American Hysteria

Let's Talk About Sex (Ed) with Margaret Grace Myers

For this Back to School episode, we are getting schooled in the history of sexual education by Margaret Grace Myers, author of The Fight for Sex Ed: The Century-Long Batt

Baby Got Backstory with Heather Radke

For this episode, we are covering the storied history of the Butt, that humorous, salacious, anxiety-inducing part of the body, the shape and meaning of which has changed

Ye Olde Cleanse Diet with Zoë Rom of 'Your Diet Sucks'

For all of American history, we have been obsessed with the idea that what you eat is about more than just the purity of the body, it’s about a kind of metaphorical purit

Solar Storms and the Carrington Event with Ben Bradford of 'Are We Doomed?'

In 1859, a powerful solar storm known as the Carrington Event hit the world, disrupting early technology in a shocking way. Our guest today is Ben Bradford, host of the p

KU KLUX SCAM pt. 2

At the height of their popularity, the 1920s era Ku Klux Klux counted millions of Americans as part of their secret society, and as we covered in part one, became a kind

KU KLUX SCAM pt. 1

We often think of the Ku Klux Klan as anonymous, masked vigilante terrorists, but for several years of the 1920s, joining their ranks was a mass pop cultural craze, leadi

Rednecks (rewind)

As a companion to our upcoming two part series, the topic of which we are not yet revealing, please enjoy this rerelease (2020) of one of our favorite episodes and one th

The Aggressive Christianity Missionary Training Corps with Harrison Hill

The Aggressive Christianity Missionary Training Corps was a militaristic evangelical cult with an incredibly dark history, led in this case by a woman who claimed to have

Hobby Lobby: Crafting a Christian Nation with Michael Blanding

The multibillion dollar arts and crafts corporation Hobby Lobby has long been steeped in Evangelical Christianity, owned by a family that is extremely influential in cons

90s Angel Craze with Christine Laskowski

Back in the 1990s, it seemed like angels were everywhere in popular culture: in movies, TV shows, songs, and home decor. Our guest today is Christine Laskowski, a video j

FIREWORKS pt. 2 with Sarah Marshall

Just like every year, more and more stories are coming out about how wild, unpredictable, and dangerous fireworks can be, and yet our capacity for explosive hubris contin

FIREWORKS pt. 1 with Sarah Marshall

Love them or hate them, there are few things that feel as quintessentially American as fireworks, the favorite way to celebrate during every unhinged national birthday pa

Playing Indian with Rebecca Nagle

As we endure surreal celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the United States, we hear the same Disneyfied history being told over and over again. Rebecca Nagle is a ci

In Defense of Queer Villains with BJ Colangelo

Have you ever noticed that many of the most iconic evil-doers in movies seem, well, pretty gay? Think Scar from the Lion King, Jafar from Aladdin, Ursula from The Little

DATING APPS

In the early 1990s, match.com debuted as the first major dating app on the world wide web, but it was far from the earliest way that people used technology to meet other

THE GAY AGENDA (Pride Rewind)

This is a rerelase with a new introduction! The purse-carrying, tutu-wearing purple Teletubby Tinky Winky was outed as a homosexual in 1999, capping off a decade of consp

Our 300th Episode with Sarah Marshall

We are celebrating our (estimated) 300th episode of American Hysteria with a little Chelsey Weber-Smith Q&A session hosted by Sarah Marshall of You’re Wrong About. It’s b

The Voyager Golden Record with Riley Swedelius-Smith and Miranda Zickler

During the 1970s, a ragtag group led by American astronomer Carl Sagan set out to create and then launch into deep space an audio time capsule of sounds, songs, and messa

The Disturbing World of Cute Cat AI with Panic World

Warning! Extremely weird episode! In a world where AI creations are taking over social media, we are seeing more and more bafflingly bizarre content overwhelm apps like Y

Introducing: No Such Thing

We’re excited to share a preview of a new podcast we think you’d enjoy: No Such Thing. No Such Thing is a show where three best friends and journalists settle their dumb