Don't Praise The Machine (DPTM)

Screensavers used to be a whole universe — toasters with wings, mazes drawing themselves, flying stars you could stick your face in. Then one day they just... stopped. This week Alex and John dig up three pieces of tech that were once completely unremarkable parts of daily life and are now totally gone: screensavers, ringtones, and answering machines. Along the way: the accidental birth of the flying toaster, why Jefferson Airplane nearly sued a screensaver company, the Berlin-founded ringtone empire that gave the world Crazy Frog, a $4.4 billion industry that vanished in five years, and the case for the answering machine as the original social media platform.

Bonnie Tyler has died, and with her goes something bigger than one Welsh voice with a rasp. Total Eclipse of the Heart is seven minutes of zero-irony emotional maximalism, the kind of song everyone on Earth knew without ever choosing to, and nobody makes anything like it anymore. So this week Alex and John tear up the episode schedule to ask the big question: what actually killed the power ballad?Along the way: Jim Steinman, the leather-gloved rock opera maximalist who wrote it for a Nosferatu vampire musical (really), the gloriously unhinged music video, the uncredited male vocalist you never knew was on the track, the 1995 Nikki French eurodance cover that fooled a generation, why hair metal bands were contractually obligated to get sentimental, and how irony, algorithms and the death of the school disco slow dance quietly murdered the most sincere genre pop music ever produced.Turn around, bright eyes. This one's for Bonnie.

One in eight Americans is on a GLP-1, and the ripples are turning up in the strangest places. Victoria's Secret is selling fewer big bras. Secondhand sites are drowning in suddenly-too-large wardrobes. The checkout impulse aisle — a $6 billion monument to your eroded willpower — is dying. In part two of our GLP-1 deep dive, Alex and John follow the money through the collapsing snack economy: why cinemas and theatre bars are in trouble, how Nestlé is pivoting to three-bite meals, what happens to cruise ships when "all you can eat" stops being a selling point, the uncomfortable questions around kids and prisoners on the jab — and why the humble Gila monster is the unlikely lizard behind it all.Missed part one? Go back and start there.

30 million Americans are quietly getting thinner, and it's not through discipline or willpower. It's a weekly injection derived from the saliva of a Gila monster lizard. Welcome to the Ozempic revolution.In part one of a two-part series, Alex and John dig into the GLP-1 drug phenomenon that's reshaping bodies, brains, and culture at a speed no diet trend ever has. From the Danish pharmaceutical company that accidentally broke its own stock exchange, to the celebrities suspiciously crediting "lifestyle changes" for dramatic weight loss, to the uncomfortable question of what these drugs mean for the body positivity movement, this is way bigger than weight loss.They also revisit the original cutting-edge weight loss technology: Light and Easy frozen meals, a bag of South Australian marijuana, and absolutely no self-control.Topics covered: Ozempic, Wegovy, semaglutide, GLP-1 drugs, weight loss drugs 2024, body positivity, Novo Nordisk, celebrity weight loss, Lizzo, Mindy Kaling, Megan Trainor, Wegovy ads, food culture, diet culture historyDon't Praise The Machine is a weekly comedy podcast about the ways culture is shifting, hosted by two old friends from opposite sides of the world.New episodes every week. Subscribe so you don't miss part two.

This week Alex and John trace the full arc — from Ötzi the Iceman's 5,300-year-old tattoos to the Gen Z vs millennial style split, the mainstreaming of ink in professional life, and the industry that's now growing faster than tattooing itself: laser removal.Also discussed: how you rebel against your parents when your mum is already covered in tattoos, why the tattoo removal industry is worth $1.86 billion a year, and whether John will ever get one.

Alex saw Michael Jackson perform live in 1996. He was 14, obsessed, and desperately wanted to be one of those lucky boys he always saw by Michael's side. As the years went on, he became very glad he wasn't.With the MJ biopic crossing a billion dollars at the box office and two active lawsuits still pending against his estate, Alex and John ask the question nobody in a theatre queue seems to be asking: what exactly are we all agreeing to ignore?In this episode we cover the decades-long pattern of behaviour, the 1993 Jordan Chandler settlement, the evidence presented at the 2005 trial, the Australian boys, Leaving Neverland, and the $16.5 million payout to the Cascio family that almost nobody knows about.And underneath all of it: the uncomfortable truth that his music is so woven into the fabric of our lives that the world has quietly decided the evidence just isn't worth looking at.Michael Jackson | MJ Biopic 2025 | Leaving Neverland | Jordan Chandler | Gavin Arvizo | Wade Robson | Cascio Family Lawsuit | Michael Jackson Documentary | Don't Press the Machine Podcast

This week on Don't Praise the Machine, we're asking the question nobody in the productivity space wants to answer: is optimization culture actually making your life worse?When a clip of Steven Bartlett went viral, explaining how three glasses of wine with friends "ruined him for three days," the internet didn't push back on the sobriety. They pushed back on the measurement. The Whoop band. The sleep scores. The idea that a normal Thursday night had become a biometric failure.We dig into whether treating your life as a quantifiable system to be hacked and continuously improved is quietly destroying the things that make life worth living. Friendship, spontaneity, and the occasional loaded fry.If you've ever felt guilty for enjoying yourself, this one's for you.

Rebel Wilson , star of Fat Pizza, Bridesmaids, and now defendant in her own defamation trial — is back in an Australian courtroom, this time on the wrong side of the lawsuit.We break down the full saga: a Bondi Beach hives incident, an Outback debutante ball musical, nasty websites, a Ghislaine Maxwell comparison, and PR staffers privately texting that their own client is completely unhinged.Joining the breakdown is a practicing Australian barrister who has been quietly calculating his own defamation exposure since agreeing to appear on this episode — and deploying the word "allegedly" as a legal shield throughout.⚖️ Topics covered:Rebel Wilson's defamation history & previous court winThe Charlotte vs. Rebel lawsuit explainedHow Australian defamation law actually worksWhy this case could cost Rebel millionsThe wildest cast of characters in recent celebrity litigation🎙️ Don't Praise the Machine is your survivor's guide to the cultural apocalypse.