Endless Thread
Untold histories, unsolved mysteries, and other jaw-dropping stories online and IRL. Hosted by Ben Brock Johnson & Amory Sivertson.
Episodes
Kashif Hoda was getting onto a Southbound train at Harvard Square when a young man said he recognized him. The doors closed before he got a chance to ask the young man how, or who he was. A month later, the answer came in the form of a viral video.
Harvard students AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardefyio modified Meta's smart glasses so that you can search someone's face quickly, almost without them knowing, and pull up personal internet...
Introducing The Midnight Rebellion, a new climate fiction podcast from WBUR — a rollicking adventure to a flooded, robot-infested world where you choose what happens.
When Joule Watts-Green steps into her mom’s mysterious machine, she’s swept off to a polluted city of tides. Streets are rivers, “tin-skins” shoot lightning, and everyone eats gooey Algae-Os. To get home, Joule must be brave, clever, and make friends. She may even di...
Ben and Amory take a hike with producer Grace, following the digital trail of "Ridiculoubs" — a mysterious climber who traverses the world's peaks in striking footwear. Then, Amory celebrates the beauty of daily life with the Dull Women's Club, a Facebook group with nearly 1.6 million members.
Show notes:
- "Ridiculoubs" Reviews (Google Maps)
- Ridiculoubs (Instagram)
- Dull Women’s Club (Facebook)
- Dull Women’s Club celebr...
Endless Thread goes to space! First, host Ben Brock Johnson goes deep on radio signals of unknown origin, with an assist from real-life radio astronomer and Reddit MVP Yvette Cendes, aka, Andromeda321. Then, producer Kalyani Saxena takes Ben down the metaphorical black hole of Saturn's hexagonal storm, a massive vortex twice the width of the Earth that's inspired internet conspiracy theories every bit as unweildy.
Show notes:
- ...
What's your favorite color? If you ask the algorithm, the answer is probably beige. The internet loves neutrals. Aesthetic coffee shop videos feature white walls and minimalist decor. Influencers film from houses decked out with all the beige fixings. When you shop online, you'll be presented with products in a wide range of bland colors — from eggshell, to taupe, to... slightly darker taupe.
So where did all the color go?
When you think of rapper Afroman, chances are his early 2000s hit song "Because I Got High" is already playing in your mind. More than two decades later, his music has once again broken containment. Host Ben Brock Johnson and Producer Grace Tatter dig into how Afroman turned a police raid and defamation trial into another moment of internet virality.
Show notes:
- Afroman surveillance footage (Instagram)
- "These lemon poundc...
In this throwback from the Endless Thread archives, hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson revisit an episode from 2024.
In 2022, a TikTok creator who identifies herself as "Kala" began digging. What followed was an increasingly viral series of TikToks chronicling the efforts of Kala, who some on the internet dubbed "Tunnel Girl," as she excavated and constructed a tunnel system under her suburban home. Her more th...
Warning: This episode contains multitudes! Hosts Ben and Amory explore how viral clips of DOGE staffers' video depositions found a new life online after a judge temporarily ordered them removed. They also dabble in a Reddit thought exercise with a potentially dubious origin
Show notes:
Maybe you can't judge books by their covers. But can you judge people by their books? Reddit's bookshelf detectives say yes. Producer Kalyani Saxena guides hosts Ben and Amory through the stacks and offers a picture of her own bookshelf to the Reddit detectives as tribute.
- r/BookshelvesDetective (Reddit)
- Started seeing this guy. What does it say about him??
- (r/BookshelvesDetective)What do my wife's bookshelves say about ...
A woman sitting blissfully on a vibrating laundromat dryer. A faked pregnancy test to dump a bad boyfriend. In 2019, the internet was abuzz about bizarre ads for a mobile game called Lily's Garden. The ads were only about 15 seconds each, but they evoked a whole universe of drama amongst a cast of zany characters that inspired countless YouTube videos and copious internet chatter.
The thing is... the story in the ads had almost no...
Note: This episode describes sexual situations that are non-consensual.
Sharing a photo of yourself online has always carried some risk. But things got a lot scarier this year when users began using Grok, X's generative AI chatbot to create sexualized deepfakes of women and children. Iona Fyfe, Scottish folk singer and activist, was one of the people who had an image altered and manipulated by Grok. Hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Am...
Some rare folks are born with the perfect music taste. But most of us have to look elsewhere for a tune that sparks a shoulder shimmy or two. Hosts Ben and Amory spend some time jamming to obscure music from Reddit. They also explore how a TikTok original became Dr. Pepper's catchy new jingle.
And "baby, it's good and nice."
Show notes:
Melania, a documentary about the first lady, has a 10 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, but a 90 percent score from audience members, an unusual discrepancy that raises the question, how did Rotten Tomatoes get those scores anyway?
Show notes:
- The 'Melania' movie audience: Older white women (NPR)
- Melania’s Movie Shows Signs of Bulk Buying to Boost Box Office: Guru (The Daily Beast)
- You Can Thank 'Rush Hour'...
In this OG throwback from the Endless Thread archives, hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson revisit a classic episode from their first year of production in 2018.
Originally produced during the show's early partnership with Reddit, "Love in Transition" explores the most powerful emotion in the universe in all its forms, shapes, and sizes. This might just be your perfect weekend listen, celebrating a timeless story about aff...
In the 1980s, a moral panic swept across America. Parents, prosecutors, and talk show hosts became convinced that devil worshippers were hiding in plain sight, abusing children at daycares, performing ritualistic sacrifices, and corrupting the innocent.
Sarah Marshall of Y...
What temperature do you like your fruit? What is the correct way to peel a banana? This week on Endless Thread, Ben and Amory cherry pick a couple of the hottest fruit debates taking place on Reddit.
Show notes:In 1970, a young biologist named David Mech published what could be the most consequential book on wolves ever written. At the time, The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species, was the most complete collection of scientific knowledge on wolves money could buy, and it became best seller for Dave's publishers. But outside of the world of wolf biology, the book is also credited with unleashing a certain ...
Fast-and-cheap shipping is now foundational to the American way of life, thanks in large part to Amazon Prime. Still, when producer Grace Tatter sees a video of a man claiming that he's continuously ordering and returning an 110-pound anvil from Amazon with no repercussions from the tech giant, she has questions. Is this legit, or is it a Wile E. Coyote-level scheme? Unlike an anvil, the answer can't be found online.
Show notes: <...
Adam Aleksic's Roman Empire is language, particularly how algorithms are changing the way we all use words. This week, Endless Thread gets algospeak-pilled and learns how "unalive" spread from a kids' Spider-Man cartoon to TikTok mental health communities trying to avoid censorship; what we're really saying when we say we're "goblin-core," and whether this all means we're "cooked."
Show notes:
10 years ago, Justin found himself on the side of the road with a blown out tire. Hours went by and no one stopped to help. But just as he was about to give up, something happened that changed Justin forever.
This episode was originally published on Nov. 13, 2020.
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