American Hysteria
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American Hysteria
American Hysteria explores how fantastical thinking has shaped our culture – moral panics, urban legends, hoaxes, crazes, fringe beliefs, and national misunderstandings. Poet-turned-podcaster Chelsey Weber-Smith tells the strangest stories from American history and examines the forces that create th...
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12 Ft Skeleton (rewind)
This is a rerelease of our 2023 Halloween special about the 12 Ft Skeleton Halloween craze and the strange history of our relationship to skeletons, b...
Horror Movie Curses with What Went Wrong Podcast
What Went Wrong hosts Chris Winterbauer and Lizzie Bassett join me to tell the stories of three allegedly cursed horror movies and the unexplained eve...
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark with Liz "Cosbrarian" Gotauco
For this episode, I get schooled on the history of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the children's horror book series that terrified 80s and 90s kid...
The Kennedy Curse with George Civeris
George Civeris is the host of the comedy podcast Straightiolab as well as a new podcast called United States of Kennedy that explores our cultural fas...
Houdini's Afterlife with Sarah Marshall and Tim Harford
Tim Harford is the host of the podcast Cautionary Tales which recently put out a series on the most famous magician of all time, Harry Houdini. For th...
#Elsagate (rewind)
This is a rerelease of our 2021 episode. In 2017, YouTube Kids was embroiled in a major scandal when it was discovered that a dark underbelly of inapp...
Introducing: Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes
From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate, to the Octopus Murders and the Waco Siege, the world is full of deception, manipulation, and destruction. Listen to C...
The Disturbing World of Mobile Game Ads with Panic World Podcast
Warning: REALLY WEIRD EPISODE. On social media and YouTube, bizarre, shocking, disgusting, creepy, and confusing animated ads for simple mobile games...
Dear Chelsey and Ask Sarah Marshall
In the spirit of American advice columnists Dear Abby and Ann Landers, I am joined by Sarah Marshall of the podcast You’re Wrong About to give our own...
DEAR ABBY AND ANN LANDERS
Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, also known as Dear Abby, were newspaper advice columnists answering questions and printing statements from their 10...
Titanic in Real Time
This is a bonus episode from our subscribers-only podcast Hysteria Home Companion. Our associate producer (and my brother) Riley Swedelius-Smith is h...
Polybius: The Arcade Conspiracy
This is a bonus episode from our subscribers-only podcast Hysteria Home Companion. I share the history of an 80s urban legend with our producer Mirand...
Not Just a Phase: Goths Through History with Christine Laskowski
Christine Laskowski shares her research into how an ancient barbarian people known as the Goths came to represent everything from edgy Hot Topic fashi...
The Imaginary Gods of ChatGPT with Journalist Miles Klee
Miles Klee is the author of a recent Rolling Stone article titled People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies which tells the storie...
The FBI's White Christian Nation with Lerone A. Martin
Lerone A. Martin is the author of The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism . For this epis...
Listen Now: American Scandal
Every scandal begins with a lie. But the truth will come out. And then comes the fallout and the outrage.
Scandals have shaped America si...
Staring at the Sun on LSD with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'
Have you ever heard the urban legend about the group of hippie college students that went blind while staring at the sun during an LSD trip? This tale...
The Call is Coming From Inside the House with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'
You've probably heard the urban legend called the Babysitter and the Man Upstairs or at least know the idiom it inspired: “The call is coming from ins...
THE HIPPIE BABYSITTER BABY ROAST
Have you ever heard the urban legend about the babysitter who takes LSD and accidentally bakes a baby in the oven believing it to be a raw turkey? For...
Context Clues: Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's High
This episode will give some extra context for our upcoming urban legend episodes: The Hippie Babysitter and the Baby Roast, The Babysitter and the Ma...
GENDER REVEAL PARTIES: Pride Rewind
Happy Pride month to all who observe! This is a rerelease of one of our favorite episodes. Over the last ten years, Gender Reveal Parties have explode...
The Last Prison Rodeo with Journalist Adam Mahoney
Since 1965, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola, has held an incredibly popular public event known as the Prison Rodeo where incarc...
Mayhem! at the Minecraft Movie with BJ Colangelo
Over the last couple months, groups of Minecraft fans have been making TikTok videos of themselves wrecking havoc in theaters across the nation when t...
Lost Boy Larry with Producer Miranda Zickler
In 1973, mysterious communications from a young boy came over CB radios in the Southwest, leading to a massive search and rescue mission that generate...
BALLOON BOY
In 2009, the news reported live as a six-year-old boy careened through the air at 7,000 feet trapped inside a homemade balloon craft. Millions tuned i...
New Context: Gang Accusations and Initiations
Right now we are seeing accusations of gang associations used to to justify abducting immigrants off the street and sending them to either US detentio...
Hoax Diary Spectacular with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'
Sarah Marshall takes me on a journey through two possible historical literary deceptions and asks me to try to figure out what is real, what is fake,...
The Runaway Nun Hoax pt. 2 with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'
*Please listen to part one of our series first.* 'The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk' was an 1800s true crime memoir about the horrors a runaway nun...
The Runaway Nun Hoax pt. 1 with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'
'The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk' was an 1800s true crime memoir about the horrors a runaway nun claimed to have suffered while living among debau...
Luxury Doomsday with 'This is Propaganda'
The hottest new (and embarrassing) trend in the billionaire bubble is luxury doomsday shelters, wildly expensive bunkers that the ultra-rich believe w...
Hoax Spectacular! with You're Wrong About
This is a very special episode I did last year with the podcast You’re Wrong About in which Sarah Marshall and I swapped stories about some of our fav...
Burlesque This Mess with Comic Stripper Woody Shticks
Woody Shticks is a comic stripper and burlesque performer as well as the director, production manager, and co-star of our recent live stage show with...
THONGS
Exposed thongs were all the rage in the early 2000s thanks to a handful of massive pop cultural moments, but as the craze reached the mainstream marke...
Context Clues: Let Me See That Thong
Thongs and the battles waged on their backs will be the focus of our upcoming episode. This collection of excerpts from previous episodes will provide...
Erasing History with Philosopher Jason Stanley
American philosopher Jason Stanley is the author of Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future. For this episode, Jason help...
David Lynch's Mulholland Drive with 'You Are Good' Podcast
RIP David Lynch, beloved director and otherworldly weirdo. The You Are Good feelings podcast about movies graciously invited me to talk about one of t...
Invasion of the Drones with Podcaster Gabe Lenners
Gabe Lenners is the host of the new podcast Obscurum: Invasion of the Drones, which explores a mysterious wave of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena tha...
THE JERSEY DEVIL
This Urban Legends Hotline episode features listener Brandon's inquiry about the legend of the Jersey Devil, a cryptid that has haunted the Pine Barre...
Context Clues: The Devil Went Down to Jersey
The famous cryptid known as the Jersey Devil will be the focus of our upcoming Urban Legends Hotline investigation. This episode will provide some con...
You Just Lost The Game with 'Spirits' Podcast
Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin are the hosts of the podcast Spirits, a history and comedy show focused on mythology, folklore, and urban legends...