As the semester comes to an end and the weather starts to get cold, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the bright and cheery mood that you might have started off the school year with. Assignments are due left and right, and workloads have piled up as professors cram in last–minute lessons before final exams. The sun sets before 6 p.m. every night; trekking to class in the late afternoon is synonymous with a dark sky and freezing hands.
On gloomy days when it’s hard to get yourself out the door for that 5:15 p.m. lecture, a podcast that makes you laugh while you walk makes the whole experience a little bit easier. Here are a few absolutely hilarious podcasts that will brighten your day, freezing weather and school–related stress be damned.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang is a true joy to listen to. Every Wednesday, Rogers and Yang—who have been best friends since their days at New York University—talk all things pop culture, often with a guest. As they discuss, the pair will come up with new “rules of culture," from “Celine Dion Is an Empath Honey, Deal With It" to “Playing Elphaba Is War.”
The best part of every Las Culturistas episode is the final segment, “I Don’t Think So, Honey." Rogers, Yang, and their guest each get one minute to rail against something of cultural relevance. Topics can range from Justin Timberlake to college theater programs to "people who always come for Selena Gomez.”
Rogers, who also hosts Haute Dog on HBO Max and stars in Netflix’s Q–Force, radiates an energy that makes it impossible not to smile when he goes on a tangent. Yang, who works on Saturday Night Live, is a thoughtful co–host whose vulnerability allows listeners a peek behind the curtain.
Seek Treatment with Cat and Pat will entertain you from the moment you put your headphones on. Catherine Cohen, known for her performances that mix comedy and cabaret, and Pat Regan, who writes for the HBO Max show Hacks, describe themselves as “criminally under–famous.” The stories they tell will make you want to drop everything and join the New York comedy scene just to hang out with them.
As the two say in every episode introduction, the podcast is technically about “boys, sex, fucking, dating, and love." But really, it's just two best friends catching up, learning about their guests’ lives, and making their listeners laugh.
StraightioLab, hosted by George Civeris and Sam Taggart, is a breath of fresh air. The two hosts have an incredibly dry sense of humor, but when they're not being sarcastic, they transition into heartfelt and earnest conversation.
Civeris, a comedian and editor at Gawker, and Taggart, who's known for his stand–up work and appearances on Comedy Central, invite a guest onto the podcast every week to dissect a part of culture that their guest deems “straight.” Some of the best episode topics have been “Reading” with Meg Stalter, “Spiders and Bugs” with Joel Kim Booster, and “Math” with Josh Sharp. You'll definitely chuckle and even hear insightful dialogue about the toxicity of straight culture.
Lastly, turn on Urgent Care with Joel Kim Booster and Mitra Jouhari for a listening experience that will have you laughing out loud. Kim Booster, known for his stand–up on Comedy Central, and Jouhari, one of the stars of Three Busy Debras, answer calls for advice from their listeners, whom they call “chefs.”
Kim Booster and Jouhari’s approach to giving advice is an artform: They switch from being earnest and helpful to insane and unhinged in a heartbeat, guaranteeing an entertaining listen.
These podcasts all come out weekly and are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcast content. They won’t make the freezing weather or your looming assessments go away, but hopefully they’ll make the next few weeks a little more joyful.
