American Hysteria

Right now we are seeing accusations of gang associations used to to justify abducting immigrants off the street and sending them to either US detention centers or the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador with no due process. We have included a new introduction for this rerelease of our two part Gang Initiation series from 2024 in hopes that we can illuminate how these types of accusations and their consequences are straight out of the American playbook. Head to immigrantjustice.org/know-your-rights 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This American Life delivers thought provoking investigative pieces and deeply personal stories that really stick with you. They have been putting out some of their best episodes lately, so this is a perfect time to dive back in. We have become regular listeners again and we hope that you will join us.

Sarah Marshall takes me on a journey through two possible historical literary deceptions and asks me to try to figure out what is real, what is fake, and what it all means. This is a sibling to our recent episode on You’re Wrong About called Hoax Memoir Spectacular, so make sure you check that out as well. Listen to 'You're Wrong About' and 'You Are Good' wherever you get your podcasts ⁠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 Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

*Please listen to part one of our series first.* 'The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk' was an 1800s true crime memoir about the horrors a runaway nun claimed to have suffered while living among debaucherous and murderous Catholic clergy in a convent-turned-torture chamber, and at the time, it was the second bestselling book in America. But was it really a truthful account of Maria Monk’s life? Or was it all a hoax, a piece of propaganda meant to incite hatred of the early immigrant folk devils of American culture? In this two part series, Sarah Marshall of 'You’re Wrong About' and 'You Are Good' joins me to try to separate fact from fiction, talk about the similarities between this this book and other hoax memoirs, and discuss the particular ways that anti-immigrant rhetoric has remained the same for two centuries.Listen to 'You're Wrong About' and 'You Are Good' wherever you get your podcastsBecome a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus contentOr subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple PodcastsProducer and Editor: Miranda ZicklerAssociate Producer: Riley Swedelius-SmithHosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

'The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk' was an 1800s true crime memoir about the horrors a runaway nun claimed to have suffered while living among debaucherous and murderous Catholic clergy in a convent-turned-torture chamber, and at the time, it was the second bestselling book in America. But was it really a truthful account of Maria Monk’s life? Or was it all a hoax, a piece of propaganda meant to incite hatred of the early immigrant folk devils of American culture? In this two part series, Sarah Marshall of 'You’re Wrong About' and 'You Are Good' joins me to try to separate fact from fiction, talk about the similarities between this this book and other hoax memoirs, and discuss the particular ways that anti-immigrant rhetoric has remained the same for two centuries.Listen to 'You're Wrong About' and 'You Are Good' wherever you get your podcastsBecome a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus contentOr subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple PodcastsProducer and Editor: Miranda ZicklerAssociate Producer: Riley Swedelius-SmithHosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The hottest new (and embarrassing) trend in the billionaire bubble is luxury doomsday shelters, wildly expensive bunkers that the ultra-rich believe will allow them to live extravagantly in a post-apocalyptic world. Join me, Joshua Belhumeur, and Malcolm Critcher of the podcast 'This is Propaganda' as we enter their futuristic world, try to understand their tech bro mindset, and take a look at the history of prepping to see how unchecked capitalism has transformed the way we think about the end of the world. Listen to 'This is Propaganda' wherever you get your podcasts and check out brink.comBecome a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus contentOr subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple PodcastsLeave us a message on our Urban Legends HotlineProducer and Editor: Miranda ZicklerAssociate Producer: Riley Swedelius-SmithHosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a very special episode I did last year with the podcast You’re Wrong About in which Sarah Marshall and I swapped stories about some of our favorite historical hoaxes and pranks in honor of April Fools Day. Listen to You're Wrong About wherever you get your podcastsBecome a Patron to support our show and get ad-free early episodes and bonus contentOr subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple PodcastsLeave us a message on our Urban Legends HotlineCarolyn Kendrick produced this episode for YWAProducer and Editor: Miranda ZicklerAssociate Producer: Riley Swedelius-SmithHosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Woody Shticks is a comic stripper and burlesque performer as well as the director, production manager, and co-star of our recent live stage show with You’re Wrong About. For this episode, Woody and I talk about our histories with and philosophies around modern burlesque, and I tell him about the drama surrounding the first burlesque troupe to make it big in the United States back in the 1860s. This sexier-than-usual episode will show that the radical joy of art forms like burlesque continue to speak hilarious truth to the boring ass powers that be.Check out Woody's websiteBecome a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus contentOr subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple PodcastsLeave us a message on our Urban Legends HotlineProducer and Editor: Miranda ZicklerAssociate Producer: Riley Swedelius-SmithHosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Exposed thongs were all the rage in the early 2000s thanks to a handful of massive pop cultural moments, but as the craze reached the mainstream market and trickled down to teens and tweens, the skank-shaming heated up as did the moral panics and political backlash. Millennials, however, were far from the first generation to experience thong drama, and for this episode we will go back through the last ten decades to see how half of the time moral guardians have tried to legislate the thong out of existence and the other half of the time, the thong has been the thin black line that separated adventurous Americans from the long arm of the law.Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus contentOr subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple PodcastsLeave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline at americanhysteria.comSound Designer and Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-SmithProducer and Editor: Miranda ZicklerVoice Actor: Will RogersWritten, Produced, and Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thongs and the battles waged on their backs will be the focus of our upcoming episode. This collection of excerpts from previous episodes will provide some extra context: Wardrobe Malfunction (2019), Teenage Sex (2019), and The Streaking Craze (2023).Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus contentOr subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple PodcastsSound design and Production by Riley Swedelius-SmithEdited by Miranda ZicklerHosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices