Close All Tabs
Episodes
Bee Movie, "We Are Charlie Kirk," and the Enduring Bait-and-Switch Meme
01 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the grou...
To Hack a Tractor: How Farmers Won the Right to Repair
25 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What do pissed off farmers and broken McFlurry machines have to do with each other? More than you’d think. Both are part of the story behind the mod...
The Fight for Your Right to Repair
18 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s culture of overconsumption urges us to simply throw broken items away and buy new ones. But there’s a growing shift to treat non-working d...
'Twitter on a Vape' and The Great E-Waste Crisis
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A legal loophole has led to a surge in single-use vapes packed with a surprising amount of electronic components. It’s also a glimpse into how our d...
Sex Workers Tried to Warn Us About Age Verification Laws
04 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Requiring internet users to verify their ages before accessing mature content may sound reasonable. Shouldn’t we be doing a better job protecting ki...
Send Pics? Roblox Wants to Know Your Age
25 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Roblox is one of the most popular gaming platforms for kids, with millions of young gamers playing user-created games. It’s also been heavily critic...
Lessons for U.S. Netizens from Behind China’s Great Firewall
18 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Are you going through “a very Chinese time in your life”? If so, maybe you’re one of the many American social media users who’ve jumped on the...
Love In The Time Of Doom Scrolling
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re bringing you an episode about love. We start with TikTok creator Jojo Manzo, who turned his late-night doomscro...
How the AI Data Center Boom Impacts Black Communities
04 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Picture this… You move to a cozy home in an idyllic neighborhood: fresh air and birdsong in the morning and gorgeous sunsets at night. One day, you ...
The Real Cost of AI Slop
28 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How much does your own AI use matter? With all the warnings about AI’s adverse impact on the environment, it can be tough to understand what that me...
Your Digital Footprint Reveals More Than You Think
21 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How easy is it to find someone from a single video posted online? To find out, Morgan put her own privacy to the test. She asked TikTok creator JoseMo...
Are You Allowed to Record ICE?
14 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, it became an instant flashpoint i...
Save or Scroll: OpenAI’s Head of Preparedness, Global RAM Shortage, AI Artists, and a Manosphere Antidote
07 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In a holiday installment of Save or Scroll, Morgan and the Close All Tabs team get together to talk over the stories they can’t stop thinking about....
Death, Robotaxis, and a Cat Named KitKat
17 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When KitKat, a beloved bodega cat, was killed by a Waymo in San Francisco in late October of this year, the incident quickly went viral. It ignited gr...
One Year Later, The Internet’s Still Talking About Luigi Mangione
10 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On December 4, 2024, United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed outside a Midtown New York hotel. The subsequent arrest of 26-year-old L...
What Happened to Purple Moon Games for Girls?
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thirty years ago, video games were predominantly marketed to boys. Nintendo and Sega ran TV ads featuring boys proclaiming how “awesome” and “po...
Meet Ukraine’s ‘Geeks of War’
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Ukraine-Russia war has been called the most technologically advanced war in history. Ukrainian citizens receive notifications about incoming missi...
Where Do Games Go When They Die?
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Ubisoft, publisher of the sprawling open-world racing game The Crew shut down the game’s servers, cutting off access to even its single-player ...
Alice Bucknell on How Virtual Spaces Help Us Cope With Reality
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When wildfire engulfed much of Los Angeles earlier this year, artist and game designer Alice Bucknell found themselves stuck inside, replaying “Fire...
A Political Reckoning for Twitch?
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
TwitchCon, Twitch’s annual convention in San Diego for all things streaming and gaming, is facing heightened scrutiny after streamer Emiru was assau...
Satanic Panic in the Age of the Internet
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What do colorful and plush Labubu dolls have in common with Mesopotamian mythology? If you believe some viral TikToks, everything. Recent conspiracy t...
Beyond the AI Hype Machine
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When ChatGPT launched in 2022, it kicked off what some have called the “AI hype machine” — a frenzy of promotion and investment that has sent s...
The All-Seeing Eyes of Modern Dating
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What happens to dating when every misstep has the potential to go viral? That’s what happened in 2022, when social media posts warning about a few b...
In Search of Thock: The Quest for the Perfect Keyboard
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
“Clacky,” “Poppy,” and "Thocky" may sound like the latest cereal elves, but they’re actually terms to describe the sounds of typing on a mec...
AI Prophets and Spiritual Delusions
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI delusions, chatbot psychosis, AI-induced religious mania… The phenomenon goes by many names, but the common thread is the same: someone starts ta...
Groypers, Doxxing and Charlie Kirk’s Death as a S***post
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What is a “groyper?” The term began trending on Google in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death. Kirk, the right-wing podcaster and Turning Poin...
23andMe (andGeneticPrivacy)
10 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When 23andMe filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, it set off alarm bells among privacy experts and consumers alike. According to a 2025 survey, abo...
From MIT’s TeachLab: The Homework Machine
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Close All Tabs team is taking the week off, but we wanted to share something else we think you’ll be into: a new mini series from MIT’s TeachL...
Teachers Strike Back Against AI Cheating
27 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cheating in school isn’t new. But with AI making it easier than ever, teachers face a new challenge: where to draw the line and how to make sure stu...
Before ChatGPT, There Were 'Shadow Scholars'
20 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thousands of writers in Kenya make their living ghostwriting academic papers for wealthy Western students. It’s an industry known as “contract c...
Does Gen Z Have A Staring Problem?
13 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Have you heard of the “Gen Z stare”? It’s the blank look some Gen Zers seem to give instead of the usual greetings or small talk—and it’s th...
Is Algospeak Coming for Us?
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Social media creators started using words like “unalive” and “seggs” to dodge algorithmic filters that might suppress “inappropriate” cont...
Save or Scroll: ICE + Influencers, Data Hygiene on Grindr, and Labubu Desserts
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In another installment of Save or Scroll, Morgan teams up with internet culture writers Daysia Tolentino and Moises Mendez II to dig into the stories ...
Bonus: A Big Win for the Internet Archive
28 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Who decides what is and isn’t a library? The Internet Archive now has federal depository status, joining a network of over 1,100 libraries that arch...
OGs of Tech: A Latino Engineer in Silicon Valley
23 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a field obsessed with the future, sometimes it’s worth looking back. OGs of Tech is a new occasional series from Close All Tabs that looks beyond...
Teens Under the Influence (of Chatbots)
16 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Young people are increasingly turning to AI “companion chatbots” to meet their emotional needs. But a new study shows that these chatbots, which a...
How the Furry Fandom Says Goodbye
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Furries are often known for wearing full-body animal suits at conventions — but the characters they inhabit, called “fursonas,” are much more th...
Curls, Coils, and Pixels: Researchers Crack the Code on Black Hair Animation
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The animation industry has long struggled to get Black hair right — from the infamous “Killmonger locs,” named after the Black Panther character...
The Spotify Effect, Pt 2: Micro-Genre Madness
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Spotify didn’t just change how we listen to music — it changed what a genre even is. In this episode, producer and rapper Quinn reflects on being ...
Elon's Great Crash-Out / Unmasked in LA
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Elon Musk and President Trump breaking up? LA protesters clashing with law enforcement? Waymos on fire (again)? Things have been moving fast the last ...
The Spotify Effect, Pt 1: Ghosts in the Playlist
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Spotify has morphed from a straightforward music library and search engine into a data-driven system built to feed you songs to match your mood and op...
Do You Hear What I Hear? Audio Illusions and Misinformation
28 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Are you old enough to remember the “Magic Eye” optical illusion mania that gripped the nation in the 90’s—random patterns that you had to squi...
Why Can’t Hentai Go Legit?
21 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hentai, sexually explicit Japanese animation (anime) and comics (manga), is a genre that’s been criticized for depicting violent or ethically questi...
The Surveillance Machine, Pt 2: No Opt-Out
14 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Think you can opt out of surveillance? Think again. Our locations, behaviors, and images are being tracked at unprecedented levels — and private tec...
The Surveillance Machine, Pt 1: How We Got Here
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The tools of high tech surveillance are increasingly all around us: security cameras in public and embedded in doorbells, location data on your phone,...
Recession Indicator Memes Are Getting Too Real
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Recession indicator memes are everywhere, pointing to everything from office wear at the club to Lady Gaga’s return to pop music as signs of looming...
How Safe is AI Therapy?
23 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After a divorce, KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg felt anxious over the prospect of dating again. On a whim, she turned to ChatGPT for a little emo...
Twitter on a Vape: Puff, Post, Pollute
16 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, tech reporter Samatha Cole shares what happened when she tried to “vape the internet” after seeing a viral post about a disposabl...
Save or Scroll: Manosphere Mornings, Luigi Sex Tape Rumors, and the Art of the Hard Launch
09 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We can’t cover every wild post from every corner of the internet — and not everything online warrants a full multi-tab journey. That’s where Sav...
The Broligarchy Pt 2: Is this Techno-Fascism?
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The ”broligarchy” didn’t come together in a vacuum — this combination of extreme wealth, right wing leanings, and an anti-establishment point ...
The Broligarchy Pt 1: Chronicles of the PayPal Mafia
26 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The term “broligarchy” refers to the Silicon Valley elite tech leaders who have accumulated vast amounts of wealth, power, and now, political cont...
What Happens if the Internet Archive Goes Dark?
19 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, the Internet Archive has preserved our digital history. Lately, journalists and ordinary citizens have been turning to it more than ever,...
Waymo Problems
12 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Self-driving Waymo robotaxis have become a familiar sight in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, but not everyone is happy about that. These “...
Children of the Vlog
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The world of family vlogging is under scrutiny after the release of two new documentaries: HBO’s “An Update on Our Family” and Hulu’s “Devil...
TikTok's Vibe Shift
26 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On January 18, 2025, TikTok went down for U.S. users. After just 14 hours, it was back. Since then, questions have been swirling online. Has the algor...
Introducing Close All Tabs
10 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
New episodes drop weekly starting February 26! Tech journalist Morgan Sung spends most of her day online—so you don’t have to. Each week, Morgan...
Influencer Endorsements Gone Wild
14 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This episode was originally published November 2, 2024. In this final episode of the Close All Tabs miniseries, host Morgan Sung examines the increa...
Stan Wars, The Fandom Menace
14 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This episode was originally published October 26, 2024. In this episode of Close All Tabs, host Morgan Sung examines the rise of “stan culture” ...
Couch F***** Memes vs The Truth
14 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This episode was originally published October 19, 2024. In this episode of Close All Tabs, host Morgan Sung dives into the world of viral political ...
From the Dean Scream to Brat Memes
14 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This episode was originally published October 12, 2024. Welcome to Close All Tabs, a special KQED podcast series exploring the intersection of inter...