Advertise on podcast: Don't Praise The Machine (DPTM)

Australia taxed cigarettes until a legal pack cost around A$40. Gangs now smuggle in cheaper ones and shops sell them for about A$17. Rival crime groups fight over territory, and there have been more than 100 documented attacks on tobacconists, some carried out by teenagers hired to throw the firebomb. Alex and John trace how a legal drug ended up with a black market that looks a lot like the one for illegal drugs. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rachel "Raygun" Gunn is back, and this time she's brought a Netflix documentary with her. The boys watched all 72 minutes of Untold: Raygun Breaking Badly so you don't have to, and they've got thoughts. Redemption arc or re-writing history? You'll have to listen to find out. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After almost 30 years, someone has finally been convicted for the murder of Tupac Shakur, and the way it happened is stranger than any fan theory. Dwayne "Keefy D" Davis was found guilty of first-degree murder this week for supplying the gun and planning the shooting outside a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas in 1996. He was granted limited immunity back in 1998 for cooperating on an unrelated case, then spent the next two decades describing his role in the murder anyway, in interviews, on Vlad TV, and eventually in his own memoir. This week Alex and John (a lifelong Suge Knight defender since age 13) walk through the case: the profer agreement that didn't cover what Davis actually admitted to, the Suge Knight and P. Diddy conspiracy theories that dominated the story for decades, the Biggie/Tupac beef that set the whole thing in motion, and the strange economy of hip-hop YouTube channels like Vlad TV, where guests get paid tens of thousands of dollars to tell stories that can apparently also convict them of murder. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Woolworths just ran one of the most successful marketing campaigns in Australian retail history. It was free, plastic, and aimed squarely at six-year-olds. This week Alex and John dig into Ooshies: the blind-bag Disney toys that took over Australian supermarkets, gave Woolworths' share price a boost, dented Coles', and turned primary school playgrounds into trading floors. We'll get into the psychology behind blind-bag toys (it's the same intermittent-reinforcement mechanism that makes slot machines addictive), the $30,000 rare-donkey eBay listing that wasn't quite what it seemed, and why it's parents, not kids, actually driving the spend. Send this one to the friend in your life who's currently a few hundred dollars deep chasing a rubber Wolverine. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There's a data center planned for Utah that was originally supposed to be twice the size of Manhattan. Even after intense local pushback chopped it in half, it's still incomprehensibly massive. Alex and John try to picture that (they can't), then get into why old Rust Belt towns are trading steel mills for server racks and getting a fraction of the jobs they were promised. Tax breaks, diesel generators, a 24-hour hum nobody asked for, but hey, John gets to pester ChatGPT with nonsense hypotheticals. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fenix Flexin swore up and down he freestyled "Rubberz." He didn't. This week: how an AI-generated rap song landed on the Billboard Hot 100, racked up 35 million Spotify streams, and got taken down by a producer who noticed the file name still contained the AI music platform they used. facepalm Alex and John pick through the wreckage. The mumble-rap-to-Morrissey pivot nobody saw coming. The Andrew Callahan interview where Fenix can't even remember his own "freestyled" lyrics on camera. What it means when a guy with a decade of real releases decides two prompts and a "generate" button beat writing an actual song. Plus: Pitchfork's first zero-out-of-ten in years, the Fawaz/Madonna cover mess, and why Spotify's new AI labeling rules protect almost nobody. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

TikTok Shop is quietly building the biggest impulse-buying machine in retail history — a live, algorithmically-fed home shopping channel on track for $112 billion in sales this year alone. Alex and John trace live shopping back to the QVC playbook of the 1980s, work out why parasocial trust converts better than any ad ever could, and confess their own TikTok- and Facebook Marketplace-fuelled purchases. Also: why eBay is panicking, why Australia still can't get TikTok Shop, and the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt that explains it all. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Alex and John go deep on the nicotine pouch revolution that started in Sweden, jumped to America and has now completely taken over British train stations, McLaren merchandise and apparently Tucker Carlson's entire personality. They get into what is actually in these little white pillows (spoiler, not tobacco), why a Swedish company sold to Philip Morris for sixteen billion dollars, why teenagers on TikTok have turned pouching into a personality and why Tucker Carlson had to be told by his own sponsor to stop making claims about what Zyn does for a man's stamina. Also covered, why Australia just banned the entire category, why France did too, whether wet bagging is cool or deeply embarrassing and whether either host would actually put one in their gums for the sake of content. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Screensavers used to be a whole universe — toasters with wings, mazes drawing themselves, flying stars you could stick your face in. Then one day they just... stopped. This week Alex and John dig up three pieces of tech that were once completely unremarkable parts of daily life and are now totally gone: screensavers, ringtones, and answering machines. Along the way: the accidental birth of the flying toaster, why Jefferson Airplane nearly sued a screensaver company, the Berlin-founded ringtone empire that gave the world Crazy Frog, a $4.4 billion industry that vanished in five years, and the case for the answering machine as the original social media platform. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The 2026 EIU Global Liveability Index has dropped, and Alex and John have a combined 60+ years living in this year's top 10 — which makes them uniquely qualified to ask: is "liveable" actually the same thing as good? This week: why the famous rankings are secretly a corporate tool for calculating executive danger pay, what the criteria hilariously refuse to measure (fun, weather, goth scenes, the price of cigarettes), and why the world's "best" cities, New York, Paris, Berlin, aren't anywhere near the list. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bonnie Tyler has died, and with her goes something bigger than one Welsh voice with a rasp. Total Eclipse of the Heart is seven minutes of zero-irony emotional maximalism, the kind of song everyone on Earth knew without ever choosing to, and nobody makes anything like it anymore. So this week Alex and John tear up the episode schedule to ask the big question: what actually killed the power ballad? Along the way: Jim Steinman, the leather-gloved rock opera maximalist who wrote it for a Nosferatu vampire musical (really), the gloriously unhinged music video, the uncredited male vocalist you never knew was on the track, the 1995 Nikki French eurodance cover that fooled a generation, why hair metal bands were contractually obligated to get sentimental, and how irony, algorithms and the death of the school disco slow dance quietly murdered the most sincere genre pop music ever produced. Turn around, bright eyes. This one's for Bonnie. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One in eight Americans is on a GLP-1, and the ripples are turning up in the strangest places. Victoria's Secret is selling fewer big bras. Secondhand sites are drowning in suddenly-too-large wardrobes. The checkout impulse aisle — a $6 billion monument to your eroded willpower — is dying. In part two of our GLP-1 deep dive, Alex and John follow the money through the collapsing snack economy: why cinemas and theatre bars are in trouble, how Nestlé is pivoting to three-bite meals, what happens to cruise ships when "all you can eat" stops being a selling point, the uncomfortable questions around kids and prisoners on the jab — and why the humble Gila monster is the unlikely lizard behind it all. Missed part one? Go back and start there. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

30 million Americans are quietly getting thinner, and it's not through discipline or willpower. It's a weekly injection derived from the saliva of a Gila monster lizard. Welcome to the Ozempic revolution. In part one of a two-part series, Alex and John dig into the GLP-1 drug phenomenon that's reshaping bodies, brains, and culture at a speed no diet trend ever has. From the Danish pharmaceutical company that accidentally broke its own stock exchange, to the celebrities suspiciously crediting "lifestyle changes" for dramatic weight loss, to the uncomfortable question of what these drugs mean for the body positivity movement, this is way bigger than weight loss. They also revisit the original cutting-edge weight loss technology: Light and Easy frozen meals, a bag of South Australian marijuana, and absolutely no self-control. Topics covered: Ozempic, Wegovy, semaglutide, GLP-1 drugs, weight loss drugs 2024, body positivity, Novo Nordisk, celebrity weight loss, Lizzo, Mindy Kaling, Megan Trainor, Wegovy ads, food culture, diet culture history Don't Praise The Machine is a weekly comedy podcast about the ways culture is shifting, hosted by two old friends from opposite sides of the world. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you don't miss part two. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Alex and John trace the full arc — from Ötzi the Iceman's 5,300-year-old tattoos to the Gen Z vs millennial style split, the mainstreaming of ink in professional life, and the industry that's now growing faster than tattooing itself: laser removal. Also discussed: how you rebel against your parents when your mum is already covered in tattoos, why the tattoo removal industry is worth $1.86 billion a year, and whether John will ever get one. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alex saw Michael Jackson perform live in 1996. He was 14, obsessed, and desperately wanted to be one of those lucky boys he always saw by Michael's side. As the years went on, he became very glad he wasn't. With the MJ biopic crossing a billion dollars at the box office and two active lawsuits still pending against his estate, Alex and John ask the question nobody in a theatre queue seems to be asking: what exactly are we all agreeing to ignore? In this episode we cover the decades-long pattern of behaviour, the 1993 Jordan Chandler settlement, the evidence presented at the 2005 trial, the Australian boys, Leaving Neverland, and the $16.5 million payout to the Cascio family that almost nobody knows about. And underneath all of it: the uncomfortable truth that his music is so woven into the fabric of our lives that the world has quietly decided the evidence just isn't worth looking at. Michael Jackson | MJ Biopic 2025 | Leaving Neverland | Jordan Chandler | Gavin Arvizo | Wade Robson | Cascio Family Lawsuit | Michael Jackson Documentary | Don't Press the Machine Podcast 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.