American Hysteria

RIP David Lynch, beloved director and otherworldly weirdo. The You Are Good feelings podcast about movies graciously invited me to talk about one of the most influential films and artists of my lifetime. Talking all things Lynchian with Sarah Marshall and Alex Steed, I tried to summarize this famously baffling plot of this film, mused about the concept of Duende, and cried on mic about the Unified...

Gabe Lenners is the host of the new podcast Obscurum: Invasion of the Drones, which explores a mysterious wave of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena that happened in Nebraska and Colorado back in 2019, an event that has a lot in common with the recent wave of supposed drones seen in New Jersey and surrounding states. For this episode, I don my flexible skeptic hat while Gabe tells me about his illum...

This Urban Legends Hotline episode features listener Brandon's inquiry about the legend of the Jersey Devil, a cryptid that has haunted the Pine Barrens of New Jersey for three hundred years. We will explore the various historical events that produced this creature's folklore: a dime museum's elaborate hoax, a radical Puritan woman said to have birthed a monster, a bitchy Quaker feud rife with sat...

The famous cryptid known as the Jersey Devil will be the focus of our upcoming Urban Legends Hotline investigation. This episode will provide some context using excerpts from previous topics we have covered. Full episodes to check out: The Cannibal Pig People of Pig Hill (2023) Fake News (2020) Urban Legends (2021) Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus conten...

Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin are the hosts of the podcast Spirits, a history and comedy show focused on mythology, folklore, and urban legends. Each week they pour a drink and deep dive into stories similar to the ones we cover here. On this episode, my new friends tell me the history of an early 2000s fad called The Game, one that you, dear listeners, have unfortunately already lost. Chec...

Sarah Marshall and I are back for a second helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul, the 1993 best-selling collection of "inspirational" and "true" stories. In part two I tell Sarah about the pair of motivational wealth coaches who created the book and then explain what is currently happening at Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment as new leadership has led it down a dark and exploitative path (all...

Many of you will remember the 1993 best-selling book of inspirational stories, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and its bite-sized, sappy triumphs of the human spirit. But shining a modern light on this book today, the collection hits a little bit differently. For part one of this two-part series, I tell podcaster Sarah Marshall of You’re Wrong About the history of this iconic text and read her some of...

Since the 1970s, Loretta J. Ross has been an instrumental activist in the fight for 'Reproductive Justice', a framework she and her colleagues created in 1994 that went beyond the pro-choice and pro-life debate. She has worked as the Director of the Women of Color Program for the National Organization for Women, the program director of the Black Women's Health Imperative the director of projects f...

Shannon Lynch is the host of the podcast The Alley: DC’s 8th and H Case, a detailed look at the 1984 murder of DC resident Catherine Fuller and the eight young Black men who were convicted and sentenced to life in prison for a crime they did not commit. In this episode, Shannon will take us through the crime, the flawed investigation and trial, as well as the suppression of evidence that could hav...

Because so many Hallmark writers and directors also make horror movies, I called in podcasters Sarah Marshall and Alex Steed of 'You're Wrong About' and 'You Are Good' to discuss the similarities between these two seemingly polar opposite genres. Subscribe to You Are Good and You're Wrong About Get tickets for our Live Show called A Massive Seance in SF and LA Become a Patron to support our show a...

Remember the late '90s mystery show Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction? where you had to figure out which stories were true and which were fake? For this episode I tell the wild life story of the mysterious man who provided the "true" stories which were certainly beyond belief. I'm joined by wonder-siblings Will Rogers (our voice actor!) and Kristen Rogers-Anderson of Guide to the Unknown, a podcast t...

Patrick Scalisi and Valerie Ruby-Omen are the creators of the 2023 book Connecticut Cryptids: A Field Guide to the Weird and Wonderful Creatures of the Nutmeg State. Together they have documented Connecticut's most important cryptids, those elusive, folkloric creatures that have not been proven to actually exist but that pop up in different forms throughout time and all over the world. For this ep...

This is a special episode I did for the podcast 'You're Wrong About' in 2022, and I wanted to finally bring it to you directly since the deep snowfalls of winter are looming on the ever-distant horizon. This is the harrowing tale of a wagon train trapped in the Sierra Nevadas in the harsh winter of 1864-1865, famously forced to cannibalize one another to stay alive, but that is only a small fracti...

For the 100th anniversary of the Macy's Parade, we are looking at the chaos energy that has always animated this cultural institution, from its explosive balloon disasters to its surprisingly unruly origins. Get tickets for A MASSIVE SEANCE Live Show with You're Wrong About: linktr.ee/amassiveseance Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content Or subscribe t...

This episode will give some context for our upcoming episode about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, its unbelievable chaotic origins and its totally out of control early days. Excerpts will be included from our War on Christmas Special, Haunted Attractions, Early Drag Queens pt. 1, and Toy Riots. Get tickets for A MASSIVE SEANCE Live Show with You're Wrong About: linktr.ee/amassiveseance Full e...

Perry Carpenter is the author of the new book FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions. For this episode, we are discussing what it means to live in a world where artificial intelligence is altering our reality more and more, how we can navigate a deeply uncertain digital future, and what it all has to do with human nature and the natur...

This episode was originally released right before the 2020 presidential election and is even more relevant as we face the 2024 election. Political philosopher Jason Stanley, author of the book How Fascism Works, helps us understand how countries slide into authoritarian systems through conspiracy theories, demonization of others, the systematic erosion of truth, and the manipulation of anxieties a...

In the 19th century, America and Europe experienced a panic over premature burial, believing that anyone could be accidentally declared dead and entombed before their time was really up. Led by a movement of quacky Spiritualists, the panic culminated in the creation of safety coffins with mechanisms that promised to save anyone who awoke six feet underground. Mere decades later, burial artists beg...

'Buried Alive,' our upcoming Halloween special, looks at the American fear and fascination with premature burial. We'll explore the panic that swept the nation in the 1800s, leading to the creation of safety coffins for those potentially entombed too soon, and the spectacles drummed up by eccentric performers who competed to see who could stay buried alive the longest. This episode provides more h...

What could possibly go wrong when two skeptical podcasters try to summon a ghost? Join Sarah Marshall of You're Wrong About and Chelsey Weber-Smith of American Hysteria for a historical, theatrical, ecstatic spectacular for the living and dead. Hold hands with your favorite disembodied voices for a spiritualist séance* featuring fireside conversation, mystifying tricks, special guests, and music f...

Today Sarah Marshall transports us to the old world of British Hysteria to reveal the mysterious story of the Enfield Poltergeist and joins me at the seance table to discuss the great unknown and the ghosts we know. Donate to help those affected by the recent hurricanes: Mutual Aid Disaster Relief BelovedAsheville Central Florida Mutual Aid Listen to You're Wrong About and You Are Good wherever yo...

Generation Alpha has made the uncanny, creepy, and chaotic YouTube series 'Skibidi Toilet' into a viral YouTube sensation, so much so that a famous director may soon be taking it to the big screen, despite the fact that the phenomenon has been called both brainrot and dangerous to the youth. On this episode, we will explain what Skibidi Toilet is, hear about similar internet videos enjoyed by Mill...

Our upcoming episode is about the massively successful and deeply uncanny YouTube series Skibidi Toilet, the first content that Generation Alpha's influence has made into a world-wide sensation. Billions of views on YouTube and TikTok are attributed to the original videos and the innumerable fan videos that followed, and soon we may see this bizarro phenomenon on the big screen with a famous direc...

Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika is a Peabody Award-winning audio journalist and an assistant professor of journalism at New York University. His latest podcast, Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD “takes listeners on a journey to uncover the hidden history of the largest police force in the world – from its roots in slavery, to rival police gangs battling across the city, to everyday people w...

Brittany Spanos is a senior writer for Rolling Stone Magazine who has taught a course at NYU called Topics in Recorded Music: Taylor Swift, which analyzes "the culture and politics of teen girlhood in pop music, fandom, media studies, whiteness and power as it relates to her image." Today we are talking about conspiracy theories that come from within the hardcore Swiftie fanbase, and the ones that...