Context Clues: Naked or Afraid

Amanda Montell is the host of the podcast Sounds Like A Cult as well as the author of the new book The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, a collection of personal essays on va...

29 Apr 20241h 5min

Sarah Marshall joins me to chat about how, in 1968, one unsuspecting young woman’s bustline almost caused a stock market bust when thousands of Wall Street employees became obsessed with watching her ...

22 Apr 20241h 17min

In the late 1950s, an organization known as SINA started a campaign with the mission of clothing naked animals for the sake of decency. Today we will look at this bizarre moral crusade and its leader,...

1 Apr 20241h 6min

Journalist and author Tom Risen is here to tell me about some of the real conspiracies that the CIA and the FBI were involved in from the 50s to the 70s and how, in 1975, one senator finally took thes...

25 Mar 20241h 16min

John O'Connor is the author of The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster, a cross-country adventure and investigation into the lore around Bigfoot as well as the personali...

18 Mar 202453min

For the second part of this Urban Legends Hotline episode, we are continuing to explore various tall tales of ruthless gang initiations from the 1990s onward, as well as looking at the sweeping anti-g...

4 Mar 202454min

For this Urban Legends Hotline episode, we are answering a listener message about a story of street gangs initiating wannabes with frightening rituals including driving around with their headlights of...

26 Feb 20241h 1min

'Gang Initiations' is the topic of our upcoming series, and this episode will provide extra context using excerpts from three previous episodes—Urban Legends, Drugs, and Dangerous Teens. Become a Pat...

19 Feb 202437min