Critically Unserious is a weekly podcast where Jonathan Urbina and Cynthia Tafoya-Stone take a critical look at the happenings of pop culture and give purely unserious commentary. Consider this your safe space for making sense of that prestige film everyone is talking about or that album that keeps popping up on your playlist. Everything floating through the zeitgeist is up for a critically unserious discussion.
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What if we told you none of it was accidental? This week on the pod, we took a look at the HBO Max documentary, Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes, to make our predictions for the eponymous Track 2 on Taylor Swift’s upcoming album, The Life of a Showgirl, and the parallels are uncanny. These two masterminds have wielded immense fame, outsmarted the Hollywood boys’ club, and endured relentless scrutiny of their love lives. We also dig into Taylor’s Time Person of the Year interview to chat about how both stars learned to use persona as armor to survive the gauntlet of fame. We wrap up with our current obsessions: the musical stylings of Lisa Barlow and the art of touching grass.
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit criticallyunserious.substack.com (https://criticallyunserious.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
9 Sept 2025
Films to Heal Your Inner Showgirl
What do you get when you cross an insatiable thirst for fame, homoerotic frenemies, and dirtbag male executives? Well, the blueprint for The Life of a Showgirl, of course! This week, we’re diving into the films we suspect have inspired Taylor Swift’s upcoming album: Black Swan, The Last Showgirl, and, of course, the camp classic, Showgirls. In all three films, our antiheroines long for the spotlight and show us just how much it takes to get there. Join us as we connect the dots to Taylor’s music and what we know about the album so far. At the top of the episode, we share our thoughts on Sabrina Carpenter’s new album, Man’s Best Friend, Cyn’s fascination with Katseye, and a Fifth Harmony reunion in the year 2025 (haven’t we been through enough?). We wrap up with our obsessions with Lena Dunham's highly anticipated memoir, Famesick, and Netflix’s new doc Unknown Number: The High School Catfish.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/criticallyunserious/ (https://www.instagram.com/criticallyunserious/)
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@critically_unserious (https://www.tiktok.com/@critically_unserious)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CriticallyUnserious (https://www.youtube.com/@CriticallyUnserious)
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit criticallyunserious.substack.com (https://criticallyunserious.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
3 Sept 2025
RANKED: Every Taylor Swift Album
Our Life of a Showgirl prep month has begun! Join us this week as we rank all of Taylor Swift’s 12 albums. Using a proprietary mathematical formula (user jessee pinkman’s album sorter on http://Tumblr.com (http://tumblr.com)), we get equal parts nostalgic and brutally honest as we take you through our least to most favorite records. Plus, we share our unhinged and controversial thoughts on the proposal heard around the world. Are we living in the Bejeweled music video? There’s so much to say about our close personal friend, Taylor Swift, so strap in for our longest episode yet!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/criticallyunserious/ (https://www.instagram.com/criticallyunserious/)
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@critically_unserious (https://www.tiktok.com/@critically_unserious)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CriticallyUnserious (https://www.youtube.com/@CriticallyUnserious)
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit criticallyunserious.substack.com (https://criticallyunserious.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
11,133
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 49 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
69
Social presence
0
YouTube
72
Engagement
0
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