The following podcast contains explicit language.

I'm Dana Stevens, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, Hella Doomed Edition.

It's Wednesday, August 16th, 2017, and on today's show, Insecure is an HBO comedy co-created by and starring Issa Ray as a young black woman negotiating love, friendship, work, and life in Los Angeles.

We'll discuss with Slate's own podcast producer Verlin Williams.

Then somewhere back through the eons of geological time that now seemed to separate each week in the era of Trump, we had a little nuclear war face off with North Korea last week that left everyone feeling

for a few days like it was the Cold War era all over again.

This terrifying yet absurd incident of saber rattling got us here at the Culture Fest thinking

about what is perhaps the greatest film made during and about the Cold War,

Stanley Kubrick's comic masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove.

And finally, a recent feature in New York magazine detailed what the author, Kat Rosenfeld, described as the toxic drama of YA. Twitter.

This was the furor that kicked up online surrounding the release of a new young adult fantasy novel.

We'll have Laura Miller, who slates book critic and a frequent guest on the show, on to help us understand what all that toxic drama was about and what it says about the state of online discourse. Stephen Metcalfe is out this week on vacation, I believe. So we are joined in his place by Aisha Harris, Slate Culture Writer and host of the Great Slate Podcast, represent. Hi, Aisha. Hi, Aisha. And of course, by Julia Turner, editor of Slate. Hello, Julia.

Hi, Dana. Hi, Aisha. Thanks for coming in. Thanks.

Insecure is an HBO comedy series co-created by and starring Issa Ray as in the Words of the

web series on which the show is based, an awkward black girl negotiating love, friendship, and work,

and everyday life in Los Angeles. Julia stepped out for this segment discreetly into the corridor because she is the spouse of someone who works in HBO comedy and she doesn't want to discuss HBO comedies on our show. But that's all the better for us because we're bringing into, I believe, super fans. Y'all have been followed the show since the beginning, right? Yes. Slate's own Aisha Harris and Varylne Williams, who are respectively a Slate culture writer and the host of the

Evermore Indispensable Slate podcast represent and that podcast producer. So before we dive into

our discussion of Insecure, let's listen to a clip. It feels like it doesn't matter what I do,

Issa. If I'm into them, then I'm too smothered. If I take my time and try to give them space, oh, I didn't think you were into me. Fine. Sex right away. Lose interest. Wait to have sex. Lose interest. If I don't have sex at all, I don't fucking know. I'm a grown-ass woman. I did not find out for that bullshit. I think your pussy's broken.

What?

No, I read about it.

It's like pussy's breaking everywhere.

...