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PODCAST

Endless Thread

Untold histories, unsolved mysteries, and other jaw-dropping stories online and IRL. Hosted by Ben Brock Johnson & Amory Sivertson.

technology

All Episodes

00:37:04

Encore: To the Max (Headroom)

Endless Thread ·

2022/01/06

On November 22nd, 1987, two TV stations in Chicago had their broadcast signals hijacked by someone wearing a Max Headroom mask. In the years since, Redditors have played an integral role in getting to the bottom of this case. Who dunnit? Why? How? We dig into the story.

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00:23:39

Encore: Today You, Tomorrow Me

Endless Thread ·

2021/12/21

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.

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00:42:00

Encore: Three Autistic Redditors on Autism

Endless Thread ·

2021/12/21

Three autistic Redditors talk to us about their view of the world, their view of autism, and their hopes for greater representation in society.

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00:27:36

MEMES, Bonus: The Chorus

Endless Thread ·

2021/12/16

Amory and Ben team up with NPR to take on Twitter Spaces. This bonus episode is a recording of ET's 11/30 livestream chat with meme experts Kenyatta Cheese (Know Your Meme), "meme librarian" Amanda Brennan and Garbage Day newsletter author Ryan Broderick.

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00:33:56

MEMES, Part 11: I've Heard This Before

Endless Thread ·

2021/12/09

In this episode, we cross-examine memes and their relevance, and look at a surprising hypothesis that draws a through-line from TikTok to much farther back in history –- all the way to the very beginning of human culture. Ultimately, we investigate why memes are such an obsession right now, and whether we should think about them in a completely new way.

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00:16:49

MEMES, Bonus: Overly Attached Girlfriend

Endless Thread ·

2021/12/07

Unlike some of the other everyday-people-turned-memes featured in this series, Laina Morris leaned in big-time when her parody entry in a Justin Bieber fan contest turned into the epic meme Overly Attached Girlfriend in 2012. The screenshot from the video that launched Laina’s face into online ubiquity featured an intentionally off-putting open-mouthed, wide-eyed stare. She continued making YouTube videos until 2019 when she announced that she was ending her online career to address her mental

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00:36:02

MEMES, Part 10: Makmende

Endless Thread ·

2021/12/02

We know that there have been meme wars in America, and that Donald Trump has been called the “first president meme’d into office.” But in Kenya—a country where one of the only feasible forms of political expression is memes, and meme creators are being jailed for criticizing the government, it is a very different story. Western media told countless stories about the viral music video character known as “Makmende.” They called Makmende “The Kenyan Chuck Norris,” or a sound-alike of the famous Norris

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00:24:50

MEMES, Bonus: The yearbook photo

Endless Thread ·

2021/11/24

For being the internet's poster boy for bad luck, Kyle Craven thinks he sure got lucky. In this bonus episode of our meme series, Ben and Amory chat with Craven, better known as the face of the Bad Luck Brian meme that has circulated the web since 2012. Now a 31-year-old husband and father of two, Craven is frozen in time online as a pimply, brace-faced teenager. Despite the unflattering photo, he says meme stardom has brought nothing but good luck.

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00:46:52

MEMES, Part 9: I'm Not Done Yet

Endless Thread ·

2021/11/18

Anybody old enough to remember life before cutting the cord has probably seen the work of TV pitchman Billy Mays. But people much younger still know his face and squeaky OxiClean personality. While Mays died years ago, he’s lived on in meme form, from the famous product launches of Apple to more obvious image macros with Impact font. Why? We ask his son Billy Mays III, his biggest frenemy, and a host of others to explain why someone who was squarely in the age of television continues to appear

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00:34:02

MEMES, Part 8: The Scream

Endless Thread ·

2021/11/10

If you typed “inauguration” into your web browser anytime between 2017 and 2020, you likely saw, near the top of your search results, an image of a person in a neon green jacket, black winter hat and glasses screaming “Nooooooooooo!” That person was Jess, who was in Washington D.C. on January 20, 2017 to protest the inauguration of President Donald Trump. This “Nooooooooooo!” flew out of Jess after the oath of office, during what seemed to be a deeply painful and private moment. But what Jess didn’t

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00:38:21

MEMES, Part 7: Dead Giveaway

Endless Thread ·

2021/11/04

In 2013, four white musicians turned a local TV news clip featuring a Black man named Charles Ramsey into a song and uploaded it to YouTube. The auto-tuned meme, titled "Dead Giveaway," gained tens of millions of views virtually overnight. But the musicians, known as The Gregory Brothers, had not asked for Ramsey's permission, leaving him to wonder: Is this flattery or mockery — or bigotry?

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00:25:07

Hallomeme Bonus: Slender Man

Endless Thread ·

2021/10/29

When two 12 year-old girls attacked their friend in the woods of Waukesha, Wisconsin in May of 2014, they claimed to have done it to please Slender Man -- a fictional monster created by Eric Knudsen, A.K.A. "Victor Surge," on an internet forum called "Something Awful." That incident put a mainstream, national news spotlight on the figure, which was already being widely circulated and adapted online as a meme. In this bonus episode of Endless Thread's meme series, we examine Slender Man as monster,

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00:40:32

MEMES, Pt. 6: Call me... The Punisher

Endless Thread ·

2021/10/28

The Punisher has always been a complicated Marvel antihero: a man whose creator imagined him as a reaction to the failures of government at home and in the Vietnam War. So why is the Punisher’s trademark dripping skull insignia — a menacing image used throughout history to denote imminent death — being painted on police vehicles, adopted by members of the military, and donned by white supremacists? We tell the story of The Punisher’s symbol as a meme, look at how well we understand its origins, its

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00:43:48

MEMES, Pt. 5: The President of Kekistan

Endless Thread ·

2021/10/21

He is known by several names, but Gordon Hurd is the one this man-turned-meme adopted when he fled Cameroon for the UK more than two decades ago. Gordon eventually found the app Fiverr and started making videos for anonymous benefactors on the internet. That’s how Gordon adopted another name, Big Man Tyrone, and became a viral video meme who gives scripted testimonials and has been named the leader of a fictional alt-right country called Kekistan. But there’s a lingering question: Is Big Man Tyrone

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00:21:01

MEMES, Bonus: Zoë Didn't Start the Fire

Endless Thread ·

2021/10/18

Most of us hate the photos our parents take of us. But what happens when one goes viral? Zoë Roth was 4 years old when her dad took a photo of her smiling mischievously in front of a burning house. That photo would later spread like wildfire as the internet meme "Disaster Girl." In this bonus episode of our meme series, we hear more about how the photo came to be, how it just might help Zoë pay off her student loans, and who really started that fire.

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00:41:27

MEMES, Pt. 4: Woman Yelling at a Cat

Endless Thread ·

2021/10/14

Humor is a key ingredient of any unit of culture that morphs and spreads over time. But humor isn’t always there at the beginning. For “Real Housewife” Taylor Armstrong, the meme that made her even more famous on the internet has bitter roots: physical domestic abuse exposed on television. In this episode, we hear the little-known origin story of the "Woman Yelling at a Cat" meme -- straight from the Woman herself -- that might make you think twice about ever using the meme again. We also explore

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00:19:06

MEMES, Bonus: A Billion Ricks

Endless Thread ·

2021/10/12

Last week, we explored the origin of the “Rick Roll,” a meme that evolved from Rick Astley’s 1987 hit song, “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Since the music video resurfaced as the meme in 2007, the internet has also never given up on Rick – so much so that the video recently hit a billion views on YouTube. This bonus episode dives deeper into Rick’s childhood, how he was discovered, and how he dealt with not only his fame in the late 80s, but with his more complicated identity as a meme.

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00:42:06

MEMES, Pt. 3: Gotta Make You Understand

Endless Thread ·

2021/10/08

Who gets credit for starting a meme? Usually... nobody -- they're made too quickly and organically. In the case of one of the most famous bait-and-switch memes of all time, the "Rick Roll," we may be looking at something experts call convergent evolution. Did the Rick Roll originate with a piece of code on the message board 4Chan, or with a prank call to a local sports show in Michigan? And why does the Rick Roll have such staying power? Is it codified in the DNA of the song itself? We explore the

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00:40:12

MEMES, Pt. 2: Scumbag Steve

Endless Thread ·

2021/09/30

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 representation of dudes who are the worst. And, like any person grappling with immediate internet fame, Blake Boston — the man behind Scumbag Steve — tried to capitalize: merch, rap songs, public appearances. But the full story of what happened to Blake — and his family — has never been told. The Scumbag Steve meme became a bargaining chip in a custody battle,

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00:36:05

Is 'Kilroy Was Here' the original meme?

Endless Thread ·

2021/09/30

We often think of memes as living solely online. But the term “meme” was coined in the 1970s -- before the birth of the internet -- by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. And, more surprisingly, the image that's often considered to "the first meme" appeared as early as the 1940s. A figure with a bulbous head and sausage fingers, peering over a wall, mysteriously popped up all over the globe during World War II, accompanied with three simple words: “Kilroy Was Here.” The phrase’s original

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