Panic World

The rise and (maybe) fall of Mr. Beast (with Ben Brock Johnson & Amory Sivertson) [Ad-free]

He’s conquered YouTube, but can he conquer traditional media? And also burgers and snack bars, for some reason. Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson of Endless Thread join the show to help us figure out how we should feel about Mr. Beast, and how much is simply too much to know about the influencers we love (and love to hate).

Our guests Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson are the ho...

The right-wing pivot of Perfume TikTok [Exclusive]

Ryan and our producer Grant talk about the recent brush with politics sweeping across an unexpected community—or is it?—PerfumeTok.

Read more: "The TikTok electorate" by Max Read https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-tiktok-electorate

Julia Serano explains how gender panic spreads [Exclusive]

Producer Grant Irving talks with writer, performer, and activist Julia Serano for a deeper dive on our episode "Did Tumblr turn kids trans?"

Producer Grant Irving talks with writer, performer, and activist Julia Serano exploring the scientific studies and background research that informed our episode “Did Tumblr turn kids trans?”

You can check out Julia’s extensive body of wor...

Did Tumblr turn kids trans? (With Vera Drew) [Ad-free]

Part of the reason Republicans ran away with the 2024 election is because they used misinformation to make millions of people think that the government was trying to forcibly transition their kids. So, this week we’re investigating some of the origins of that scaremongering by looking at the conspiracy theory that Tumblr turned an entire generation trans. How did this theory spread? And what ...

The Joe Rogan we need isn't so easy to create [Exclusive]

Ryan and our producer Grant dig into the election and have some comments about whether or not we can simply create the "liberal Joe Rogan."

Silicon Valley’s midlife crisis (with Taylor Lorenz) [Ad-free]

From shooting themselves up with boys’ blood to starting their own countries, “techno-optimism” has taken a decidedly dark turn. It turns out Silicon Valley is going through a midlife crisis — and while us peasants might address that with a motorcycle or a long vacation, the dudes in the PayPal Mafia are facing their mortality by inflicting pain on the rest of us. Taylor Lorenz joins th...

How QAnon changed American politics forever (with Travis View) [Extended + Ad-free]

With Donald Trump being brought back into the White House, we might be seeing another decade of QAnon. How did we get here?

With Donald Trump being brought back into the White House, we might only be seeing the beginning of another decade of QAnon. How did we get here?

Our story today starts in 2016, when Wikileaks released tens of thousands of private emails from John Podesta. By t...

Callie Hernandez on Blair Witch (2016)

Panic World producer Grant Irving chats with Callie Hernandez, star of Blair Witch (2016), looking back at the experience working on the seq

Panic World producer Grant Irving chats with Callie Hernandez, star of Blair Witch (2016), looking back at the experience working on the sequel to the first iconic film, and reflecting on both the original and its surrounding lore.

Was the Tide Pod Challenge Ever Real? (With PJ Vogt) [Ad-free]

Tide Pods were the king of the forbidden candies. The items that looked delicious despite being disgusting or poisonous if you actually bit into one. For a few months in 2018, it seemed like the biggest threat to American teenagers was the temptation to participate in the Tide Pod challenge, i.e., bite into the gusher-like laundry pod on camera before calling poison control....

The Blair Witch: The First Viral Hoax (with David Sims) [Ad-free]

The Blair Witch Project stands alone in the kind of panic it caused. No film before or since has quite hit the same fevered pitch, where many people actually thought it was real. What made it so magical? How did it come to be, and why did it freak us out like it did?

David Sims joins us to talk urban legends, predecessors to The Blair Witch Project, and the found footage films that have s...

The Women the Internet Loves to Hate (with Caroline Calloway) [Ad-free]

Caroline Calloway became internet famous for living a fantasy, at least that's how it appeared on Instagram. Then, she became infamous when the public turned on her. We talk with Caroline about the long history of the women and teenage girls this has happened to before, and what it's like for this generation's version of E Girls, the Simp Queen.

Our guest Caroline Calloway is an author. Y...

Chappell Roan and the Pop Crave Election (with Akilah Hughes) [Ad-free]

Why does it feel like this election isn’t really happening? Why does Chappell Roan feel like the biggest story?

Our theory? We live in a Pop Crave world. The tabloid X account is pretty much the modern day AP. Ryan is joined by Akilah Hughes to figure out how this happened and the ramifications for all of us, and especially for the Midwest Princess.

Our guest Akilah Hughes is a wr...

Whatever Happened to Kate Middleton? (With Ellie Hall) [Ad-free]

Remember earlier this year, when people thought Kate Middleton was dead and or replaced by AI? What was up with that? We’re joined by Ellie Hall, a journalist with a focus on the British Royal Family, to trace the whole story behind #WhereIsKate—including a look at the interesting way that the Royal Family handles its press, the origins of all the conspiracy theories surrounding Kate, and w...

Are Kids’ Brains Being Rotted by Screens? (With Michael Hobbes) [Ad-free]

Since the advent of smartphones, a simmering and increasingly boiling panic has been about whether too much “screentime” is ruining the nation’s youth. Michael Hobbes joins us to help trace the past moral panics surrounding kids, from such terrifying inventions as the jukebox, to television (okay maybe kinda bad), and texting, up to where we are now: the “Great Rewiring.” That’s the...

Ryan makes Nyquil chicken

It smelled heinous. It turned blue. And it stunk up Ryan's whole apartment. Enjoy!

Cats, Dogs, and Geese, Oh My! (With Kat Abughazaleh) [Ad-free]

With the second and maybe probably last 2024 presidential debate now in our rearview, we’re taking a look back at Americans’ relationship with misinformation. Ryan is joined by reporter Kat Abughazaleh to talk about the surprising origin of “fake news” and how it has only gotten more deranged since 2016. All of that brings us to where we are now, where a presidential candidate claims th...

NyQuil Chicken (with Katie Notopoulos) [Ad-free]

Welcome to Panic World. For our premiere, we're going back a few years to explore the panic that grew around "Sleepytime Chicken" aka NyQuil Chicken. Along with friend of the pod Katie Notopoulos, Ryan will explore the origins of the recipe on 4chan back in 2017 and chart its start as a joke to ultimately causing everyone from CNN to the FDA to issue warnings against it. But were the nation's y...