Close All Tabs

When viral stories like the Last Ditch bar masking controversy and the “sickfluencer” debate whipped the internet into a frenzy, disabled people found themselves in the crosshairs. Researcher and creator Jess Rauchberg saw a common driver behind the vitriol: algorithmic ableism.

The term describes how social media platforms and their algorithms suppress disabled creators while amplifying ridicule of them. Jess has seen it first hand as a disabled content creator, and has explored it in a research paper and an upcoming book.

Morgan talks with Jess about the history of disabled people in public life, how some people with disabilities get turned into “lolcows,” how algorithms push ableist rage, and why social media platforms are the ones who come out on top. 

Guests:

Dr. Jess Rauchberg, creator culture expert and lecturer at the University of Leeds

Further Reading/Listening:

Greenfield lesbian bar Last Ditch faces mask-rule backlash — Annalisa Quinn, The Boston Globe

The Insidious World of Lolcows — Emily Topping, Current Affairs

An Honest Review of the WorldofTShirts Experience  — Steven Asarch, Passionfruit

Illegal to be ’ugly’? The history behind one of America‘s cruelest laws — National Geographic

Articulating algorithmic ableism: the suppression and surveillance of disabled TikTok creators — Jess Rauchberg, Journal of Gender Studies, Volume 34, Issue 8

A Long-Ignored Syndrome Is Drawing Unprecedented Attention — Laurie Tarkan, Medscape

TikTok Told Moderators: Suppress Posts by the “Ugly” and Poor  — Sam Biddle, Paulo Victor Ribeiro, Tatiana Dias, The Intercept

No One Should Be Shamed for Using a Mobility Aid — Nicole Clark, TIME

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Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Cayla Mihalovich and Francesca Fenzi. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Our intern is Lauren Yoon. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.

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In 2020, movie theaters were on their last legs. Lockdowns and years of declining interest had forced historic cinemas to shutter, including an LA icon, the Cinerama Dome. But recently a new generation of cinema-lovers has been using social media to revitalize the culture of in person movie-watching. Internet culture reporter Candice Lim explores the rise of the Gen Z cinephile movement, and heads to Hollywood to meet the young filmmaker and activist who is fighting to bring the Cinerama Dome back from the dead.

Guests:

Candice Lim, internet culture reporter

Ben Steinberg, filmmaker, actor, and founder of Save Your Cinema

Ezgi Eren, founder of 11am Saturday

Further Reading/Listening:

Ben, the Man who Saved the Cinerama Dome  — Hear in LA Substack

An Activist Spent Years Pushing for Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome to Reopen. Why Did He Just Stop?  — Gary Baum, The Hollywood Reporter 

Cinerama Dome Advocates Take Rare Chance to Put Public Pressure on Owners to Reopen — Brian Welk, IndieWire

How 26-Year-Old Ben Steinberg Saved the Cinerama Dome — Ryan Lattanzio & Anne Thompson, IndieWire

Supporters Rally to Save the Cinerama Dome as Future of Hollywood Theater Complex Remains Uncertain — Pat Saperstein & Jazz Tangcay, Variety

In praise of Ben Steinberg, the hero who stood up and demanded the Cinerama Dome not be just one more derelict, abandoned Hollywood landmark — Reddit

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Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. This episode was reported by Candice Lim. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional production by Francesca Fenzi. Our intern is Lauren Yoon. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.

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In this special Halloween edition of Close All Tabs, we’re diving into creepypastas: horror stories that spread online until they become urban legends on their own. What happened to the girl who fell into a mirror in 2001? Did Ted the Caver ever come back to the surface? Was the Momo challenge real? And finally, we venture into eBay’s haunted doll marketplace … where we may have ended up with a spirit wreaking havoc on the production of this episode. It’s a ghoulish good time. 

Guests:

Hallie Tut, visual effects artist, and digital content creator

Craig Groshek, horror author and founder of Chilling Tales for Dark Nights

Ted Hegemann, author of "Ted the Caver”

Rena Lee, social media manager

Sophia Bruno, educational nonprofit coordinator

Paranormal Teej, haunted doll collector & paranormal investigator

Further Reading/Listening:

How She Creates VFX Shots That Break Your Brain — Hallie Tut, Youtube

Ted the Caver — Ted Hegemann

Momo (Creepypasta) — Villains Wiki

Momo Challenge Is Everything That’s Wrong with the Internet — Lance Ulanoff, Medium

Ubume — Yokai.com

How 'Momo', a global social media hoax about a paranormal threat to kids, morphed into a U.S. viral phenomenon — Ben Collins and Shoshana Wodinsky, NBC News

Finally, the truth behind the 'haunted' Dybbuk Box can be revealed — Inverse

The witches of eBay: Inside the industry selling haunted items online — Daniella Scott, Cosmopolitan

The Backrooms: How Kane Parsons turned creepypasta into cinema — Jack Mills, Dazed

The Eerie Backstory Behind Backrooms — Nadira Goffe, Slate

Revisiting Creepypasta, the Social Horror Craze That Launched Slenderman — Zac Thompson, VICE

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Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional production by Cayla Mihalovich. Our intern is Lauren Yoon. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard and Chris Egusa. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.

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This year’s internet breakout star was an order of Catholic sisters with a podcast. Within weeks of launching, Dominican Sisters Open Mic went mega viral. Clips and fan edits of host Sister Miriam saying “Sister, yesss!” spread across social media. Secular women’s magazines and Catholic media alike dubbed this year a “nun girl summer.” At the same time, some have criticized the order behind the podcast for the conservative ideology baked into its educational content. In this episode, we explore how the Dominican Sisters of Mary rose to viral fame, the beliefs behind their easy charm and infectious laughter, and what it all says about the cultural moment we’re in.

Guests:

Paul Dailey, director of marketing at Openlight Media

Sister Thu T. Do, Sister of the Lovers of the Holy Cross of Hanoi and Research Associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, Georgetown University

Dr. Tricia Bruce, Sociology of Religion and Director of Social Science Research, Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies

Matthew Remski, religion and politics journalist, co-host of Conspirituality and author of Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times

Further Reading/Listening:

Don’t Call Them Nuns. They’re Podcasters. — Madison Malone Kircher, NYT

Why Are So Many People Listening to a Podcast About Living in a Convent? — Luis Parrales, The Atlantic

The TikTok Nuns Have Everyone in a Chokehold — Christen A. Johnson, Cosmopolitan

The Next Hot Trend Might Just Be ‘Nun Girl Summer’ — Amy Glover, Huffington Post

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Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional production by Cayla Mihalovich. Our intern is Lauren Yoon. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.

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Humans are complicated, and relationships can be messy, so it may be no surprise that people are falling in love with chatbots. They are available 24/7, hang on your every word and never ask anything of you. Amelia Miller, a human-AI relationship coach, sees danger in our reliance on bots for intimacy and companionship.

Guest:

Amelia Miller, human-AI relationship coach; fellow, Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center

Further Reading/Listening:

Are Chatbots Harming Our Relationships? — Lesley McClurg, KQED

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Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional production by Cayla Mihalovich. Our intern is Lauren Yoon. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.

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Seems like everywhere you turn these days, influencers are gushing about their peptide use and how it’s done wonders for their appearance and health. One of the more popular ones, Melanotan II, also known as the “Barbie” peptide, is said to give you a tan without the harmful effects of sun exposure. But many of these substances aren’t approved by the FDA and are often sold through unregulated gray market sources. So, how safe is any of this stuff? And what does the peptide boom tell us about the risks people will take in the name of “looksmaxxing?” Morgan talks to skin cancer surgeon Dr. Sungat Grewal and board certified dermatologist Dr. Caren Campbell about the risks of taking peptides. Then Morgan and STAT News reporter Sarah Todd break down how American medical libertarianism and the MAHA movement led us to this very point in time. 

Guests:

Dr. Sungat Grewal, double board-certified dermatologist and Mohs surgeon

Dr. Caren Campbell, board-certified dermatologist

Sarah Todd, reporter for STAT News

Further Reading/Listening:

What the peptide craze reveals about Americans’ relationship with risk — Sarah Todd, STAT News

FDA advisory panel narrowly rejects compounding of one peptide, backs two others  — Lizzy Lawrence and Sarah Todd, STAT News

FDA panel backs compounded BPC-157, KPV peptides in win for RFK Jr. — Sarah Todd and Lizzy Lawrence, STAT News

What the peptide craze reveals about Americans’ relationship with risk — Sarah Todd, STAT News

Is Tanmaxxing an Addiction? A Dermatologist and Psychologist Explains — Katie Berohn, ELLE

Inside the Weird New World of Peptide Tanning — Savannah Sobrevilla, GQ 

Melanotan: The "Barbie drug" tanning peptide, explained — Carly Mallenbaum, Axios

Inside the Viral Tanning Peptide That Accidentally Created Vyleesi’s FDA-Approved Low Sex Drive Drug — Sara Kitnick, LA Times Studios

The FDA May Reverse a Ban on 14 Injectable Peptides—What That Means For the Beauty Industry — Kara Nesvig, Allure

The Skin Cancer Foundation Issues Warning Regarding Melanotan II —  Deborah S. Sarnoff, MD, Skin Cancer Foundation

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Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional production by Cayla Mihalovich. Our intern is Lauren Yoon. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.

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People really seem to hate data centers. And the more people learn about the amount of resources these server-packed buildings need, the bigger the backlash grows. Perhaps that’s why the viral music video and beverage ad “We Want Your Pee” took off in popularity about a month ago. It’s a collaboration between Liquid Death and Jason Kelce’s Garage Beer, and it advocates that urine could address the cooling needs of data centers. It’s obviously a joke… but could it actually work? Host Morgan Sung talks to journalist Amanda Silberling about what she discovered when she looked into this question, and about the alternative cooling methods that might actually help everyone’s least favorite buildings use a little less H2O.

Guest:

Amanda Silberling, senior writer at TechCrunch

Further Reading/Listening:

OK, can we actually cool data centers with our pee? — Amanda Silberling, TechCrunch

AI was supposed to win people over by now -- it hasn't — Sarah Perez, TechCrunch

Major YouTube creators are facing backlash for accepting AI money — Charles Pulliam-Moore, The Verge

Why OpenAI’s influencer trip backfired — The Art of Influence

Americans’ views of data centers have turned more negative — Brian Kennedy, Pew Research

NASA just recycled 98% of all astronaut pee and sweat on the ISS (engineers are thrilled) — Robert Lea, Space

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Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Our intern is Lauren Yoon.  Additional production support from Cayla Mihalovich. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.

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While the Close All Tabs team churns out our next few episodes, we bring you this must-listen from Life, Automated. Generative AI is able to conjure new images, stories, and songs at lightning speed. So what does this mean for humans artists, storytellers and musicians? 

Life, Automated Host Jess Love explores what happens when AI enters creative markets. We learn that, at least today, key bottlenecks prevent AI from replicating some aspects of creativity. But there’s no guarantee those bottlenecks will exist tomorrow, raising vital questions about what we value in human labor.

Life, Automated is a series about how to live, work and make decisions in a world increasingly shaped by machines. It is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and it is distributed by KQED.

Host and Senior Director: Jess Love

Producer:  Steven Jackson 

Senior Producer: Jesse Dukes

Music: Steven Jackson

Associate Producer: Stacia Sliger

Recording: George Christensen, Will Feeney

Promotional help from Ananya Mallapragada and Charlotte Simmons.

Music provided by Steven Jackson, Cue Shop and Neutral Propulsion Laboratory

Guests: 

Ben Jones, economist, co-director of the Ryan Institute on Complexity 

Sam Goldberg, assistant professor of marketing, Stanford

Yevgenia Nayberg, artist, illustrator, children’s book author

Further Reading/Listening:

Generative AI & Creative Goods: Market Expansion, Crowd-out, and Copyright — Samuel Goldberg, Stanford Graduate School of Business

‘Life, Automated’ explores how AI is reshaping our world — Roger Anderson, Northwestern Kellogg

Life, Automated Podcast — KQED

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Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional production support from Pauline Bartolone. Our intern is Lauren Yoon. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.

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Host Morgan Sung and the Close All Tabs team pull up the stories they can’t stop thinking about. From a fake NFL player catfishing women on dating apps, to femme creators reclaiming tech, indie musicians fighting AI music slop, and a comedian dishing out the juiciest community garden gossip — they’ve got a lot to chew on.

Save or Scroll is our series where Morgan teams up with guests for a rapid-fire roundup of internet trends that are filling their feeds right now. At the end of each segment, they’ll decide: is the post just for the group chat, or should we save it for a future episode?

Guests:

Chris Egusa, senior editor for Close All Tabs

Maya Cueva, producer for Close All Tabs

Chris Hambrick, editor for Close All Tabs

Lauren Yoon, intern for Close All Tabs

Further Reading/Listening:

Who would fall in love with a fake NFL player? Plenty of sensible people — Dave Schilling, The Guardian

Programming patterns: the story of the Jacquard loom — Science and Industry Museum

Spotify will label 'AI Persona' profiles and exclude their music from recommendations — Sarah Perez, TechCrunch

OpenAI’s rogue AI model incident was worse than we thought — Hayden Field, The Verge

How Hollywood Translated The Epic Poetry Of The Viral 'Zola' Thread — Mallory Yu, NPR

Community Garden drama — Sarah Neiman, Instagram

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Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Our intern is Lauren Yoon. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.

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Close All Tabs is on break this week, but we’re sharing a captivating episode about technology gone wrong from our friends at KQED’s Snap Judgment. 

A 19 year old picks up his family’s car from the auto mechanic shop, but a few minutes into the drive home the vehicle begins suddenly accelerating and won’t respond to any of his attempts to get it to stop. As his speed continues to build, state troopers have to catch up and think quickly to come up with a way to prevent a tragedy from happening on the road.

The Snap Judgment podcast mixes real stories with original music to create cinematic, dramatic audio. Snap’s musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. Listen on any podcast platform.

Website:

https://snapjudgment.org/ 

Socials: 

https://www.instagram.com/snapjudgmentradio

https://x.com/snapjudgment 

Further Reading/Listening:

Vroom — Snap Judgment Podcast

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Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Our intern is Lauren Yoon. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.

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