American Hysteria

Over the last ten years, Gender Reveal Parties have exploded, figuratively and literally. Parents, communities, and social media followers alike can witness the moment that parents and families find out the sex of their future baby, but lately, these parties have gotten so out of hand as to cause massive wildfires, explosions, damage to homes, injuries, and death. For this episode, we will try to figure out what in the world is going on here by exploring the history of gendered baby items, of the strange divination methods once used to guess the biological sex, and take a look at the idea of rituals around the mystery of pregnancy. Of course, we’ll also ask questions about the regressive nature of this blue and pink gender binary, and I will share a little about my own childhood growing up as a non-binary kid, a word I wouldn’t know for two decades.Become a Patron to get access to Chelsey's other podcast Walk with MeGo to brickhousesleep.com and get 15% off your first order at checkout with promo code HYSTERIAAmerican Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-SmithSound design by Clear Commo Studios Research and co-writing by Riley SmithCo-produced and edited by Miranda ZicklerVoice acting by Will RogersFollow American Hysteria on social media:Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch at americanhysteria.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pride Rerelease! This is a listener favorite. Back in 2018, I had my two Christian friends on the show, who wished to remain anonymous, as they shared some pretty anti-establishment opinions. Brianna is a poet who got her masters with me at the University of Virginia, and her husband Patrick has a master’s degree in biblical and theological studies and teaches the bible at a private high school. Brianna and Patrick are dedicated to questioning and exploring their faith in big ways, and today we’ll talk about their changes of heart as young Christians, what the the Bible says about homosexuality in its historical context, and how the philosophy of queerness just might help save the Christian faith.Next week: Gender Reveal PartiesBecome a Patron to get access to Chelsey's other podcast Walk with MeHead to brickhousesleep.com and use promo code HYSTERIA for 15% off your first order Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen or re-listen to learn all about our panics surrounding what amounts to the queer illuminati and their evil plans to recruit children and overthrow the government, plus some queer history of the US dating back to precolonial indigenous tribes. We are leading up to our pride special coming later in the month on our new and dangerous American obsession, Gender Reveal Parties. Look for more Pride content all through June!Become a Patron to get access to Chelsey's other podcast Walk with Me  Head to tryfirstleaf.com/hysteria to get 6 bottles of wine for $29.95Head to brickhousesleep.com and use promo code HYSTERIA for 15% off your first order  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Finally, it is ME CHELSEY WEBER-SMITH as our interview guest, questioned lovingly by our producer Miranda Zickler. We will discuss season four, what I learned, what we didn’t cover and why, the power of the Rainbow Coalition solidarity, couples we would make out with in a haunted house, a dream dinner party with Mary-Kate and Ashley, the importance of Teen Dramas, and yes that’s right, I talk for too long about my spiritual journey and current relationship to the Great Unknown. Thank you for a great season everyone! We will be back soon.Become a Patron to get access to Chelsey's other podcast Walk with Me Head to tryfirstleaf.com/hysteria to get 6 bottles of wine for $29.95Head to brickhousesleep.com and use promo code HYSTERIA for 15% off your first orderThis episode was hosted by Miranda Zickler (listen to Shiny Little Corners now!)Follow American Hysteria on social media:Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch at americanhysteria.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The kids' book series Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was based largely on urban legends, and when I read them for the first time I realized that I had heard them before, but as something true that happened to a friend of a friend. For our season four finale, I will be sharing my own journey with contemporary myths, from that first book series through the 1998 teen slasher Urban Legend, the landmark work of Mr. Urban Legend, and the man who finally got to the bottom of the most memorable story from my mom’s own childhood: The Bunny Man (I’ll let her tell you about it). So come sit around the midnight campfire, listen to some of the greatest hits, and see what they have to tell us about ourselves and our society, and what they have to do with the tangled mess of conspiracy theories we find ourselves in today.Become a Patron to get access to Chelsey's other podcast Walk with MeHead to tryfirstleaf.com/hysteria to get 6 bottles of wine for $29.95Finding You is out May 14thAmerican Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-SmithSound design by Clear Commo Studios Research and co-writing by Riley SmithCo-produced and edited by Miranda Zickler (listen to Shiny Little Corners now!)Voice acting by Will RogersFollow American Hysteria on social media:Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch at americanhysteria.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In preparation for our season finale next week on Urban Legends, we wanted to replay our deep dive into the 2018 viral internet urban legend about "Momo", a creepy humanoid figure with giant eyes, an uncanny too-wide smile, and grotesque chicken legs. Momo was somehow believed to be involved in mysterious texts that teens and kids were receiving on messaging apps, giving them escalating dangerous challenges sometimes ending in self-harm and suicide. Obviously, these kind of stories abound in the days of the viral internet, but they are actually part of a much older folklore tradition. Next week we will look at the last 50 years of American urban legends to see how we started to figure out that many of the stories we love to tell are simply too good to be true.Become a Patron!Follow American Hysteria on social media:Twitter: @AmerHysteriaInstagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The genres of modern scary movies known as slashers, meta-horror, torture porn, and social thrillers, each tell us about the anxieties of the generation in which they came to exist. Like part one, this episode explores the themes present in some of the most important films in the horror canon; themes of feminism and satanic ritual abuse, of Reagan-era morality and greed, of moral ambiguity in times of war, and those that are coming to define the smoldering culture wars we find ourselves in today. With a never-ending series of sequels, each new American terror resurrects our collective fear, making it perfectly clear that horror never dies. Become a Patron to get access to Chelsey's other podcast Walk with MeCheck out Hark here to experience podcasts in a new way!Head to tryfirstleaf.com/hysteria to get 6 bottles of wine for $29.95Check out the Queery podcast today!American Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-SmithSound design by Clear Commo Studios Research and co-writing by Riley SmithCo-produced and edited by Miranda ZicklerFriggin incredible voice acting by Will Rogers and Miranda Zickler(Check our Miranda's band Kuinka and their new single All Mine)Follow American Hysteria on social media:Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch at americanhysteria.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We need a little extra time for Horror Movies II, so here is a re-release of a very related and very important episode. Monsters come from the darkness, from the depth of lakes and swamps, from the shadows of forests and hills, and live too in the dark parts of all of us. However, this episode is less about Bigfoot and more about the idea of the monstrous, and how it has been used as a tool to demonize black folks since the first slave ships landed in America, both through folktales and famous works of fiction. We also explore how Darwin's theory of evolution affected white Americans and led to the actual creation of human zoos that displayed African people as both the missing link and blood-thirsty monsters.Become a Patron!Follow American Hysteria on social media:Twitter: @AmerHysteriaInstagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of three books, the award-winning Her Body and Other Parties, a collection of vibrantly haunting short stories, In the Dream House, a bestselling memoir and examination of queer relationship abuse, and most recently, a graphic novel horror story called The Low Low Woods. She has also taught several courses at the University of Pennsylvania, most relevant today, a fiction course called The Art of Haunting. Today we are over the harvest moon to talk to Carmen about haunted house motifs in American horror movies, the emotional core of these stories, and our personal experiences with various kinds of ghosts, both the scary and the beautiful.Get yourself a copy of Carmen’s books!: In the Dreamhouse, Her Body and Other Parties, and The Low Low WoodsNext time on the show: Horror Movies pt. 2Head to TryFirstLeaf.com/HYSTERIA to get six customized wines delivered to your door for just $29.95!Become a Patron to watch our entire Live Variety Hour and our brand new podcast Walk with MeProduced by Miranda Zickler Sound design by Clear Commo Studios Follow American Hysteria on social media:Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch and more at americanhysteria.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Horror movies, consistently written-off by critics, exist unbound from mainstream respectability and because of this, they can often tell us the brutal truth. For this two-part series, we will be investigating what horror movies, their plots, their victims, and their villains reflect back to us about the dominant repressed fears of each generation. From the Big Bug movies of the atomic era, the earliest monster movies of post-WWI eugenics, the psychotherapy gender-panic of Psycho inspiration Ed Gein, to the new age of gore born from the violence of the late 1960s, horror movies may be vital in helping us survive the true terrors of American life.Come back next week for Return of the Horror Movies where we cover the 1970s to the present with all the teenaged blood and guts you could ever dream of!Subscribe to Euphomet now!Subscribe to Lolita Podcast now! Become a Patron to get access to Chelsey's other podcast Walk with MeAmerican Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-SmithSound design by Clear Commo Studios Research and co-writing by Riley SmithCo-produced and edited by Miranda Zickler Voice acting by Will Rogers Follow American Hysteria on social media:Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch at americanhysteria.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices