Close All Tabs

Ever wonder where the internet stops and IRL begins? Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor. From internet trends to AI slop to the politics of memes, Close All Tabs covers it all. How will AI change our jobs and lives? Is the government watching what I post? Is there life beyond TikTok? Host Morgan Sung pulls from experts, the audience, and history to add context to the trends and depth to the memes. And she’ll wrestle with as many browser tabs as it takes to explain the cultural moment we’re all collectively living. Morgan Sung is a tech journalist whose work covers the range of absurdity and brilliance that is the internet. Her beat has evolved into an exploration of social platforms and how they shape real-world culture. She has written for TechCrunch, NBC News, Mashable, BuzzFeed News and more. We love listening to shows about technology and culture like Power User with Taylor Lorenz, ICYMI, Wow If True, Hard Fork, There Are No Girls On the Internet, Endless Thread, Uncanny Valley from Wired, It’s Been a Minute, and You’re Wrong About. If you like them too, then trust us–you’ll like Close All Tabs.

Episodes

A Queer History of The Sims

June 17, 2026 • 44 mins

“Did The Sims make you gay?” is a long-running joke among Sims players. For millions, The Sims has been more than a video game — it’s been a place to experiment, tell stories, and explore identity. Long before LGBTQ representation became common in mainstream games, The Sims allowed same-sex relationships, helping create a devoted queer fan base that reshaped what players expected from virtual worlds. In thi...

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How To Prove You're Not AI

June 10, 2026 • 36 mins

During a recent phone call, BBC tech columnist Thomas Germain couldn’t convince his aunt that he wasn’t AI. Being unable to distinguish a real person from a fabricated version is a problem born from the sheer volume of AI-generated content flooding the internet — and one that’s increased dramatically in the last year alone. Even world leaders are now plagued by the issue: a glitchy video of Israeli Pri...

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Escaping the Surveillance Pricing Trap

June 3, 2026 • 39 mins

When JetBlue replied to an angry customer on X that they should clear their cookies for a better flight price, it seemed to confirm a long-held consumer belief: companies use your personal data to determine what you should pay in real-time based on your urgency, habits and identity. It’s what’s known as surveillance pricing. According to economic sociologist Lindsay Owens, the practice is rampant. She says companies hav...

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Musk v. Altman Was Peak Silicon Valley Theatrics

May 27, 2026 • 36 mins

For three weeks, all eyes were on a salacious courtroom drama unfolding in Oakland, California. The Musk v. Altman trial had everything you’d expect from a favorite soap opera: Backstabbing? Check! Secret diary entries? Check! Pleading text messages? Check! And two billionaire buddies turned rivals duking it out over who did or did not steal a charity. Morgan and KQED’s Rachel Myrow explore the trial highlights, outcome...

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Iran Is Winning The Slopaganda War

May 20, 2026 • 40 mins

AI-generated Lego videos have become a tool of war. Since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began in late February, increasingly elaborate videos featuring LEGO figures and catchy rap lyrics have been flooding our feeds. They're shareable, surprisingly high quality and they're deeply critical of the U.S. and Trump. They're also propaganda. Welcome to the age of "slopaganda" — where AI Slop meets information warfare. Michał Klin...

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How an OnlyFans Model and a Cosplayer Are Fighting Nonconsensual Deepfake Porn

May 13, 2026 • 37 mins

We’re diving into the world of nonconsensual deepfake porn and why this problem reaches far beyond influencers and sex workers. When users on X started asking Grok to generate explicit images of real women and girls without their consent, Twitch streamer and OnlyFans creator Morgpie watched the harassment spiral in real time. Cosplayer and software engineer Zander Small saw firsthand how nonconsensual images affected his gir...

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My Therapist Is a Chatbot (Reload)

May 6, 2026 • 31 mins

What happens when your therapist is… a chatbot? For KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg, it started with a late-night spiral over dating. Instead of texting a friend, she opened ChatGPT and got the kind of calm, reassuring advice she needed. It worked… maybe a little too well. Lesley joins Morgan to dig into the rise of AI therapy, why so many people are turning to chatbots for emotional support, and what they might...

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Somebody’s Watching Me: The Crackdown on Stalkerware

April 29, 2026 • 30 mins

In 2018, researcher Eva Galperin made a discovery about a colleague. He had been sexually abusing women for decades, and threatening to expose their private information using “stalkerware” — hidden applications that allow people to spy on another person’s private life through their mobile device. This set Eva on a new path. She went on to found the Coalition Against Stalkerware, a network of researchers...

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The H-1B Visa Process But Make It a Video Game

April 22, 2026 • 33 mins

Life on an H-1B visa — a visa that lets U.S. companies hire foreign-born workers for specialized jobs — is difficult, unpredictable, and has gotten even harder under the Trump administration. A new gaming studio, Reality Reload, is trying to capture that experience in a mobile game. It’s called H1B.Life, and it simulates the difficult choices, competing priorities, and personal sacrifices visa holders face &m...

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Save or Scroll: Looksmaxxing, AI Fruit Love Island, BTS Arirang, and Meta Lawsuits

April 15, 2026 • 31 mins

In a spring installment of Save or Scroll, Morgan teams up with culture journalist Steffi Cao to dig into the stories they can’t stop thinking about. From looksmaxxing to AI Fruit Love Island, BTS’ new album, and Meta losing a landmark series of lawsuits, they’ve got a lot to discuss. Save or Scroll is our series where we team up with guests for a rapid-fire roundup of internet trends that are filling our feeds ...

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The Secret Lives of Mormon Momfluencers

April 8, 2026 • 37 mins

Only 2% of Americans identify as members of the Church of Latter-day Saints — and yet a striking number of American social media influencers are Mormon. Why? The answer lies in a mix of religious doctrine, early internet adoption, and some surprising financial incentives. In this episode, author and journalist Fortesa Latifi returns to the show to unpack her research for her new book, Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids...

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Bee Movie, "We Are Charlie Kirk," and the Enduring Bait-and-Switch Meme

April 1, 2026 • 38 mins

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 ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don't care what humans think is impossible. In 2007, Bee Movie hit theaters with a strange plot and was considered a box office flop. Nearly two decades later, it’s somehow more relevant than ever, not because of the mo...

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To Hack a Tractor: How Farmers Won the Right to Repair

March 25, 2026 • 34 mins

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 modern right-to-repair movement. In this episode, Jason Koebler, tech journalist and co-founder at 404 Media, explains how an unlikely alliance between Midwestern farmers and electronics repair technicians helped win right-to repair protections across multiple states — and...

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The Fight for Your Right to Repair

March 18, 2026 • 36 mins

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 devices differently. In this episode, we dig into the “right to repair” movement with Louis Rossmann, a repair technician, YouTuber and consumer rights advocate. Rossmann has spent years pushing back against the companies that make our devices harder, or even imposs...

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'Twitter on a Vape' and The Great E-Waste Crisis

March 11, 2026 • 39 mins

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 disposable tech habits are fueling a growing e-waste problem. In this episode, tech reporter Samatha Cole shares what happened when she tried to “vape the internet” after seeing a viral post about a disposable touchscreen vape with built-in social media. We also hear fr...

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Sex Workers Tried to Warn Us About Age Verification Laws

March 4, 2026 • 38 mins

Requiring internet users to verify their ages before accessing mature content may sound reasonable. Shouldn’t we be doing a better job protecting kids from online vulgarities? But free speech advocates say the push for age verification isn’t really about protecting children — and that bills like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) would open the door to greater surveillance, censorship and control of what people can...

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Send Pics? Roblox Wants to Know Your Age

February 25, 2026 • 34 mins

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 criticized for its track record on child safety, and is now facing more than 80 lawsuits alleging child abuse and grooming. In response, the company recently rolled out a new safety measure: AI-powered facial age verification that restricts who players can talk with. The reception from ...

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Lessons for U.S. Netizens from Behind China’s Great Firewall

February 18, 2026 • 42 mins

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 Chinamaxxing trend (or…you’re Chinese). But it’s more than just slippers in the house and hot water at breakfast — as Western netizens experience increased surveillance and censorship across internet platforms, they are ironically turning to o...

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Love In The Time Of Doom Scrolling

February 11, 2026 • 44 mins

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 doomscrolling into a matchmaking experiment when he invited thousands of strangers to flirt in his comment section. Then we talk to Maria Avgitidis, a third-generation matchmaker, about why friction, community, and a little discomfort might actually be the point of dating. And finally...

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How the AI Data Center Boom Impacts Black Communities

February 4, 2026 • 35 mins

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 wake up to find an AI data center is being built right across the street. Your view of trees turns into piles of dirt, the songbird’s trill replaced by the hum of machinery. That’s the reality for many Atlanta metro area residents right now, facing an explosion of AI ...

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Close All Tabs

Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}A Queer History of The Sims

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}How To Prove You're Not AI

Escaping the Surveillance Pricing Trap

Musk v. Altman Was Peak Silicon Valley Theatrics

Iran Is Winning The Slopaganda War

How an OnlyFans Model and a Cosplayer Are Fighting Nonconsensual Deepfake Porn

My Therapist Is a Chatbot (Reload)

Somebody’s Watching Me: The Crackdown on Stalkerware

The H-1B Visa Process But Make It a Video Game

Save or Scroll: Looksmaxxing, AI Fruit Love Island, BTS Arirang, and Meta Lawsuits

The Secret Lives of Mormon Momfluencers

Bee Movie, "We Are Charlie Kirk," and the Enduring Bait-and-Switch Meme

To Hack a Tractor: How Farmers Won the Right to Repair

The Fight for Your Right to Repair

'Twitter on a Vape' and The Great E-Waste Crisis

Sex Workers Tried to Warn Us About Age Verification Laws

Send Pics? Roblox Wants to Know Your Age

Lessons for U.S. Netizens from Behind China’s Great Firewall

Love In The Time Of Doom Scrolling

How the AI Data Center Boom Impacts Black Communities

Popular Podcasts

A Queer History of The Sims

How To Prove You're Not AI