Decoder Ring: Mystery of the Mullet (Encore)

Slow Burn

Slate Podcasts

News, Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Politics

4.6 • 25.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The mullet, the love-to-hate-it hairstyle, is as associated with the 1980’s as Ronald Reagan, junk bonds, and breakdancing. But in at least one major way, we are suffering from a collective case of false memory syndrome. In this episode we track the rise and fall of the mullet, and also the lexical quandary at its heart: Who named the mullet? We learn how David Bowie, hockey players, the Oxford English Dictionary, the Beastie Boys, a mysterious Reddit user named Topsmate, and a group called Annoy Club all played a part in the strange history of the mullet. Some of the voices you’ll hear in this episode include proud mullet-wearer Lauren Wright, amateur mullet-sleuth Oskar Sigvardsson, writer, market researcher, and 1980’s hockey teenager John Warner, head of product for Oxford Languages Katherine Connor Martin, and novelist and Grand Royal contributor Warren Fahy. This episode was produced by Willa Paskin and Benjamin Frisch. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at [email protected] Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Disclosure in Podcast Description: A Bond Account is a self-directed brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Deposits into this account are used to purchase 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. As of 9/26/24, the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across the Bond Account is greater than 6%. A bond’s yield is a function of its market price, which can fluctuate; therefore, a bond’s YTW is not “locked in” until the bond is purchased, and your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here. The “locked in” YTW is not guaranteed; you may receive less than the YTW of the bonds in the Bond Account if you sell any of the bonds before maturity or if the issuer defaults on the bond. Public Investing charges a markup on each bond trade. See our Fee Schedule. Bond Accounts are not recommendations of individual bonds or default allocations. The bonds in the Bond Account have not been selected based on your needs or risk profile. See https://public.com/disclosures/bond-account to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi. So a few years ago, we aired an episode about a hairstyle, the mullet. As you're about to hear,
0:06.4	it's actually about way more than a hairstyle. It's about the mullet as a word, as a symbol,
0:11.9	as a mystery, as something we collectively misremember. And in the four years since it first aired,
0:18.3	some things have changed. Like, mainly, the mullet has gotten a lot cooler in the mainstream.
0:24.3	And I think this episode does a pretty good job of explaining why.
0:27.8	Other things haven't changed, though.
0:29.9	And the mullet is still surprisingly a window into just how strongly we can believe exactly what we want to. I think it's one of our best episodes,
0:41.7	a truly expansive, satisfying, and meaningful investigation into a do that won't die. I hope you
0:50.6	enjoy.
0:59.9	This podcast contains explicit language.
1:06.8	Lauren Wright is a DJ, and for the last three years, she's had a very particular haircut.
1:10.0	You know the one. Business in the front, party in the back.
1:13.6	I am the proud owner and wearer of a mullet. So first, can you describe what your mullet looks like to be?
1:17.6	Like, what nature of mullet is it?
1:19.6	It's pretty short and tight on the sides, and I've got some solid length in the back.
1:24.6	So it's kind of getting flowy.
1:26.6	I think it's more the mullet that makes more people uncomfortable. You. So it's kind of getting flowy. I think it's more the
1:28.4	mullet that makes more people uncomfortable. You know, it's a little less feminine. It's definitely
1:33.5	curly and luscious and I don't know. I'm pretty proud of it. Lauren first encountered
1:42.2	Mullets when she was a kid back in the 90s.
1:44.5	So I grew up in Texas and I remember, I think the first mullet I ever saw in person was in elementary school.
1:52.8	My PE teacher, who was a woman, she was the head coach.
	...

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