Our Week In The Web: February 27, 2015

There's something rather wonderful about seeing the way obscure and occasionally inane Internet trends can cross over into mass public conversation starters. Yesterday, the collective Internet's relatively short attention span pivoted wildly from a morning FCC ruling on net neutrality policy to an afternoon obsession with a pair of renegade llamas in suburban Phoenix. By the early evening, a bizarre Tumblr post about a seemingly-color-changing dress captured broad popular attention on Buzzfeed, Slate, Vox, Twitter, Facebook and (by this morning) major cable news networks. Internet culture is not the narrowly proscribed silo of the past, and it hasn't been in years. What's fascinating about weird and mind-boggling trends like #TheDress is that our popular culture is growing to include these kinds of ideas as a part of a general discussion, rather than isolating them as 'weird Internet things that happened on the Internet today.' What does that mean for programs like this and for popular culture at large? We're not sure! But we're fascinated by the ongoing change. (Also: the dress is blue and black. Host Tom Ashbrook agrees).

1. Week In The News: ISIS And Radical Islam, Immigration Reform Hits Snag (February 20, 2015)

2.  What Putin Wants, Putin (Usually) Gets (February 23, 2015)

3. A Guide To A Godless Morality (February 26, 2015)

4. Life Forever Young? It's Here Sooner Than You Think (February 19, 2015)

5. The Real Costs Of Managing Your Retirement (February 25, 2015)

"For me, soccer on Sunday mornings is my synagogue." — Phil Zuckerman

"Look, we all hate airport security. But how will we feel about it if the TSA isn't getting paid?' — Paul Kane

"There's a certain alien quality to my body...well, I've gotten a lot of adjectives ascribed to me over the years." — Wendy Whelan

"If the Falklands War took place in Buenos Aires, Bill O'Reilly is fine. But it obviously didn't." — David Ignatius

"Did Lead Belly write all his songs? No, he didn't. But he made them known to the world." — Valerine June 

"Loving today's @OnPointRadio! Tom making people answer 'what do you hear' finding how music reaches people in tons of different ways." (@ValvisDos)

"Well, they're not listening to us working women. Maybe they'll hear it from someone famous." (Troy Curry)

"freedom is an illusion." (Monica Starr MacGeen)

"the dress." (Sully Sullivan)

This actually perfect compilation of Boston-area social media complaints about winter 2015, set to Civil War-era fiddle music. (YouTube)