Culture Changers with Allison Hare
by Allison Hare
Culture Changers is where we pour gasoline on fiery topics like power, politics, religion, and relationships (thoughtfully) and find a better way through. I've interviewed people like Seth Godin, Mariel Hemingway, and Jesse Itzler among other notable world-changers. And of course, we are talking cults, trad wives, microtrends, money, faith, and what it actually means to be human right now. Listen, it's time to get up and do something. We've got a world to change!
Episodes
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America, you big ol' cult!
Is America one giant cult? That's the question I put to journalist Jane Borden, author of Cults Like Us: Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America. Jane fell into this topic while reporting on cults for Vanity Fair, when she started seeing the same dynamics in American culture, pop culture and…
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Escaping a Family Cult: Stella McCormick and Deliver Us From Mother
Content note: This episode discusses childhood abuse, sexual assault and family estrangement. If you or someone you know needs support, resources are at the bottom of these notes. Church is always supposed to be the safest place you could possibly go, right? Today I sit down with Stella…
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Fraud or Failure? Elizabeth Holmes, Elon Musk & You Can See Everything.
I just walked out of two of the buzziest documentaries around, You Can See Everything (Elizabeth Holmes, co-directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim) and the Musk documentary, and I can't stop thinking about them. Is it required to blur the lines of reality and fiction to be a successful...
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Is Elon Musk the Greatest Entrepreneur Ever? with Eric Jorgenson
Eric Jorgenson wrote The Book of Elon, built entirely from Elon Musk’s own words. Allison asks the question everyone argues about: is Elon the greatest entrepreneur who ever lived? Eric thinks so, with an asterisk. They get into risk, speed, fear, the “boss from hell” question, and why Eric...
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Midterm Mania: What Political Consultants Actually Do with Michelle Coyle
Political midterms are fun, aren't they? You can’t escape the TV ads that dominate your favorite streaming shows on Hulu and Max. Your FB looks like your old high school buddies are in a keyboard war with each other. And your nervous system is 100% fried eggs. I mean, do these ads work? What is…
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Death of the Pastor's Wife: What Really Happened to Mica Miller with Jennie Gage
Mica Miller told her friends that if she died by suicide, it wasn't her. It was JP. Netflix gave Death of the Pastor's Wife three episodes, and my repeat guest Jennie Gage watched her own marriage play out on screen. She spent 24 years as the wife of a Mormon church leader, survived her own…
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She sang at Trump's Inauguration, then Left the Church: Julianna Glasse
Julianna Glasse was a chart topping Christian pop star who sang at Donald Trump's 2017 National Prayer Breakfast and taught tens of thousands of women that their closeness to God ran straight through their husbands. Then her husband found the books she was hiding, threw one on the floor, and told...
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Rich and Addicted: Matt Grace and what saved him
Matt Grace grew up with a chef, a housekeeper, and a father who paid for his first prostitute, and by 29 he'd spent a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on sex workers and burned through every drug you can name. Matt spent his career as an interventionist for some of the wealthiest addicts in the...
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Death of the Pastor's Wife: What Netflix Left Out
JP Miller preached a full sermon less than 24 hours after his wife died - allegedly by suicide - without taking a single question about it. Netflix gave "Death of the Pastor's Wife" three episodes but still left out a lot: the earlier conviction, the first wife whose stories echoed Mica's...
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Healing is Hilarious: Pop culture and comedians with Rachel LaForce
Are you as obsessed as I am with the dumbest headlines of the week? Well, you're in luck! I've got comedian and pop culture whisperer Rachel LaForce on to break down what Spencer Pratt's mayoral run, the $250 Trump bill, and trad wife content filmed at Home Goods actually say about the rest of…
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The Ambition Penalty with Stefanie O'Connell
I grew up thinking if I did everything right, negotiated hard enough, leaned in enough, the outcome would eventually match the effort. Y'all, that was a big old fat lie. Stefanie O'Connell spent years digging into the research for her new book, The Ambition Penalty, and the data is downright...
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Gen X, there's a new Lilith Fair rising
The women who built Lilith Fair were called "angry," "hysterical," "emotional," and dismissed as "a bunch of lesbians" back in the 90s. Turns out Sarah McLachlan and her all-female lineup were way ahead of their time, running the highest grossing tour of 1997. Now the concept is back, and leading...
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Fascinating lies behind our favorite ads
Are you as obsessed as I am about how we are being manipulated by social media, ads, propaganda, politics, and what's real and what's not? Well, you're in luck! I've got ad sleuth Emily Rask from the hit show Lies We Bought podcast on to break it down for us! This is a fun and fascinating...
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I Found My Dad's Lost Story
My father died last week. He was 97. What a gangster, making it that far. Milad Rizk survived World War Two as a kid in Lebanon, immigrated to America with nothing but a Lebanese passport and a plan, raised six kids across two marriages, and spent his whole career as an auditor jumping from Iraq…
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Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders Season 3: We can't stop! w/ Mara Davis
As a woman who deeply cares about women's rights, I am obsessed with a show that is totally problematic. America's Sweethearts Season 3 just dropped on Netflix. I grabbed fellow DCC-obsessed Mara Davis, an Atlanta radio legend who has been watching the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders since the 1970s,...
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DEI Is Gone. Now What? With HR Insider Kevin Calhoun
Kevin Calhoun spent years doing HR and DEI work from inside some of the biggest corporations in the world. He watched those programs get built. Then he watched them get dismantled — and found himself displaced in the process. In this conversation, recorded in honor of Juneteenth, Kevin introduces...
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The Matriarchy
My mother died on June 11th, five years ago. This is the episode I recorded right after she passed. It's episode 300, and it's dedicated to her. What I didn't expect was what her last six months would teach me. About the matriarchy. About worthiness. About the hypermasculine drive that so many of...
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Inside a hit comedy podcast with The Commercial Break
Bryan Green and Krissy Hoadley of The Commercial Break built a #1 comedy podcast with over 50 million downloads and absolutely no plan. Over a thousand episodes in, they're finally spilling the behind-the-scenes. What makes a show last? What's the actual creative process? And who on earth is...
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The Guru Era is Dead. What comes next? with Dr. Liz Bucar
How did we go from prophet to profit with Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, Deepak Chopra... one by one, the curtain got lifted? And we're left asking: who do we actually trust? Religious ethicist Dr. Liz Bucar has spent 25 years studying exactly that question. Her answers will surprise you. What you'll learn in...
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Ex-Mormon, Ex-MAGA, Ex-Tradwife: How Lesbians Broke the Spell with Jennie Gage
She burned her Bible in the backyard. But that came years after leaving a marriage she was pressured into at 19, going homeless, losing her faith, and waking up from a coma. Jennie Gage has lived several lifetimes inside one — and she's using all of it to fight back. What you'll get from this...
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Culture Changers Turns 7 TODAY! Big announcement
Culture Changers Podcast is 7 TODAY! Award-winning. Globally ranked (top 1.5%) Almost 300 episodes and a million downloads. And to celebrate, I'm doing a ridiculous marathon livestream starting today at 1pm EST. And I might even go for SEVEN HOURS! Join me LIVE (please comment and say hi…
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Healing from Religious Trauma, Silence Culture, and Modern Politics with Tia Levings
Learn what healing looks like after 40 years of identity collapse in Christian patriarchy. Tia Levings is a New York Times bestselling author, featured in Amazon's "Shiny Happy People," who escaped Christian fundamentalism, recovered from religious trauma, and now decodes why patriarchal family...
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Has biohacking made us lonely? with Chris Schembra
Have we biohacked our way to loneliness? We've over-optimized every aspect of our lives—Oura rings, trackers, endless connections on social media. We're fitter, more quantified, more tracked than ever. Yet we're the loneliest society that has ever existed. Suicide rates have never been higher....
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White Women Villains: Brené, Mel & the Wellness Grifter Blame Game
We celebrate female empowerment while simultaneously destroying women who actually achieve it. This episode unpacks why we pile on female leaders—from Brené Brown to Mel Robbins to Gwyneth Paltrow—in ways we never do for men. Not to defend these women although some deserve critique. It's about...
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Psychology Behind Political Polarization w/ Dr. Jay Van Bavel
You can watch two people look at the same video of the Minneapolis shooting and come to completely opposite conclusions about what happened. Why? Because their brains — literally — were looking at different parts of the screen. That's selective perception. And once Dr. Jay Van Bavel explained it…
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Magic Mushrooms, Body Trauma, and the Message I Couldn't Ignore
How can we be so self-aware and so clueless about ourselves at the same time? Have you ever wondered why so many high-achieving, self-aware people still struggle to actually feel seen and healed? In this episode of Culture Changers, I’m inviting you behind the scenes of my fifth ceremonial...
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Are women getting TOO skinny (again)?
What is really happening to women’s bodies in pop culture right now? Today I’m tackle the challenging, layered, and sometimes contradictory truth about Hollywood’s obsession with ultra-thin bodies, the rise and risks of GLP-1 weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, and the relentless cycle of...
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Stop Posting Into the Void: A CNN Producer's Blueprint for Actually Being Heard with Jamie Maglietta
Do you feel like the news cycle is a dumpster fire and you’re just trying to figure out where your voice belongs? In this week’s episode of Culture Changers, I sit down with Jamie Maglietta, veteran news producer (CNN, BET, Fox News… yeah, she’s the real deal) and founder of OnCamReady, who’s…
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Is The Pitt The Show America Needs Right Now?
Feeling overwhelmed by nonstop headlines, collective anxiety, and the wild world of pop culture? In this episode of Culture Changers, I dive into the phenomenon that is The Pitt the cult-favorite HBO medical drama that’s suddenly become the most patriotic show on TV (according to a New York Times...
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"Hitting Me Was Holy": Tia Levings on Escaping Christian Fundamentalism & What's Hiding in Our Politics - rerelease
CNN is re-airing their special on the rise of Christian nationalism — and I'm re-releasing this conversation with Tia Levings because it is more relevant now than when it first aired. Tia will be featured in the CNN special, and her book A Well-Trained Wife went viral on YouTube after this…
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Cult Fiction: Too Blessed to Stress with Alli Hoff Kosik
Are you as fascinated as I am with the intersection of faith and influence(rs)? In this episode of Culture Changers, I sit down with debut novelist Alli Hoff Kosik, author of the buzzworthy Too Blessed to Stress, for a way deeper conversation that I thought. We are talking Christian megachurches,...
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Move Over Karens, Here Come The Katies With Liz Minella
Who’s really shaping political change? It’s not who you think! In this episode of Culture Changers, I sit down with political strategist and digital organizer, Liz Minnella, the powerhouse who coined the term "The Katies," apolitical lifestyle influencers quietly leading a revolution in…
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Women's Beauty Bills Belong on Payroll with Eleanor Beaton
Should women demand employers to pay MORE to cover their beauty costs? Women are paying out of pocket to be seen as credible, competent, and professional at work. Hair. Skin. Clothes. Time. Money. Face lifts. All of it. Not to mention the societal expectation that women should remain youthful,...
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Breaking News is Breaking Us w/Brooke Baldwin, formerly of CNN
Ever wonder what really goes down behind the scenes in American journalism, and what it costs to speak your truth? Recently I sat down with powerhouse journalist THE AMAZING Brooke Baldwin: Emmy-nominated former CNN anchor, bestselling author, and creator of the viral Substack, Unraveling....
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Channel that crazy energy better with Josh Pais
Ever wish you could flip your anxiety, stress, or even full-on rage into superpowers? That’s exactly what we’re unpacking in this episode of Culture Changers with the wildly insightful Josh Pais, actor, New York Times bestselling author of Lose Your Mind: The Path to Creative Invincibility, and…
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Is Everything A Cult? Amanda Montell Unpacks Our Obsession.
Is everything a cult? Or are we just finally noticing how belief actually works? This conversation cracked something open for me around why we get pulled into certain ideas, identities, and systems and why leaving them can feel way harder than joining. I’m sitting down with Amanda Montell, whose...
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"I've Had It" Podcast: Review! Humor, Rage, and the Power of Point of View
Welcome back, Culture Changers! In this episode, I’m breaking down the runaway hit, "I've Had It" podcast, as part of a new series, Pod Phenom Playbook where I break down some of the top podcasts. If you’ve ever wondered why certain podcasts blow up and become cultural juggernauts seemingly...
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Are you being radicalized by the news? Your aunt Peggy thinks so
Something big is shifting in how we get our news, and you can feel it in your body. You want to stay informed, but you also kind of want to throw your phone across the room. I asked a simple question on Facebook. Where do you get your news? What came back wasn’t a list of outlets. It was a list…
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Culture Changers Is Back! Why It Matters Now
Something big is shifting, and you can feel it. I’ve spent the last year stripping things down, walking away from what looked good on paper, and telling the truth about what actually works, what doesn’t, and what I refuse to carry into 2026. This episode is me coming back home to Culture Changers...
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Culture Changers Trailer: Take 2!
Something big is shifting. You can feel it. You want to stay informed and you also want to smash your phone. I’m Allison Hare, a podcast strategist, and this is Culture Changers. Here is where we talk with smarts and snark about all the stuff they say not to talk about: power, politics, religion,...
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What is happening to Christianity in America?
Christianity has taken on a totally different meaning these days.. It is in the oversized cross necklaces, the trad-wife hair, the school board fights, the subtle “illegal aliens vs immigrants” language, and the way a MAGA hat or a Pride flag can tell people your entire belief system before you…
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Facing Death while Finding Peace w/ Christophe van Durme
Sometimes life sneaks up on you and you have no choice but to face the dark corners we wish we could avoid. My guest today, Christophe van Durme is facing an impossibly difficult challenge of brain cancer as a young father. When i met Chris and saw the way he was handling his prognosis and…
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Grow Your Podcast and Get Clients with Caroline de Posada
You're working so hard putting out podcast episodes week after week. You know it's good. People seem to like it. But it's not really fueling your business Why? I’m breaking down exactly what it takes to turn podcast listeners into clients without selling your soul, burning out, or morphing into a...
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Escaping the NXIVM Cult: Sarah Edmondson’s Story Pt 2
NXIVM is back in the headlines after Allison Mack’s new podcast — but for survivors like Sarah Edmondson, the story never ended. She was one of the faces of The Vow on HBO — the woman who blew the whistle on NXIVM’s “self-help” empire that turned into a full-blown notorious cult. This episode is...
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Inside the NXIVM Cult: Sarah Edmondson's story - Part 1
If you think you’d never fall for a cult, think again. The NXIVM cult didn’t lure the weak — it attracted smart, curious, ambitious people looking for growth and belonging. People just like us. And right in the middle of it was Sarah Edmondson, a high-ranking member who helped blow it wide open…
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Write your Memoir Already! (with Cindy Robinson)
You’ve probably thought about writing a memoir — that secret urge to turn your mess, your milestones, or your middle-of-the-night realizations into something real. Then the voices start: Who am I to write a book? My story isn’t big enough. I don’t have time. This episode is for every overthinker...
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Mean Girls, Good Girls, and Hyping Women with Erin Gallagher
What happens to mean girls when they grow up? Some get better at hiding it. Some run companies. And some of us realize we’ve carried those voices in our own heads. In this episode, I sit down with Erin Gallagher — CEO and founder of Hype Women — who turned one viral post about Jamie Lee Curtis...
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LIVE Podcast Coaching: From podcast to paying clients w/Rod Brinson
You’ve got a podcast but is it working? What does a successful podcast mean anyway? Do you go solo? Have interviews? How do you keep up and stay consistent? Or just repurpose what you already have? That’s exactly where brand strategist and host of Beyond the Brand Podcast, Rod Brinson, was stuck...
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Serenbe’s Radical Blueprint for Living Well with pioneer Steve Nygren
What if the cure for our collective heartbreak isn't therapy or medication, but completely reimagining where we live? Steve Nygren, founder of Serenbe and author of the new book "Start in Your Backyard," discovered this truth when he stepped off the treadmill of life 30 years ago and accidentally...
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Rage bait after the Charlie Kirk shooting (and staying GROUNDED)
Rage bait is everywhere right now. From the Charlie Kirk shooting to what shows up in your feed, it’s designed to pull you in, piss you off, and keep you scrolling. I’ve felt it myself—angry, hooked, and questioning who I can even trust. In this episode, I’m naming what rage bait is, why it works...
About this show
Culture Changers is where we pour gasoline on fiery topics like power, politics, religion, and relationships (thoughtfully) and find a better way through. I've interviewed people like Seth Godin, Mariel Hemingway, and Jesse Itzler among other notable world-changers. And of course, we are talking cults, trad wives, microtrends, money, faith, and what it actually means to be human right now. Listen, it's time to get up and do something. We've got a world to change!
Hosted by
Allison Hare
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