recommendations.
- Yoga With Adriene
- YouTube yoga channel that became popular during the pandemic.
Media Mentions
- The Doors – Referenced as a formative musical influence.
- Led Zeppelin – Mentioned in relation to an IMAX documentary experience.
- The Office (TV Show) – Used as a mental palate cleanser.
- The Godfather – Referenced multiple times (“go to the mattresses” and “leave the gun, take the cannoli”).
WTF Did You Learn Today? - Welcome to the Fight Against Brain Rot
Transcript
All right. Hello, and welcome to "what the fuck did you learn today?" The podcast where we ask, "D'Fuck you gonna learn today?" "D'Fuck you gonna learn tomorrow?" And my name is Urania Zed, and I'm here with my guest, Sara Collin. Hi.
And this is the first time that we're doing a podcast together. Like, I just called her, and she was like, I'll come over today and we'll try this. So this is our first attempt. We are. We both work in edu
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