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.
…
continue reading
WBUR And Reddit Podcasts
In honor of the day-after-Thanksgiving leftover sandwich, we're revisiting our conversation with Barry Enderwick, the man behind the beloved and wildly popular "Sandwiches of History" social media accounts. Barry joined Ben and Amory to make a triple-decker sandwich from 1958, and to talk about his first cookbook, "Sandwiches of History the Cookboo…
…
continue reading
Endless Thread serves up two of Reddit's most absurd food sagas. First course: Chivegate, in which a Redditor vows to chop a cup of chives daily until the kitchen confidential subreddit declares perfection, only to be accused of fraud. Second course: A Reddit user desperately seeking advice on how to quietly move 13 two-thousand-pound pallets of ma…
…
continue reading
1
Fryders and Alligator Alcatraz tours: When trolls get inventive
31:27
31:27
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
31:27
Ben and Amory share two stories about some out-of-the-box internet trolling. First, Amory tries to untangle a web of rumors surrounding an unusual dish from New Zealand. Then, Ben takes us aboard Terri's Tourz, an alleged Everglade tourist attraction claiming to offer the nation's first ever tours of the South Florida Detention Center known as Alli…
…
continue reading
This November, we're playing some of our favorite episodes from the past alongside new stuff, so that newer listeners can experience our back catalogue. And LoFi Girl is one that holds up, big time! If you've ever searched for "chill beats for studying" or some other form of lean back, endless playlists without vocals and with a consistent vibe, yo…
…
continue reading
1
Labubus, lafufus, and Hello Kitty: How cuteness conquered the internet
27:17
27:17
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
27:17
While some people find Labubus terrifying, millions of others find their big eyes and furry features irresistibly adorable. Why? From Labubu dolls taking over TikTok, to emoji taking over our text messages, cuteness is all over the internet. Ben and Amory talk to Joshua Paul Dale, professor at Tokyo's Chuo University and the preeminent cuteness exp…
…
continue reading
Everybody get up, it's time to slam now... again! Yes, we're revisiting our episode about the website for the 1996 movie "Space Jam," which is still up and functioning nearly 30 years later. Amory and Ben talk to the hilarious team behind this digital artifact and hear the unlikely story of its continued existence. Show notes: The Space Jam website…
…
continue reading
In keeping with Endless Thread tradition, Ben and Amory are celebrating spooky season with another installment of "Endless Dread." This time, we're bringing you along on both an actual haunted hayride — thanks to McCray's Farm in South Hadley, MA — and a digital one, through a handful of spooky stories from the internet. Ben introduces Amory to a T…
…
continue reading
1
Episodes we love: Artist Known — Illustrator for 'A Wrinkle in Time' gets long-overdue credit
46:10
46:10
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
46:10
New to Endless Thread? Wooooo! We're revisiting some favorites from our archives to welcome you. First up: The cover art for the 1976 paperback edition of Madeleine L'Engle's classic, spooky sci-fi/fantasy novel "A Wrinkle in Time" — featuring a rainbow-winged centaur and a green, glowering, red-eyed face — is iconic. And yet, for nearly 50 years, …
…
continue reading
The final episode of Hidden Levels explores the story of SEGA developer Tez Okano and the bizarre, meta-game he created: Segagaga. Okano joined SEGA in 1992, witnessing firsthand the company's tumultuous experience in the "console wars" against Nintendo and Sony. In the mid-1990s, SEGA struggled to make hardware that kept up with its rivals. The SE…
…
continue reading
1
Hidden Levels Ep. 5: Press B to Touch Grass
41:47
41:47
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
41:47
Video games are arguably the antithesis of nature; highly constructed worlds, synthetic, inorganic. If you grew up gaming, you may recall grown-ups telling you to shut down the console, go outside, and touch some grass. These days, though, touching grass isn’t something you have to do outside. As gaming has grown into a 200 billion dollar industry,…
…
continue reading
1
Surgical Precision: One doctor's quest to show how video games can save lives
24:34
24:34
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
24:34
Dr. James "Butch" Rosser was a pioneer in minimally invasive surgery in the 1990s. When he credited his surgical skills to video games, people dismissed him. The prevailing narrative was that kids who played video games became killers, not doctors. So Butch set out on quest: to show how video games can help make better doctors. Show notes: The impa…
…
continue reading
Machinima — a portmanteau of “machine” and “cinema” — refers to movies filmed inside video games. The art form had a renaissance in the 1990s, and many thought it had a future in Hollywood. Among the early pioneers were the New York animation collective the Ill Clan, who puppeteered characters in real-time inside the video game Quake, bypassing tra…
…
continue reading
1
Hidden Levels: Choose Your Player (Side Quest)
31:25
31:25
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
31:25
Today, Stef Sanjati is a creator on YouTube with over half a million subscribers. Her content mostly focuses on her two greatest loves — makeup and gaming — often combining the two with her otherworldly video game-inspired beauty tutorials. Growing up in small-town Ontario, though, Stef was a quiet, introverted kid who was bullied a lot. For one th…
…
continue reading
