Rehash

Call them what you will: hactivists, cypherpunks, phone phreaks, e-bandits… these digital vigilantes may be the last bastions of hope in an Information Age where information is not dispersed equally. Growing from a group of pranksters at MIT in the 50s to the “ultra-coordinated mother-f*ckery” of Anonymous and WikiLeaks today, hactivism uses information technologies to achieve political objectives. With their hyper-sophisticated coding skills, hacktivists do everything from leaking classified documents, to providing oppressed citizenry with military grade encryption. They believe that access to computers should be total, that information should be free, and that anarchy reigns supreme. But ever since Chelsea Manning was discovered smuggling over 400k U.S military documents in a Lady Gaga CD case on behalf of WikiLeaks and governments really began cracking down on these hackers, it became clear that maybe the internet wasn’t the anarchic utopia we thought it was. Tangents include: Maia’s primal hatred of Spotify wrapped, The internet’s unfounded hatred of Geese, and Hannah’s dream of putting Maia on WikiFeet.Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:⁠https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusicSOURCES:Maya Jasanoff, “Revenge of the Quiet American,” Foreign Policy, No. 185 (March/April 2011).Steven Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, O’Reilley (1984). Peter Ludlow, “WikiLeaks and Hacktivist Culture,” The Nation (2010). Ty McCormick, “Anthropology of An Idea: Hacktivism,” Foreign Policy, No. 200 (2013).Alasdair Roberts, “The WikiLeaks Illusion,” The Wilson Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 3 (SUMMER 2011).Wendy H. Wong and Peter A. Brown, “E-Bandits in Global Activism: WikiLeaks, Anonymous, and the Politics of No One,” Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 2013).Our Sponsors:* Check out Mood and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/REHASHAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Subtweeting, or “the audible sigh of the internet,” if you will, was Twitter’s answer to WASPish passive aggression. Now, people had a platform in which they could not-so-covertly vent about those who had wronged them in as succinct a manner as possible. It was a practice exercised by the likes of Rihanna and Demi Lovato, and managed to garner its very own critics, who derided subtweeting for turning us all into indirect assholes. But was this really the case? In this episode, Hannah and Maia revisit subtweeting, as well as its spiritual ancestor, “vague booking,” to ask whether we were really as annoying as they say we were back on the internet of yore. Are publicly shading someone without naming them, or being cryptic and vague on a Wall post really just signs of society’s increasing inability to communicate, or are they an artistic release for those in need of catharsis? Tangents include, Justin Trudeau being a fame whore, Maia’s childhood obsession with Michael Jackson, and singing “Criminal” by Fiona Apple at karaoke when no one wants you to.Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:⁠https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusicOur Sponsors:* Check out Mood and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/REHASHAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

“Oi Mista! You me dad?” …The evocative phrase heard around the world thanks to a beautiful little thing called memes. As per one definition by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, the meme is a unit of cultural transmission that can be perpetuated and remixed for all eternity. These nifty visual soundbites have been around forever, but really took form in the Darwinian halls of 4chan. Evolving from image macro, to utopian “open work,” to hate symbol, to ironic shitpost where no object of consumption is sacred (not even Joan Didion… or Geese), the meme has become the true darling of our internet age. In this episode, Hannah and Maia question the purpose of the meme - is it an object of benign humour, a piece of art, a tool for bespoke branding, or a malignant “selfish” gene that has the capacity for great evil? Listen to find out. Tangents include: the Timothy vogue cover, and Hannah’s one-sided beef with Goth Shakira. Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:⁠https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusicSOURCES:Alexis Benveniste, “The Meaning and History of Memes,” The New York Times (2022). Susan Blackmore, The Meme Machine, Oxford University Press (1999).Roy Christopher, “The Meme is Dead, Long Live the Meme,” Post Memes: Seizing the Memes of Production, Punctum Books (2019).Travis Diehl, “The Many, Many Heads of JD Vance,” Spike Art Magazine (2025). Tom Gerken, “Is this 1921 cartoon the first ever meme?” BBC (2018). Ara H. Merjian and Mike Rugnetta, “From Dada to Memes,” Art News (2020). Scott Wark and McKenzie Wark, “Circulation and its Discontents,”  Post Memes: Seizing the Memes of Production, Punctum Books (2019).Olivia Whittick, “Feminist Meme Queen Goth Shakira,” Ssense.Our Sponsors:* Check out Mood and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/REHASHAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Everyone’s always saying “whatever happened to community”… yet no one passes along our chain mail. Chain mail is everyone’s least favourite thing to find in their inbox - an email thread threatening such real life events as being haunted by Michael Jackson, or your crush falling in love with you, unless you pass the email along to 50 other people. But newsflash. The industrial revolution killed culture and chain mail is here to save it. In this episode, Hannah and Maia discuss the folkloric origins of chain as pieces of information passed along by people within shared networks, and question whether it still has a place in these humourless times. After all, there’s always room for c0cktober in our hearts. Tangents include: Gossip Girl’s elliptical soap opera storytelling, and a truly baffling rendition of “Miss Mary Had a Steamboat” performed by the hosts.Support us on Patreon and get juicy bonus content:⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Intro and outro song by our talented friend Ian Mills:⁠https://linktr.ee/ianmillsmusicOur Sponsors:* Check out Mood and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/REHASHAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Ever since British Vogue asked the rather incendiary question, “is having a boyfriend embarrassing?” the internet has been up in arms. With an astonishing number of people who have “yes” on their lips and a sharpened pitchfork for anyone who thinks otherwise, we thought it would be best to sit down with our dear friend Sara Harvey and take a close look at the article. Is this 800 word piece really the 4B rallying cry the internet seems to think it is, or is it just another agent of the normie gender war that has overtaken contemporary feminist discourse? Bonus episode now on Patreon. FULL EPISODE HERE: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/rehashpodcast⁠Our Sponsors:* Check out Mood and use my code REHASH for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/REHASHAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands