Search Engine
We try to make sense of the world, one question at a time. No question too big, no question too small. Hosted by PJ Vogt, edited by Sruthi Pinnamaneni. ***Named one of the best podcasts by Vulture, Time, The Economist, & Vogue. (OK, in 2023, but still...)***
Episodes
April 18, 2025 • 52 mins
A re-air from August 2023:
Our quest for the answer to this one sends us over a hundred years into the past. We learn about the invisible rules and fights that determine what our neighborhoods look like. We also learn about houses with backyard roller coasters, tiny apartments inside of shopping malls, and then we think a little bit about death. Happy Friday!
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April 11, 2025 • 51 mins
A group of teenagers agrees to allow a filmmaker to record the things they do on their phones for a year-long experiment. To see the world they see through their phones, to encounter their algorithms. The results are honest, at times pretty upsetting, and tell us a lot about the internet that Gen-Z finds itself on. In the middle of our big, confusing, national argument about teenagers and their phones, a few answers.
Lauren Greenf...
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April 4, 2025 • 46 mins
A beloved American rock band’s Spotify page appears to have been taken over by Russian rappers. Is this a scam? A mistake? A strange third act from some beloved alt-rockers? Kelefa Sanneh investigates.
Bye-Bye - Cake, PulyaNaVetru
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March 28, 2025 • 37 mins
Reporter Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi has the story of an unusual website you’ve likely never heard of. A website that has been responsible for rapidly making the world of Dogecoin and other memecoins become even more unhinged, all while generating small fortunes for foul-mouthed children.
The Parable of Peanut the Memecoin
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March 21, 2025 • 45 mins
In the 1930s, two scientists made a very important discovery, but their breakthrough idea failed to spread. In large part because the two were considered so deeply annoying. Reporter Carl Zimmer brings us a story of the scientific process and its very human constraints.
Airborne by Carl Zimmer
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March 14, 2025 • 63 mins
Why it’s so difficult to manufacture something entirely in America, and what happens if you try anyway.
The Smarter Scrubber Grill Brush
Destin Sandlin’s YouTube Channel: Smarter Every Day
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March 7, 2025 • 53 mins
There’s a new president of America, and he’s doing a lot of things. How do you decide what to pay attention to? A story about reporters focusing on one mysterious line item during the DOGE headline storm, and where that led.
Bobby Allyn
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February 28, 2025 • 47 mins
... Or, am I being lied to by a Brooklyn-based musician? At twenty-five, I had a question for The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn. This week, I finally got to ask it.
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February 21, 2025 • 44 mins
An adult picky eater, ostracized by his friends, castigated by society, asks the most human question of all: can I change? Our friends Manny, Noah, and Devan, the chicken bone squad, return to answer their own question.
Check out Manny, Noah, and Devan's new podcast, No Such Thing
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February 14, 2025 • 60 mins
A teenager explains why he shouldn’t have to write homework essays anymore. Is there some way for adults to force teens to still do homework? Or to convince them they should want to?
More Than Words - John Warner
Center for Digital Thriving
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February 7, 2025 • 55 mins
We're supposed to be buried there forever, right? Right?? Answers this week from writer David Sloane, who grew up in a cemetery and spent his adult life studying them. The surprising history of the place we go where we die and an answer to what happens when it runs out of money.
Is the Cemetery Dead? by David Charles Sloane
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January 24, 2025 • 51 mins
One of the most routine and uncomfortable miracles many of us experience, flight. Airplanes have gotten increasingly more cramped and less comfortable. What’s it like flying as a fat person, all the invisible negotiations and strategizing. Audio Producer Ronald Young, Jr. reports on the experience, and why it’s been changing.
Check out Weight For It! (We recommend you begin at the beginning, with episode one.)
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January 18, 2025 • 76 mins
What’s going on with Mark Zuckerberg? He recently conspicuously pivoted toward MAGA, meeting quietly with incoming Trump officials, and complaining about the Biden administration on Joe Rogan’s podcast. This week, we trace the story of the Meta CEO, and investigate what his new persona means for the 4 billion people who use his products.
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January 10, 2025 • 69 mins
For our first episode in the new year, a reflection on how we spend our time. What we devote our life to, and the roads we choose not to take. A conversation with Ira Glass.
Tickets for the Search Engine live show
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December 27, 2024 • 74 mins
An investigation into a mysterious room. A room that the most famous family in England apparently does not want you to see.
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December 20, 2024 • 63 mins
This week, a question a podcast has no business trying to answer. We talk to writer A.J. Daulerio about his own story of recovery, and the story of how he found himself opening a very unusual community on the internet.
Check out The Small Bow.
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December 13, 2024 • 60 mins
An anti-woke podcast abruptly announces its end, and in its final episode, a host offers its listeners some surprising news. She had taken ayahuasca, a powerful psychedelic, and it had contributed to her decision to step away. The internet, itself, now looked different. Huh? A conversation with former podcast host Sarah Haider.
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December 6, 2024 • 52 mins
If ever there was a place where every person inside was guaranteed to already have luggage, it would be inside an airport. And yet ... the airport luggage stores persist. Who is going to these places? To answer, we will of course, unpack the story of the entire airport -- how these hellish modern places of security and commerce came to be.
Alastair Gordon's Naked Airport.
Unclaimed Baggage.
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November 22, 2024 • 54 mins
The story of how an alternative theory of dentistry made its way from medicine's fringes to an audience of young men online. This week we try to make sense of jawmaxxing with help from Panic World’s Ryan Broderick.
Panic World
Garbage Day
INVCEL - Reply All
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November 15, 2024 • 53 mins
A mortal human being finds himself stuck between two impressive organizations: the DMV, and an internet start-up called Carvana. He has a problem, but each side insists only the other can solve it. Search Engine’s crack automotive team investigates.
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