American Hysteria20 Touko 2024

Long Live the Ray Cat with Emperor X and Matt Kielty

Reporter and Radiolab producer Matthew Kielty and musician Chad Matheny (AKA Emperor X) were both part of a 2014 episode of the 99% Invisible podcast called Ten Thousand Years that asked the same question we did in our Talking to the Future episode: how do we communicate warnings about nuclear waste to humans ten thousand years in the future when language, symbols, and familiar technologies have all fallen away? Matt was a contributor to the episode, helping bring the strange story to a much larger audience while Emperor X created a folk song containing lore about the Ray Cat (that biologically edited feline who would turn colors when getting too close to radiation). Could a catchy earworm stay stuck in the collective American head for ten thousand years to help warn future generations? We’ll discuss their experiences with nuclear semiotics, the rise of the Ray Cat and the associated public response, as well as how these thought experiments can be vital to imagining and creating a more hopeful future. Follow @EmperorX on Instagram or check out his website Follow Matthew Kielty on Twitter @Matt_Kielty Check out Ten Thousand Years from 99% Invisible Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts Head to americanhysteria.com to get merch and leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hobby Lobby: Crafting a Christian Nation with Michael Blanding

The multibillion dollar arts and crafts corporation Hobby Lobby has long been steeped in Evangelical Christianity, owned by a family that is extremely influential in conservative politics. Our guest t...

20 Heinä 1h 2min

90s Angel Craze with Christine Laskowski

Back in the 1990s, it seemed like angels were everywhere in popular culture: in movies, TV shows, songs, and home decor. Our guest today is Christine Laskowski, a video journalist and host of the podc...

13 Heinä 1h 34min

FIREWORKS pt. 2 with Sarah Marshall

Just like every year, more and more stories are coming out about how wild, unpredictable, and dangerous fireworks can be, and yet our capacity for explosive hubris continues to prevail. For part two o...

6 Heinä 1h 39min

FIREWORKS pt. 1 with Sarah Marshall

Love them or hate them, there are few things that feel as quintessentially American as fireworks, the favorite way to celebrate during every unhinged national birthday party. For part one of this two-...

29 Kesä 1h 42min

Playing Indian with Rebecca Nagle

As we endure surreal celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the United States, we hear the same Disneyfied history being told over and over again. Rebecca Nagle is a citizen of Cherokee Nation and t...

22 Kesä 1h 11min

In Defense of Queer Villains with BJ Colangelo

Have you ever noticed that many of the most iconic evil-doers in movies seem, well, pretty gay? Think Scar from the Lion King, Jafar from Aladdin, Ursula from The Little Mermaid, Miss Trunchbull from ...

15 Kesä 1h 4min

DATING APPS

In the early 1990s, match.com debuted as the first major dating app on the world wide web, but it was far from the earliest way that people used technology to meet other hopeful singles. For this epis...

8 Kesä 1h 6min

THE GAY AGENDA (Pride Rewind)

This is a rerelase with a new introduction! The purse-carrying, tutu-wearing purple Teletubby Tinky Winky was outed as a homosexual in 1999, capping off a decade of conspiratorial anti-gay writings an...

1 Kesä 37min