Slow Burn

Coming May 13: Host Susan Matthews traces the rise of Neil Gorsuch, from his formative years as a young conservative through his nomination to a “stolen seat” on the U.S. Supreme Court. Through interviews, legal analysis, and archival research, the mild-mannered Westerner emerges as the court’s most unpredictable—and most important—sitting justice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are lucky to get fantastic questions from our listeners here at Decoder Ring, and in this episode, we’re going to open up our mailbag to answer three of them. What are the origins of an eerie horror film string motif? Why do companies insist on telling callers to “listen closely” to menu options that could not possibly have changed? And when did we start using the indispensable eye roll?
In this episode, you’ll hear from historical musicologist Frank Hentschel, as well as Eli Spindel, artistic director of the String Orchestra of Brooklyn. We also speak with writer Nick Greene, Holdcom CEO Andrew Begnoché, and linguist Dr. Rebecca Clift.
This episode was produced by Katie Shepherd and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Decoder Ring is also produced by Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.
Special thanks to Nicole Holliday, and to Leilehua Lanzilotti, whose website Shaken Not Stuttered is a fantastic resource about extended techniques for strings.
If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at [email protected] or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.
Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Money is everywhere. Money influences just about everything. We think about money all the time. But how much do we really know about it? In this episode of Decoder Ring, we explore the obscure historical forces that make our money what it is and behave the way it does. We ask two simple-sounding questions with surprising answers: Why is our money called the dollar—and where are those dollars really coming from?

First, you’ll hear from Brendan Greeley, a veteran finance reporter turned economic historian, and author of the new book, The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World’s Most Powerful Money. Then, we get help from Mark Blyth, a political economist at Brown University who teaches about the architecture and plumbing of global finance.

This episode was written by Willa Paskin and Max Freedman and produced by Max Freedman. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd and Supervising Producer Evan Chung. Merritt Jacob is our Senior Technical Director. Thank you to Lizzie O’Leary.

If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at [email protected] or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.

Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the summer of 2006, a teenage girl began posting video diaries to a then-new site called YouTube under the handle lonelygirl15. Within weeks she was a phenomenon—even though no one knew the truth of who she really was. The frenzied quest to change that, to solve the mystery of lonelygirl15, would ultimately land her on the front page of newspapers and the covers of magazines. Twenty years on, lonelygirl15 is both an artifact of an earlier online era and an origin point for the internet as we know it: a place full of video diaries, parasocial relationships, influencers, hyper-engaged fandoms, and the knowledge that you can’t always believe your eyes.
In this episode, you’ll hear from some of the people who investigated lonelygirl15 way back in 2006: culture critic Virginia Heffernan, who writes the Substack Magic + Loss and co-hosts the podcast Omnishambles; entertainment journalist Richard Rushfield of The Ankler; Emmy Award-winning producer Jenni Powell; and one-time cybersleuth Chris Patterson. We also speak with the people involved in making lonelygirl15: Miles Beckett, Mesh Flinders, Jessica Rose Phillipps, and Amanda Goodfried.
This episode was written by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, Decoder Ring’s Supervising Producer. Decoder Ring is also produced by Willa Paskin, Katie Shepherd, and Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.
Thank you to Greg Goodfried, Matt Foremski, and Tom Foremski. Special thanks to Ryan Broderick and Grant Irving of the podcast Panic World, who introduced Willa to the lonelygirl15 story on a recent episode of their show and suggested it might make a good topic for Decoder Ring.
If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at [email protected] or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.

Sources for This Episode
Cresci, Elena. “Lonelygirl15: how one mysterious vlogger changed the internet,” The Guardian, June 16, 2006.
Davis, Joshua. “The Secret World of Lonelygirl,” WIRED, Dec. 2006.
Falconer, Ellen. “An oral history of lonelygirl15,” RNZ, June 16, 2016.
Flemming, Brian. “Arguments for a real LG15 fall short,” Brian Flemming's Weblog, Aug. 25, 2006.
Foremski, Matt and Tom Foremski. “SVW Exclusive: The identity of LonelyGirl15,” Silicon Valley Watcher, Sep. 11, 2006.
Foremski, Tom. “How the secret identity of LonelyGirl15 was found,” Silicon Valley Watcher, Sep. 12, 2006.
Foremski, Tom. “The Hunt for LonelyGirl15: Life in a blogger household…,” Silicon Valley Watcher, Sep. 12, 2006.
Glaister, Dan. “Cult blog a fake, admit 'lonelygirl' creators,” The Guardian, Sep. 9, 2006.
Heffernan, Virginia and Tom Zeller Jr. “The Lonelygirl That Really Wasn’t,” New York Times, Sep. 13, 2006.
Heffernan, Virginia. “A Pause for Some Words From Bree,” New York Times, Aug. 23, 2006.
Heffernan, Virginia. “Sweet, Weird, Fraud or Other,” New York Times, Aug. 24, 2006.
“LGPedia,” LG15, 2016.
“lonelygirl15 and when lies could be fun,” Panic World, Feb. 4, 2026.
“Lonely Girl And All Her Friends,” On the Media, Sep. 1, 2006.
Nudd, Tim. “Lonelygirl15 still a mystery, for now,” ADWEEK, Sep. 1, 2006.
Rushfield, Richard and Claire Hoffman. “Lonelygirl15 Video Blog Is Brainchild of 3 Filmmakers,” Los Angeles Times, Sep. 13, 2006.
Rushfield, Richard and Claire Hoffman. “Mystery Fuels Huge Popularity of Web’s Lonelygirl15,” Los Angeles Times, Sep. 8, 2006.
Wendt, Milo A. “LonelyGirl15: It's Not So Lonely In The Bay Area,” milowent, Aug. 30, 2006.

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For over a century, fans of Sherlock Holmes have been analyzing, debating, and creating new texts with Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters. But when a fan theory emerged about the BBC TV show Sherlock that posited the inevitability of a gay romance between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson—it wreaked havoc on the community. In this episode, which originally aired in 2018, we explore the Johnlock Conspiracy, with help from historians, journalists, and the fans at the heart of the controversial idea. It’s almost a Holmesian tale itself, full of brilliant theories, false leads and mysterious motives—except for the ending, which, unlike in a Holmes story, isn’t very neat.

This episode was written by Willa Paskin. It was produced and edited by Benjamin Frisch, who also created the episode art. Shasha Leonárd provided production assistance, and Danielle Hewitt helped us fact check the episode. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd, Max Freedman, and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.

If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at [email protected] or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.

Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.