American Hysteria

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

'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...