The Heart of Dad Culture

What makes something Dad? Is it pleated Dockers? A worn baseball cap? Asking (again) if you’ve checked your oil? Incompetency in the domestic sphere paired with competency outside of it? I’ve long loved thinking through both the serious and the ridiculous of Dad Culture, and for today’s episode, we have an actual scholar of it (Phil Maciak, currently hard at work on a Dad Culture book) to unpack the history and theory of Dadness, including: do you have to be a dad to be part of Dad Culture (no) is Dad Culture just white middle-class boomer dads (also no) and is Bandit from Bluey too good of a Dad (maybe). Listen on, and let’s Dad It Up.

Show Notes:

• We’re big Phil Maciak fans here at Culture Study — read my interview with him re: screentime here and listen to the (very popular) episode of the pod (one of our earliest!) on Paw Patrol:

• Follow Phil on Bluesky

• Read Phil’s television criticism at The New Republic here

• Dad Magazine !!!

• Phil mentions Kirsten Swinth’s book Feminism’s Forgotten Fight: The Unfinished Struggle for Work and Family

• Ella Emhoff in her camo Harris/Walz hat:

• Rob Mitchum’s original review of Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky (2007) for Pitchfork

• In 2019, Mitchum revisited the concept of “dad rock”

• Is 26-year-old MJ Lenderman making dad rock? The comments on this YouTube video suggest… maybe.

We’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• HISTORICAL ROMANCE (will neither confirm nor deny that we have a co-host whose confirmation made Melody faint)

• Fan Fiction — Past, Present, Future

• Dark Academia

• How cookbooks get made

• Spiritual care for non-religious people

• Cleaning Culture especially “cleanliness as moral”

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment — WE REALLY NEED MORE!! You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

For today’s discussion: What’s Peak Dad to you??