You're Wrong About
Episodes
Gangs
22 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Isn’t it amazing how we can only imagine our monsters capitalistically?” Mike tells Sarah how police, prosecutors and journalists accidentally ...
The Victims’ Rights Movement
16 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“When you allow emotion into the courtroom, bias rushes in alongside it.” Special guest Rachel Monroe tells Mike and Sarah how a good-faith critiq...
Sex Offenders
07 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Things are not going to get better if we make the people who scare us seem more powerful.” Mike tells Sarah about the myths of sex crimes, the re...
Tonya Harding Part 2
26 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“The story that did the most damage to the people in it was the one that made the most money.” Sarah tells Mike about the low-rent conspiracy that...
Tonya Harding Part 1
18 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike the story of a world-class figure skater who worked at a mall potato restaurant. Digressions include “Sleepless in Seattle,” mall...
The Stonewall Uprising
27 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Humans aren’t good at remembering what got us where we are.” Mike tells Sarah how a turning point in the gay rights movement became an immediat...
Kitty Genovese and “Bystander Apathy”
20 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Once you tell a story incorrectly once, you can’t control where it goes.” Sarah tells Mike how The New York Times turned a suburban murder into...
Sexting
11 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“We’re uncomfortable with the evidence that teen girls have sexual agency.” Special guest Amy Hasinoff tells Mike and Sarah how a moral panic be...
The American Taliban
05 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“He’s been punished even more than the American prison system can aspire to punish anyone”: Mike tells Sarah how John Walker Lindh became a terr...
Exorcism
28 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
"It just seems like capitalism masquerading as religion": Sarah tells Mike how a horror movie resurrected a ritual and established an indust...
Homelessness
16 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“We want stories that don’t exist in systems”: Mike tells Sarah what happened when Utah set out to solve one of America's most intractable ...
Dan Quayle v. Murphy Brown
09 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Why did we make fun of Dan Quayle for misspelling the word ‘potato’ when we should have made fun of him for arguments like this?” Mike tells ...
Elián González
25 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah how a 5-year-old kid transformed a city, divided a political party and (maybe) determined a presidential election. Digressions includ...
The Preppy Murder
18 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike how an aspiring rich kid became an emblem of a world he didn't belong to. Digressions include drill teams, prep schools and eati...
The “Ebonics” Controversy
04 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah how a simple idea in a single school district became a nationwide racial panic. Digressions include slasher movies, Space Invaders an...
Terri Schiavo
05 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah how the media, the president and the Pope turned a simple medical story into a complicated legal one. Digressions include canine loya...
Anna Nicole Smith
20 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike how a poor Texas girl made herself into an icon and America made her into a punchline. Digressions include massage technique, “Deat...
Acid Rain
15 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah how an environmental problem became a national rallying cry, a sticky diplomatic issue and, eventually, a conspiracy theory. Digressi...
Gary Hart
07 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike how a sex scandal ruined a rising star and established a new template for American elections. Digressions include "Good Will Hun...
Tammy Faye Bakker and Jessica Hahn
25 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“She only said one thing her whole life”: Sarah tells Mike how two decent women became scapegoats for the actions of one terrible man. Digressions...
Enron
16 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah how a "bad apples” explanation kept us from seeing the real scandal at the heart of America's largest corporate bankruptc...
The Challenger Disaster
03 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It wasn’t an accident. Mike tells Sarah how the infamous space shuttle disaster came to be seen as a white-collar crime. Digressions include the Don...
“A Dingo’s Got My Baby”
19 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike how a tragic story became a hacky catchphrase. Digressions include raccoon anarchists, flu remedies and late-night Arby’s. Sarah&ap...
The 2000 Election
12 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah how a close election and an even closer Supreme Court decision established the political template we're still living with today....
Amy Fisher
03 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike about the sad reality — and the terrible man — behind the infamous Long Island Lolita. Digressions include software terms of serv...
Roe v. Wade
21 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Special guest Megan Burbank tells us about the history, limitations and loopholes of a landmark court ruling. Digressions include Betty Ford, "Ma...
The Duke Lacrosse Rape Case
14 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah how a false rape allegation became a right-wing rallying cry and a left-wing conspiracy theory. Digressions include JonBenet Ramsay, ...
Lorena Bobbitt
07 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike how a case of marital rape and spontaneous mutilation became a national punchline. Digressions include Ron Jeremy, Alan Dershowitz, M...
Stranger Danger
31 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How inflated statistics, cultural anxieties and moral crusaders turned a tiny number of missing children into a decade-long political project. Digress...
Urban Legends Spectacular!
24 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Razorblades in apples, babysitters on acid, killers in backseats and "rainbow parties": In this episode, Mike and Sarah investigate the scar...
Halloween Special! Ed Gein and Slasher Movies
17 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike how Ed Gein became one of America’s most famous serial killers despite not actually being one. Plus, the cinematic villains Gein in...
Shaken Baby Syndrome
08 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah how an over-simplified diagnosis, over-confident doctors and over-zealous prosecutors combined to get thousands of innocent parents t...
Multiple Personality Disorder
01 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike how pop culture created a two-decade-long obsession with multiple personality disorder and repressed memories. Digressions include De...
The Obesity Epidemic
19 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah that America has sent the wrong messages and done the wrong things about obesity for more than half a century. Digressions include he...
Columbine
17 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Special guest Rachel Monroe (re-)joins Mike and Sarah to talk about all the myths surrounding the second-biggest news event of the 1990s. Digressions ...
Iran-Contra
10 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah why the biggest scandal of Reagan's presidency provides more (depressing) lessons about current politics than Watergate. Digress...
Jeffrey Dahmer
01 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike that shoddy policing (and Milwaukee generally) are responsible for one of America's most prolific serial killers. Digressions in...
D.A.R.E.
18 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah that the D.A.R.E. program did not, in fact, keep kids off drugs. But that’s just the beginning of the debunking. Digressions includ...
Alpha Males
04 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike that animal behavior is an imperfect template for human society. Digressions include rabbits, Bob’s Burgers and online dating. Mike...
Kurt Cobain and “Copycat Suicide”
28 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Special guest Candace Opper tells Mike and Sarah about how the death of a rock star changed the field of suicidology (which is a thing). Digressions i...
“The Godfather”
21 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike about how America's favorite gangster movie is really its favorite killing-the-American-Dream movie. Digressions include the Mon...
10th Episode Spectacular!
14 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah and Mike take a break from debunking to reflect on the first 10 episodes and tell the secret history of how they met. Digressions include “Por...
The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
30 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah that America’s most devastating oil spill was not, in fact, a DUI. Digressions include “Titanic" (obviously), the Cuyahoga R...
Snuff Films
25 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike about how snuff films don't exist but lots of near-snuff films do. Digressions include "Basic Instinct," gymnastics an...
The Jonestown Massacre
16 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Special guest Rachel Monroe tells Mike and Sarah what's really behind the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid.” Digressions include David Koresh, E...
The Clinton Impeachment
09 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Part two of our epic dissection of the Clinton impeachment scandal. This week: The story breaks, the House indicts, the Senate demurs and Mike rants m...
Monica Lewinsky
02 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah and Mike talk about what America forgot — and never learned — about history’s most famous intern. Digressions include generational resentm...
Anita Hill
26 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah about the complicated legacy of Anita Hill and the not-particularly-complicated facts of her case. Digressions include “Tootsie,&qu...
Stockholm Syndrome
20 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It’s not a real thing! … OR IS IT? Sarah tells Mike about the convoluted history of a contested term. Digressions include James Bond, Charlie Mans...
Matthew Shepard
12 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
But not how you think! Special guest Mike Owens tells Sarah and Mike about the (attempted) debunking of the gay-bashing victim. Digressions include Le...
Afterschool Specials
05 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah that the TV movies of her childhood were both less and more problematic than she remembers. Continue reading →Support us:Subscribe ...
Crack Babies
04 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah tells Mike about the long history of white anxiety over black motherhood. Continue reading →Support us:Subscribe on PatreonDonate on PaypalBuy...
Going Postal
03 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mike tells Sarah about the rash of mass shootings carried out by postal workers in the '80s and '90s, then brings out the debunkin' tur...
The Satanic Panic
02 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The 1980s were real but the Satanists weren't. Sarah tells Mike about why America spent a decade worried about witches running daycare centers. S...