American Hysteria
Episodes
Gen Z and the Millennial with Gael from Teenager Therapy
01 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Gael Aitor is a senior in high school and the host of the podcast Teenager Therapy, a show where he and four other teenagers talk about mental health ...
American Hysteria: LIVE VARIETY HOUR (Watch the full show!!)
22 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Our Live Variety Hour is not your run-of-the-mill podcast live show, but an actual two-hour theatrical production performed in 2019. For the first tim...
CHILDREN'S PROGRAMMING
15 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As the nation grapples with a volatile culture war over just what version of American history our children will grow up learning, in this episode we w...
We Were Teenage Conspiracy Theorists with Ellen Cushing
08 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ellen Cushing's recent piece in The Atlantic called “I was a teenage conspiracy theorist” tells her story as a young Illuminati-truther during the...
Animatronic America with Sarah Marshall of 'You’re Wrong About'
01 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Join me and our Disney darling of the day, podcaster Sarah Marshall of ‘You’re Wrong About’ and ‘Why Are Dads?’ as we discuss our love for D...
DISNEYFICATION
25 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Disney has been presenting a fairytale reality within a reality since the 1920s, a far cuter reality that mimics our reality until reality is no longe...
The Theater of Trash with Alissa Bennett
18 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alissa Bennett is co-host of The C-Word podcast on Luminary as well as a decorated historian of bad behavior. “By sifting through the cultural trash...
TRASH TALK SHOWS
11 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There are few pieces of popular culture as problematic as the trash talk shows of the 1980s and 90s. Many of us remember Jerry Springer, Geraldo, Jenn...
'Falling for Fascism' Emergency Re-Release
06 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Due to the what appears to be an attempted coup happening right now at the Capitol, I wanted to re-release this vital interview immediately. Please li...
Seekers and Swindlers with Glynn Washington
14 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Podcaster and storyteller Glynn Washington grew up in an extremist religious sect called the Worldwide Church of God and also hosted the Heaven’s Ga...
CHARISMATIC LEADERS
07 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The charismatic leaders we are talking about today offer utopia and doomsday, salvation and absolute truth, perfection of the self and of the world at...
Walk with Me
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“I would like to step out of my heart/and go walking beneath the enormous sky”, poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in 1918, probably consumed with a si...
Black Evangelicalism and the Christian Right with Anthea Butler and Lerone A. Martin
23 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are talking to two scholars of religion, Professor Lerone A. Martin of Washington University in St. Louis and Professor Anthea Butler of the ...
TELEVANGELISTS
16 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At this point in American culture, televangelists are often seen as overblown parodies, with their pleas for private jets, their fiery sermons, their ...
Falling for Fascism with Jason Stanley
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are talking to Jason Stanley, Jewish-American professor of philosophy at Yale University and author of the New York Times bestselling book 'H...
FAKE NEWS
02 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
PLEASE VOTE!!! Fake news was the unofficial buzzword of 2016, as incendiary disinformation spread prolifically across the tabloids, TV news reports, a...
CrimeCon and Columbiners with Rachel Monroe
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today we’ll be talking with one of the big influences for our True Crime episode, Rachel Monroe, author of Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Wo...
TRUE CRIME
19 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
To this day, glossy tabloids show the face of a six-year-old pageant girl murdered in a wine cellar in 1996, and 20 years later, an NBC special about ...
Happy Halloween, It's Season Four!
05 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
American Hysteria is back for season four beginning October 19th! Join us as we investigate our ‘vehicles of hysteria’, everything from True Crime...
KILLER CLOWNS with 'You're Wrong About'
21 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Just in time to kick off this Halloween season, I got to be a guest on the amazing podcast ‘You’re Wrong About’ talking what else, but killer cl...
WE GOT MERCH
31 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We finally have the extremely dope merch you’ve been asking for, and it's ready for preorder! The design (from Brothers Design Co (https://brothersd...
Rewind: #WayfairGate // Satanic Panic
27 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Over our summer break, we will be rereleasing some of our old episodes as they become relevant in the present moment with an intro explaining their ne...
DEATH
22 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For our season finale, we will be exploring our ultimate human fear, our number one cognitive dissonance that arguably leads to all our American hyste...
WHAT WE INHERIT: A BRIEF HISTORY OF AMERICAN RACISM
15 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The national and international protests over the death of George Floyd have generated larger and more widespread conversations about systemic racism i...
A message from the team
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Like many shows, we are taking a break this week. We will be back next Monday with an audio guide that we hope can provide historical context and unde...
#GAMERGATE
01 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The internet hate campaign known as #gamergate began in February of 2013 when video game developer Zoe Quinn put out a simple, text-based game called ...
MEN'S RIGHTS
25 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 2014, a young man named named Elliot Rodger went on a killing spree as revenge for the beautiful women who had denied him the sex he believed he wa...
THE CURSE OF THE LOTTERY (mini episode)
04 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever heard of the Curse of the Lottery? The legend that most, if not all big winners eventually face everything from bankruptcy to untimely d...
GET RICH QUICK
27 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The search for untold riches has always been at the heart of America, from its very beginning as a nation founded on the search for gold. For this epi...
CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS AND THE LOST CAUSE (mini episode)
06 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Since the tragedies of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville and the Charleston Church shooting that killed nine black members, the display of ...
REDNECKS
30 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For this episode we are dissecting the archetype of American rednecks, hillbillies, and those we call white trash, a group often accused of being the ...
BEARDS (mini episode)
23 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode we explore the history of one of the most hipster of trends, how facial hair has come to represent masculinity, the pastoral fantasy, ...
HIPSTERS
16 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout my lifetime I have been both a middle class college student and a summer hitch-hiker dead set on finding the real heart of America, and on ...
SCHOOL SPIRIT (mini episode)
09 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Whether you were a cheerleader, a football player, a painted fan, or a bad kid under the bleachers, you will certainly remember this very American phe...
SUBURBIA
02 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For this episode, we are covering the uncanny cul-de-sacs of American suburbia, how this way of life formed, and how it has served as both a wholesome...
GOT MILK? (mini episode)
24 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up in the 90s, kids were targeted by a widespread campaign featuring what felt like every single cool celebrity sporting an iconic white musta...
BURGERS
17 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to our season three premiere! Whether we’re conscious of it or not, hamburgers have always been an American symbol, a metaphor for our speci...
Season Three Trailer
10 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We are stoked to announce that our season three premieres this coming Monday, February 17th! On this season we're going to explore our most ingrained ...
Looking for An Alien Vortex with Euphomet
06 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Since we are on a break this week, I wanted to share with you my former work with an incredible paranormal podcast called Euphomet. Together with host...
WAR ON CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
26 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This is a surprise early Season Three premiere! Merry Whatever y'all! Learn about the history of America's relationship to Christmas, and the several ...
We need your help!
03 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Join our Patreon now! American Hysteria has officially left our network and we are striking out on our own for the very first time. We need your help ...
MIND CONTROL
21 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For our season finale, I am going to step into the unknown recesses of the mind, especially my own. I’ll share my upsetting brush with a self-actual...
TERRORISM (part two)
14 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In part one of Terrorism, we looked at the history of domestic extremists on both the left and the right, from the slave revolts of the 1700s up throu...
TERRORISM (part one)
07 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Since 9/11, the fear of terrorism has centered on what we call Islamic extremism, but this two-part episode will instead explore a topic that is becom...
WARDROBE MALFUNCTION (mini episode)
30 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Eighty-four million Americans witnessed the greatest pop culture spectacle of 2004, when Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson headlined the Super Bowl ...
PORNOGRAPHY
23 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Pornography has existed all over the world for all recorded time, and now porn websites are visited by an estimated 60 million Americans every month. ...
VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES (mini episode)
16 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
AFTER SHOCK: Since the 1970s, violent video games have been a popular scapegoat used by Republicans and Democrats alike to explain mass shootings. Fro...
DANGEROUS TEENS
09 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Despite how these last few years have felt, schools are still statistically the safest place our kids and teenagers can be. Our evolving archetype of ...
FURBY (mini episode)
02 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
AFTER SHOCK: Many of us were gifted a strange robotic creature in the last years of the 1990s, a furry animatronic friend that children taught to spea...
TOY RIOTS
26 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
After the heavy first half of this season, I wanted us to take a little break together and have some fun. We will be covering the volatile toy riots o...
LIVE VARIETY HOUR
19 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For this very special episode, we present to you a mash-up of some of our favorite parts of American Hysteria’s LIVE VARIETY HOUR in Seattle. Specia...
Two Flexible Skeptics Contemplate the Unknowable Universe: American Hysteria in Conversation with the Something Scary Podcast
12 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Today I plan to lose all creditability among our dedicated skeptics by sharing my ghost experiences, talking about astrology, and even getting a tarot...
THE MAD GASSER OF MATTOON (mini episode)
05 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
AFTER SHOCK: In the summer of 1944, Americans saw terrifying headlines about a possible Nazi chemical weapons strike in the form of an invisible poiso...
MONSTERS
29 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Monsters come from the darkness, from the depth of lakes and swamps, from the shadows of forests and hills, and live too in the dark parts of all of u...
TED BUNDY (mini episode)
22 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
AFTER SHOCK: This 1970s rockstar biopic of a man whom we can all agree should be deeply reviled isn’t a new or shocking concept in America, the coun...
CELEBRITY
15 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Whether we like to admit it or not, we have celebrities that we follow, and we can watch their dramatics play out on a public stage, their dramatics t...
PARROT FEVER (mini episode)
08 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
AFTER SHOCK: On this week's show we talk about a disease known as Parrot Fever that frightened the nation in 1929, leading to parrots being abandoned ...
QUACKERY
01 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Gwyneth Paltrow’s Lifestyle-brand ‘Goop’ and the expensive products it peddles are just the newest in a long line of medical quackery leading ba...
COOTIES (mini episode)
24 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We all remember the very real threat of cooties, a contractable playground malady that developed out of the adult fear of germs. Cooties have long act...
GERMS
17 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In a real sense, germs are our only modern predator and they are invisible and impossible to detect; what could be scarier? America has adjusted to th...
GRIEFBOTS (mini episode)
10 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
American Hysteria presents the AFTER SHOCK, a follow-up minisode to the main episode before it, basically The Shit They Didn't Show or From The Cuttin...
TALKING TO THE DEAD
03 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For the season two premiere, we are exploring the rich American history of Spiritualism, a massive 80-year trend of popular culture lasting from the C...
Presenting American Hysteria: Season Two
27 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Join us next week, Monday, June 3rd, for the premiere of season two where we cover the creepy, sexy, gross, and surprisingly political American moveme...
BELIEVING IN THE BLAIR WITCH (mini episode)
06 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This is the 20 year anniversary of one of my favorite movies of all time, The Blair Witch Project, a movie that masqueraded as real found footage of t...
THE MANDELA EFFECT (mini episode)
22 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Our culture, our society, our very sense of self, relies heavily on a faith in our memories as perfectly accurate. But what if our memories aren’t a...
THE MOMO SUICIDE CHALLENGE (mini episode)
08 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The newest viral internet urban legend focuses on an entity named Momo, a creepy humanoid figure with giant eyes, a strange too-wide smile, and grotes...
THE END OF THE WORLD
25 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It has been said that the apocalypse is as American as apple pie, and for our season finale we are exploring different versions of the end of the worl...
The Morality of Drugs and the Opioid Crisis with Sarah Deutsch
18 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This week we will be discussing the history of drug panic in the United States and its effects in the present day. My guest is Sarah Deutsch, a friend...
DRUGS
11 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When a security camera caught footage of a 31-year-old Florida resident eating the face of a homeless man, the news and social media dubbed him the Mi...
Murdered on Lovers' Lane with Feminist Folklore podcast
25 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For this week's episode of the Calm Down, my guests are the women of Feminist Folklore. Each week Carela Holl-Jensen and Rachael Marr consider what fa...
TEENAGE SEX
18 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1996, Scream taught American teenagers the first rule to surviving a horror movie. Never, ever have sex. Classic slasher movies have their roots in...
Talking to My Christian Friends About Gay Stuff
11 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For the Calm Down this week my guests are my two Christian friends who wish to remain anonymous, as they are sharing some anti-establishment opinions....
THE GAY AGENDA
04 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The purse-carrying, tutu-wearing purple Teletubby Tinky Winky was outed as a homosexual in 1999, capping off a decade of conspiratorial anti-gay writi...
PHANTOM CLOWNS
21 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For most of us living in the US, clowns have become much more associated with horror than the laughter of kids. The “killer clown” epidemic went v...
SATANIC PANIC (part two)
07 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
*Please be aware that this episode talks about child sexual abuse* We recommend listening to part one of Satanic Panic first. In 1980s America, when 6...
SATANIC PANIC (part one)
10 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is part one of our two-part series on perhaps the most mystifying moral panic in US history, the 1980s and early 90s 'Satanic Panic.' For...
THE ILLUMINATI
26 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
For this episode, we'll explore the mother-of-all conspiracy theories, the Illuminati, an alleged secret society and their evil world domination plan ...
POISONED HALLOWEEN CANDY
12 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This episode takes a look at our history with candy, the desire and the panic, and explains why sweets have always been a source of fear for parents. ...
STRANGER DANGER
12 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This episode explores the evolution of American's bogeyman, the Stranger, and reveals how rare these types of kidnappings really are. Through looking ...
Introducing American Hysteria
05 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
American Hysteria is a brand new podcast exploring our moral panics, urban legends, and conspiracy theories, how they shape our psychology and culture...