Why is the right-wing media machine so massive and able to dominate digital media, while liberals and progressives struggle to keep up? Jon Favreau joins us to discuss the critical players and outlets in the early 2000s that led us to where US politics is today, along with looking back at what he’s learned from launching Pod Save America back in 2016.

Our guest Jon Favreau is the host of Pod Save America, Offline, The Wilderness, and others as co-founder of Crooked Media. You can find him on all those shows and pretty much everywhere else online!

Want even more Panic World content? Like ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, and access to the Garbage Day Discord? Sign up for a membership at: https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld.

And if you want to see this conversation on video, ⁠Panic World is now posting episodes to YouTube!

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Tomorrow, October 9th, is the last day to vote for Panic World in the 2025 Signal Awards! We're up for the Conversation Starter and Weird⁠ (complimentary) categories and it's listener's choice — so we need your votes to win.

Please take a moment to throw us a vote at https://vote.signalaward.com/ or directly at the links above. Will we get a trophy? Who knows! But there's at least a free dinner we'll get out of it.

Again, that's the ⁠Conversation Starter⁠ and⁠ Weird⁠⁠ categories, and tomorrow, Thursday, October 9 is the last day to get your votes in. Thank you, as always, for listening!

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Witches, curses, magic, and the internet overlap much more than you’d think — and not just because of the Etsy witch that cursed Charlie Kirk. The very online Peter Berkman and Luke Silas of the band Anamanaguchi join us to talk about the history of internet witches and witchcraft, and the spooky connections between the supernatural and digital worlds.

Our guests are members of Anamanaguchi, who you can catch on tour until October 17. Check out their latest album Anyway here and find their tour dates here! 

Want even more Panic World content? Like ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, and access to our Discord? TODAY is the last day to get your first month for just $0.50 by signing up for our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld. Enter “PANICYEAR” at checkout.

Panic World is also up for two listener’s choice Signal Awards — please vote for us in the ⁠Conversation Starter and ⁠Weird⁠ categories by October 9!

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(SPOILER ALERT!) Grant hosts Ryan on his podcast to share their thoughts on One Battle After Another and what it says about the current state of the US, dads, Gen X, and compare its political commentary to Eddington and Weapons.

Check out the whole conversation on our Patreon — as well as ad-free episodes, bonuses, and other exclusives — and get the first month for just $0.50 with code PANICYEAR at ⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld⁠⁠.

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Like many things, there used to be a bipartisan consensus that in a disaster, you help as many people get through it as quickly and safely as possible. In the past 20+ years, though, we’ve seen a shift in how the right responds to climate catastrophes — including building out a robust selection of conspiracy theories from chemtrails to Flat Earth. Will Menaker from Chapo Trap House joins us to discuss right-wing conspiracy theories about the weather, the climate, and whether we’re living on a discworld.

Our guest is Will Menaker, host of Chapo Trap House. Their Movie Mindset series returns in October for spooky season, and you can also buy their new Year Zero comic book here: https://badegg.co/products/year-zero-1. 

Want even more Panic World content? Like ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, and access to our Discord? There’s still a week left to get your first month for just $0.50 by signing up for our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld. Enter “PANICYEAR” at checkout for 90% the first month.

And if you want to see this conversation on video, ⁠Panic World is now posting episodes to YouTube!

You can vote for us to win a Signal Award in the Conversation Starter category or Weird.

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Two of 2025’s biggest movie releases so far, Eddington (basically Panic World: The Movie) and Weapons, are not the same genre but they both offer interesting looks into the state of our society today. Grant joins Ryan to talk about the thematic links between them and examine the question: how do you cover moral panics, mass hysteria, and the internet without just commenting on everything else that’s already been said?

Check out the whole conversation on our Patreon — as well as ad-free episodes, bonuses, and other exclusives — and get the first month for just $0.50 with code PANICYEAR at ⁠https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld⁠.

This episode is sponsored by Incogni. Use code panicworld at the link below to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan: https://incogni.com/panicworld. Try it now with Incogni’s 30-day money-back guarantee.

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If you’ve spent any amount of time online in November, unfortunately you’ve heard of “No Fap,” a movement started over a decade ago by a subsection of very aggressive men who’ve created a pseudo-religion around the concept that all problems can be solved if you simply stop masturbating. Jeff & Kitty of the Free Country USA podcast join us to talk about the thousands-year-old history of anti-masturbation efforts and why it’s found such prominence for a certain kind of guy on the internet.

Our guests Jeff & Kitty host Free Country USA, a podcast you can find on YouTube @freecountrypod, Instagram @freecountrypodusa, and everywhere else you listen or watch pods.

This episode is sponsored by Incogni. Use code panicworld at the link below to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan: https://incogni.com/panicworld. Try it now with Incogni’s 30-day money-back guarantee.

Want even more Panic World content? Like ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, and access to our Discord? For our one-year anniversary, you can a month of them for just $0.50 by using the code PANICYEAR at checkout: https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld.

And if you want to see this conversation on video, ⁠Panic World is now posting episodes to YouTube!

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Ryan & Grant talk about the fallout from Charlie Kirk's killing, including what we know about the suspect in custody and what this means for current political climate in the US.

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The band The Velvet Sundown broke through the music charts with millions of streams in months after coming from nowhere — and being an entirely AI band. Is it an existential threat to the health of the music industry and the internet when you can’t even tell if the “song of the summer” was sung by an actual human, or a robot? Music critic Anthony Fantano joins us to discuss.

Anthony Fantano runs The Needle Drop, where he reviews albums and comments on the music industry. You can check him out there or follow him on Instagram @afantano.

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On Wednesday, June 27th there was a shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school, killing two kids and injuring a dozen more people. The shooter took her own life, and left behind two YouTube videos and a manifesto that were dogwhistles for both The Order of Nine Angles (O9A) and 764, the latter of which we've previously covered on the show. Ryan & Grant talk about both of these networks and how the mainstream news and the internet have responded.

Want to hear the rest of the conversation? For the month of September, we're offering 90% off the Panic World Patreon.

Use code PANICYEAR at checkout to pay just fifty cents to get ad-free and extended episodes, bonus episodes, and access to our Discord. Sign up at: https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld.

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