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.
For some context for our upcoming series that we have not yet revealed, we will revisit excerpts from our past episodes: Horror Movies pt. 1, The End of the World, and Alien Abductions pt. 1 and 2. We encourage you to listen to the full episodes!
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Sound design and Production by Riley Swedelius-Smith
Edited by Miranda Zickler
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Check out our new merch line Folk Devils United
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline
Thank you to our sponsors:
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Amanda Montell is the host of the podcast Sounds Like A Cult as well as the author of the new book The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, a collection of personal essays on various cognitive biases, those flawed ways of thinking that were very important for early humans but now cause all kinds of problems in our technologically advanced world. Amanda explains why these cognitive biases originally existed, how they manifest in the personal and political, and what we can do to understand, combat, and maybe even harness them to our advantage.
Get a copy of The Age of Magical Overthinking
Follow Amanda Montell and her new podcast Magical Overthinkers on Instagram
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Head to americanhysteria.com to get merch and leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sarah Marshall joins me to chat about how, in 1968, one unsuspecting young woman’s bustline almost caused a stock market bust when thousands of Wall Street employees became obsessed with watching her walk to work. I also tell Sarah about an absurd 20-year-long craze called Girl-Watching that taught "genteel" men the "refined art" of covertly checking out women, as well as the avant-garde artist and feminist responses to the treatment of Francine Gottfried who would come to be known as the Wall Street Sweater Girl.
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Head to americanhysteria.com to get merch and leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In the late 1950s, an organization known as SINA started a campaign with the mission of clothing naked animals for the sake of decency. Today we will look at this bizarre moral crusade and its leader, whose life you'll have to hear about to believe.
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Find us on Instagram @americanhysteriapodcast
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com
Sound Designer and Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Voice Actor: Will Rogers
Written, Produced, and Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
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Journalist and author Tom Risen is here to tell me about some of the real conspiracies that the CIA and the FBI were involved in from the 50s to the 70s and how, in 1975, one senator finally took these agencies to task, revealing shocking truths that would be used for decades to make the conspiracy theories we know today seem far more plausible. Tom writes about government surveillance and spy agencies and is the co-author of the bestselling book 'The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys—and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy,'" which he wrote with his father, James Risen, another journalist who has spent decades covering intelligence agencies.
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Head to americanhysteria.com to get merch and leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline!
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John O'Connor is the author of The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster, a cross-country adventure and investigation into the lore around Bigfoot as well as the personalities of those who spend their lives chasing this elusive creature.
Get John's book here
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Go to factormeals.com/americanhysteria50 and use code americanhysteria50 and use code americanhysteria50 to get 50% off your order
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For the second part of this Urban Legends Hotline episode, we are continuing to explore various tall tales of ruthless gang initiations from the 1990s onward, as well as looking at the sweeping anti-gang laws of the 80s and 90s that had devastating effects on communities and categorized entire neighborhoods as gang associates, enacting severe punishments based on erroneous assumptions and outright lies.
Call for a Ceasefire and Help End Civilian Suffering
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Sound designer and associate producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Producer: Miranda Zickler
Voice Actor: Will Rogers
Written, produced and hosted by by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For this Urban Legends Hotline episode, we are answering a listener message about a story of street gangs initiating wannabes with frightening rituals including driving around with their headlights off and murdering the first good samaritan who gives them a courtesy flash. We'll explore several scares that have flared up due to different versions of this urban legend, as well as real crimes wrongfully blamed on these initiations, all leading to the feeling that street gangs were creeping into the suburbs, looking for human sacrifices.
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Sound designer and associate producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Producer: Miranda Zickler
Voice Actor: Will Rogers
Written, produced and hosted by by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Thank you to our sponsors:
Factor’s delicious, ready-to-eat meals make eating better every day easy. Head to factormeals.com/americanhysteria50 and use code americanhysteria50 to get 50% off.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
'Gang Initiations' is the topic of our upcoming series, and this episode will provide extra context using excerpts from three previous episodes—Urban Legends, Drugs, and Dangerous Teens.
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Thank you to our sponsors:
Factor’s delicious, ready-to-eat meals make eating better every day easy. Head to factormeals.com/americanhysteria50 and use code americanhysteria50 to get 50% off.
Sound design and co-production by Riley Swedelius-Smith
Produced and edited by Miranda Zickler
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Check out our new merch line Folk Devils United
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Live at SF Sketchfest, Sarah Marshall tells me about the urban-legendary alligators in the sewers of New York City. But of course, that's only one of the many manholes we open.
Make sure you listen to You're Wrong About!
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline
Check out our new merch line Folk Devils United
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today I'm joined by paranormal corespondent Jim Perry of the podcast Euphomet and Sapphire Sandalo of the podcast Stories With Sapphire as well as the TV shows Ghost Town Terror, Paranormal Caught On Camera, and Paranormal Nightshift. We'll discuss what it’s like to work on very different kinds of projects in the supernatural sphere and get a little behind the scenes look at classic reality ghost shows. We’ll talk about the dream of diversifying away from the formulaic industry of ghost bros and Christian-influenced endings to allow the paranormal to take different forms, understood in different ways by very different kinds of people.
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Learn more about Sapphire's work
Learn more about Jim's work
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Hosted Chelsey Weber-Smith
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associated Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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