Bonus: When the Internet Stopped Being Fun
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 July 2025
⏱️ 5 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is anyone having fun on the internet anymore? Let’s all go touch grass.
Guest: Scaachi Koul, Slate senior writer and author of “It’s Time to Log Off.”
This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive episodes of What Next —you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, Ethan Oberman, and Rob Gunther.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone, you are entering Slate Plus territory. That means we kind of let our bellies out. |
| 0:04.4 | So there's some cursing. You've been warned. |
| 0:09.0 | Hey, Slatsters, it's Mary. You hear that music and you know what time it is. It's Friday. |
| 0:14.0 | And not just any Friday, it's the 4th of July. So happy 4th of July, I guess. I don't know. |
| 0:20.5 | I don't know how y'all are feeling about that. |
| 0:21.8 | But it's time for a little Slate Plus conversation. |
| 0:24.6 | We do this like once every other week. |
| 0:26.3 | We drag a Slate Star into the studio with me. |
| 0:29.4 | And we just hash it out. |
| 0:31.6 | And I am so thrilled that this week, Sachi Cole is in the studio. |
| 0:35.9 | Hello, Sachi. |
| 0:37.0 | When I say studio, I mean, I'm in my closet and you're at home, but yeah, hi. Hi, it's the magic of the internet. How are you? The magic of the internet. It's funny you say that because we're talking about like the magic of the internet and whether like, I don't know, the bloom is off the rose here. Oh, girl, it's over. It's been off. |
| 0:54.3 | It's so over. It's been over. Yeah. |
| 0:57.1 | Okay, so usually we give this combo like 15 minutes, so we're going to put that up on the |
| 1:01.5 | clock. I'm going to try to keep myself to it because it's about to be a holiday. |
| 1:05.3 | But it'll start here. You wrote this great article a couple weeks back called It's Time to Log Off. |
| 1:12.5 | And I thought of you this week, because it's July 4th, it's definitely time to log off. |
| 1:18.0 | But also because I think I'd just share your perspective about how the Internet was once this thing that was delightful and filled with possibility. |
| 1:30.2 | And now it feels like it's not? |
| 1:33.1 | Or the possibility it's there as bad. |
| 1:33.7 | Yeah. |
| 1:36.1 | I mean, it is still, everything is full of possibility. |
... |
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