BUGS!!!!!! with Akilah Hughes

And it's moving north. It's spreading. It's arise.

Over the years, we've had many media panics about swarms and whores. About infestations and plagues of dangerous insects and arachnids that promise to rain death and destruction down on the defenseless American public. My guest today is comedian Akilah Hughes, host of the podcast How Is This Better, a show that challenges the grifters who are controlling our government, our attention, and so much of our daily lives.

She's also known for her work on the podcasts What A Day and Rebel Spirit, as well as her YouTube channel, Akilah Obviously. Today we're talking about our American fear around sensationalized bugs, from killer bees to infected mosquitoes, to floating spiders, and even back to one of the very first freakouts around something called the kissing bug.

We'll talk about the realities behind these alleged infestations and what they can tell us about the language of our politics and the way mass hysteria can create monstrous problems from perceived threats. No matter how to I'm your host, Chelsea Weber Smith, and this is In hysteria. I am so excited to talk to our guests today about a topic that I have wanted to cover since the very beginning of our show and it's just never happened. So Thank you for bringing this up.

to us, Akilah, and welcome. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. Great to be infesting the pod. Yeah. Getting this crossover here and scare the shit out of us. I'm so excited. Uh so Yeah, as I've mentioned, this is just one of those topics that feels like so ubiquitous in culture, but like we don't really know what killer bees are.

Or like really how they made their way into you know, it's like I think of like the Simpsons are covering killer bees and it's just it and i even if it makes it to The Simpsons, we have to talk about it. So You're gonna tell us a little about the history of killer bees, and I believe maybe some other insect-related hysteria panic.

Totally. Um, and so yeah, I I mean I brought this topic because, you know, I have m my own weird intersections with it, but my whole life I've been a little weirded out by large amounts of bugs. I think that that's like human nature. Um, and like for some reason, one of my most vivid like childhood images is looking at the VHS cover of

uh Silence of the Lambs where she has like a bee. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I know it. It's so just like knowing that like there is the sphere of bees. I've also never been stung. you know, and I saw the movie My Girl, probably too young. And so there's so many things to do with like swarms of animals and so or of bugs. And so I, you know, we'll start with Killer Bees, but this is Throughout our nation's history there are just

Scapegoated bugs. And so I did start with Killer Bees. I think that that is like the one that we're all sort of like very aware of. Yes. Throughout all media. Like for some reason why bees are the scariest. I guess most people have been stung by bees. I that's what I would have to assume. And so I think that people are acutely aware of the pain of that.

Which makes the idea of like a foreign B invader that is just like thousands of them even scarier. But we really see this beginning of like Killer bees. uh in pop culture in the nineteen seventies and eighties in the US. Yeah, yeah. And like I sort of found this like I believe it's a little racist. I don't know. I wasn't there. I was wondering if we were gonna go there. I was imagining.

Right. We have to sort of address like since then we've sort of dropped the Africanized word before killer bees, but back then that was really the phrasing that was used in media and pop culture because there were these, you know, quote unquote Africanized honeybees that were more aggressive, that were more

you know, dangerous, I guess. And I think that like that is where it starts is like the exoticization of these bees. Right. I'm so excited to dive into this. I really uh it's probably gonna go places I didn't expect. And uh something that occurred to me is that you've never been stung by a bee. And I think that's so interesting because it's almost like I've been stung by a bee, I mean countless times. Oh yeah. When I was a kid I got stung by a bee.

in my eye. Which is isn't that just a horrifying thought. Like that's like probably the plot of a horror movie from the nineties. Like it's so visceral. It's like the opening scene where and then you know that it that the bees are coming. Um, but uh I just wonder too, like in this hysterical way, the fear I wonder of being stung. Is that actually worse than the sting itself? Because it sucks. Like it sucks to get stung, but

It's not a big deal. But you know, I think that's the that's the thing is when people don't know right what something is like. It it's so easy for it to reach these like killer proportions. A million percent. And like I would say for my own personal fear of it, it is like Because people who've been stung by bees can't equate it to some other sort of sting. Like they're like, it's not like a mosquito bite. It's not like I mean I've been bitten by bed bugs.

Uh and I don't have bed bugs for the clarity by my complete person. But congratulations. Yeah. And so everyone who's been stung by B, which is most people, is just like It's its own thing. So it's like this fear of the unknown, to your point, and also this fear of being allergic secretly, which like apparently isn't a thing. Like if you're allergic to beastings, you're often allergic to other bugs. And so like

I've been assured by doctors and allergists that like if it happens to me one day, as if it's like this very exotic thing that might occur. But if it happens like The chances of me having my throat close up and me like getting my girl very low. And you don't need to get like a preemptive Epi pen to carry around for the rest of your life, right? Exactly. Like if that was gonna happen, it would have happened by any other number of bugs by now.

So I would say that there is like just for me a psychological element of like it's gonna happen and I'm gonna die, even though that is very unlikely. Yeah. And I think that that is also like. Even if you've been stung by bees, like very rarely are people in situations where they are like swarmed by bees. Oh my gosh. And that time I'm I'm gonna bring it back to myself. That time I was stung almost in my eye. It was a swarm situation. I sat down on a dock and there was a

hive under the dock just to really uh give you a future nightmare. My dad had to scoop me up and just like run me away from the from the situation. Oh that's

So intense. And he got stung a bun like several times too. So it was uh it can happen. It can happen anytime. It has happened and you know, like there's so many news stories where people move into a house and hear humming and then they just like take one wall out and like fifty thousand V. Just exit and attack them. And not to sound like I'm making this up, but that did also happen.

Textures. And then we and then someone came up and opened the wall and it was honey, like honeycomb. Oh. It probably wasn't honeycomb, but you know that it was like Yeah, like it was their little like hive. They're like intense hive. I think it was wasps probably. Right. It would have been nicer if it was me. And like wasps are scarier. And it's like it's funny that like I feel like I mean maybe I'm wrong. I but I'm not familiar with the media that would like Vilify wasp.

to the same degree. Like it does seem like bees really get the brunt of it, even though wasps are obviously much scarier. Yes, yes. And I've, you know, my family's been stuck. I love that there's gonna be a 20-minute opening about my own, like. Okay, you know We wanna get to know you. Well, I'll just say I did see my brother get stung by a vindictive wasp once. And so like that has compounded it. Like my brother was spraying it actively with raid. One wasp, not like a swarm. Whoa. And it like

flew through the house as he was running and like got him in the back. Come on. That A horror movie. So I'm like, they're smart. They're so smart. Yeah, and like a like an atomic bug or something that's mutated and can resist raid. It's a mild person. Wow. And so like I guess just to give a little bit more like clarity on the whole

Killer bees thing. Like they were in the Amazon in the seventies. They're from like South Africa, which is funny because that's like where the only white people in Africa are from, but still it's like Africanized. Gives us a very specific view of what that means. They're not thinking Elon Musk with some bees. They're thinking like Nelson Mandela with some bees. God, I could see Elon Musk.

risk doing something weird with bees though. Right. That's his next skin. He's like, we're taking the bees to Mars. And so yeah, in like the eighties They sort of start crossing through Central America, Mexico, they reach Mexico in 1985. And just the idea of it being an invasive species was enough for that to be the like major issue. The first honey bees that they discovered were in nineteen eighty five at an oil field in

um, California. Okay. And, you know, there was a permanent colony in Texas in the nineties. And so like what we can understand is like, you know, there's really very few of them, like maybe ten percent, fifteen percent ever became the like

the honeybees that g get the disease that makes them attack you. Right, right. And by nineteen ninety seven there were a lot more than that. But frankly, like they're not really killing people. Right. But they are the ones that are swarming. And I do think that that's probably the plot point. That we're getting from my girl, you know, he can't see without his glasses. Right. All of that. What year did that movie come out?

I wonder. Nineteen ninety wait, uh nineteen ninety one. So it's literally right in the cut. Like Yep. Okay. Okay. So it's we're already getting anti B propaganda out of Hollywood. Okay. Immediately. And the truth is like they can't really survive for extended periods. They're they can't survive harsh winters or like really dry summers. So like it's just not a major issue.

But you know, lo and behold, we love sensationalizing any sort of bug in this country. And that's like for me, that's the main one that I think of. But As I grew up there were more and more. Right, absolutely. And I mean, even going back, like, as we you know, I was thinking about this topic

I was like, I think we talked about something like this and we actually did in an episode we did about the history of like the horror genre as it relates to history and what's happening socially. And there was this amazing Uh, like this strange thing that happened in the 40s after World War Two, and then into the 50s, we started to panic that.

that bugs were like being affected by fallout and at the atomic bomb and that they were growing like the Godzilla vacation. Exactly of bugs, which like it was, I mean It was like this huge problem and they used it to actually market pesticides, which is not surprising. But maybe we'll we'll talk more about that later. But it is it You know, it's a very and I'm sure it's not just American. That's just our context today. But I believe that it is a very American. You know, we're just so weird about

like hyper cleanliness in a way that is kind of like out of control. And I do think that's like a little there's some of that in our bug panics. I mean, I also think there tends to be like You know, maybe there is like an American psychology that's just like at the root of the entire country, but I think about like The sphere of invasion, the sphere of you know, and it I think there's a lot of guilt in America about invading the US. Like I think that there's just a lot of sort of like

I'm not gonna address it. We did we are not supposed to. I have no idea what you're talking about. And so yeah, I do think that like There's just this idea of like, well, we did it so someone else or something else can do it. And I think that like we sort of externalize our fear onto bugs because there's bugs everywhere. Like they live outside. And they're like an enemy we don't understand. It's like germs kind of where it's like. This ultimate possible villain that is like

We can't see him. Totally. And you know, I mean maybe it goes Back to like, you know, the biblical like locusts and plagues, like just these ideas of like what is carrying the next disease. And so, you know, we can definitely start with bees, but this is painted on to uh mosquitoes around nine eleven. We just keep getting wake. Okay. I don't know about this. Excited.

All right, do you wanna uh continue on, get us back on the B track? A million percent. And so like I I think that like our media really ran with it. Um I'm sure there can be like a great supercut of just like B moments. I am one of the people who is late to watching the mummy.

But like I do just know the idea of like the mummy and the swarm of bugs, like a a mummy becoming bots. Yeah, oh it's good. It's good on the ride to Universal Studios. They like poop poop poo. They like put little air like shots into your leg. It's good.

Oh my goodness. But yeah, like even then, it's like you that's like a a an effect that can happen to people. And like we have a visceral response. Like I'm sure every time everybody lifts their legs and screams. Yeah, yeah. I mean it's it's ingrained in us. Yeah. And so, um, you know, I think by now in twenty twenty six, like killer bees does feel like a dated phenomenon, but like yeah, it just sort of is the main one. Also, we have this sort of

benefit of media being a thing when this happens. Like there have been historically other bug fear propaganda campaigns from the government. Um, like when I was doing research about this, I found that like in the 1800s, even there was like a lot of fear about um bow weevils, which is like uh like just a kind of bug that would eat like

cotton crops. And so like they're they would, you know, print out'cause you had to print out your propaganda facts. Of course. Like here's a poster. At the printing press. Exactly. We're going all the way back. And so like it was a problem, you know, it spread through the cotton industry. Newspapers were like, this is an economic crisis. And so like it became this thing where if there was any bug.

on cotton at all. Like people would just sort of like, that's gonna be the end of cotton. And I think that like Again, American history is interesting in that it's like not quite as long as like any other. Nowhere near as long. I know, I know. We're the kids of the world. Right. And so it's like it's funny that it coincides with like slavery ends. You know, we have the cotton gin, so at least there's some other thing that can come in and, you know, continue the sort of textile market.

in the US, but yeah, there's still I think sort of like this panic that it's like, well now there's bugs on it, so now everything's over. Um, and it's an externalizing of like the actual fear, which is like, well, shit, we don't own people and like what's gonna happen. I think that is a very apt like metaphor that you're giving us right now. Yep. Yep. Yeah.

And you know, I mean I've been alive thirty six years. Cotton has uh still been a major fabric in my life. The fabric of our lives, in fact. Right. So the bowl weevil's not um apocalyptic. But I guess I do get the like I mean, everything aside, I do get the the panic, like the biblical locust panic, because it is realistic that bugs could like actually consume an important food source or a source of, you know, something that

the country is completely dependent on making that case cotton. So it's like I think that makes sense to a point. But then we get the the uh the stories that mix together with uh cultural fears and then we get Some bullshit that has nothing to do with that actual fear. Right. Some poster designer starts making it they start drawing the bees too big. And then what are we then where are we at? I know. I know. Right. And so I mean I guess like just to say like I have a theory that

You know, is just a theory, but I'm from Kentucky. It's part of sort of the eastern seaboard that gets cicadas every so often, which is very much like an infestation. Like they're just everywhere, they're so loud. Um, like I I don't know if you have any experience with them. I lived in Virginia for a couple of years and and they were there. Yeah. So yeah, you right. And like you step outside, you're crunching on the shelves. They're everywhere.

It's too many senses involved. It's like I'm hearing them, I'm seeing them, I'm crunching them. Glad we can't smell them, right? Right. If I can smell a cicada. I'm out of here. That's my thirteenth reason. I can't do it anymore. And so I do think also that it's just like when

And this is so long ago, like people were probably worse at tracking these sorts of things. But I think that there is just a sense of like it's the eighteen hundreds. We don't know that maybe every seventeen years is what it gets really bad. And I think that we also just like in our, you know, advanced world want to feel like we have some sort of dominion over nature that we can control the population of vermin. And I think that like

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, you know, we gotta learn to live within our own ecosystem, but that's the main one. Would you like me to go through some other eras of bugs or I would love that. Yes, please. More after this. And now back to the show.

I mean, so like again, killer bees really for some I just think it's because the stingers, like that's why it's so scary. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I learned that in the eighties and nineties in California, there was something called like they were Mediterranean fruit flies, but they they shortened it to med flies. Which sounds kind of scary. Right. Like why do you have to shorten it? Mediterranean feels like fun. Med sounds like disease. It sounds like disease. Yeah, exactly. Yes. And so like

Basically, there's this huge media attention. It's a little bit before our time. So I do think that like, you know, it's kind of been forgotten, but the LA Times covered it kind of relentlessly. It became someone's beat. And it became like a culture war where there were protests, merch. Crisis, all of these sorts of things. Yes. Um, there were conspiracy claims, you know, people were saying that they were released by the government to because they didn't like California. You know.

People don't know, but it was honestly like it became a problem because they were changing the ways that pesticides were used. And so suddenly we have an influx of fruit flies that are no longer resistant to or they are resistant to that sort of pesticide that was changing. The ones that don't give you cancer, you know what I mean? Like once they start caring about humans, they stop killing everything else and uh

People get mad about it. Yes. The one that I remember super vividly was uh and this is like the one that I I linked to nine eleven. Із Ніл. Right. Everybody heard about that, yeah. Yes, major. And again, it's like uh they didn't say Africanized, but like the moment you hear Nile, you're like, mm, this is not from here. Right. We don't know you. Uh-huh. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You just hear like someone cock a gun. Always just like it's very aggressive. Um

But, you know, they were sort of found in New York City first. This is nineteen ninety nine, so pre-nine-eleven, but like this continues through post-9-11. And it was sort of the the fact that like these bugs also carry disease. So it's like you get the virus from West Nile mosquitoes. They're not just biting you and it's uncomfortable. It's like And now you can have a fever and I don't let I need to look. Were there did people die from what's I have no idea.

I feel like no. I feel like it was just sort of like you go to the hospital and they're sort of like ah Okay, people died. But how many people died? A hundred and thirty Total. Their souls. We love we care for them a lot. Yes, exactly. It still matters. I'm not saying they don't matter, but I am saying that like 130 in a country of 300 million. When we're talking about a panic and a hysteria, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's no threat. It just means that it's like vast.

vastly overblown and takes our attention over to to something else then maybe, you know, there's better things to be paying attention to and more important things to be afraid of. Totally. And like I think it like also is important to note that like If you get West Nile encephalitis.

One in ten will probably die. Like it's a big neurological thing. But what that tells us is not that many people are getting bit. Yeah. Very true. Like very true. And I live in New York City now. It is one of the most mosquito-y places I've ever lived. So it was like not that many of the mosquitoes that were here got infected with the virus. Right. And so I think that like there was just sort of this feeling that like,

people were worried that you can't tell, you know, which mosquito has it or not. And if you're if there's just you're getting bit, you don't know. It's it's just something that became a bigger deal. You know, bed bugs become a much bigger deal for some reason in the two thousands. Like I grew up saying, like, good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite.

No, and I I kinda didn't know they were real. I thought maybe they were tooth fairy kind of thing. Right, like a cute sort of idea. Uhhuh. Not a thing. Um And then I I have been bitten. They're horrible. I honestly don't like they say there are lots of ways to get rid of them. I don't know. I don't know that you get rid of them. I think you throw your shit away. I think it's like famously very, very difficult to get rid of them. Yeah, like

I I'll say I moved, I moved states. I was like, and they could have it. Yeah. Just take New York. Yeah. Yes. I'm outta here. Uhhuh. And it just became one of those things where it's like people didn't know where they were getting them from. And so it was like they could be at the movie theater, they could be, you know, on the subway seats. They could be

in a cab. They can be anywhere that you're in public and sitting in like typically they're in your house. Yeah. Hence the name. Yeah. Yeah. And so like that, I think it sort of reached peak between the two thousands and twenty tens. There have been sort of like three more since then. If you want me to like finish the cycle and then we can sort of dive into it. Yeah, I do. But I am curious about the nine eleven connection. Cause th so the West Nile kind of flared up around

like post nine eleven years, right? Yeah. That's so interesting because it's like again, it is like a kind of a stand in for the like frightening foreigner who could be anywhere and could be like about to commit a terrorist attack. At any moment. Yeah. It's it's I like to think of things like, you know, in metaphor that way because a lot of times we are displacing total these anxieties that are

Sometimes warranted, often not. So yes. And that like to me, it does seem like something that, you know, becomes overblown because there is sort of a subtext to what's happening. And like you know, I was in Kentucky around nine eleven, I was a kid, but I do remember this sort of like

There were only two Muslim kids at my high school ultimately, so a couple of years later. And I remember talking to them and they were just like, you know, the people in the area are weird to us. Like the we definitely don't feel like safe or accepted here. And there was this constant media, you know, Fox News was in its I mean, maybe it's back in its heyday, who's to say? But I was just really focusing on the idea of a threat of the religious You know, backing of like

Muslims, which is bizarre. Yeah. It didn't really make a whole lot of sense. Like the people who did nine eleven were three people. Yeah, and like very niche group of people that were not really largely connected to. That's right. other forces. I mean, you know, it's complicated, but right. Exactly. And I think that there's just sort of like it it's easy to paint the idea of foreigners, um, not just them, but like what they're bringing to a country as like, okay, well that

Like they they might bring disease. You know, I feel like Donald Trump has absolutely harped on that lie. And people buy it. It's like an easy scapegoat. Yeah, and I also think it's like We're when we're talking about the reaction to Muslim people at large in the United States after nine eleven, where as we were saying it was like a very small group. Uh it's like the same thing when we talk about like the invasion or the hordes, it's like,

People aren't individual people. They're part of this like mass swarm that there's no need to differentiate. It's just like you are. part of this. Yes. You know, whatever invasion. Exactly. And like it it doesn't really matter. It's not on us to discern what is actually the danger or the threat if there is one. Right. It is just to be like, okay, well, I'm hypervigilant and it is my job to, you know sort of figure out how I deal with it. Right. I remember just like fun personal anecdote.

We had a swimming pool when I was a kid. We were not rich. I'd like to caveat like we my mom got like a subprime mortgage. It was one of those situations, but there was a swimming pool that most of the time was not like fixed and ready to be swummen.

Swam, swam it. Whatever you want. Swam swam swam in. Um and we had neighbors, and it was funny, we were like the only black family in the neighborhood. And I remember like we never had a problem with our neighbors, but post nine eleven, probably around two thousand three.

West Nile fever is happening like all throughout Kentucky. And so we got a letter from like the local environmental people that like someone reported that you have standing water and like they're worried about West Nile. And I just remember like Feeling so like, oh my God, are we br and I'm like, this is so ridiculous. Like Kentucky always wants to be the center of attention. We don't have it here. I was gonna say it doesn't work very often. Right. Exactly. No one's thinking about us.

Um but it was just sort of like that was when I realized that it had. the the sort of hysteria around it had like reached a fever pitch and like there was nothing to do.

Like we ultimately didn't drain the pool. Nobody ever like came and did anything. I think my mom maybe yelled at the neighbors to be like sat reporting us. Yeah, rightly. Like it's fine. But um it, you know, that was when I realized like, okay, this is sort of a weird phenomenon. On. Yeah. Yeah. Moving past that, the last three that have been sort of like major in our culture, 2016, Zika. The Zika virus. Right. It's mosquitoes.

And it's also like it there were travel warnings for South American countries. If you had gone to Costa Rica, it was like you had to have like a holding pattern so you didn't get other people sick in the real fear. that was pushed through the media was that like if your baby gets infected. So now there's sort of this like uh like fear of like passing it on to your own kids or, you know, if you somehow interfering with the pregnancy, there being birth defects. And so that was

I think like really interesting timing with Donald Trump becoming president. Just because it's like, you know, there's sort of this return to this evangelical Christian thing and pregnancy became sort of hyper focused and all of that. And I think that um, you know, I I tried to like remember

what I remembered about it outside of the media posturing about it. And I do remember just like people I was in my mid to late twenties and people were just very much like, well, if I wanted to get pregnant, would this happen? And It's again, you know, it was not that many people. I'm gonna I'm gonna ask the internet how many people um God see Yeah.

Your algorithm's gonna get weird. Yes, exactly. Here we go. In the US, two hundred and twenty four people. Yeah. And that was contained in two twenty sixteen. Like it didn't I think there were seven in twenty seventeen and then none ever again. And so like a tiny, tiny percentage of people were ever contracting it. People weren't, you know, not traveling to those places. So it is sort of like this overblown fear of like, well, if it can happen there, it can happen here. The last two

2020, I actually forgot that this was a thing because so much happened in 2020. Really on the back burner. Uh-huh. But I remember, you know, there's just this one sort of media item about the murder hornets. I remember the meme of just like I can't take any more. Yeah. We have all this and now we have murder hornets. Yep. Yeah. Like it had to be moved to a D storyline. We were dealing with a lot. Yeah.

Which is really cute because it is kind of killer bee murder hornet. A million percent. And I bet you someone was like, These are killer hornets, and someone pulled them aside and said, We actually already have killer bee. It's like it's a little too on the map. And how do we? crank it up and include true crime because that's very popular. Yes, exactly. People know what murder is. Killing murder right now. Uh-huh.

And so that that story was really about this Asian again, right there with COVID. Like it's I I maybe I'm a conspiracy theorist, but it seems We're always looking in a specific direction. No, I think you're right. But it was generally just like northern, not just Asia. Like i it they were also in Russia. Um which is also interesting. Right. We're afraid of them. And it sort of just went

super viral because of the name, the visuals, social media was like truly at a peak because of COVID and people were at home. And, you know, a lot of like wildlife and science communicators spent time trying to like calm the misinformation about it. And like, you know, explaining to this Pacific Northwest that like this is really it only like you guys have to worry about it and it's not that many and

Let's ask the internet how many people died from order. Yeah, if I die today, my search history sucks. You're a welcome. No one. No one died. No one zero. Okay. We've got a big zero. Yeah, so uh way more people died from COVID to be clear. Um they're already eradicated. Wasn't really that big of a deal. And there's always that's the I feel like I mean, and this is true

kind of across the board. But there's usually experts that are debunking in real time. But it's boring. Nobody's interested in reading like the scientific reasons why everything's fine. And instead we're gonna go with tabloid headlines, which I do believe kind of lead a lot of insect panics. It's like the tabloids just love them. Right. It's like it it just taps into a primal fear.

And I guess the final one, which I think is the weirdest, I was in living in LA at the time that this happened. This is very much in New York City and like northeast. Uh phenomenon but the lantern flies, the spotted lantern flies. It's like its own genre of coverage. They're invasive. You can see them, which is like everybody's like, they're beautiful, but you gotta kill'em.

Um like weirdly it was just like I you know, I wonder how the Buddhists feel about it because the like the public framing is you have to kill them on site. It is your duty as an American to kill the Lanther Quest because they're invading.

And you know, like the first detection was in twenty fourteen in Pennsylvania. They still have crops in Pennsylvania. Turns out it didn't like kill everything. But in the summers in New York, you know, I moved here, I moved back here this summer, this past summer and I saw them. And I did I didn't stop them. And I don't know if that makes me like a criminal. Um I saw them in DC. Didn't I just I I didn't have the heart to do it.

And like do you really want to just have to kill bugs all day? You know, morally or jumping around. Yeah. It's all of our jobs. Like ha now my some of my brain space is dedicated to the murder of bugs. No, not doing that.

But yeah, objectively like I sort of brought it down to three reasons why all of this coverage is so like why America is so primed for this panic. It's the agriculture situation, like this country. has a lot of farmland. You know, we're trading crops all the time and it's a very international world now, you know, capitalism has made that the case and so it's very easy

to sort of just like lean into the idea that like this could be happening. Yeah. Uh and and hurting our money, at the very least, hurting our ability to sell things or buy things. And of course, agriculture is always an unstable industry. It does kind of feel like we are one. you know, panic away from Right. Now all the crops are fucked. Exactly. I know. It's like, yeah, tough, tough break. It's unfortunate to be fragile human beings that rely on food and outside sources of um health.

There's also just like public health has come into focus. Um, I'm curious to see what the next bug panic will be because you know, COVID has made us very hyper-aware of the fact that like things can change very quickly. And uh the idea of an invisible danger, I think, is very

just prevalent now. Yeah. It's easier to sort of be like, okay, well now we're in the season of this thing and and you know, we love to be anxious about something. There's gotta be something in the news to make us hypervigilant all the time.

And then there's just the personal responsibility. Obviously that cranked up in COVID where it was like you have to wear a mask to protect yourself and others. And if you kill these people because you didn't do it, when like the government could step up and sort of help us out. To that end, you know, West Nile was the same. It was like you can't have standing water in your yard, Aquila's family. Uh-huh. We're looking at you. Uh-huh. Right. And you know, with Zika, it was it's

very easy to sort of just paint mothers as in irresponsible. And if there's any problem with the pregnancy, it falls onto them. Yeah. And so I think that that is a major factor. And then you really got to the heart of it with the invasion language. It's just very simple to be like this invader that's coming in. It's moving north. It's spreading. It's arrived. Like it's just sort of

is very easy clickbait in our day and age. Yeah. To be like, What do you mean it's coming? What do you mean it's here? Yeah, yeah. It du Oh god. Yeah. It feels almost like an acceptable way to vent these prejudices that have been instilled in us. We can use similar language, but we're like not talking about people. But then eventually we're talking about people when that becomes such normalized.

language and of course I don't know which came first. I don't know, you know, was it did we use language? of invasion about insects originally or was it about people? I don't know. But uh there's this looks like something we can dive into eventually too. Yes. I mean I will say that like it's also Weirdly. And like just to go back to sort of the fifties in the sci-fi era when the Godzillas of it all it's like

I do also think that like we're ramping up our space exploration. So the idea of like space invaders, like all of these things. are just like it's I the idea is something is coming from somewhere else. Yeah. You know, I I pulled up my like list of sci-fi movies that were very much that, but there was a nineteen fifty-four film called them about oh yeah giant ants coming to LA and this is in the Cold War, atomic testing.

you know, very real fear era. Like we've already used these nuclear bombs. And so there's gotta be some other externalized fear factor. Tarantula, same sort of like giant bug B movies. Easy to use like a green screen and make them look bigger. They are so good. We don't have CGI is far off. And then yeah, like

Oh, I forgot that Ruiz the movie literally called The Swarm, which is Michael Cayenne's sort of breakout role fighting the beast. Yes. Oh yeah. And I mean, I think here I'll read you something from uh this. pro-pesticide book that was written in the fifties, like in an exact era you're talking about. And I think that it's, you know, it's around atomic bomb. It's also around like the language of war shows up. And it's like, here it goes.

The enemy is already here, in the skies, in the fields and waterways. It is dug into every square foot of our earth. It has invaded homes, schoolhouses, public buildings, it has poisoned food and water. It brings sickness and death by germ warfare to countless millions. every year the enemy within these walking, crawling, jumping, flying pests

destroy more crops than droughts and floods, they destroy more destroy more buildings than fire. They are responsible for many of the most dreaded diseases of man and his domestic animals. Some of them eat or attack everything man owns or produces. including man himself. Right. It's like could it be more dramatic? It's like The whole time you're reading it I'm like

I go to schools and and restaurants. I I drink water. I'm a person that could get eaten. I'm a man himself. Exactly. Like it's like they are absolutely attacking every single bit of like, okay, well, all of my friends. My frames of reference. Yeah. And I mean and if you even think about it like communism is happening at this time. And you're like, who's a communist? It's like they could be anywhere. They're the again this kind of invisible horde.

of people that want to attack the very fiber of who we are as a nation. And, you know, so I think it makes sense that again, we're using these metaphors, these like fear metaphors to talk about political. issues of the time. Totally. And there's like, I mean, I don't know if this is just American or maybe it's just sort of as the world has become smaller because we can all travel and see each other and other rise everybody. But like

There is sort of just an addiction to hyperbole. Yeah. Things are always black or white and it's like there's the Things are fine, which doesn't sell anything. And then there's like the bugs are everywhere. They're in you. They're on you. They're in you. But you yeah, exactly. And you could become one. They could change you.

Same with the yeah, the communists. Like you wake up one day and you're just a communist. Yep. You've been bitten by the fun bug. Yeah. Uh-huh. Totally, totally. But yeah, I mean, I think too, like if we think about like primal human psychology. A bug is like the furthest from a human you can get. It's like there's nothing about a bug that we can emotionally connect to. I mean

I do love bugs. All bugs are gods creatures. And I do take them and I I take care of them. But it's harder for me to look at it and look you can't really look in its eyes. It's not uh doesn't uh and yeah, and and and just this complete lack of individuality that we so value in our culture is uh I think It makes sense that we're like treating them like these alien creatures that we can't.

We can't we can't read their facial expressions. We don't know. Are they mad? I don't know. They don't have anger, I don't think. But you know what I mean? Are they about to attack, you know? Exactly. And if they all turned on us, uh there's so many more of them. We would be Screwed. Yeah. And they'll be around long after we're gone. So they're completely indifferent to us, but we are very concerned. Yes, the meek will inherit the earth, as they say. And uh

I was wondering if you wanted to hear a little bug panic that I found. Oh my gosh. Are you kidding? I would love to hear about your bug panic. I think you'll like this. I just uh we were talking about this and I like to hop on over to newspapers dot com, which if you don't use, I highly recommend it. You never know what you're gonna dig up'cause I'd never heard of this before. But uh back in eighteen ninety nine, so we're

Getting in the time machine. The way back machine. Which is, I guess, kind of what newspapers.com is. Uh so There was a panic. Around these bugs called well

They like have a scientific name, I'm not gonna try to say, but they gained the moniker the kissing bug. Which is fun, right? Um and they came from South America. From what I found, there wasn't a ton of like uh what we were talking about, this like metaphor, because immigration you know, it was still mostly European countries that were immigrating and then the South American, Mexican, all that immigration wouldn't happen for about ten more years.

uh in in any meaningful way, it seems like to me. But this was maybe just more of a like early media invention because this is the this is like right in the heart of when newspapers were becoming just these absolute like story machines that were designed to get our attention, just as they are today. More after this. And now back to the show.

The kissing bug newspapers were reporting was an epidemic, which is a word we haven't necessarily brought up yet, that, but you hear that a lot in this like language of illness. And in, you know, the late 1800s, we were pretty focused on cleanliness and the fear of of fear of dirty stuff. So this bite didn't cause the symptoms that people were describing, which could include death.

Um, it turns out that it is dangerous because twenty-five years after the exposure, your organs can become damaged. Like it's a little like COVID in that way where you're like not sure. But they didn't know that at the time, so we can't uh we can't give them credit for No grace, no grace No grace for them. Uh-huh. So but um so it was like the summer and the Washington Post started it all, shocker, and uh they were talking about the bite of a strange bug and pretty soon.

story was like wired across mostly the the Midwest and Northeast. And it said that an insidious insect can bite without causing pain and escapes unnoticed, resulting in the place where it has bitten, swelling to ten times its normal size. Yeah, scary. It's also like I they You know, is that another bit of hyperbole? Because of like what the hand? Your whole hand was like. What is ten times the size of this? I'm holding my hand up. Listeners, my hand is up.

You just blow it up like a balloon. Um, like when you used to blow up like rubber gloves when you were doing that in school. Yeah. That's the scientific way of figuring this out. Yeah. Exactly. There's probably just a picture of a hand like that. Like these photos. I guess it'd have photoshopping. They composited two images and they were like, That's a hand. That's a hand. Don't zoom in. Uh but what I think is really interesting about this one, and I think, you know, probably others

throughout history, other bug panics is that almost always the bug was not seen. Yeah. So it wasn't, it was like, I've got this bite. And now I have this context that the media is telling me.

So I'm going to like project onto this like, you know, fucking who knows? Any there's a million bugs that can bite you. Right. It could be literally anything. Yeah, you could literally just be allergic to your clothes. But anything. Yeah, exactly. But so we don't actually know the number of people that were bitten or how big of a problem it really was. And I don't know if you know about this, but we did an episode about the urban legend.

that you swallow eight spiders a year. Do you know this? Oh, I do. And like I sleep with my mouth closed and like yeah, it's not a brag. I just know myself and my mouth doesn't just flop open. Um, you know, some people are born blessed. But in any case I'm like How is it bright? It's true. Right. Like do you I just think like for people like me whose mouth is closed, like how how would it get in there? It's not in there. It's happened. Listen.

I can tell you as a professional debunker of urban legends, it doesn't happen. Spiders don't want to go in a wet, windy, frightening cave. There's no reason for a spider to go in there. Right.'Cause wouldn't it happen when you're awake too? Like your mouth was just open, there was a b a spider nearby if that was attracted to it, it would just

start crawling up your face. Very rare. But it's the last place a spider would ever want to go. But I wanted to just read you this really kind of adorable and insane. newspaper article or just a a snippet of it from eighteen ninety nine, if you don't mind. Oh, I love that. Have you met the kissing bug yet? He is not a Jack the Kisser who waits in dark corners until a pretty girl passes when he jumps out and steals a kiss from pretty ruby lips.

Oh no. Yeah. I thought you liked this. Nor is it a charm that carried on the person will make the youth or maiden very kissable. On the contrary, this latest fad in the bug line is a terror that does its own kissing. And the kiss is such an unfortunate thing to get that it makes the unwilling victim the reverse of kissable to fellow human beings of the opposite sex. Goodness. Yeah.

So so bizarre. Yeah, they're like Jack the Ripper would be bad, but you know, there are reasons to wanna kiss a woman on the face. I know. But it's just the way we talked about I mean, it's we're we're gonna look back at the way we talk about things now. Hopefully if we're still around in a hundred years. I sure hope so. I hope to cringe at myself. Like what was I saying?

I would have said that differently. Um But that's a good sign. That's a good sign. That's all right. That's all right. But eventually this got so uh overblown that not only were people having what I think is like when we talk about hysteria. And if we divorce it from kind of the original meaning where it became this way too.

Charged. Unfortunately, like an okay concept with Freud and then it got weaponized and then you know, whatever. But um We've transformed that meaning in one way to be kind of that psycho Somatic. issue where you hear about bugs, you know, it's the same thing where you're like, someone's talking about bugs. You feel the bugs on your body. Exactly. Your your mind's memory goes directly to like

Like I had a ant on me when I was a child and now it's on my neck and I'm just slapping myself. Exactly. You know, and and so it is like this kind of psychosomatic thing where you're hearing about these really dangerous bugs that are gonna swell your hand up to like Mickey Mouse proportions. And uh Yeah. That's actually what happened to him and it's we shouldn't laugh. He has to wear those gloves'cause his hands are huge. The kissin bug. Uh who n yeah, I mean I guess he's still around.

He didn't uh perish twenty five years later. But a very resilient mouse. Do you know about um this is another Of course, because we did that swallowing spiders episode, I followed up with one of the preeminent spider experts. Wow. And we debunked some spider myths. And I think it's so interesting because when I say brown recluse, does that mean anything to you?

I yeah, I mean and here's the thing. I anytime I see a spider, that's it's like it's a black widow or it's a brown recluse, which I'm like, why the colors gotta be so fucking dark? Yeah, what is it about? But it's like a whole other thing. Yeah, those people. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But yeah, I often I mean like those are the ones you're supposed to fear, right? The ones that are not yeah, like if it was if it was a white spider it would be like the angelic baby angels never sinned innocent spider.

Queen of the prom. Yes. Yes. A hundred percent. But uh the interesting thing about the Brown Recluse, which I think is similar to some of the things we've talked about, is that or especially the kissing bug, is that it uh was this way to categorize anything that you didn't understand on your body into this bite.

You know, my mother who I love dearly and who will never give up her story of being bitten by a brown recluse. Deep down she's where it doesn't exist, right? Deep down she knows that she was not, but she won't admit it because it's a good story and You know what? We're gonna go with it here. My mom was bitten by Brown Reclips. It happened and you weren't. It's real. And maybe she's the only one because they just don't exist in Washington State.

their bites are not what they're made out to be. Like it's just a total made up thing, like through a some fashion of just being like, This is the spider. Like this This guy is the guy. And it doesn't really make any sense. Yeah, someone misidentified the spider in a lineup and ever since then. It's just got a bad rap. Can't escape the bad PR for sure. But uh anyway, I just uh

Spiders for me are my uh my issue, the thing I'm scared of. Uh do you remember the parachutings, like the flying spider panic? Yes. Oh, and you know what? When I saw Charlotte Swebb as a kid and they all just sort of fly off at the end, I was like, Wait, wait, that's a new storyline I was feeling bad for the spider, but why why are they going everywhere? Yeah, that's why Charlotte's Webb will always be a whore.

horror movie. Exactly. The music changes and the screen darkens. You're like, ah shit, she is a disease. Charlotte's Webb 2. Spiders take New York. Exactly. Right. The squeak wolves. Here they go. But uh the The kissing bug really uh got very exaggerated. I loved this uh this quote from an article I read. One self-reported victim from Brooklyn. said the bug had, quote, a head like a rat.

and two long fangs. Yo, dude. You didn't see that. Yeah, you didn't see that. How close were it was on your eyeball? Like what are you talking about? Yeah, yeah. And then another man from Indiana said a Kissing bug dove and attacked his big toe as if it were boring for oil, which is like gross. Yeah, really gross too miserable. This guy wanted attention.

That didn't even happen. Yep. Yep. But uh it was really only like a two month thing. So similar to the ones that we've talked about today. It was like it just swelled up in the media and disappeared just as soon because it wasn't. a real infestation invasion. It was just a handful of cases, many of which we can't even actually identify as the kissing bug. But the reason it was called the kissing bug was that it would actually allegedly bite your lip.

Oh. Which is random. Yeah. And it reminded me of the spiders going in your mouth. It's like why why is it going to be a mouth? Right. Why would it wanna be right. And it's like if you I feel like our faces are so much bigger than our lips that like it would just bite wherever. Yeah. Yeah. Like I just don't understand why it's like Holding it in until it gets to our mouth. I know, I know. It's

It's romantic. But I think something that when I'm reading this last part, it reminded me of the way that like murder hornets. were so memeified and probably killer bees in its own way in its time. It becomes like a meta joke about like hysteria and about just like We're so fucked. Like now we have murder hornets. So uh this is fun. This is from another article I found. So like replica versions of the kissing bug were being worn.

for like all kinds of occasions in forms of jewelry. So women were like taking it back and like like putting them on tiaras and on their garter buckles and uh are the is it a beautiful bug? Like is it I mean it kind of looked like a tick. Yes. You know, it's kind of a t I don't know what it is. I can't get I can't possibly get into into the science of it. But yeah, they they look like ticks to me and they suck your blood. So, you know. Uh and I also that's another interesting thing.

is a lot of them are blood suckers and that feels like a something. I don't know what. Right. Another sort of just like hm, like the idea that it would be taking something from us, something so basic and You know, it's a very understandable thing to like if you just say that that is what it is, yeah. People They can imagine it.

Whereas like anything else is sort of like you're gonna have to be more specific. I don't know what inflates my hands. Yeah. Yeah, right. I'm not ex I'm not familiar with like respiratory collapse, but blood being sucked, sure. I can see it. It's a vampire. Yep. And you know, with the kissing bug too it became like a A like romantic thing where it was like you were wearing it on dates and the kissing bug, you know, became then kind of a quaint.

Yeah. You know? It's like now it's just this quaint thing from the nineties that we have tokens of in in popular culture. Totally. And again, it's like we could go back to the Bible and I bet I'm sure people have written lots about the locusts and their deeper meaning from scripture. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. They were they were doing a lot back then. Yep. Yep. Well that ends my kissing bug presentation. Um is there anything else that you

would like to tell us about in terms of our insect panics. You have any Jerry Springer final thoughts? Well, here's my truest final final is that like I think that, you know, we talk about newspapers, we talk about media being able to push it out.

And I'm curious to see where this goes in the future for a couple of reasons. One, you know, Hollywood is really in a tough spot right now. Really bad. But one of the like cheapest things to do is make something look bigger. Like you can put it closer to the screen. You could use a green screen. All of these things are available to us. And so I do believe that like

We're seeing an influx of horror films right now because they're some of the cheapest things to make. Yep. My prediction would be that like we will see a return to just sort of like Bug media. Cool. And I also think like with AI, like it's very easy to, you know, sort of sew this misinformation. And so I wonder when the next bug panic happens, how people will try to capitalize on that, you know, like. I I don't know if you remember in the Covid era where there was that sort of like

3D rendering of what people's breath is like. It's just like oh, it's horrible. It's like if you're within six feet of people, like and you're talking to them, this is what like the particles are like. And it's just like you're talking about loud. Did you ever see that movie Outbreak?

From yeah, that's what I think of is when they cough and they show all the germs like going to the movie theater. It's just like horrible. Yeah. Right. You're like, jeeze, I'm doing all that just by talking and starting like I think that like we will see a lot more um just sort of AI if I'd like if there was really just one bug, now there's a million. And, you know, I I just expect that we will see.

We'll just see more of that. Yeah. So you know, uh the bug panic never really ends. It's just evolved. It can take many forms. Yeah. And so just be prepared for the next one. You know, if you're if you're prepared to run with the story, maybe take a deep breath and be like, is it really like that? Yes.

Yeah, it's always good. It's good to take a deep breath. We're big supporters. I kinda think that if everyone in America learned how to not breathe in their chest, not to be a hippie, but actually could do a deep breath. Yeah. We might be I agree. So we're running on pure adrenaline all the time

Yeah. Uh okay, Akeelah do you want to tell us anything about uh the work you're doing right now that some of our audience might be interested in? Totally. Well, if you like the dulcet sounds of my voice and it didn't give you the creeps talking about verbin, um I do a podcast for Courier Newsroom called How Is This Better? It comes out every Friday. And, you know, we've talked about a lot of different subjects on that show. It's a short video podcast, like 20 to 25 minutes.

And it's about policy and pop culture and things that have been proposed and sort of diving in and asking the question, how is this better? The spoiler alert is that most of the time it's not. Seems like Yeah, things are moving in a very interesting direction. And so I would love it if you'd check that out. Uh also if you're just wanna watch me shitpost on the internet, I'm I'm all over Instagram. My stories go hard. Uh Instagram.com slash Akilah H.

And yeah, we we just post a lot and it's a great pod. I've only heard good things and I enjoy making it. Yeah, I've been really enjoying it uh the last few days. I've been getting acquainted and it's been a really great uh resource, I think, too, just to Again, we're just being beaten in the face every day with stuff. It's nice to actually pause and get a little context and stuff. So yeah, I highly encourage everyone to listen to Thank you so much.

And uh thank you so much to you for coming on and and infesting and invading. It's been really a pleasure. A pleasure. It's in my nature and I I'm happy to do it. No, and that's all we want. We just want to be invaded with with new information. So gorgeous. Thanks again. And I really do think we should have you back on soon because this was a lot of fun. Please do. I loved it.

This was American hysteria. Make sure you check out Aquila's podcast. How is this better? What a day. And Rebel Spirit, as well as her YouTube channel, Akilah obviously. Links in the episode notes. If you want to support American Hysteria and help us continue to be able to make it, you can go to patreon.com slash American Hysteria or subscribe on Apple Plus.

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