Things Fell Apart

By BBC Radio 4

If you've ever yelled at someone on social media about, say, cancel culture or mask-wearing, then you are a soldier in the culture wars - those everyday battles for dominance between conflicting va

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How many episodes does Things Fell Apart have?

The podcast currently has 22 episodes available.

Best of Things Fell Apart

The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

Number 1: The Most Mysterious Deaths
How the mysterious deaths of 32 black sex workers in Miami in the 1980s led to a whole new (and spurious) mental health diagnosis, ending with another murder that occurred during the height of lockdown. Written and presented by Jon Ronson Produced by Sarah Shebbeare Original music by Phil Channell Archive credits: NBC News June 1984; Fox Television’s A Current Affair 1989.
January 09, 202435min
Number 2: 1000 Dolls
It's the early 1970s. Frank Schaeffer is an American kid living in the Swiss Alps – the son of an influential Christian art historian - who daydreams of one day making Hollywood films. But for that he needs a show-reel to prove himself. The ripples of Frank's creative ambitions will help trigger one of America's most violent culture wars around the legalization of abortion and Roe vs Wade. Written and presented by Jon Ronson Produced by Sarah Shebbeare Original music by Phil Channell
January 25, 202232min
Number 3: A Miracle
It’s the early 1980s and a hugely popular television evangelist is having a crisis of conscience. She wants Christian evangelism to be less bigoted. And so, to the horror of her peers, she invites a very unexpected guest onto her TV show… Written and presented by Jon Ronson Produced by Sarah Shebbeare Original music by Phil Channell Archive from the PTL network's 'Tammy's House Party' and the 'PTL Club'.
January 25, 202234min
Number 4: Believe the Children
In the mid 1980s a new conspiracy theory proliferates across America - that cabals of Satanists are secretly preying on children and polluting the culture. This ‘Satanic panic’ is a madness with bizarre and dreadful consequences – as an unsuspecting young woman in New Jersey is about to discover… Written and presented by Jon Ronson Produced by Sarah Shebbeare Original music by Phil Channell
January 25, 202233min
Number 5: A Scottish Jewish Joke
This is the story of the very first person to be publicly shamed because of something they did online. It’s 1988, the internet exists only in its most nascent form, and a software designer, Brad Templeton, uploads onto a message board a joke in poor taste. How the architects of the emerging internet respond to the joke will create a set of rules that the rest of us have lived under ever since… Written and presented by Jon Ronson Produced by Sarah Shebbeare Assistant Producer Sam Peach Original music by Phil Channell
January 25, 202234min