Podcast Episodes

Introducing: Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes

From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate, to the Octopus Murders and the Waco Siege, the world is full of deception, manipulation, and destruction. Listen to Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes every Wedne…

Published on 2 months ago

The Disturbing World of Mobile Game Ads with 'Panic World' Podcast

Warning: REALLY WEIRD EPISODE. On social media and YouTube, bizarre, shocking, disgusting, creepy, and confusing animated ads for simple mobile games have popped up over the last few years. In collab…

Published on 2 months, 1 week ago

Dear Chelsey and Ask Sarah Marshall

In the spirit of American advice columnists Dear Abby and Ann Landers, I am joined by Sarah Marshall of the podcast You’re Wrong About to give our own unique advice to some of the funnier questions s…

Published on 2 months, 2 weeks ago

DEAR ABBY AND ANN LANDERS

Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, also known as Dear Abby, were newspaper advice columnists answering questions and printing statements from their 100 million readers from the 1950s to the early 200…

Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago

Titanic in Real Time

This is a bonus episode from our subscribers-only podcast Hysteria Home Companion. Our associate producer (and my brother) Riley Swedelius-Smith is here to tell us the absolutely wild and little-kno…

Published on 2 months, 4 weeks ago

Polybius: The Arcade Conspiracy

This is a bonus episode from our subscribers-only podcast Hysteria Home Companion. I share the history of an 80s urban legend with our producer Miranda Zickler, one about a dangerous video game that …

Published on 3 months ago

Not Just a Phase: Goths Through History with Christine Laskowski

Christine Laskowski shares her research into how an ancient barbarian people known as the Goths came to represent everything from edgy Hot Topic fashion and the band Joy Division to the Notre Dame ca…

Published on 3 months, 1 week ago

The Imaginary Gods of ChatGPT with Journalist Miles Klee

Miles Klee is the author of a recent Rolling Stone article titled People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies which tells the stories of ChatGPT users who have come to believe that …

Published on 3 months, 2 weeks ago

The FBI's White Christian Nation with Lerone A. Martin

Lerone A. Martin is the author of The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism . For this episode, Lerone explains how the FBI, led by J. Edgar…

Published on 3 months, 3 weeks ago

Listen Now: American Scandal

Every scandal begins with a lie. But the truth will come out. And then comes the fallout and the outrage.

Scandals have shaped America since its founding. From business and politics to sports and soc…

Published on 4 months ago