Endless Thread

Ear rumblers assemble!

Ben can make a roaring, rumbling sound with his ears that no one else can hear. He never thought much about it — whether only he could do this, or whether everyone could

Encore: Owl pursuits

This episode was originally published on March 10, 2023.  In 2022, freshmen at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill got a new neighbor: an owl. What wasn't cle

Emily Kwong takes us to science camp

Grab your telescopes because this week on Endless Thread Ben and NPR Short Wave host Emily Kwong take us down two science-related internet wormholes. First, Emily introdu

'Turn Bluetooth off, or we're turning around.'

The 190 passengers of a United Airlines flight from Newark, New Jersey to Palma de Mallorca, Spain had settled into their seats for their overnight flight when the captai

Fruit of the Loom: Horn of Lies

The brand Fruit of the Loom is almost ubiquitous in the world of underwear and casual wear. You have likely seen its logo, if not on your own body, on store racks or at l

The internet is a perpetual stew

This week on Endless Thread it's a producer takeover with Grace Tatter and Kalyani Saxena serving up some delicious online stories. First, Kalyani digs into why the inter

Teach us how to Dougie

Long before TikTok dances, there was the Dougie. In 2010, Cali Swag District’s “Teach Me How to Dougie” went worldwide, and for the decade-plus since, people have been t

The Lost Loophole

Kurt Gödel was a genius mathematician and logician, considered by many scholars to be as influential as Aristotle. He was also buddies with fellow geniuses Albert Einstei

How to Dim the Sun, from Marketplace's How We Survive

The climate crisis is escalating. We have to decarbonize our economy, but we’re moving too slowly. So, what’s the backup plan? This season of How We Survive is about engi

Socials for Sale

Most of us know the internet isn't a particularly private place. Yet there's a certain feeling of anonymity that comes with sharing online — our words and stories mixed i

Encore: Adrián and the Whale

This episode was originally published on March 21, 2025.  There are moments that define each of our lives. Some we can predict: graduations, marriages, births, deaths. O

Comfort maxxing on the interwebs

Sit back, relax and get cozy. As a matter of fact, why not put on your baggiest of clothes and burrow down in your snuggiest of blankets?  This week on Endless Thread, Be

Back to the Backrooms!

Once upon a dimly lit hallway, Ben and Amory stumbled onto a beloved brainchild of the internet: Backrooms. It began as a "creepypasta"— a horror story or concept that or

Endless Thread on OnlyFans

Journalist Leon Neyfakh — known for the podcasts Slow Burn, Fiasco, and Backfired — wanted to know more about the massively popular and sprawling online ecosystem of Only

Leave a message after the beep

Jeremy Rellosa used to watch TV shows and movies from the '90s and revel in how the characters walked around untethered to a smartphone, with no expectations of constant

The Church of Speedrun!

Try reading this description as fast as you can: Ben and Amory zoom through two internet stories connected to speed running, including a look at a mysterious object on Re

Endless Egg

Some Internet trends are temporary, but eggs are forever. Today, host Ben Brock Johnson serves up a story about a recipe that, according to the people of r/pickled, can't

Manifesting an online rom-com existence

Of all the internet communities in all the world, you walked into ours. Hosts Ben and Amory pay homage to the magic of chance encounters with producer Grace Tatter. Toge

Ben Palmer's Brain

Comedian Ben Palmer set up a fake tip line for reporting immigrants in the United States suspected of not having legal status. He recorded the conversations, and things..

Endless Thread presents "The Midnight Rebellion"

Introducing The Midnight Rebellion, a new climate fiction podcast from WBUR — a rollicking adventure to a flooded, robot-infested world where you choose what happens. Wh