Jon Ronson returns in BBC Radio 4’s Things Fell Apart
Launching as a box set on BBC Sounds on Tuesday 9 January, the award-winning podcast Things Fell Apart returns, with acclaimed writer and broadcaster Jon Ronson revealing eight more wholly unexpected but all too human stories about the culture wars that divide us so toxically today.
In Season 2, Jon Ronson uncovers eight jaw-dropping, thought provoking, and sometimes darkly funny stories about many of the new battle lines in the culture wars which snowballed during lockdown and dominate society now: from covid conspiracies and Antifa hysteria, to racial and gender identity politics, free speech and protests against lockdown that spiralled out of control.
While each episode is a gripping listen, the series also illuminates one of the most turbulent and traumatic times in our recent history. Released at the start of a US election year and set against a political climate in the UK which can sometimes seem defined by culture wars issues, Things Fell Apart will be a vital primer on the new battlefronts of a phenomenon that we all need to understand.
Jon Ronson says: “A connection between these stories is untruths and their consequences. In every episode, someone says something that isn’t true and the ripples are extraordinary and devastating. Recent months have shown that we’re living in post truth times where all sorts of lies are allowed to flourish for all sorts of reasons, and many people are guilty of that from across the political spectrum. It feels impossible for anyone to believe anything when it’s been spun, memed and propagandised, and we’ve had to use our brains in totally different ways to try and figure out what’s true and what’s not true.
What the podcast is about in the end is that we have to hold on to truth like driftwood or else we’ll drown. The new season of Things Fell Apart is really an homage to factual truth because look what happens when we allow that to slip through our fingers.”
Season two of Things Fell Apart is available as a box set on BBC Sounds from 9 January and broadcast weekly on BBC Radio 4 at 9am from 9 January.
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