Endless Thread

Catfish for dinner: The real story behind a viral dating TikTok

17 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After Taylor Paré was stood up on a date, she turned to TikTok. In a now-viral video, she claimed to have uncovered a new scheme to scam to singles l...

Will virtual reality ever become a daily reality?

10 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Vision Pro is Apple's new $3,500 virtual reality headset. Since its debut in February, users have found new ways to use this latest iteration o...

Episodes We Love: Doom Jellyfish

03 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine sitting in a hospital room for 24 consecutive hours in the most agonizing pain you can possibly imagine. You feel a sense of impending doom. Y...

What animal cams say about us

26 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Our interactions with nature are increasingly mediated by technology. We scroll through wildlife feeds on TikTok. We use Instagram to plan hikes. Even...

Can memes save the planet?

19 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 2017, Rhett Barker and his friends needed a way to stay in touch after graduating college. They were ecology majors, and meme groups were in vogue,...

RIP Lil Miquela

12 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 2016, followers flocked to an Instagram user purporting to be Miquela Sousa, a 19-year-old Brazilian-American model, singer, and sometimes activist...

Physicists are fighting over 'Cotton gravity'

05 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The halls of science, known for prim propriety and careful debate, are feuding. A new theory of gravity challenges Einstein's general relativity, our ...

Is Shaq OK?

29 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Shaquille O'Neal has some advice: "If you are going to retire, accept it. Enjoy your family," he recently said on The Big Podcast With Shaq. "I made a...

The Music Man, Part 2: What Scientology has to do with a pricey online piano academy

22 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the second part of Endless Thread's investigation into a ubiquitous online piano academy, we dig into why some people think it's a front to recruit...

The Music Man, Part 1: Is this $3,000 online piano class legit?

15 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

You may have seen this ad: A frenetic, wild-haired concert pianist says he can make any newbie a virtuoso in months. Just take his online course for $...

Endless Thread Introduces "Beyond All Repair", Amory Sivertson's new podcast

08 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, you heard Endless Thread co-hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson re-introduce you to how Amory's new podcast, Beyond All Repair, be...

Encore: Getting home

01 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Endless Thread co-host Amory Sivertson spent three years unraveling a cold-case murder. Her reporting eventually became the forthcoming podcast series...

Endless Thread: The Musical

23 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As Shakespeare once said...all the internet is a stage, and all keyboard warriors merely players. In this episode of Endless Thread, the members of th...

First date? Try a PowerPoint presentation

16 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Instead of a typical first date — dinner and light conversation, maybe — he presented 29 slides about one of his favorite movies. The internet lov...

Recess Therapy's Julian Shapiro-Barnum is skeptical of kids becoming social media stars

09 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The point of Julian Shapiro-Barnum's Recess Therapy, a video series where he interviews kids about life's bigger questions, was never to make the kids...

Half a million eyes are on TikTok's "tunnel girl"

02 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 2022, a TikTok creator who identifies herself as "Kala" began digging. What followed was an increasingly viral series of TikToks chronicling the ef...

The schism at the end of the tunnel

26 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The discovery of a secret tunnel attached to a Brooklyn synagogue earlier this month quickly went viral, fueling antisemitic conspiracy theories that ...

Encore: Deepfakes, lies, and cheerleading

24 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier this week, the New Hampshire Attorney General's office announced that it was investigating some suspicious robocalls urging residents not to v...

Where's the beef?: How social media sells the all-meat diet

19 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What if vegetables are poison? What if, instead, humans evolved to consume an animal-based diet of steak, liver, brain, testicles, eggs, butter, and m...

The Minnesota Timberwolves score NBA fandom in Brazil, but there's a kink

12 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rodrigo Barbosa runs social media for the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves Brazilian fan club. He's fluent in Brazil's particularly zany brand of internet...

This episode is a sign from the universe

05 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Manifestation, astrology, tarot — during tumultuous times, people are more likely to look for answers from the universe, and social media has caught...

Encore: Today you, tomorrow me — Why a decade-old Reddit comment still resonates today

29 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As we approach the new year, we revisit a story with a timeless message. Ten years ago, a man was stuck on the side of the road for hours with a blow...

Introducing Click Here: "Israel, Gaza and all the light you cannot see"

27 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

An episode from the Click Here podcast from Recorded Future News. The story of two ordinary people who decided to tackle two extraordinary problems: ...

Encore: Niall needs a friend — A quest to find connection in isolated times

22 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As many people gather with family and friends for the holidays, we revisit a story about our listener Niall. In 2020, Niall emailed us saying he felt...

This song wants you to stick out your what!?

15 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If you know what "Sticking out your Gyat for the Rizzler" means you're likely a part of Gen Alpha or you're chronically online. And if, like us, you h...

Finding joy in unexpected sounds and shapes

08 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever heard an odd sound that sounds oddly musical? A spatula that rings like a toy piano? A storage container with a satisfying pop? Endless...

The value of social media isn't the technology. It's us.

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Washington Post tech columnist Taylor Lorenz talks to host Ben Brock Johnson about her new book, "Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influenc...

We are all nonplayable characters

01 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier this year, TikTok livestreamers began mimicking lifeless "nonplayable characters," or NPCs, by repeating motions and phrases like in a video g...

The Vault (from the vault)

24 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We're going underground into what might be the most important vault in the world. What's inside? A treasure that originates with a Russian scientist d...

Women are from Venus, men are from the Roman Empire?

17 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Within a few months, the question "how often do men think about the Roman Empire?" conquered Instagram, TikTok and countless group chats — and then ...

The Grand Can-Spiracy

10 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1909, the Arizona Gazette ran an article titled "Exploration in Grand Canyon." It said that an explorer by the name of G.E. Kincaid went into the N...

Introducing ICYMI: "How a Substack revived the dracula fandom"

03 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is brought to you by Slate's ICYMI podcast. Co-hosts Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim talk to writer Cyrena Touros about Dracula Daily,...

Chilling campfire stories for Halloween

27 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Gather round the fire with us for three hair-raising tales from the internet. For the finale of our series "Endless Dread," we explore stories of haun...

Episodes We Love: Listener beware… it’s ‘Goosebumps The Musical’

25 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

“Goosebumps” book fans and musical theater fans, unite! In this episode, Amory and producer Quincy introduce you to “Goosebumps The Musical” a...

Happy Freaky Furby Friday

20 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Alert: Furbys have invaded "Endless Dread!" They're having a bit of a moment. In this episode, producers Jacob Garcia and Quincy Walters dig into the ...

How the internet changed the spider trade

13 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

With new and exotic species available at the click of a button, the digital age forever changed the multimillion-dollar arachnid industry. What has th...

Introducing 'The Gun Machine' Ep. 1: The U.S. gun industry's surprising origin story

09 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hey, threadheads. It's a different day than we'd normally be in your feed, and we HAVE... something different for you! It's the first episode of a ne...

Find A Grave: Social media icon

06 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Host Ben Brock Johnson and producer Quincy Walters go to an historic Boston cemetery to try out findagrave.com — a volunteer-generated database of m...

Dune Boy

29 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Back in 2013, the sand dunes of Michigan City, Indiana swallowed a six-year-old boy. It took rescuers nearly 4 hours to dig him out of 12 feet of sand...

The genre of influencers NBC's 'To Catch a Predator' spawned

22 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Back in 2004, NBC’s 'To Catch a Predator' captivated millions of viewers as it followed a vigilante group called Perverted Justice, which has a goal...

The expanding universe of Lofi Girl

15 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The popular YouTube channel Lofi Girl provides a 24/7 livestream of chill beats to relax and study. Endless Thread producer Nora Ruth Valerie Saks an...

Meet the Gen Zs archiving the Muzak of the Twin Towers

08 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On Discord and YouTube, hundreds of Gen-Zers are teaming up for the purposes finding and archiving the Muzak (aka elevator music) that played in the p...

Artist: Known — Illustrator for 'A Wrinkle in Time' gets long-overdue credit

01 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The cover art for the 1976 paperback edition of Madeleine L'Engle's classic sci-fi/fantasy novel "A Wrinkle in Time" — featuring a rainbow-winged ce...

PARKS! Part 4: Would flooding Death Valley offset sea level rise?

25 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A Redditor proposed a quick fix to one of humanity’s greatest threats. But the real threat may be our fixation with quick fixes. Credits: This epis...

PARKS! Part 3: Close Encounters with Mato Tipila

18 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As of late, Endless Thread co-host Ben Brock Johnson has been obsessed with a rock in Wyoming, a lot like the protagonist of Close Encounters of the...

PARKS! Part 2: The internet’s slime guy

11 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Two years ago, he didn’t even know slime molds existed. Now, he may be the internet’s most famous slime savant. Co-hosts Amory Sivertson and Ben ...

PARKS! Part 1: Social media gone 'wild'

04 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"To avoid crowds, visit areas that are less crowded." These comically obvious, wise words come from the Twitter account — ahem, X account — of the...

Best of Summer: MEMES: Scumbag Steve

28 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If there is an OG meme in which a human is the star, Scumbag Steve is it. He spread across the internet like wildfire in 2011 as a universal represent...

Best of Summer: Goblins, toenails, and beach rap — Finding joy in small doses

26 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In times like these, you've got to take joy wherever and however you can get it. Amory and Ben swap unexpected sources of joy they've bumped into rece...

Best of Summer: Krakatau — The loudest sound in recorded history

24 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine if an explosion in California was so loud that it could be heard in New York City. This is the story of a real event that was just as loud —...

Best of Summer: The 100-million-year origin story of laughter and humor

17 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The first documented bar joke was copied onto a clay tablet 4,000 years ago in the ancient language of Sumerian. Scholars have translated it, but the ...

Best of Summer: What makes the world’s first bar joke funny? No one knows.

14 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What makes the world’s first documented bar joke funny? No one knows. In a tweet that garnered thousands of responses in March, the Twitter accoun...

Best of Summer: Swimming Hole - The man, the myth, the leap

07 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this summer-y episode of Endless Thread, Ben and Amory take a leap of faith (or do they?) to the depths of an upstate New York swimming hole with ...

Pup Play: Finding freedom in a dog mask

30 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

“Which one of you freaks hijacked the south Boston green space google maps for your furry photo shoot?” Earlier this year, a Redditor was trying ...

How Reddit's announced changes affects blind users

28 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Reddit is restricting the use of third-party apps. More than 8,000 subreddit communities shut down in protest — including r/Blind, which says the ch...

Is deepfake pornography illegal? It depends.

23 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since the creation of deepfakes in 2017, the AI-powered technology that swaps faces into videos has become commonplace, particularly in pornography. ...

Lessons learned while foraging: Take some, leave some for the next time around

16 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since the pandemic, foraging has exploded in popularity. Younger generations are embracing (or romanticizing) the great outdoors with trends like #cot...

Encore: Randonauts — How Randomly Generated Coordinates Are Helping People Seek Meaning And Adventure

09 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

r/randonauts is a fast-growing community of Redditors who use random, quantum-generated coordinates to go on real-life adventures. But what happens wh...

OK, Lamp! : A lesson from Bella Hadid about compliments

01 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Endless Thread, host Ben Brock Johnson and producer Grace Tatter look at a meme inspired by supermodel Bella Hadid's call to compliment e...

Encore: Angel's Glow — From Civil War Folklore To Winning Science Fair Project

26 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the aftermath of the Civil War's Battle of Shiloh in 1862, something strange happened. Some soldiers' wounds started to glow.  Stranger still, tho...

Come to the orchestra

19 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Can you have an orgasm from listening to music? Can you legally own more than six dildos in Texas? Endless Thread digs into several sexy questions tha...

#BlackFaeDay: When Black fantasy enthusiasts celebrate magic

12 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Once upon a time, in a magical land of Oklahoma, fairy Jasmine LaFleur wanted to create a hashtag to unite Black fairies all across the land. And she ...

Oranges and Bucket Lists: What language can teach us about our world

05 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we have two stories about etymology. What can words teach us about culture, trade, memory, and the world around us? First up, which “oran...

The birds and the bugs: questions flying around Reddit's 'Ask Science' community

28 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Do you ever listen to birds singing catchy little melodies and wonder - wait a second, do they know music theory? Can they sing in thirds and fifths? ...

Endless Thread presents Outside/In: How to build a solar-powered website

21 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What if the internet was only available most of the time? This week, Endless Thread presents an episode of Outside/In — a podcast from New Hampsh...

They said he was the Boston bomber. He wasn’t.

14 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the days after the 2013 Boston bombing, an online hunt for the perpetrators falsely accused Brown University student Sunil Tripathi. Police later d...

Endless Thread gets to the bottom of 'creepy' Glo Worm lullaby

07 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Our intrepid sound designer, Matt Reed — musician/composer extraordinaire —recently became a dad. He picked up a Glo Worm for his baby son, Sam. I...

'Stuff Your 15-Minute Cities!'

31 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What do livable and walkable urban environments have to do with "the real life Hunger Games"? And why are people in Oxford, England and elsewhere comi...

The downside of giraffes' long necks

24 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On a sunny day in March 2020, researchers in South Africa discovered the bodies of two giraffes. From what they could tell, the giraffes had died a fe...

'Violation,' Part 1: Two sons, lost

23 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why did Jacob Wideman murder Eric Kane? In 1986, the two 16-year-olds were rooming together on a summer camp trip to the Grand Canyon when Jacob fat...

Pawn Man: How a WWII photo album created a 'perfect storm' on social media

17 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Evan Kail is a wise-cracking antique dealer and TikToker. Last September, his world turned upside down when one of his videos ignited an international...

Endless Thread introduces Violation, a new podcast about who pulls the levers of power in the justice system

15 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We thought Endless Thread fans would want to hear this trailer for a new podcast from WBUR. Violation tells the story of two families bound together...

Owl pursuits: How an owl became part of a campus community

10 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Last fall, freshmen at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill got a new neighbor: an owl. What wasn't clear was whether the owl was trying to...

Return of the Aunties: What online volunteers have learned about abortion access post-Roe

03 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It's been eight months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and more people are relying on Reddit for help accessing abortion services than...

Aftershocks online: How social media responds in the wake of a natural disaster

24 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The people of Turkey, Syria and Lebanon are still recovering from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people and injured thousan...

Russian anti-war YouTubers: What happens when your government doesn't allow dissent?

17 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, Endless Thread spends time talking with two young Russian YouTubers who've had to contend with Russia's crackdown on wartime dissent. Nat...

My Canadian Girlfriend

10 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Did you have a friend who claimed they were in a long distance relationship with someone really awesome and super hot...but darn it, you could never m...

Him: An AI love story

03 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when you date a chatbot? The app Replika lets users design artificially intelligent bots to be their romantic partners. But the real love...

Worm Wars: Invasive species and the stories we tell about them

27 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When Endless Thread producer Nora Saks learns that a "toxic, self-cloning worm that poops out of its mouth is invading Maine", she starts sounding the...

'Sinbad Smith' and the troll pole: Two tales of things that are not as they seem

20 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Amory shares a 10-year-old Reddit post with Ben showing a photo of a college student with an epic-looking wooden staff and a caption that baffled the ...

'You are powerful': Missing and remembering Aaron Swartz

13 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Amory and Ben honor the legacy of internet activist Aaron Swartz with two people familiar with his life and work: documentary filmmaker Brian Knappenb...

Encore: Llama at a wedding

06 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

“What are the dimensions of an adult llama?” asked a Redditor called Mrs. Sam Handwich in the "No Stupid Questions" community. "I've been hired to...

Encore: Unsent Letters

30 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The unsent letter. We all have one, half-composed in our heads or fully-formed as an email draft. Whatever form these letters take, they go unsent be...

R.L. Stine, the giver of 'Goosebumps,' on 30 years, countless nightmares, and a lot of luck

24 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Team Endless Thread is here with your holiday bonus — a bonus episode, that is! If you heard our most recent episode on 'Goosebumps The Musical,' yo...

Listener beware… it’s ‘Goosebumps The Musical’

23 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When producer Quincy Walters came to an Endless Thread episode ideas meeting talking about 'Goosebumps The Musical,' Amory had two questions: 1) “Th...

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part VI: The quest to build machines like us

16 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Can a machine think like a human? Can it be conscious? For decades the answer was clear: nope. But artificial intelligence today is challenging that n...

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part V: Bots that speak the language of love better than you do

09 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If you've ever used a dating app, chances are you've encountered a bot, most likely a fake account or a scammer. But this week on Endless Thread, we i...

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part IV: The toxicity of Tay

02 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Next up in our bots series, we bring you a cautionary tale about Tay, a Microsoft chatbot that has lived on in infamy. Tay was originially modeled to ...

Encore: Shrinkflation

25 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From the supermarket to the housing market, products are getting smaller but prices are not. Why is this happening? And can it be stopped before the t...

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part III: Life, death and AI

18 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Next up in our bots series, we explore a growing field of AI: immortalizing the dead through predictive AI text. We talk to two individuals who utiliz...

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part II: The future of bots in government

11 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Next in our series Good Bot, Bad Bot: the possibilities of bots being used in governments around the world. How can bots increase transparency and shi...

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part I: Mental Health and Bot Therapy

04 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For the next few weeks, the Endless Thread team will be sharing stories all about the rise of bots. How are these pieces of software influencing our d...

Encore: Haunted House, Holy Water

31 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When Alex was in high school, he and his best friend used to break into abandoned houses. Alex was a tough guy, giving people hell. Until one night, i...

Encore: The Murderous, Medieval Olga of Kiev

28 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Olga of Kiev executed one of the most bone-chilling revenge tours in history after her husband, Igor, was murdered. Then, with a burning city in her w...

Encore: When Your Daughter's Imaginary Friend Might Not Be So Imaginary

27 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When Kellie's 3 year-old daughter told her about her new imaginary friend, Kellum, she didn't think too much of it. But gradually, Kellum started to f...

Caroline Calloway, anti-fans, and why some people love to hate

21 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we investigate the rise and fall of online influencer Caroline Calloway and the bigger question: Why do some people love to hate? ****** ...

Lazy foxes, bold mice: How wildlife personalities shape the world

14 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A Twitter thread about a fox named “Lazy Geoff” drew the attention of thousands online. But can a fox really be lazy? Our search for an answer rev...

Tales from the Crypto | Listener Response: Crypto in the Gaming World

07 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

An Endless Thread listener sends their response to our Tales from the Crypto series. They make the case that crypto and NFTs could improve the video g...

Tales from the Crypto | Part III: Crypto is for the children

30 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the final installment of our Tales from the Crypto series, Endless Thread producer Nora Saks and co-host Ben Brock Johnson talk to kids — and par...

Tales from the Crypto | Part II: How Bitcoin became legal tender in El Salvador

23 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

One year ago, El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender — the first nation in the world to do so. But how did Bitcoin make its way into this Latin Ame...