Happy Pride month to all who observe! This is a rerelease of one of our favorite episodes. 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.

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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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Since 1965, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola, has held an incredibly popular public event known as the Prison Rodeo where incarcerated men participate for cash prizes in contests so dangerous they have been banned from the professional rodeo circuit. Adam Mahoney is a reporter at Capital B and the author of a recent article titled The Wildest Show in the South: Spectacle and Suffering at America’s Biggest Prison. For this episode, Adam discusses with me the surreal reality of the Angola prison rodeo and his experience attending, gives me a background on the dark history of the penitentiary itself, and tells me the various perspectives of those involved in this shocking and deeply American spectacle.

Read more of Adam’s work at capitalbnews.org

Or follow him on Twitter @AdamLMahoney

Leave us a message on the Urban Legends Hotline at americanhysteria.com

⁠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

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Over the last couple months, groups of Minecraft fans have been making TikTok videos of themselves wrecking havoc in theaters across the nation when their favorite moment of the new Minecraft movie plays. Culture writer and co-host of the podcast The Ends at Prom, BJ Colangelo, teaches me about wtf is going on and together we try not to moral panic while discussing what this new craze means. We’ll also talk about how the Minecraft mayhem compares (or doesn't care) to both The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the rebellious mayhem that we ourselves once wrought upon the nation.  

Listen to This Ends at Prom wherever you get your podcasts

Follow @BJColangelo on TikTok and 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

Producer and Editor: ⁠⁠Miranda Zickler⁠⁠

Associate Producer: ⁠⁠Riley Swedelius-Smith⁠⁠

Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith

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In 1973, mysterious communications from a young boy came over CB radios in the Southwest, leading to a massive search and rescue mission that generated far more questions than answers. For this episode, I tell American Hysteria Producer (and co-host of our subscribers-only podcast Hysteria Home Companion) Miranda Zickler about the dubious case now referred to as Lost Boy Larry and go through the tangle of strange new information I feverishly uncovered deep in the archives of newspapers.com.

This episode is a shortened version of our subscribers-only podcast Hysteria Home Companion. Head to patreon.com/americanhysteria or subscribe on Apple Podcasts⁠ to get access to Hysteria Home Companion as well as ad-free episodes.

Producer and Editor: ⁠⁠Miranda Zickler⁠⁠

Associate Producer: ⁠⁠Riley Swedelius-Smith⁠⁠

Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith

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Join hosts Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore as they take you deep into the world of the most notorious crimes ever — where a single clue can crack a case wide open. From shocking murders to serial killers, Clues dives into all the forensic details and brilliant sleuthing of the world's most infamous cases. CLUES is a Crime House Original, powered by PAVE Studios. Follow and listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

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In 2009, the news reported live as a six-year-old boy careened through the air at 7,000 feet trapped inside a homemade balloon craft. Millions tuned into the harrowing saga, but once the balloon finally hit the ground, no little boy was found inside. Details then emerged that seemed to indicate it was all a hoax created by a family as part of a PR stunt for a reality TV show. On this episode, we explore the story of Balloon Boy, ask whether the event was indeed a hoax, and look at the early history of the hot air ballooning craze in the 18th and 19th centuries where hoaxes and wild spectacles were a foundational part of the emerging scientific field.

Become a Patron⁠ to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content

Or subscribe to American Hysteria on ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠

Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline 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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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

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 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

'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 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