Endless Thread

The internet is the great connector. Talk with nearly anyone at any time about anything. But that kind of freedom can lead to misunderstandings. Maybe your neighbors discover your cruder, less friendly persona online. Maybe a debate over holiday lore becomes a battle front. Endless Thread producers Grace Tatter and Frannie Monahan bring two stories to remind us that the internet is a morass of inf...

Get out your graphing calculators, because today's episode of Endless Thread is about a math problem. Specifically: wt(π1, . . . , πm) = m−1 ∑ i=1 wt(πi , πi+1) Now, pencils down. Stumped? So were mathematicians for decades. That is, until the equation was solved in a thread on 4Chan about watching the anime  The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.  Show notes: A lower bound on the length of the shorte...

Mo lives in Aden, an ancient city in southern Yemen. Built on a volcanic crater, it has castles and beaches set against mountains. It's beautiful. Like the rest of the country, it is also in the midst of an ongoing civil war. This summer, protests broke out over living conditions and basic services in the city -- like electricity, which can be shut off for 18 hours at a time. But despite these con...

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 do this — until he discovered a subreddit called Ear Rumblers Assemble: a whole community devoted to the mysterious and understudied ability to voluntarily tense one of the miniscule muscles in our ears.  We go into Ben's ear with...

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 clear was whether the owl was trying to befriend them, or catch them. Sometimes the owl seemed to be chasing students. Other times, it seemed to come in peace. A popular campus Instagram account reported that a woman had actually rai...

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 introduces us to the intergalactic world of astronaut fan fiction, starring the crew of the 2026 Artemis II moon mission. Then, Ben takes us through the r/Science discourse on a new LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) study mapping an an...

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 captain gave an announcement: everyone had to turn off their Bluetooth devices — or he was going to turn around the plane. This confounded passengers, because Bluetooth is safe for airplanes. It stays enabled when devices are on airplan...

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 least in ads. Now, in your mind's eye, picture it. What do you see? For years, countless people have been taking to the internet to share their memory of the Fruit of the Loom logo. A lot of them have the same memory – a basket, ra...

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 internet is so hungry for perpetual stews (a stew that is simmered and added on to in perpetuity). Then, Grace dishes on a listener conundrum about whether salty Reddit posts are worse for us than sweet ones. Show notes: ZAQ_Makes' Ste...

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 trying to learn the viral moves. More than 15 years later, a Korean TikTok creator went viral for doing the Dougie… badly. He claimed to be learning how to do the Dougie day-by-day – but his moves were so stiff and awkward, viewers...

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 Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern, the co-creator of Game Theory. In 1947, Gödel told Morgenstern and Einstein he had identified an inner contradiction in the U.S. Constitution while studying for his citizenship test: the type of loophole t...

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 engineering nature: large-scale interventions that could be our last hope. We’ll explore technology that could alter our weather patterns, transform our planet, and possibly save us all from the worst outcomes of the climate crisis....

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 in with millions of others. It's easy to think no one is watching. But your data isn't just vulnerable to prying eyes. It's for sale. And the government is buying it up to keep a closer eye on you — and all of us. This week, hosts...

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. Others? Not so much. And in the year 2025, when the stars aligned just so, you may have found that moment explode online. That's what happened to 23-year-old Adrián Simancas. Last year in Feb. 2025, Adrián was paddling the Straight...

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, Ben and Amory are comfy-maxxing. They'll discuss how the internet is delivering comfort right now, including a look at delicious foods from childhood and an intriguing tip on how to sleep better at night. Show notes: Calling all dad...

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 originates online and often becomes a meme — based on the idea of glitching into an inescapable prison of empty rooms. Back in 2020, Endless Thread discussed how this chilling kernel of internet lore migrated from 4chan to Reddit. N...

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 OnlyFans. What are its nearly 400 million users really getting from it, and what can that tell all of us about relationships forged online? To find out, he teamed up with Gracie Canaan, a stand-up comedian and OnlyFans creator. Ben...

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 connectivity. So he decided to run an experiment on himself: he'd live for at least two weeks without a smartphone. No Slack. No text messages. No Instagram or WhatsApp. If his friends, family, or boss wanted to reach him, they'd...

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 Reddit and an online trend directed at the Church of Scientology. Show notes: Found in my son’s room (Reddit) Storming Scientology Buildings: TikTok Trend or Hate Crime?  (The New York Times) What is a ‘Scientology speedrun’ and why...

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 be beat, and producer Kalyani Saxena egg-splores online discourse around Korean mayak eggs, and why it matters which creators get credit for their popularity. Show notes: "Been a few years now. Figured I’d share my recipe." ( r/p...

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. Together, they explore the ways in which the internet fuels random yet delightful meetings between strangers online, from a website where you can impersonate ChatGPT to Craigslist's beloved Missed Connections page. Show notes: YourAISl...

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... got uncomfortable and, in some cases, disturbing. But for a lot of viewers, these calls were surprisingly funny. How does Ben Palmer withstand the awkwardness and maintain his deadpan delivery as he trolls unsuspecting Americans...

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. When Joule Watts-Green steps into her mom’s mysterious machine, she’s swept off to a polluted city of tides. Streets are rivers, “tin-skins” shoot lightning, and everyone eats gooey Algae-Os. To get home, Joule must be brave, clever,...

Ben and Amory take a hike with producer Grace, following the digital trail of  "Ridiculoubs" — a mysterious climber who traverses the world's peaks in striking footwear. Then, Amory celebrates the beauty of daily life with the Dull Women's Club, a Facebook group with nearly 1.6 million members. Show notes: " Ridiculoubs" Reviews  (Google Maps) Ridiculoubs (Instagram) Dull Women’s Club (Facebook) D...

Endless Thread goes to space! First, host Ben Brock Johnson goes deep on radio signals of unknown origin, with an assist from real-life radio astronomer and Reddit MVP Yvette Cendes, aka, Andromeda321. Then, producer Kalyani Saxena takes Ben down the metaphorical black hole of Saturn's hexagonal storm, a massive vortex twice the width of the Earth that's inspired internet conspiracy theories every...