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.
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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 conspiratorial anti-gay writings and videos that influenced politics straight up to supreme court. Accused of using kids shows and public schools to influence impressionable minds and recruit new young homosexuals, the gay militants were secretly powerful agents of a massive conspiracy to bring down traditional American values and ta...
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 been a strange journey, and to celebrate, I’m answering questions provided by our beloved Patrons, so join us to learn more about the show and more about my own weird life, my unceasing fears, my hopes, my dreams, and how I feel about all of you special eccentrics out there. Become a Patron to suppo...
This episode explores the fascinating creation of the Voyager Golden Record, an audio-visual time capsule launched into deep space by Carl Sagan and his team in the 1970s. It delves into the ambitious choices made for representing Earth to potential extraterrestrial life, from controversial pictorial plaques to a diverse selection of music, sounds, and human greetings. The discussion also covers the Voyager probes' incredible scientific achievements and profound reflections on humanity's place in the cosmos.
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 YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, including what has come to be known as Cute Cat AI. These seemingly kid-friendly, uncanny, Elsagate-esque humanoid cat videos include gore, gross-out scenes, sexual themes, and just the weirdest stuff you can imagine. For this collaboration, Ryan Broderick and Grant Irving of the podcast Panic Worl...
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 arguments — and yours — by actually doing the research. Hosts Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devan Joseph start each episode with an argument using just their gut feelings. Then they go out into the world, investigate, talk to experts, and conduct some experiments. Finally, the guys bring their findings back to the group to see...
When the Bennington Five disappeared in Southwest Vermont between 1945 and 1950, the local refrain became: Don't go into the woods while wearing the color red. For part two of our series, former Bennington College student Sarah Marshall of You’re Wrong About joins me again as I explain four more disappearances and their alleged paranormal explanations: UFOs, forest monsters, and bizarre structures hidden in the mountains. Then we'll look at how the popular legend of the Bennington Triangle actua...
At Bennington College in southwest Vermont, tales of a curse have been passed around for 75 years. Known as the Bennington Triangle, the nearby mountains and forests were the sites of five mysterious disappearances from the late 1940s and early 1950s, disappearances that some have blamed on paranormal forces. Former Bennington student Sarah Marshall of You’re Wrong About joins me for this two part series, and for part one, I’ll tell her the story of the most famous and confounding of these disap...
Today we bring you an episode of another great podcast: History Daily. Every weekday, host Lindsay Graham (American Scandal, American History Tellers) takes you back in time to explore a momentous event that happened ‘on this day’ in history. Please enjoy their episode about April 21, 1934, when The Daily Mail published an alleged photo of the Loch Ness Monster, sparking an international sensation around one of the world’s most enduring modern legends. Subscribe to History Daily wherever you get...
This episode delves into the confounding story of the Georgia Guidestones, a Stonehenge-esque monument erected in rural Georgia in 1980 by an anonymous donor. Host Chelsea Weber Smith and guest Tyler McBrien (host of "Who Blew Up The Guidestones?") investigate the monument's ten mysterious guidelines, which included controversial eugenicist messages for humanity. The discussion covers the Guidestones' origins, the unmasking of its creator, the dramatic 2022 explosion, and the bizarre conspiracy theories it attracted, ultimately reflecting on the human desire for legend over definitive answers.
Take a seat in our old, ornate theater for the confounding wonders of this traveling magic show. For this episode, my dear friend is here, the artist, musician, cowboy, sailor, and now magician, known as Gruff Webb. They will tell me all about the history of Black magicians in America and the magical traditions they drew from, explain the strange power that stage magic imbues into those who practice it, and wax poetic about this secret door to another world that otherwise seems impossible. More ...
This is a Subscribers-Only episode from 2024 in which I tell our producer Miranda about a wild April Fools Day prank that took place in 19th century London involving hundreds of people from bakers and undertakers to bankers and politicians. If you like what you hear go to patreon.com/americanhysteria or subscribe on Apple+, we have a huge back catalogue with lots more stories like this one. Produced by Miranda Zickler Additional editing by Kaylee Jasperson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...
This episode delves into the contentious and often political history of paleontology in England and the United States, examining how prehistoric discoveries became intertwined with national identity and Gilded Age capitalism. It covers Mary Anning's pioneering work, the creation of the first dinosaur displays, the destructive "Bone Wars" between rival paleontologists, and Andrew Carnegie's use of the Diplodocus to promote American exceptionalism and justify his immense wealth. Ultimately, the episode reveals how dinosaurs became symbols reflecting societal values, wealth inequality, and the complexities of human ambition.
Part one of this series delves into America's enduring obsession with dinosaurs, tracing their rise from scientific discoveries to pop culture stardom. It covers their impact in films like "The Lost World" and "King Kong," groundbreaking animations, and massive animatronic exhibits at World's Fairs. The episode also explores how the concept of "deep time" challenged traditional biblical timelines, sparking creationist movements and controversies around fossil evidence. Ultimately, it highlights how these prehistoric creatures became a battleground for science, entertainment, and religious belief.
The extended media universe of Pokémon has been an obsession for young people since the late 1990s, and for this goofball episode my friends from the Guide to the Unknown podcast are here to dive into the creepier side of this unparalleled cultural phenomenon. Together with our voice actor Will Rogers and his sister, my pal Kristen Rogers-Anderson, we bring you the weirdest tales from Pokemon history, from the unnerving aspects of the video games, to the supposed mass medical events caused by th...
Have you ever been suspicious of a corporation showcasing their commitment to the environment, to marginalized groups of people, or to those suffering through a deadly disease? Dr. Mara Einstein is the author of Compassion, Inc.: How Corporate America Blurs the Line Between What We Buy, Who We Are, and Those We Help . For this episode, ahe explains the history and modern state of cause marketing to show how corporations use tricks like greenwashing and pinkwashing to improve their public profile...
Akilah Hughes joins to discuss the American fixation on sensationalized bugs, tracing historical panics from "Africanized" killer bees and atomic-era monster insects to modern fears like West Nile virus and murder hornets. The conversation highlights how these panics often serve as metaphors for deeper societal anxieties, including invasion, political scapegoating, and public health concerns. It also delves into the role of media hyperbole and the human psychological disconnect with insects in fueling widespread hysteria.
[We are taking a break this week so please enjoy a re-release of one of our favorite episodes!] How do we warn people 10,000 years in the future about nuclear waste sites that will remain extremely dangerous for longer than human civilization has existed? When language, symbols, and technologies are lost to time, how can we get our message across? Atomic Priesthoods, Radiation Cats, Forests of Thorns, manufactured folklore, these are just a few of the unorthodox ideas of government-sponsored aca...
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 will be activated like sleeper cells inside us. For part two of our series, we are starting our history in the middle of the century when television commercials began to rely heavily on jingles, leading to a decades-long reign of musical advertising that lasted well into the 1990s. In addition, I’ll tell Sarah the stories behind some of the most belo...
We’re excited to share a preview of a new podcast we think you’d enjoy: Mind Games. What if you could hypnotize yourself into a better you? Or.... secretly hypnotize others into giving you anything you want? That’s the promise of NLP. Mind Games is an investigation into the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP, a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology that has quietly shaped industries, institutions, and belief systems around the world. Part science experiment, part investigatio...
We all contain within us the many cheesy tunes of catchy capitalism that marked our childhoods, those hyper-memorable earworms that, depending on your age, feel like an invention of the 90s, of the 80s, of the 70s, of the 60s. But these musical, lyrical advertisements have a much longer history than that. For part one of this two part series, I share with Sarah Marshall of You’re Wrong About the goofy evolution of the jingle from its distant origins into the age of American radio. For part two, ...
Joseph Laycock is the author of The 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 many lesser known examples of new religious movements from the 18th century into the early 20th century, groups made up of vampires, hollow earthers, and dangerous yogis, all of which we will be discussing today. Joe will help us better understand what a cult is and what a cult isn’t, and whether ...
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 weapons deployed against foreign adversaries into tools of domestic culture war. For this episode, Annalee gives us a primer on the ways psychological warfare has long propped up the American colonial project, including the many men who have been the masters of its weaponized storytelling. In addition to...
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 origins, hear from an expert on the real science and ethical concerns behind cloning, and chat about where these outlandish tales fit into the larger infrastructure of American conspiracy theories. No Such Thing is a show where three best friends and journalists settle their dumb arguments — and your...
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 appeared in the United States. For this episode, we'll tell stories about mass pilgrimages made to quirky apparitions of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and Mother Teresa, and show how some have embraced them as genuine spiritual manifestations while others have turned them into a kitschy, meme-worthy craze. ...
Chelsey Weber-Smith and author Ross Benes explore 1999, the year low culture took over America, shaping our bizarre modern times. They discuss how phenomena like pro wrestling, boy band rivalries, new metal, and trash TV, alongside the dot-com bubble and Y2K fears, predicted today's fragmented media and outrage culture. The conversation highlights the enduring impact of seemingly trivial pop culture on politics and societal dynamics.
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 and guerrilla protest, from the ladies who had to take his bearded place during WWII, to the Black Santa revolutionaries of the Civil Rights Movement, to the activist Gay Santas who fought, quite creatively, against the stigma of HIV. Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad...
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 who created the look and vibe of the department store Kris Kringle, mass producing a jolly army of Santa proxies to whom kids could disclose their heart’s holiday desire. For part two, I will explain how the Mall Santa became a surprising symbol of societal change and guerrilla protest. That's comi...
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 today. Since the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement over a decade ago, Jelani has been reporting on the most consequential events from the front lines, and this book acts as a kind of retrospective on both his own experiences and our modern fight for racial justice. Get a copy of Three or M...
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 friends BJ and Harmony Colangelo for their fantastic coming-of-age film podcast, This Ends at Prom. Subscribe to This Ends At Prom wherever you get your podcasts Follow them on social media @thisendsatprom Check out Pod People Productions Become a Patron to support our show a...
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 suspect. Eventually, outside pressure pushes them to charge someone with the killings, whether or not the evidence supports their conclusions. American Scandal takes you deep into the heart of America’s dark side to look at what drives someone to break the rules and what happens when they’re caught....
