Endless Thread
Hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson dig into the internet's vast and curious ecosystem of online communities to find untold histories, unsolved mysteries, and other jaw-dropping stories online and IRL.
Episodes
In 2017, Rhett Barker and his friends needed a way to stay in touch after graduating college. They were ecology majors, and meme groups were in vogue, so they created Wild Green Memes for Ecological Fiends on Facebook.
It began as a place to share silly nature-centered memes. The jokes were comically esoteric: about, say, the scientific name of a rare wild feline or the bites of Brazilian wandering spiders. You needed to know th...
In 2016, followers flocked to an Instagram user purporting to be Miquela Sousa, a 19-year-old Brazilian-American model, singer, and sometimes activist.
For years, no one was quite sure if Miquela was made-up, or to what degree. Was she a model rendered doll-like by filters? An actress? A totally fictional character?
Her ambiguous humanity helped Miquela land lucrative brand partnerships with the likes of BMW and Calvin Klein....
The halls of science, known for prim propriety and careful debate, are feuding. A new theory of gravity challenges Einstein's general relativity, our current understanding of that thing that keeps our feet on the ground. Physicists are upset.
"Cotton gravity"—named in honor of mathematician Émile Cotton, not fluffy flora—was first posited by Japanese researcher Junpei Harada in 2021. The idea, which modifies general relativity a...
Shaquille O'Neal has some advice: "If you are going to retire, accept it. Enjoy your family," he recently said on The Big Podcast With Shaq. "I made a lot of dumb mistakes to where I lost my family. I don't have anybody."
His statement, directed at retiring NFL star Jason Kelce, raised concern online. "What happened with Shaq?" asked one Reddit user in a popular thread. "I thought he was [a] super nice guy. Why is he all alone?"
...In the second part of Endless Thread's investigation into a ubiquitous online piano academy, we dig into why some people think it's a front to recruit students to the Church of Scientology and track down the man behind the piano himself.
Credits: This episode was written and produced by Grace Tatter with mixing and sound design by Emily Jankowski. Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson are the co-hosts.
You may have seen this ad: A frenetic, wild-haired concert pianist says he can make any newbie a virtuoso in months. Just take his online course for $3,000.
Too good to be true? Redditors thought so. Posts dating back years cried scam. Some went further and claimed his virtual piano academy is a cover to recruit Scientologists.
In Part 1 of "The Music Man," Endless Thread investigates.
Credits: This episode was written and...
Last week, you heard Endless Thread co-hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson re-introduce you to how Amory's new podcast, Beyond All Repair, began. This week, they introduce you to the first chapter of Beyond All Repair.
Amory has reopened a box that some members of the Correia family were hoping would stay shut forever.
Amory first met the youngest Correia, Shane, in 2017 while interviewing him about his experience wi...
Endless Thread co-host Amory Sivertson spent three years unraveling a cold-case murder. Her reporting eventually became the forthcoming podcast series Beyond All Repair.
Every story has its beginning. Amory's investigation starts here: Endless Thread's second-ever episode—originally released in 2018—about a man and his folder of documents.
Credits: This episode was produced and co-hosted by Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johns...
As Shakespeare once said...all the internet is a stage, and all keyboard warriors merely players. In this episode of Endless Thread, the members of the Nashville-based musical improv group Cherry Bomb stage an homage to their very active neighborhood Facebook group, and put some posts inspired by the Endless Thread subreddit to song.
Credits: This episode was produced by Grace Tatter. Mixing and sound design by Matt Reed. Ben Br...
Instead of a typical first date — dinner and light conversation, maybe — he presented 29 slides about one of his favorite movies. The internet loved it. But did his date?
Credits: This episode was produced by Dean Russell. Mixing and sound design by Emily Jankowski. Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson are the co-hosts.
Image Credit: X/Jason Carman
The point of Julian Shapiro-Barnum's Recess Therapy, a video series where he interviews kids about life's bigger questions, was never to make the kids social media superstars. But that's exactly what happened when he posted a video that went mega-viral in the summer of 2022.
Endless Thread host Ben Brock Johnson talks to Julian about making the internet a fun space for kids and adults, Julian's multi-parent upbringing, and the w...
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 than half-million followers watched and weighed in with support, suggestions and at times, concern. That is, until a stop-work order halted ...
The discovery of a secret tunnel attached to a Brooklyn synagogue earlier this month quickly went viral, fueling antisemitic conspiracy theories that long predate the internet. Endless Thread host Ben Brock Johnson and producer Grace Tatter dig into what we actually know about why this group of Brooklyn yeshiva students got into extracurricular excavation.
Credits: This episode was produced by Grace Tatter and Ben Brock Johnson...
Earlier this week, the New Hampshire Attorney General's office announced that it was investigating some suspicious robocalls urging residents not to vote in the state primary elections. The voice appears to be an artificially generated imitation of President Joe Biden — a deepfake.
With that in mind, we bring you an episode from the archive showcasing the pitfalls of deepfakery and how the technology affects more than politician...
What if vegetables are poison? What if, instead, humans evolved to consume an animal-based diet of steak, liver, brain, testicles, eggs, butter, and milk?
Shirtless influencers on TikTok and Instagram have acquired millions of followers promoting the carnivore diet. They say studies linking meat consumption and heart disease are flawed — and plant foods are making people sick.
Likewise, meatfluencers say the livestock industr...
Rodrigo Barbosa runs social media for the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves Brazilian fan club. He's fluent in Brazil's particularly zany brand of internet humor. But when one his weirdest tweets went viral in the U.S., he had some translating to do.
Credits: This episode was produced by Ben Brock Johnson with Grace Tatter. Mixing and sound design by Matt Reed. Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson are the co-hosts.
Manifestation, astrology, tarot — during tumultuous times, people are more likely to look for answers from the universe, and social media has caught on. People are manifesting their luck with the mantra "delulu is the solulu," and TikToks are claiming they know what the future stores for people scrolling by.
Ben Brock Johnson, Amory Sivertson and producer Grace Tatter look into the difference between signs from the universe and ...
As we approach the new year, we revisit a story with a timeless message.
Ten years ago, a man was stuck on the side of the road for hours with a blown-out tire. Just as he was about to give up, something changed him forever.
Credits: This episode was produced by Ben Brock Johnson. Mixing and sound design by Matt Reed. Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson are the co-hosts.
Photo: Anna Karakalou
An episode from the Click Here podcast from Recorded Future News.
The story of two ordinary people who decided to tackle two extraordinary problems: identifying the thousands who went missing in Israel in the days after the October 7th attacks, and one man’s leap of faith to get internet and cellphone service into Gaza.
As many people gather with family and friends for the holidays, we revisit a story about our listener Niall.
In 2020, Niall emailed us saying he felt isolated during the pandemic. He wanted to know if we could help him make some new friends. So, we did.
Credits: This episode was produced by Josh Crane and Frank Hernandez. Mixing and sound design by Matt Reed. Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson are the co-hosts.
Photo: u...
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