Europe's anti-Elon

The Europeans | European news, politics and culture

Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer

News, Society & Culture, Politics

0.0 • 0 Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2026

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Back when Elon Musk was challenging Mark Zuckerberg to a cage fight, Eugen Rochko was building an open-source, non-problematic Twitter alternative, completely without fanfare. Last year, the Mastodon founder announced his departure from the head of the social media platform in a candid blog post, citing a growing discomfort with the role and an interest in preserving the site’s decentralised values. But Mastodon lives on, and – full disclosure – we’re all for it. This week, we spoke to Eugen about his dreams for the “fediverse” and about whether his vision for ethical, supervillain-free online communities has a promising future. In fact, we enjoyed the conversation so much that we’re releasing a longer version for supporters of the podcast.

Also in this episode: a compromise in Europe’s War on Veggie Burgers and the end of the decade-long Iceland-the-country-versus-Iceland-the-grocery-store dispute.

Resources for this episode:

“‘Veggie burgers’ are here to stay. Lab-grown ‘steaks’ never will be.” – Politico, 5 March 2026
“European consumer insights on the alternative protein sector” – The Good Food Institute Europe, 25 November 2025
Eugen on Mastodon
“My next chapter with Mastodon” – Mastodon blog, 18 November 2025
“The Statues Were Mostly Men or Nude Women. So These Knitters Got to Work.” – The New York Times, 5 March 2026

This week’s Inspiration Station recommendations are the Apple TV show Drops of God and the Swiss Android app Nearby Glasses.

You’ve probably heard by now that we have a newsletter. And you’ve probably already subscribed. Why wouldn’t you have? You’re smart, you’re cool, you’re with the programme; you love us, you want more of us. So leaving this link here for you to sign up is purely a formality.

This podcast was brought to you in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news. But it’s contributions from listeners that truly make it all possible – we could not continue to make the show without you! If you like what we do, you can chip in to help us cover our production costs at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/europeanspodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (in many different currencies), or you can gift a donation to a superfan. You can also donate via our website if you prefer. And finally: we'd also love it if you could tell two friends about this podcast. We think two feels like a reasonable number.

Produced by Morgan Childs and Wojciech Oleksiak
Mixing and mastering by Wojciech Oleksiak
Music by Jim Barne and Mariska Martina

The Europeans is proudly produced using Europe’s own Hindenburg.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast has been produced in cooperation with Uranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news.
0:11.4	But this podcast would not be possible without the incredibly generous support of our amazing listeners who donate a little bit each month at patreon.com forward slash Europeans podcast. Hello and welcome to the Europeans, the podcast where we sprint across the continent like caffeinated squirrels,
0:53.9	stuff our cheeks with the
0:54.9	juiciest news, and then spit it all out in a gloriously messy, 50-ish-minute-long audio
1:01.2	buffet.
1:02.2	Hmm. Do we really think that regurgitating squirrels are the metaphor that's going to keep
1:07.1	people listening to this?
1:08.1	Well, I hope so. I felt like try something new. Well done for trying. Anyway, how are you, Katie? I'm good. Have you been squirrelling away over there in Paris? I've been squirriding away. Yeah, I feel like I'm just awakening for my hibernation. I've been enjoying the springy weather, even though spring doesn't officially start till next week. That is a thing, by the way, that I learned from our very own newsletter. Do subscribe. It is great. How are you doing, Dominic? Also doing well, been enjoying the spring, although I think it's passed already. We're back in autumn. Oh, the Netherlands. And actually, I have big life news. I've adopted two cats. So exciting, and they're huge.
1:44.8	One of them is huge, one of them is tiny.
1:46.6	They're half-brother and sister, incredibly fluffy, lovely Turkish angora cats.
1:52.2	Very beautiful cats.
1:53.5	I'll post some pictures of them on our Instagram at Europeans podcast.
1:57.2	That's very exciting.
1:58.1	We have two new podcasts.
1:59.3	We sure do.
2:00.0	And actually, there's a fun story about their names. We didn't name them, their previous owner who sadly died, did. She named them Cooper after the American anchor Anderson Cooper. And the other one is called Finley, who is the editorial producer of Anderson Cooper's long-running show, a journalist called Ben Finley.
2:20.9	Why?
2:21.9	Yeah, I don't know, but I just love that I've accidentally ended up with cats named after journalists.
2:27.4	And I'm now thinking someone should name their cats after one of us and one of our producers, like Lee and Childs or Lee and Laslow.
2:36.4	Kramer and Alexiak.
2:37.7	Love that.
2:38.4	Just planting a seed.
	...

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