American Hysteria

1: Talking to the Dead

14: Presenting American Hysteria: Season Two




After TMZ reported that Britney Spears had been checked into treatment for mental health issues in April, concerns were raised about the state of her conservatorship, the legal agreement that gives her father a great deal of power over her affairs. A conspiracy theory under the hashtag #freebritney, started by the pop culture podcast Britney’s Gram, has spurred actual protests as the news of the state of Britney Spears continues to be updated daily. 

 Season two of American Hysteria premiers on June 3rd.

 [Click here](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/american-hysteria-variety-hour-seattle-tickets-61051071398) for tickets to our first live show in Seattle on June 27th 
American Hysteria is a Skylark Media production
 Written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
 Assistant produced by Derrick Smith
 Produced and edited by Clear Commo Studios
 Research assisted by Riley Smith
 Thank you to Kristen Rogers-Anderson for help on this episode 

Follow us on social media and please leave us a review!

Through meticulously crafted storytelling and sound design, American Hysteria's newest sponsor, the Murder Minute podcast, delivers a unique and immersive listening experience in true crime. Murder Minute is the length of a short commute, it’s a perfect addition to your routine. Make sure to subscribe now for true crime storytelling without the distraction of too much extra conversation, they call it their "no frills, all chills" podcast.  [Click here to subscribe](https://link.chtbl.com/murderminute) Heads up: The clip contains graphic content

For the very first time, American Hysteria is putting on a live variety-hour vaudevillian show so that you can experience our first season of moral panics, urban legends, and conspiracy theories in a totally different way. You've never seen a live podcast show like this. [Get your tickets here](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/american-hysteria-variety-hour-seattle-tickets-61051071398) June 27th at the Columbia City Theater in Seattle

13: Skylark Presents: Earth Break Starring Jenny Slate

This is the 20 year anniversary of one of my favorite movies of all time, The Blair Witch Project, a movie that masqueraded as real found footage of three college students who went missing in the woods while recording a documentary on the local legend. The story of the missing students and the lore of the Blair Witch were both widely believed during its monumental release, and we are covering just how the directors and marketing team were able to pull off one of the greatest hoaxes in American history, creating an original urban legend and facilitating its spread while also using a truly unorthodox method of filming, essentially becoming the Blair Witch, that encouraged true fear out of the actors. These mini episodes will cover the strangest viral phenomena of the world wide web, coming every two weeks during our off-season. Check out Skylark's urban legend audio drama Blackwood [here,](http://www.skylarkmedia.com/podcasts/blackwood) or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on social media and leave us a review on iTunes

Check out another of the Skylark family's podcasts: Blackwood, the story of three teenagers investigating a local urban legend, The Bugman, that turns out to be more fact than fiction. Blackwood is an audio drama written by Will Rogers, American Hysteria's resident voice actor. If you loved The Blair Witch Project, IT, and Stranger Things, Blackwood is your next horror journey.  Head to [skylarkmedia.com/podcasts/blackwood](https://www.skylarkmedia.com/podcasts/blackwoodhttps://www.skylarkmedia.com/podcasts/blackwood) or subscribe to Blackwood on iTunes or wherever you are listening right now. In honor of its 20 year anniversary, come back next Monday for our episode on the outrageous marketing campaign of The Blair Witch Project, and see how their team got a whole nation to believe that a horror movie was actually a documentary. In the meantime, find American Hysteria on social media and leave us a review.

Our culture, our society, our very sense of self, relies heavily on a faith in our memories as perfectly accurate. But what if our memories aren’t as reliable as we think? What if we can recall vividly, things that never actually happened? And what if that can extend out to an entire culture, a whole group collectively remembering something wrong? The Mandela Effect, however, says that parallel dimensions are to blame for discrepancies of mass childhood memories, such as the spelling of Berenstain Bears and the Sinbad's 90s genie movie Shazam.  These mini episodes will cover the strangest viral phenomena of the world wide web, coming every two weeks during our off-season. Follow us on social media and leave us a review on iTunes

Feminist Folklore is a weekly podcast from Skylark Media, assistant produced by Chelsey Weber-Smith. Each week, Carlea Holl-Jensen and Rachel Marr share a different folk story or fairytale from around the world and dive into what it says about past and present ideas of gender, class, race, and more.  Subscribe to Feminist Folklore on Apple podcasts or where ever you're listening right now. You can also find the show at [skylarkmedia.com/podcasts/feministfolklore](http://www.skylarkmedia.com/podcasts/feministfolklore). Follow Feminist Folklore on Twitter: @femlorepod Instagram: @feministfolklorepodcast Facebook: @femlorepod American Hysteria will be back next week, in the meantime, find our goofy ass on social media too.  Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Facebook: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast

The newest viral internet urban legend focuses on an entity named Momo, a creepy humanoid figure with giant eyes, a strange too-wide smile, and grotesque chicken legs, said to message teens and kids on messaging apps with escalating dangerous challenges ending in self-harm and suicide. On this mini episode, we'll explore this and other panics that look for something to blame for the issue of adolescent mental health. These mini episodes will cover the strangest viral phenomena of the world wide web, coming every two weeks during our off-season. Follow us on social media, as well as our sister podcast Feminist Folklore American Hysteria is a Skylark Media production Written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Assistant produced by Derrick Smith Produced and edited by Clear Commo Studios Research assisted by Riley Smith

It has been said that the apocalypse is as American as apple pie, and for our season finale we are exploring different versions of the end of the world, the hyper-religious, the new age, and the scientific, as well as Chelsey’s personal experience with the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse. The stories we tell about the end of time tend to involve not only a series of cataclysmic, devastating events, but also the saving of an elect few, and the punishing and death of the rest. While none of the end times predictions have come to pass, major leaps in technology have opened us up to both the potential nuclear war and the potential for climate disaster, terrifying realities that prove more difficult to face than our fantasies. What comes next is up to us.  This episode is sponsored by Daily Harvest, head to [daily-harvest.com](https://www.daily-harvest.com/) and use promo code American for three free cups in your first order. This episode is also sponsored by Audible, go to [Audible.com/ah](https://www.audible.com/ah) or text AH to 500500 for a 30 day free trial. American Hysteria is written and produced by Chelsey Weber-Smith
 Assistant produced by Derrick Smith
 Produced and edited by Clear Commo Studios
 Show art by [Roache](http://www.xroache.com) Voice Acting by Will Rogers
 Thanks to Jim and Perry Weber for their interview Thank you to research assistant Riley Smith For further reading, check out [The America Syndrome: Apocalypse, War, and Our Call to Greatness](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/547525/the-america-syndrome-by-betsy-hartmann/9781609807405/) by Betsy Hartmann Subscribe now at [skylarkmedia.com/podcasts/americanhysteria](http://www.skylarkmedia.com/podcasts/americanhysteria) 


Follow American Hysteria on social media:
 Twitter: @AmerHysteria
 Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast 
Facebook: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Season two will be dropping soon, in the meantime we will be updating you with mini episodes, so please stay tuned, and thanks so much for listening.

This week we will be discussing the history of drug panic in the United States and its effects in the present day. My guest is Sarah Deutsch, a friend of mine from high school who received her masters in Public health from the City University of New York. Sarah went on to become the Director of Outreach and Prevention for a syringe exchange in Washington Heights, where she worked for many years. Currently, Sarah is working in Washington State to scale up programs that serve people who use drugs. For this episode, Sarah will share her expertise as we discuss the morality of drugs, and the differences and similarities in cultural perceptions in the current opioid crisis.  This episode is sponsored by Daily Harvest, the superfood subscription service. Head to [Daily-Harvest.com](https://www.daily-harvest.com/) and use promo code AMERICAN for three free Daily Harvest cups in your first order.  This episode is also sponsored by Molekule, the newest in air purification technology. Head to [molekule.com](https://www.molekule.com) and use promo code AH at checkout for $75 off your first purchase. From Skylark this is American Hysteria’s The Calm Down My guest this week is Sarah Deutsch And this episode was produced by [Clear Commo Studios](https://www.clearcommo.com/) Join me next week for our season finale on The End of the World

_This episode contains references to graphic racism_ When a security camera caught footage of a 31-year-old Florida resident eating the face of a homeless man, the news and social media dubbed him the Miami Zombie, and it was widely speculated that he was under the influence of a new synthetic drug called Bath Salts, a claim that was later found to be false. Hysterical drug rhetoric has long talked of zombies and monsters and aggressors with superhuman strength and an imperviousness to police bullets, and panic around drug use has long been manufactured by politicians with specific groups in mind, to dehumanize those who appear to cause a threat to the established social order, marking them inhuman groups in need of social control and even long-term imprisonment. Many of us were drafted into the War on Drugs as kids and teens through faulty programs implemented by D.A.R.E. police officers, and taught to mimic this unreasonable rhetoric that has caused irreparable harm to many American communities and continues to do so to this day. This episode is sponsored by HelloFresh, head over to [hellofresh.com/AH80](https://www.hellofresh.com/landing/ah80) and use the code AH80 for $80 off your first month. American Hysteria is written and produced by Chelsey Weber-Smith Assistant produced by Derrick Smith Produced and edited by [Clear Commo Studios](https://www.clearcommo.com/) Show art by [Roache](http://www.xroache.com) Thank you to research assistant Riley Smith and to Sarah Deutsch for advising For further reading, check out [Synthetic Panics](https://nyupress.org/books/9780814742440/) by Phillip Jenkins Subscribe now at [skylarkmedia.com/podcasts/americanhysteria](http://www.skylarkmedia.com/podcasts/americanhysteria)

 Follow American Hysteria on social media: Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Facebook: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast

For this week's episode of the Calm Down, my guests are the women of Feminist Folklore, our partner podcast at Skylark media. Each week Carela Holl-Jensen and Rachael Marr consider what fairytales, folk stories, and urban legends can tell us about culture at large, about beliefs surrounding gender and sexuality and the prescribed roles of women. Today we’ll be discussing different interpretations of the Hook man urban legend as well as the true crime stories of Lover’s Lane, while we dissect the phenomenon of the teenage urban legend and what it has to do with American traditions. Make sure you [subscribe to Feminist Folklore](http://www.skylarkmedia.com/podcasts/feministfolklore) on follow them on social media! This episode is sponsored by Hunt A Killer, the monthly murder mystery subscription box service, head to [huntakiller.com/hysteria](http://www.huntakiller.com/hysteria) for 10% off your first box. From Skylark This was American Hysteria's The Calm Down Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith This week's were Carela Holl Jensen and Rachel Marr of Feminist Folklore This episode was produced by [Clear Commo Studios](https://www.clearcommo.com/) American Hysteria is taking a break next week, but come back in two weeks for our episode on drug panics. In the meantime, leave us a review and find us on social media!