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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

00:45:56

Endless Thread Presents: Decoder Ring

Endless Thread ·

2020/12/17

While we're on break working on a new season, we recommend checking out Decoder Ring. In each episode, Decoder Ring explores a cultural question, object, or habit; examines its history; and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters. Today we're presenting one of their recent episodes: "Mystery of the Mullet." The mullet, the love-to-hate-it hairstyle is as associated with the 1980s as Ronald Reagan, junk bonds, and break dancing. But in at least one major way, we are suffering from a

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00:29:46

Encore: Black Lives Matter IRL And Online

Endless Thread ·

2020/12/10

Endless Thread is on break so we're sharing one of our favorite episodes from the past year. We published it back on Juneteenth 2020 after asking for stories that caught our listeners' attention at the height of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor police brutality protests around the country. The episode was recently included in a roundup of “100 Outstanding Podcasts From 2020” from The Bello Collective.

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00:36:23

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Endless Thread ·

2020/12/04

It's that time of the year again: Endless Thread is going on a winter break. But don't miss us too much. We'll be back in 2021 with a fresh, new, weird, and wonderful version of the show. Before we say goodbye for now, we check in with some of our favorite guests of episodes past. Episodes updated include: Get Motivated: https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/01/11/get-motivated Infectious, Pt 1: Scabs, Pus, and Puritans: https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/05/03/scabs-pus-puritans Brain

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00:42:03

Encore: All You Can Eat... And Then Some (Updates!)

Endless Thread ·

2020/11/27

Chicken patrol. Tiny plates. Purses lined with plastic bags. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, Endless Thread re-releases "All You Can Eat," an episode that peeks behind the curtain of the strange world of all-you-can-eat buffets, from the strategies buffet owners use to protect their profits to the hungry customers who try to game the system. Listen until the end for an update with Jordan, the Redditor and restaurant consultant featured in the original episode, to hear an insider's perspective on how

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00:36:05

Niall Needs A Friend

Endless Thread ·

2020/11/19

A month ago, we received an email that really caught our attention. It was from a listener in Ireland named Niall, who has been feeling isolated during the pandemic. He was wondering if we could help him make some new friends. So... the Endless Thread team got to work.

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00:22:00

Today You, Tomorrow Me

Endless Thread ·

2020/11/13

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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00:25:26

Low Stakes Hot Takes

Endless Thread ·

2020/11/06

We all have that one opinion — that firmly held, low stakes, non-political belief. You know the one. It's usually met with (low stakes) outrage whenever you dare to say it out loud. Well, we asked you, our listeners, to share your low stakes hot takes with us and, oh boy, did you deliver.

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00:18:55

Endless Dread: An Uninvited House Guest And A Fake...

Endless Thread ·

2020/10/29

Ben and Amory swap terrifying tales from Reddit, featuring an uninvited house guest and a doctor with an unusual fetish. Happy Halloween!

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00:25:39

Bonus: 'Brainwashed'

Endless Thread ·

2020/10/28

This past Spring, Endless Thread released a series called “Madness: The Secret Mission for Mind Control and the People Who Paid the Price.” If you missed it, you should go back and listen! A new series from CBC Podcasts, "Brainwashed," offers fresh perspective on the same topic: a powerful doctor who conducted disturbing, CIA-funded mind-control experiments on patients at a prestigious psychiatric hospital in Montreal. We recently talked to the host of "Brainwashed," Michelle Shepherd, for this

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00:30:08

Things Are Bad

Endless Thread ·

2020/10/22

With increasing political divide and heightened civil unrest in the United States, many fear that it will culminate in a second civil war. We explore the likelihood of that scenario and hear from someone who thinks America is already in the midst of collapse.

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00:21:15

Endless Dread: Backrooms And Ghostly Photos

Endless Thread ·

2020/10/15

In the spirit of Halloween, the Endless Thread team shares spooky stories from Reddit, including the origins of a classic horror movie SFX, the creepy world of r/backrooms, and the mystery surrounding three photos found on someone’s phone.

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00:24:10

Girls Trip

Endless Thread ·

2020/10/09

Randi-Lynn thought she was going on a relaxing family vacation to the mountains. Just a few days later, she was hiding in a bathroom and frantically posting on Reddit, asking for help. The headline of her post? "I think I was brought on a girls trip to be brainwashed."

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00:28:40

QAnon Casualties

Endless Thread ·

2020/10/02

For nearly two years, a Redditor named Jitarth Jadeja got deep into QAnon, the Far Right conspiracy theory founded on the idea that President Trump is secretly waging war against a satanic cabal of pedophiles who control the world. “I was kind of an addict… All I could talk about was Q,” Jitarth says. But then, all of a sudden he had a (re)awakening: “That was the moment that I realized it was all garbage.” In this episode, we trace Jitarth’s journey into and, ultimately, out of,

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00:14:00

Snacktime: Spiders Are Bros

Endless Thread ·

2020/09/24

Spiders... even the word is unsettling for some of us. But the r/spiderbro community on Reddit is a place where you just might gain a new appreciation for arachnids -- from the petite and unassuming, to the big and hairy.

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00:29:24

Unsent Letters

Endless Thread ·

2020/09/17

The unsent letter. We all have one, half-composed in our heads or fully-formed as an email draft. If you’re really poetic, it might be on a piece of paper, yellowing in a drawer. Whatever form these letters take, they go unsent because they might be better left unsent... or because we wouldn’t know how to send them even if we wanted to. But there's a place online where these letters find an audience -- a big one. The "Unsent Letters" community on Reddit has over 350,000 members. In this episode,

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00:15:03

Snacktime: Odd Jobs

Endless Thread ·

2020/09/10

Do people say, "That's a thing??," when you tell them what you do for a living? Then you probably have an odd job. This week, Endless Thread tips its hat to you as we discuss the odd jobs of Redditors.

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00:32:28

Tight Squeeze

Endless Thread ·

2020/09/03

You might not think about caves in the same breath as you do the deep ocean or outer space, but you probably should. There are approximately 70,000 caves in the United States alone, but the vast majority are inaccessible to the public. That means rare, delicate ecosystems have developed for tens of thousands of years in complete isolation from human contact. That is, until cavers travel deep underground through impossibly small spaces to find them. Join the Endless Thread team as we dive into the

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00:22:58

Snacktime: Dad Jokes

Endless Thread ·

2020/08/28

The spotlight is on r/DadJokes, which -- you guessed it -- is home to the most pun-derful, cheesy-but-lovable comedic material the internet has to offer. Starring the experts: Ben & Amory's DADS!

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00:28:03

Angel's Glow

Endless Thread ·

2020/08/21

In the aftermath of the Civil War's Battle of Shiloh in 1862, something strange happened. Some soldiers' wounds started to glow. Stranger still, those with glowing wounds seemed to have better rates of survival. In 2001, a teenage Civil War buff embarked on a science project to explain this so-called "Angel's Glow."

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00:14:23

Snacktime: Zelda And Zebra Plants

Endless Thread ·

2020/08/13

Author John Boyne and Jeff the zebra plant take center stage in this edition of snacktime. Also, Ben and Amory realize they share an affinity for... melon ballers?

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