The Olympic Gold In Going Viral
ICYMI
Slate Podcasts
3.9 • 800 Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay and senior supervising producer Daisy Rosario reflect on the 2026 Winter Olympics—but not just what happened out on the ice. There was a different Olympics unfolding on social media, with viral moments from the ceremony that deserve their own gold, silver, and bronze medals. Kate and Daisy rank them, and also finally break their silence on the internet’s other current fixation: Punch the monkey.
This podcast is produced by Daisy Rosario, Vic Whitley-Berry, and Kate Lindsay.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, I'm Kate Lindsay. |
| 0:14.7 | And I'm Daisy Rosario. |
| 0:16.1 | And you're listening to I see why am I. |
| 0:18.2 | In case you missed it. |
| 0:19.4 | Slate's podcast about internet culture. And if you don't know Daisy, Daisy is our senior supervising producer. She is also my boss. Hello, Daisy. Welcome to the podcast. Oh, hi, Kate. Nice to be here. Yeah, we are here, I mean, for many reasons. But one being that there is a blizzard in New York. |
| 1:00.5 | I've been told just now that New York doesn't shut up about things like having a blizzard, so you might already know this, but I'm just saying that heads up because there are snow plows going crazy outside, and if we were to wait for every one of them, we'd be here for three hours. So we won't do that. It's true. But there's another important reason that Daisy is joining me is because this is a really important conversation and one that we have yet to break our silence on. But I think it's time. |
| 1:02.5 | We are talking about Punch the Monkey. |
| 1:06.4 | That's right. |
| 1:12.8 | Daisy. |
| 1:13.5 | Yeah. |
| 1:22.0 | I mean, first things first, both of us, I can't even consume that much punch content because it's making me emotional. |
| 1:23.9 | But what do you know of punch? |
| 1:33.1 | Okay. So it is... I'm laughing because Kate's face already looks slightly pained, and I understand the pain. So punch is this monkey. You're going to get into details. What I know |
| 1:38.8 | is that my wife has been emotionally destabilized by Punch the Monkey for as far as I can tell these last many days. |
| 1:47.3 | And she kept texting me about Punch the Monkey. |
| 1:50.5 | She kept asking me if I watched all the Punch videos. |
| 1:53.6 | She made it sound very cute, but then she also started to seem very sad about it, so I wasn't too quick to engage with the videos. |
| 2:00.0 | Yeah. |
| 2:00.3 | And then I did watch one that she sent |
| 2:02.0 | and I immediately just wanted to cry. So I backed away again. So can you tell me what I'm actually |
| 2:08.0 | supposed to know about this monkey? The way people are posting about Punch, I mean, it's like |
| 2:15.2 | they have PTSD or something. Even though when you look further into it, it's like they have PTSD or something. |
... |
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