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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JINGLES pt. 2 with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'
If you thought the first part of our series was catchy, wait til we enter the modern era where all the jingles that played throughout our lifetimes wi...
Introducing Mind Games
We’re excited to share a preview of a new podcast we think you’d enjoy: Mind Games.
What if you could hypnotize yourself in...
JINGLES pt. 1 with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'
We all contain within us the many cheesy tunes of catchy capitalism that marked our childhoods, those hyper-memorable earworms that, depending on your...
A Cult by Any Other Name with Joseph Laycock
Joseph Laycock is the author ofThe Penguin Book of Cults, and for this episode we discuss how our culture thinks of and reacts to what we oftentimes i...
The Art of (Psychological) War with Annalee Newitz
Annalee Newitz is the author of Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind, which traces the way disinformation, propaganda, and...
Celebrity Clone Conspiracies with 'No Such Thing' Podcast
For this collaboration with the podcast No Such Thing, we covered the tales of nefarious forces secretly replacing famous people with clones. We’ll le...
JESUS TOAST
A grilled cheese sandwich, a tortilla, an auto loan company building, a cinnamon roll, and a forkful of spaghetti are just a handful of the places tha...
Party (and Panic) Like It's 1999 with Ross Benes
Ross Benes is the author of the book 1999: The Year Low Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted Our Bizarre Times. Together we revisit what popular...
Mall Santas pt. 2 with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'
In part two of our two-part series, I show Sarah a more radical side of the American Mall Santa. I tell her stories of how, in some cases, the charact...
Mall Santas pt. 1 with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'
For this two-part holiday special, I tell Sarah Marshall all about the history of the American mall Santa Claus from the 1800s into the present day. F...
Three or More Is a Riot with Jelani Cobb
Jelani Cobb is the Dean of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism and the author of the new book Three or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here:...
The Rocky Horror Picture Show with 'This Ends At Prom'
In honor of my favorite movie's 50th anniversary, I wanted to share an episode about The Rocky Horror Picture Show with all of you unconventional conv...
Listen Now: American Scandal | The West Memphis Three
On May 5, 1993, three 8-year-old boys were brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. The tiny local police department launches an investigation but...
THE MACY'S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE (rewind)
Brace yourselves, we are marching along with the Macy's Parade to learn about the chaos energy that has always animated this cultural institution, fro...
The Devil We Know with Sarah Marshall
Sarah Marshall of You're Wrong About joins me to wade back into the tall tales that devil-spawned the friendship we have today. In honor of her brand...
Disneyland’s Disastrous Opening Day with Riley Swedelius-Smith and Miranda Zickler
Our associate producer (and my brother) Riley Swedelius-Smith is here to tell our producer Miranda Zickler and me about the chaotic opening day of The...
Bot Farms and the Troll Toll with Perry Carpenter
Have you ever wondered if the person you are arguing with in a social media comment section is really a person at all? Perry Carpenter is a cybersecur...
BLOODY MARY
Bloody Mary...Bloody Mary...Bloody Mary...For our Halloween special, we are going to trace the history of the slumber party ritual known as Bloody Mar...
Spontaneous Human Combustion with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'
Sarah Marshall is here to teach me about the confounding phenomenon of Spontaneous Human Combustion in which a person is found almost totally incinera...
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...