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 the reality we share, and sometimes, the reality we don't.
📻 Siste episoder av American Hysteria
Her er de nyeste episodene tilgjengelige via RSS-feeden:
A Cult by Any Other Name with Joseph Laycock (01:08:10)
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 incorrectly identify as cults. His book delves into...
The Art of (Psychological) War with Annalee Newitz (01:19:39)
Annalee Newitz is the author of Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind, which traces the way disinformation, propaganda, and violent threats have evolved from military weapon...
Celebrity Clone Conspiracies with 'No Such Thing' Podcast (00:58:32)
For this collaboration with the podcast No Such Thing, we covered the tales of nefarious forces secretly replacing famous people with clones. We’ll learn about different clone conspiracies and their o...
JESUS TOAST (01:07:54)
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 that images of religious figures have miraculously ap...
Party (and Panic) Like It's 1999 with Ross Benes (01:08:34)
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 culture was like at the turn of the millennium and...
Mall Santas pt. 2 with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About' (01:38:54)
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 character transformed into a symbol of societal change an...
Mall Santas pt. 1 with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About' (01:25:48)
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. For part one, we will learn about the eccentric men...
Three or More Is a Riot with Jelani Cobb (00:35:55)
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: 2012-2025 which he is here to talk with me about t...
The Rocky Horror Picture Show with 'This Ends At Prom' (01:28:06)
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 conventionalists, one that I recently recorded with my...
Listen Now: American Scandal | The West Memphis Three (00:08:02)
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 finds little physical evidence to lead them to a ...
THE MACY'S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE (rewind) (00:53:33)
Brace yourselves, we are marching along with the Macy's Parade to learn about the chaos energy that has always animated this cultural institution, from its explosive balloon disasters to its surprisin...
The Devil We Know with Sarah Marshall (01:28:44)
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 new podcast miniseries from the CBC called The Dev...
Disneyland’s Disastrous Opening Day with Riley Swedelius-Smith and Miranda Zickler (01:17:32)
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 Happiest Place on Earth way back in 1955. We’ll ...
Bot Farms and the Troll Toll with Perry Carpenter (01:14:14)
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 cybersecurity expert, author of FAIK: A Practical Guide to L...
BLOODY MARY (01:03:21)
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 Mary in which a young summoner stands in the dark in ...
Spontaneous Human Combustion with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About' (01:42:08)
Sarah Marshall is here to teach me about the confounding phenomenon of Spontaneous Human Combustion in which a person is found almost totally incinerated with no explanation, seeming to have burst int...
12 Ft Skeleton (rewind) (01:03:30)
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, both real and fake, stretching back hundreds of yea...
Horror Movie Curses with 'What Went Wrong' Podcast (01:32:38)
What Went Wrong hosts Chris Winterbauer and Lizzie Bassett join me to tell the stories of three allegedly cursed horror movies and the unexplained events that befell the cast, crew, and sometimes even...
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark with Liz "Cosbrarian" Gotauco (01:06:56)
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 kids with its repurposed urban legends and folklore a...
The Kennedy Curse with George Civeris (01:17:20)
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 fascination with the Kennedy dynasty and the ways tha...
Houdini's Afterlife with Sarah Marshall and Tim Harford (01:06:48)
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 this episode, Sarah Marshall of You’re Wrong About j...
#Elsagate (rewind) (00:48:04)
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 inappropriate cartoons, computer animations, and live a...
Introducing: Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes (00:08:10)
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 Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes every Wednes...
The Disturbing World of Mobile Game Ads with 'Panic World' Podcast (01:17:36)
Warning: REALLY WEIRD EPISODE. On social media and YouTube, bizarre, shocking, disgusting, creepy, and confusing animated ads for simple mobile games have popped up over the last few years. In collabo...
Dear Chelsey and Ask Sarah Marshall (01:13:34)
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 unique advice to some of the funnier questions se...
