Decoder Ring | Spring Break Forever
Slow Burn
Slate Audio
4.6 • 25.2K Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2025
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The infamous annual ritual of spring break—where thousands of college students head to the same warm location and go crazy—can seem like it’s always been here. But it hasn’t. The spring break phenomenon is a holdover from midcentury teen culture that has endured by changing, just enough, to be passed from one generation to the next. In this episode we’re going from the beaches of Fort Lauderdale to Daytona, from the movie screen to the TV set, from MTV to Instagram reels, from its start to its surprisingly recognizable present, as we follow the evolving, self-reinforcing rite that is spring break.
You’ll hear from former MTV staffers Doug Herzog, Salli Frattini, Alan Hunter, and Joe Davola, along with John Laurie, Kaylee Morris, and Slate writer Scaachi Koul.
This episode was written by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd and produced by Katie. It was edited by Evan Chung, Decoder Ring’s supervising producer. Our show is also produced by Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.
Thank you to Bob Friedman and Allan Cohen, producers of Spring Broke; David Cohn, Derreck Johnson, and Ivylise Simones.
If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at DecoderRing@slate.com, or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281.
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.
Sources for This Episode
Koul, Scaachi. “From ‘Girls Gone Wild’ to ‘Your Body, My Choice’,” Slate, Dec. 13, 2024.
Laurie, John. “Spring Break: The Economic, Socio-Cultural and Public Governance Impacts of College Students on Spring Break Host Locations,” University of New Orleans Dissertation, Dec. 19, 2008.
Mormino, Gary R. Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams: A Social History of Modern Florida, University Press of Florida, 2008.
Schiltz, James. “Time to Grow Up: The Rise and Fall of Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale,” The Florida Historical Quarterly, Fall 2014.
Spring Broke, dir. Alison Ellwood, Bungalow Media + Entertainment, 2016.
Thompson, Derek. “2,000 Years of Partying: The Brief History and Economics of Spring Break,” The Atlantic, March 26, 2013.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before we begin, this episode contains adult content and language. |
| 0:11.8 | I don't know when you're going to be listening to this episode, but as I talk to you right now, it's April. |
| 0:17.0 | Spring has officially begun, but winter is lingering, and it would be nice to take a break. |
| 0:23.1 | Lots of people do. Millions of Americans travel somewhere warm in March and April. |
| 0:27.6 | Schools from elementary on up, close their doors, and people pick up and go somewhere. |
| 0:32.0 | That means many of these trips, most even, are a kind of family vacation happening during spring break. |
| 0:39.5 | But when I hear the phrase spring break, I'm not picturing a family trip. |
| 0:49.3 | Spring break is an infamous annual ritual in which thousands of college students notoriously |
| 0:55.2 | and stereotypically head to the same location. |
| 0:58.8 | Somewhere cheap and warm and go crazy. |
| 1:02.8 | Spring break, a time, as they say, to get hammered, wasted, ripped or blasted. |
| 1:07.8 | Translation, roaring drunk. |
| 1:10.6 | Growing up in the 90s and 2000, spring break felt like it was |
| 1:13.5 | everywhere, on TV, in the news, in sitcoms, and especially on MTV. Now it's time to shake spring |
| 1:22.2 | break until it breaks. Get ready to move in sweat. One academic paper found that 40% of college students at the time participated. |
| 1:29.3 | I'm sure I would have thought nothing of this back then. |
| 1:32.3 | But more recently, I've become curious about spring breaks ubiquity. |
| 1:36.3 | We treat college students flying south every year like migrating birds, |
| 1:41.3 | as if flocking in mass to warm weather locations to engage in various rituals, |
| 1:46.9 | mating and otherwise, is part of their very nature. |
| 1:50.0 | But it's not. |
| 1:51.7 | Spring Break is a man-made phenomenon, a habit that has somehow survived massive cultural changes, |
... |
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