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Betting is now as easy and as common among (college) kids as ordering a pizza — it lives on their phone, inside the game, and it’s marketed straight at them. And here’s the part nobody wants to hear: parents are into it too. Two views of the same epidemic. Dr. Lia Nower, who runs the Center for Gambling Studies at Rutgers, has spent years tracking how betting rewires young brains — and why the apps are built to make sure it does. Then Kayman, a Tulane sophomore, takes you inside the dorm: the parlays before class, the group chats that double as sportsbooks, the roommates down a thousand bucks by Thursday, and why none of it registers as a problem to anyone his age. It’s not a vice. It’s just what you do.

Is your kid gambling? You’re not crazy — you’re just a normie. And the answer may already be in your family group chat.

🔗 Subscribe, share with another parent, and send us the weirdest headline you saw this week.

CLUB NORMIE IS FOR:

• Socially and Politically homeless. Independent-ish.
• Old-school in the way that used to be… just school.
• Looking to understand when did normal get so weird?

Strollers with dogs in them. People telling their deepest fears to Chat-Gpt. Socialism is hip. Every relationship now comes with an org chart — who is the victim and who is the powerful. Ah what? This is crazy -- no?

Host Jennifer Weissmann.

Normie (n.) — politically homeless, socially confused, and pretty sure the elevator used to involve eye contact.

You're not crazy. You're a normie.

New episodes weekly. Subscribe and pull up a chair.

Sane company for insane times.

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Before your kid applies to college, listen to this. 121 American colleges just FAILED free speech. Is your kid’s school one of them?

FIRE’s 2027 College Free Speech Rankings are out, and they’re brutal. 121 of 261 schools got an F. Not one got an A. And parents are about to hand these places $500,000 without ever checking the grade.

Dr. Sean Stevens (FIRE) wrote the highly-anticipated annual report card. FIRE surveyed 63,000 students at 261 American colleges, and what he found should scare every parent:

• The worst college in America for free speech — and why NYU earned dead last (in 2027 and 2026).
• Why Texas schools fell off a cliff this year
• The number nobody’s talking about: more than half of students would block a speaker they disagree with. From either side.
• What “free speech” actually looks like on campus once your tuition check clears

What is FIRE? The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression — a nonpartisan nonprofit that’s defended students’ and professors’ speech rights since 1999, on the left and the right. Every year it grades every major college on how free students really are to speak, disagree, and listen. This is the seventh year of the rankings, and it’s the worst one yet.

You’re not crazy. You’re just a normie.

One flag: I couldn’t verify the “more than half would block a speaker” stat or the Texas drop in a quick check — those presumably come from Sean’s interview, so make sure he said them on tape before they go in the description.

Sources:

• FIRE — 2027 College Free Speech Rankings
• FIRE — NYU 2027 spotlight report (ranked 261 of 261)
• JNS — University of Chicago tops ranking, NYU last

Club Normie. Society and politics, minus the meltdown. You’re not crazy, you’re a normie.

CLUB NORMIE IS FOR:

• Socially and Politically homeless. Independent-ish.
• Old-school in the way that used to be… just school.
• Looking to understand when did normal get so weird?

Strollers with dogs in them. People telling their deepest fears to Chat-Gpt. Socialism is hip. Every relationship now comes with an org chart — who is the victim and who is the powerful. Ah what? This is crazy -- no?

Host Jennifer Weissmann.

Normie (n.) — politically homeless, socially confused, and pretty sure the elevator used to involve eye contact.

You're not crazy. You're a normie.

New episodes weekly. Subscribe and pull up a chair.

Sane company for insane times.

Send us Fan Mail

Iran. And you. Midterms are coming. Sick of the Middle East? Too bad — it’s not sick of you. Every phone, every tank of gas, every box on your porch floats through waters patrolled by men who make school kids chant “Death to America” before breakfast. Bridget Toomey, Iran and terrorism expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, pulls back the curtain on who’s bankrolling the chaos: Iran and its proxy network, from the Houthis choking the Red Sea to the squeeze on Saudi Arabia and global oil. The “ragtag militia” you’ve heard about? It’s a well-funded war machine now, and it’s aiming at your wallet. Is the U.S. blockade actually working? Who’s still buying Iran’s oil? And why is Tehran watching our midterms like a hawk? Normies don’t need to be experts. We just need to know what’s true, so no one can tell us what to think.

CLUB NORMIE IS FOR:

• Socially and Politically homeless. Independent-ish.
• Old-school in the way that used to be… just school.
• Looking to understand when did normal get so weird?

Strollers with dogs in them. People telling their deepest fears to Chat-Gpt. Socialism is hip. Every relationship now comes with an org chart — who is the victim and who is the powerful. Ah what? This is crazy -- no?

Host Jennifer Weissmann.

Normie (n.) — politically homeless, socially confused, and pretty sure the elevator used to involve eye contact.

You're not crazy. You're a normie.

New episodes weekly. Subscribe and pull up a chair.

Sane company for insane times.

Send us Fan Mail

Insight every parent should tell their kid before they leave for college: Know the difference between someone who disagrees with you and someone who wants you gone. Most parents would do almost anything to get their kid into Harvard. So why are some crossing it off the list? Three Jewish moms just dropped their freshmen at college, and one question shaped every choice they made: Will my kid be safe?You'll hear about the classmate who said, "Really? Trust a Jew?", the daughter who uses a different name in class, and the mezuzah that went up on move-in day. Plus the big question: Is a $500,000 diploma worth it

Whether your child is Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or none of the above, this is your story too. Every parent wants their kid to feel safe, to belong, and to be free to be themselves.

Is this the new normal? Listen and decide for yourself.

🎧 Club Normie: You're not crazy. You're just a normie.

CLUB NORMIE IS FOR:

• Socially and Politically homeless. Independent-ish.
• Old-school in the way that used to be… just school.
• Looking to understand when did normal get so weird?

Strollers with dogs in them. People telling their deepest fears to Chat-Gpt. Socialism is hip. Every relationship now comes with an org chart — who is the victim and who is the powerful. Ah what? This is crazy -- no?

Host Jennifer Weissmann.

Normie (n.) — politically homeless, socially confused, and pretty sure the elevator used to involve eye contact.

You're not crazy. You're a normie.

New episodes weekly. Subscribe and pull up a chair.

Sane company for insane times.

Send us Fan Mail

Angry, Educated, and Alone | A Veteran Pollster on America’s Reality Gap
After 50 years of polling America, veteran pollster Paul Talmey says he’s never seen the country this angry—or this distrustful. Talmey pulls back the curtain on America’s growing reality gap: how the primary system reshaped both parties, why younger Americans are embracing socialism, the controversy surrounding Israel and antisemitism on college campuses, and the forces driving America toward a debt crisis. He also lays out three possible paths forward—and explains which one he fears America is taking.

What broke? What still holds? And where do we go from here?

CLUB NORMIE IS FOR:

• Socially and Politically homeless. Independent-ish.
• Old-school in the way that used to be… just school.
• Looking to understand when did normal get so weird?

Strollers with dogs in them. People telling their deepest fears to Chat-Gpt. Socialism is hip. Every relationship now comes with an org chart — who is the victim and who is the powerful. Ah what? This is crazy -- no?

Host Jennifer Weissmann.

Normie (n.) — politically homeless, socially confused, and pretty sure the elevator used to involve eye contact.

You're not crazy. You're a normie.

New episodes weekly. Subscribe and pull up a chair.

Sane company for insane times.

Send us Fan Mail

Normie (n.) — someone whose opinions were perfectly mainstream until roughly Tuesday.

A normie never thought their opinions were controversial. They just kept believing the same reasonable things while the definition of reasonable quietly moved out of state. Strollers with dogs in them. Therapists that are AI. Communism, back and looking great to many. And every relationship now comes with an org chart — who's got the power, who doesn't, and which one you are today.

Normie: didn't change. Everything else did.

Politically and socially homeless at this point. Trying to figure out when normal got so weird. Sane Company for Insane Times.

Gallup numbers:
66% of Democrats now view socialism positively.
Only 42% still view capitalism positively.

CLUB NORMIE IS FOR:

• Socially and Politically homeless. Independent-ish.
• Old-school in the way that used to be… just school.
• Looking to understand when did normal get so weird?

Strollers with dogs in them. People telling their deepest fears to Chat-Gpt. Socialism is hip. Every relationship now comes with an org chart — who is the victim and who is the powerful. Ah what? This is crazy -- no?

Host Jennifer Weissmann.

Normie (n.) — politically homeless, socially confused, and pretty sure the elevator used to involve eye contact.

You're not crazy. You're a normie.

New episodes weekly. Subscribe and pull up a chair.

Sane company for insane times.

Send us Fan Mail

You've typed something into ChatGPT you'd never say out loud. So has everyone else. Nobody's admitting it. Host Jennifer Weissmann sits down with Ryan Ochs, a millennial who tells Claude the things he skips in therapy. He's not sorry. He's also not sure it's a good idea. Judgment-free comes at a price. Find out what you're trading for it, why we may be the loneliest generation that feels the least lonely, and what still costs a premium when everything else is instant.

You're not crazy. You're just a normie. Welcome to Club Normie.

CLUB NORMIE IS FOR:

• Socially and Politically homeless. Independent-ish.
• Old-school in the way that used to be… just school.
• Looking to understand when did normal get so weird?

Strollers with dogs in them. People telling their deepest fears to Chat-Gpt. Socialism is hip. Every relationship now comes with an org chart — who is the victim and who is the powerful. Ah what? This is crazy -- no?

Host Jennifer Weissmann.

Normie (n.) — politically homeless, socially confused, and pretty sure the elevator used to involve eye contact.

You're not crazy. You're a normie.

New episodes weekly. Subscribe and pull up a chair.

Sane company for insane times.