Endless Thread

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. But in recent years, interest in her has been slipping. Writer Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan joins Endless Thread to talk about Miquela's mysterious origin story, and what her declining relevance reveals about our current relationship with AI.

You can read Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan's essay, Death of the Artificial Influencer, here.

Credits: This episode was produced by Grace Tatter. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski. The host is Ben Brock Johnson.

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 and discounts the theory of dark matter, spurred a surprisingly catty argument on arXiv.org, an open-access website for scientific preprints.

Things got nerdy. And hilarious. Endless Thread explains.

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Credits: This episode was written and produced by Dean Russell. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski. The hosts are Ben Brock Johnson and Dean Russell.

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?"

The former four-time NBA champion has developed several personas since the Orlando Magic drafted him in 1992. On the court, he was a giant. Online, he became something different. Endless Thread breaks down the many sides of Shaq to answer the question, Is he OK?

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Credits: This episode was written and produced by Ben Brock Johnson with help from Dean Russell. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski. The hosts are Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson.

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 produced by Grace Tatter with mixing and sound design by Emily Jankowski. Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson are the co-hosts.

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 with homelessness for Endless Thread. But there is another dark chapter of Shane's life: his older sister being accused of murdering her mother-in-law in 2002, when he was 13 years old.

Now Shane wants to know, did his sister commit this brutal crime?

Note: Episode 2 of Beyond All Repair is out now. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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 Johnson. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus.

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 Brock Johnson and Grace Tatter are the co-hosts.

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 wisdom of children.

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 project in its tracks late last year.

Producer Katelyn Harrop joins Endless Thread hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson to look at yet another tunneling phenomenon that has taken the internet by storm.

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. Mixing and sound design by Matt Reed. Ben Brock Johnson and Grace Tatter are the co-hosts.

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 politicians and celebrities.

Credits: This episode originally published on April 22, 2022. It was written and produced by Dean Russell with mixing and sound design by Emily Jankowski. Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson are the co-hosts.

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 industry has no significant impact on the climate crisis despite abundant evidence suggesting otherwise.

No controlled studies have been published confirming the advertised benefits of the carnivore diet. Yet, its popularity online is undeniable. Endless Thread looks at how social media cooked up the anti-establishment wellness trend.

You can find our transcript, with links and additional resources, here: www.wbur.org/carnivore

Credits: This episode was produced by Dean Russell and Ben Brock Johnson. Mixing and sound design by Emily Jankowski. Ben Brock Johnson and Dean Russell are the co-hosts.

Image Credit: Peter Dazeley/Getty

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 signs from an algorithm...and why signs from either are so likely to feel true.

Credits: This episode was produced by Grace Tatter. Mixing and sound design by Paul Vaitkus. Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson are the co-hosts.

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/archaelleon on Reddit

If you know what "Sticking out your Gyat for the Rizzler" means you're likely a part of Gen Alpha or you're chronically online. And if, like us, you have no idea what that means when you first encounter it, then strap in and get ready to be schooled on what the internet is coining "Gen Alpha Lingo."

Have you ever heard an odd sound that sounds oddly musical? A spatula that rings like a toy piano? A storage container with a satisfying pop?

Endless Thread's Ben Brock Johnson brings co-host Amory Sivertson the subreddit r/SoundsLikeMusic, where everyday sounds are turned into music. He then turns to r/whatismycookiecutter, a subreddit of bewildering yet delightful shapes.

Credits: This episode was produced by Ben Brock Johnson with Dean Russell. Mixing and sound design by Emily Jankowski. Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson are the co-hosts.

(Photo Credit: 4cloverstorm)

Washington Post tech columnist Taylor Lorenz talks to host Ben Brock Johnson about her new book, "Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet," where she argues that we've been paying too much attention to the Elon Musks of the world, and not enough to everyday internet users.

Earlier this year, TikTok livestreamers began mimicking lifeless "nonplayable characters," or NPCs, by repeating motions and phrases like in a video game. Then, people started paying them to keep doing it.

Like the show? Help us out! Donate at https://wbur.org/podpower.

Credits: This episode was produced by Ben Brock Johnson and Dean Russell. Mixing and sound design by Paul Vaitkus. Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson are the co-hosts.

(Photo: TikTok/@ishowspeed/@natuecoco/@cherrycrushtv)

We're going underground into what might be the most important vault in the world. What's inside? A treasure that originates with a Russian scientist during WWII.

Within a few months, the question "how often do men think about the Roman Empire?" conquered Instagram, TikTok and countless group chats ? and then morphed into something else. What links this to other memes of the moment? Do all roads lead to Rome, or is something else at the root of the Roman Empire, girl math, and girl dinner?

In 1909, the Arizona Gazette ran an article titled "Exploration in Grand Canyon." It said that an explorer by the name of G.E. Kincaid went into the National Park for the Smithsonian and found caves full of mummies and ancient Egyptian treasures that put everything we thought we knew about civilization on its head.

Well, the Smithsonian called the articles bunk reporting that Kincaid never worked for the institution. And it turns out he never existed! So how can a conspiracy that has been repeatedly debunked for decades, survive for so long?

Endless Thread finds out.

This episode is brought to you by Slate's ICYMI podcast.

Co-hosts Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim talk to writer Cyrena Touros about Dracula Daily, a newsletter that emails bite-sized passages from Bram Stoker?s 1897 novel to more than 235,000 readers. As an epistolary novel, Dracula is broken into letters written between May and November. Dracula Daily emails those letters to readers, who have now created a book club-like fandom rife with memes and sidebars about a guy stuck in a vampire?s castle.

Gather round the fire with us for three hair-raising tales from the internet. For the finale of our series "Endless Dread," we explore stories of haunted woods, computer bugs, and mysterious hole to the unknown.

Like the show? Help us out! Donate at https://wbur.org/podpower.

Credits: This episode was produced by Amory Sivertson, Dean Russell, and Ben Brock Johnson. Mixing and sound design by Paul Vaitkus. Amory Sivertson, Dean Russell, and Ben Brock Johnson are the co-hosts.

(Photo: Getty Images)

?Goosebumps? book fans and musical theater fans, unite! In this episode, Amory and producer Quincy introduce you to ?Goosebumps The Musical? and find out what it might take to get it to Broadway (hint: you can help!).

This episode originally aired on December 23, 2022.

Alert: Furbys have invaded "Endless Dread!" They're having a bit of a moment. In this episode, producers Jacob Garcia and Quincy Walters dig into the creepy and paranormal corners of Furby internet ? from haunted Furbys, and cursed ones to one that hunts... ghosts. And an unexpected guest that Dr. Frankenstein himself would shriek at!

With new and exotic species available at the click of a button, the digital age forever changed the multimillion-dollar arachnid industry. What has that meant for spiders?

Credits: This episode was written and produced by Dean Russell. Mixing, sound design, and original music by Matt Reed. Ben Brock Johnson and Dean Russell are the co-hosts.

(Henrik Sorensen/Getty Images)

Hey, threadheads. It's a different day than we'd normally be in your feed, and we HAVE... something different for you!

It's the first episode of a new series from WBUR, our home station, of course, and The Trace. It's called "The Gun Machine," and it's an 8-part series about the history of the gun industry in America and the industry's biggest supporter... THE GOVERNMENT.

This first episode is all about how the United States has shaped, and been shaped by, the gun industry ? and how we all play a role.

A trigger warning... some actual triggers get pulled in this episode. You'll hear that. So take care. And you dig it, the second episode is already waiting for you. Just search for "The Gun Machine" wherever you listen to Endless Thread.

https://link.chtbl.com/thegunmachine

Host Ben Brock Johnson and producer Quincy Walters go to an historic Boston cemetery to try out findagrave.com ? a volunteer-generated database of millions of graves throughout the world.

At the cemetery, Ben and Quincy have a hard time finding anyone who's ever heard of the site that's been around since 1995. Despite this, Quincy makes the argument that Find a Grave is one of the first social media sites that doesn't get the respect it deserves. "But how is it social media if no one knows about it?" Ben asks.

Then the pair encounter a veteran user of the site. After that, they get ahold of the guy who started Find a Grave. Does he think Find a Grave is social media? Find out in this episode of Endless Thread. 

Back in 2013, the sand dunes of Michigan City, Indiana swallowed a six-year-old boy. It took rescuers nearly 4 hours to dig him out of 12 feet of sand. It was a phenomenon that scientists hadn't studied in-depth. But Facebook recreational naturalists were on the case.

In this episode of Endless Thread, producer Grace Tatter and host Ben Brock Johnson go down an internet rabbit hole and bring bring us an explanation of what happened, the coexistence of miracles and science and even the including the six-year-old boy who's now an adult.

"We're pro-portal and we're pro- tree hole," Ben says. "Basically anywhere there's space, we want to explore it."

Back in 2004, NBC?s 'To Catch a Predator' captivated millions of viewers as it followed a vigilante group called Perverted Justice, which has a goal to thwart pedophiles searching the internet for minors. Adult volunteers go online to pose as minors in order to, well, catch predators. Three years later, amid its growing popularity, it came to an end. But nearly two decades later, it's inspired a genre of influencers who have tried to fill the void.

The popular YouTube channel Lofi Girl provides a 24/7 livestream of chill beats to relax and study.

Endless Thread producer Nora Ruth Valerie Saks and co-host Ben Brock Johnson look at how the Lofi Girl phenomenon has expanded into a record company, inspired copycats, and prompted academic research.

On Discord and YouTube, hundreds of Gen-Zers are teaming up for the purposes finding and archiving the Muzak (aka elevator music) that played in the plaza and lobby and mall of the Twin Towers. 

On this 22nd anniversary of 9/11,  join Endless Thread in an episode where teens and young 20-somethings collect the seemingly innocuous sonic artifacts of the original World Trade Center people thought were lost and the lengths they've gone to find them.

The cover art for the 1976 paperback edition of Madeleine L'Engle's classic 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, no one has known who illustrated it. Well, not NO ONE. Not anymore... Endless Thread cracks the case!

A Redditor proposed a quick fix to one of humanity?s greatest threats. But the real threat may be our fixation with quick fixes.

Credits: This episode was written and produced by Dean Russell. Mixing and sound design by Emily Jankowski. Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson are the co-hosts.

(Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)

As of late, Endless Thread co-host Ben Brock Johnson has been obsessed with a rock in Wyoming, a lot like the protagonist of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But you won't find Ben in the kitchen, making a replica of the rock out of mud and chicken wire. Instead you'll find him and co-host Amory Sivertson in this episode, traversing Reddit and TikTok and YouTube and Wyoming to find out why hundreds of thousands of people have been drawn to a monolith that has so many names and meanings.

Two years ago, he didn?t even know slime molds existed. Now, he may be the internet?s most famous slime savant.

Co-hosts Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson take a walk in the park with Regular Slime Guy.

Credits: This episode was written and produced by Dean Russell. Mixing and sound design by Emily Jankowski. Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson are the co-hosts.

(Photo by Auscape/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

"To avoid crowds, visit areas that are less crowded." These comically obvious, wise words come from the Twitter account ? ahem, X account ? of the National Park Service, who has been hitting it out of the park lately (get it?) with its social media content and reaping viral rewards. Who is behind this material? And why has a more than hundred year old government agency chosen to let its hair down on social media? 

Amory and Ben talk to the National Park Service's lone social media ranger, Matt Turner, and to Sarah Southerland from the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, whose delightfully outrageous social media presence has captured the hearts and funny bones of hundreds of thousands of people. 

If there is an OG meme in which a human is the star, Scumbag Steve is it. He spread across the internet like wildfire in 2011 as a universal representation of dudes who are the worst. And, like any person grappling with immediate internet fame, Blake Boston ? the man behind Scumbag Steve ? tried to capitalize: merch, rap songs, public appearances.

But the full story of what happened to Blake ? and his family ? has never been told. The Scumbag Steve meme became a bargaining chip in a custody battle, a complicating factor in meeting his birth mother, the cause of fights with extended family members, a source of anxiety attacks, and an echo of trauma. In this episode, we go past the origin story of Scumbag Steve and learn about Blake?s real struggles with PTSD and abuse ? and how trauma has brought him and his mother, Susan Boston, even closer. 

In times like these, you've got to take joy wherever and however you can get it. Amory and Ben swap unexpected sources of joy they've bumped into recently ? from a goblin-themed Reddit post, to the scariest toe talons on the internet, to a funky 1980's little-known bop about going to the beach on Massachusetts' North Shore.

Imagine if an explosion in California was so loud that it could be heard in New York City. This is the story of a real event that was just as loud ? the loudest sound ever recorded in human history.

This sound ripped across oceans in 1883, reaching people 3,000 miles away. Infrasonic pressure waves circled the globe four times. News of its destruction traveled through the early internet, the telegraph system, and altered the course of scientific history.

In this episode of Endless Thread, we recreate this magnum opus ? a hotly debated darling of Reddit ? with the help of scholars and infrasonic scientists.

The first documented bar joke was copied onto a clay tablet 4,000 years ago in the ancient language of Sumerian. Scholars have translated it, but the meaning remains lost. After the Twitter account @DepthsOfWiki posted the joke in March, thousands of people attempted to decipher it to no avail.

Yet, as cryptic as the bar joke may be, it offers clues into humor?s role in human civilizations and raises questions about when humor ? and its sibling laughter ? first emerged.

In this episode, the second of two parts, Endless Thread continues its journey attempting to deconstruct the beginnings of humor and explain an unexplainable joke from the forgotten tablets of the past.

What makes the world?s first documented bar joke funny? No one knows.

In a tweet that garnered thousands of responses in March, the Twitter account @DepthsOfWiki posted about a 4,000-year-old proverb written on a clay tablet. The line, which experts believe is a joke from the ancient civilization of Sumer, starts with the set-up, ?A dog walks into a tavern.? But the punchline has left scholars and online commenters scratching their heads. The joke?s meaning has been lost, and finding it could reveal something unique about early human civilization.

In this episode, the first of two parts, Endless Thread journeys back in time, attempting to deconstruct the origins of humor and explain an unexplainable joke from the forgotten tablets of the past.

In this summer-y episode of Endless Thread, Ben and Amory take a leap of faith (or do they?) to the depths of an upstate New York swimming hole with a legend surrounding it that's almost as shadowy as exact it's location.

?Which one of you freaks hijacked the south Boston green space google maps for your furry photo shoot??

Earlier this year, a Redditor was trying to find the person who uploaded pictures of himself posing in a dog mask and rubber suit to this location in Google Maps.

But he's no furry. He's a pup. There's a difference, we learned, after speaking to the subject of these photos.

Take a walk on the kinky side in this episode that explores the origins of puppy play and how the internet and the pandemic shaped the pup community.

Reddit is restricting the use of third-party apps. More than 8,000 subreddit communities shut down in protest ? including r/Blind, which says the change will drastically reduce accessibility.

In this special episode, co-host Ben Brock Johnson speaks with two moderators of r/Blind about their concerns.

Credits: This episode was produced by Ben Brock Johnson and Dean Russell. Mixing and sound design by Matt Reed. Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson are the co-hosts.

(Image credit: Getty/Johner Images)