If you waited by the TV for new episodes of “Are You Afraid of the Dark” each weekend or wasted study hall reading the weird parts of the encyclopedia, this one’s for you SPECIFICALLY. “Human F*ckery” pits a doctor of psychology and an investigative journalist against one another in a battle of wits, research, and creative storytelling. Each episode the curious pair get assigned a topic. Then, they go spelunking through history’s colon in an effort to find the most jaw-dropping, unbelievable, and utterly bonkers examples of that topic buried in the dark history deposited by our collective ancestors. What’s the point? To captivate, occasionally horrify, and accidentally educate a rotating panel of judges—including you, the listener—into crowning one of our hosts the winner. This irreverent showcase for darker narratives buried in the historic trash heap was the winner of 2021’s Best of the Beat Award here in New Orleans, which means it’s enjoyed by people besides the hosts’ parents.
You said you wanted an episode on serial killers, and after months of absolutely heinous research (Kim cried), recording, and editing, it’s finally here: The Season Two Finale, “Forgotten Serial Killers,” featuring the stars of Netflix’s MINDHUNTER series.
Teams Kimberly and Edward endeavored to find tales of true “multiple murderers” not already discussed to death by other podcasts and documentaries…and our guest judges, ...
If you’re not already familiar with The Toybox Killer case, you’re about to be….and head’s up that it’s from the deepest, darkest, stankest part of history’s colon. You may need a fresh baptism afterwards just from listening.
If you’ve ever wondered why there’s such a loud movement to shut down social media accounts teaching misogyny, and backlash to violent pornography, this story is a great example. It’s also further argument AGAI...
This episode was written as an epic Pride Season gift to our beloved Patreon subscribers, but given recent Supreme Court rulings and the fresh wave of anti-LGBTQ+ mouth diarrhea that SCOTUS fuckery spawned, it seemed an important story to release into the wild.
Because while it might sound like a joke, few things are more epic, gayer, AND more prescient in these polarized times than the largely forgotten sliver of wildly ...
We may ALL be struggling to survive the surrealist nightmare which is “post-Pandemic” 2023, but there’s still stuff to be grateful for. Not dying slowly of scurvy in the frozen Arctic, or roasting like a pair of hot nuts under a relentless Sahara sun, for starters. We’re also collectively blessed with an uncanny ability to adapt, overcome, and experience “Post Traumatic Growth,” which you gotta admit doesn’t suck.
This mo...
Full disclosure: When Edward proposed this interview back in March, Kimberly’s immediate response was “Why the fuck would we talk to Joe Exotic?” (She’s a delicate flower like that.) And it’s a fair question. While Tiger King was a savagely addictive and jaw-dropping series, it was also rife with animal abuse, unchecked misogyny, predatory sexual behavior, and Adults Behaving Like Children—all things neither of our hosts are fans o...
He was hailed as “The Painter of Light,” a titan of pastoral landscapes which glowed whimsically from the windows of malls and Disney stores across America in the 1990s. But inside Thomas Kinkade, the famed born-again Christian artist behind one of the most commercially successful art entities ever created, lurked a darkness even he couldn’t cover with layers of shining lacquer. His tragic story of worker exploitation, belligerent ...
We’re all capable of royally screwing up a romance, but some guys are so good at it we still talk about them 100 years after their relationships tank. In this month’s battle of storytelling, Team Edward flies into Key West, Florida, to unearth the story of Carl Tanzer and his extremely unhinged relationship with a beautiful, dead Cuban tuberculosis patient half his age. Team Kimberly punches back with the mad entanglement of painte...
Terrible things happen when we put professions on pedestals. Over the last two centuries, “Medicine” has improved so significantly the human lifespan increased dramatically. Unfortunately, medical science and medical ETHICS are two different things—and they aren’t always practiced together, even today. This episode dives into two of the most horrific cases of human experimentation and iatrogenic injury perpetrated in the 20th centu...
Ho, Ho, Holy shit.
It takes a special kind of dick hole to be jealous of a kid's affection for Santa Claus. But when you take into consideration that Paul Schäfer was a Nazi, pedophile, and notorious cult leader, his disdain for jolly old St. Nick starts to make a bit more sense. After all, how could he afford to make space for the children of his commune to love and celebrate anyone more than him? To secure their affection, it...
It’s that time again, folks—our monthly, pithy recap of the previous month’s most mentionable public human fuckery, plus a few honorable decency mentions for everyone’s sanity.
Several weeks of October 2022 in the United States were dominated by surprise anti-semitism being spewed by billionaire rappers, resulting in one of the more entertaining graduations from “F*** Around and Find Out” University. A deadly batch of drug...
It’s that time of year again folks! The veil is thinning, and the rate of spooky fuckery is on the rise. Last season, our Halloween stories were thematically in sync, as we brought you tales of two haunted homes on opposite sides of the world. But this year, the hosts were left with a lot more space to explore Satan's grundle. The assignment: "scare me." Team Kimberly brings us the story of a terrifying exorcism that...
What a time to be alive! Deadly weather events, dickheads holding office, adult toddlers running around doing adult toddler shit—it’s too much to keep up with. So we’re helping out. Now that our amazing new subscribers Denise and “J” have tipped us over into the 30+ paying patrons mark, we’re able to make this monthly roundup of human fuckery just for y’all. (More patrons mean more, and better, content more frequently, so consider ...
Thirty years ago, alien talk was mostly restricted to trashy daytime talk shows or weird sitcom fodder. (RE: “ALF?”) But with the very recent declassification of hundreds of pages of United States military case files on UFOs, plus an ever-expanding Internet cache of compelling videos and eyewitness reports, alien encounters are no longer taboo…and seem less sci-fi than ever before. Award-winning “Somewhere in the Skies” author and ...
Pontius Pilate may have been the one who condemned Jesus of Nazareth to death, but the name reviled most today is “Judas.” And that’s because treacherous backstabbers—men like Ephialtes of Trachis and Benedict Arnold—who betray friends, lovers, or countrymen for personal gain are so shameful we put them on display forever, a collective reminder of who NOT to be. Dark history nerds will especially love this month’s special guest jud...
Internet shamans, TV hucksters, wellness grifters, slimy CryptoBros—humanity is bombarded by successful scam artists using the internet for evil, and we wanna make sure they’re LESS successful. Branding guru Alyssa Bonanno, and Fyre Festival crew survivor Will Desena, join Teams Kimberly and Edward to help listeners ID scammers before they get into our wallets, and also declare one host “The Winner.” Team Kimberly covers the true s...
So what happens when two broke Jews-turned-Christian-Evangelicals fall in love, then decide to grift a bunch of poor people out of money using The Bible as leverage? SPOILER ALERT: It’s…uh, yeah, it’s not great. It involves a lot of gaslighting, hypocrisy, some sexual assault, and a prodigious amount of abuse. But in the case of The Alamos, it also involves gay demons, alien angels, laser beams, and piles of karma, so the story is ...
A young body found dead, without a single mark or sign of struggle on it. Strangled animals appearing mysteriously in yards. Playtimes that turn from harmless to violent in the blink of an eye.
Nature lays the foundation. But nurturing—or worse, lack of it—builds the rest of the person. And when children are denied affection, stability, consistency, love, and care, psychopathy can assemble itself…with devastating result...
SEASON 2 PREMIERE! Doctor of clinical psychology, Edward Simon and recovering journalist Kimberly Kaye are finally back to spelunking in human history’s colon for their friendly competition to see who can enthrall listeners most. This month, Team Edward dredges up the true story of the Château de Montsegur, site of a massive religious martyr killing, infamous religious relics, and apparently even some UFOs. Team Kimberly counterpun...
Happy Pride month fellow LGBTQ+ nerds! Who wants to hear about queer people rioting against police brutality, runway walk-offs, and dead bodies?! Human F*ckery celebrates queer history 12 months a year, but we do love a month where re-sharing the shadiest stories from under the rainbow is extra appropriate. This “Secret Story Time” episode debuted in January via our Patreon and featured Mother Dorian Corey, one of the great queens ...
Another banter-free installment from our subscribers only Secret Story Time series!
So, the holidays have been a bit strange this year. A global pandemic, money problems, crushing existential dread. Some folks can’t get close enough to their families, others can’t escape them. It’s easy in times like these to romanticize; to look back through a rosy portal at the past, time filtering out the imperfections, and long for the...
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