Endless Thread
Hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson dig into the internet's vast and curious ecosystem of online communities to find untold histories, unsolved mysteries, and other jaw-dropping stories online and IRL.
Episodes
On this week's Endless Thread, host Ben Brock Johnson and producer Grace Tatter bring us two stories about the power of livestreams – one from the Coldplay concert box seats, and another from a notorious rat corridor in Brooklyn, NYC.
Show notes:
- What's the deal with "Astronomer" CEO and CPO affair? (Reddit)
- A Crown Heights Building's Rat Infestation Gets a Livestream (Hell Gate)
- Rat cam (YouTube/Adam Schleser) ...
Kristen Sotakoun (@notkahnjunior on TikTok) says she has always been 'the FBI of the friend group' – that person you can count on to dig up the juicy details on anyone's social media.
It's a skillset that has earned her millions upon millions of views on TikTok in a series she has dubbed 'consensual doxing.' In her videos, Kristen completes challenges from her viewers to find their birthdays, using only publicly posted informat...
What does the thumbs-up emoji mean to you? Or the wilted rose? The meanings of emojis are limitless and can differ across social groups or generations. On this episode of Endless Thread, Ben and Amory discuss two stories about how certain emojis have taken on surprising meanings.
Show notes: * Here’s why the Aerial Tramway Emoji is suddenly in every YouTube comment section (daily dot) *Alright guys.. What is does this emoji me...
If you feel like it's been raining a lot on the weekends this summer, you're not alone. A couple months ago, we noticed a thread on r/boston asking why? So, we enlisted the help of one of our WBUR colleagues, Climate and Environment Corespondent Barbara Moran to clear things up once and for all.
Show notes:This episode originally aired on July 12, 2024. It has been updated to more clearly represent communication with Kayleigh Grant about a conversation with Kristian Parton.
When Endless Thread producer Grace Tatter heard a friend assert that she could ward off a shark because of TikTok, Grace was both concerned for her friend's safety, and curious. Why are there so many videos about "redirecting" sharks on TikTok, and how accurate...
This week on Endless Thread, we're raiding our refrigerators and rating our favorite condiments with TikTok creator and author "Condiment Claire" Dinhut. We learn about the surprising history of some of our favorite flavor-enhancers, and Claire shares her secrets for using up the last bits of sauce in a jar and how she keeps her online presence appetizing.
Show notes:
The Condiment Book (Flatiron Books)
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In the hours leading up to Israel commencing its June missile strikes on Iran, X users were posting about pizza. Specifically, how pizza places around the United States Pentagon were experiencing an unusual spike in business.
The Pentagon Pizza Index refers to a theory that dates back to the Cold War, suggesting that increased pizza orders around the Pentagon could be a harbinger of immine...
A picture's worth a thousand words, or in this case, a podcast episode.
This week Ben and Amory bring two very different stories from Reddit about pictures on the internet. First – what legal rights do we have over our photos after posting them on Instagram? Then, Ben indoctrinates Amory to The Game.
Show notes:
Jeffrey Ngo is from Hong Kong. He used to talk about politics all of the time with his friends in group chats and on social media, from casually sending memes, to planning protests.
What happens to online speech when you're unsure how much the government is monitoring your speech, and what the repercussions will be if they don't like it?
Show notes:
Men's fashion might seem like a niche topic. But people of all genders and sartorial sensibilities follow Derek Guy on X for his clothing takes... even if they're not quite sure how they found his page.
Endless Thread talks to Derek about how he weaves together humor, history, cultural criticism, and political commentary to make fashion feel relevant to people who have never seriously considered it before.
Show notes
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'Tis the season to show some skin! Perhaps some tattoo-adorned skin?
In this week's episode, Ben tells Amory about the r/tattoos community's reaction to a man whose friends made him self-conscious about his flowery tattoo. Amory tells Ben about the science behind why tattoos stay put on our bodies, which has only recently come to be understood.
The thing about social media when it was created was that it was public. Ideas shared were debated for all to see. Today much of that is happening behind closed doors—in group chats.
Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of the media outlet Semafor and co-host of the podcast Mixed Signals, speaks with Endless Thread about the elite group chats on Signal and WhatsApp that are shaping American politics.
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Credits: This episode was ...
The bots are here to stay, and they're everywhere. The trouble is, learning how to spot them.
On this week's episode of Endless Thread, Ben and Amory discuss two stories from Reddit about undercover bots. First — is there such a thing as an easy tell for identifying bots? Second, what happens when internet users accept bots as fellow humans, only to discover the truth later?
Show Notes:
A few years ago, we brought you the story of how dinosaur emoji had entered the debate about trans rights.
We were reminded of this episode recently when a White House memorandum lambasted NPR for spreading "radical, woke propaganda" and linked to our story as an example. After the memo, President Trump signed an executive order to stop federal funding to NPR and PBS.
We stand by our reporting. And so we decided to bring you ...
It's rant season. Or is it? When is it *not* rant season? In this week's episode of Endless Thread, Ben and Amory discuss two very different, very viral, rants from Reddit. One is about how the current design trends in our public and private spaces are hard on the ears. Another discusses how escape room adventures can bring out the worst in people. Perhaps there's some humor and some lessons to glean from rants, too?
At any given time, 110 people can tell you exactly where James Tatter is.
Every single iPhone user has the Find My app on their phone, which allows them to share their location with friends and family. Increasingly, for young people like James, it's becoming also a form of social media.
Endless Thread producer (and James's sister) Grace Tatter wanted to know how something that seems creepy to some people became so commonplace...
Endless Thread is thrilled to introduce you to a new podcast from our friends at NHPR’s Document team. That’s the team behind other great narrative shows like Bear Brook and The 13th Step.
For the past six months, NHPR reporter Todd Bookman has been spending a lot of time thinking about… a cat. This cat’s name is Sergeant Tibbs – he’s 19.
Tibbs goes missing… and lands in the center of a lot of human pain, confusion… and inter...
There's a conspiracy theory on Reddit right now suggesting that Reddit is using aggressive tools to hide posts praising or supporting Luigi Mangione's alleged execution-style killing of the CEO of United Healthcare, Brian Thompson. Endless Thread looks at what is going on with Luigi memes on this platform: the Nintendo character memes… and the other ones.
Show notes:
A Reddit moderation tool is flagging ‘Luigi’ as potentially...
Have you ever been deepfaked? Or maybe this is just a new fear – that photos of you end up online that are you – but not really you? What would you do? For an increasing number of people – especially women – this is becoming a reality.
So much so that a recent bill in Congress called the “Take It Down” Act has found some incredibly rare bipartisan support. The bill is sponsored by republican Senator Ted Cruz and democrat Senator...
In April of 2024, a group of aid workers were killed by Israeli Defense Forces while bringing food to Central Gaza. The IDF had alleged that its military analysts had identified a gunman on top of one of the trucks carrying supplies, suggesting it was a military vehicle, not an aid vehicle.
In the online debate following the event, a familiar trope popped up: arguing over whether one of the aid trucks a Toyota Hilux. The reason?...
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