American Hysteria – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

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American Hysteria

chelsey weber-smith

Society & Culture

Frequency: 1 episode/10d. Total Eps: 282

American Hysteria explores how fantastical thinking has shaped our culture – moral panics, urban legends, hoaxes, crazes, fringe beliefs, and national misunderstandings. Poet-turned-podcaster Chelsey Weber-Smith tells the strangest stories from American history and examines the forces that create the reality we share, and sometimes, the reality we don't.

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Recent rankings

Latest chart positions across Apple Podcasts and Spotify rankings.

Apple Podcasts

🇺🇸 USA - societyAndCulture
18/08/2026
#89
🇺🇸 USA - societyAndCulture
24/12/2025
#97
🇺🇸 USA - societyAndCulture
26/11/2025
#95
🇺🇸 USA - societyAndCulture
25/11/2025
#89
🇺🇸 USA - societyAndCulture
23/11/2025
#93
🇺🇸 USA - societyAndCulture
22/11/2025
#82
🇺🇸 USA - societyAndCulture
29/10/2025
#91
🇺🇸 USA - societyAndCulture
28/10/2025
#70
🇺🇸 USA - societyAndCulture
23/10/2025
#95
🇨🇦 Canada - societyAndCulture
22/10/2025
#94

Spotify

No recent rankings available

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

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https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/cthalloween?sid=hysteria
1 share
https://brothersdesignco.com/
1 share

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RSS feed quality

Good

Score global : 83%

Publication history

Monthly episode publishing history over the past years.

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Latest published episodes

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Context Clues: Grave Mistakes

Season 5 · Episode 127

Monday, October 21, 2024 • Duration 50:29

'Buried Alive,' our upcoming Halloween special, looks at the American fear and fascination with premature burial. We'll explore the panic that swept the nation in the 1800s, leading to the creation of safety coffins for those potentially entombed too soon, and the spectacles drummed up by eccentric performers who competed to see who could stay buried alive the longest. This episode provides more historical context through excerpts from our previous episodes, Death, The 12 Foot Skeleton, and Quackery. Get tickets for A MASSIVE SEANCE Live Show with You're Wrong About: linktr.ee/amassiveseance Full episodes to check out: Death The 12 Foot Skeleton Quackery Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts Sound design and Production by Riley Swedelius-Smith Edited by Miranda Zickler Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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A MASSIVE SEANCE Live Show Tour with YOU'RE WRONG ABOUT

Season 5 · Episode 126

Friday, October 18, 2024 • Duration 01:43

What could possibly go wrong when two skeptical podcasters try to summon a ghost? Join Sarah Marshall of You're Wrong About and Chelsey Weber-Smith of American Hysteria for a historical, theatrical, ecstatic spectacular for the living and dead. Hold hands with your favorite disembodied voices for a spiritualist séance* featuring fireside conversation, mystifying tricks, special guests, and music from The Little Lies – the only Fleetwood Mac tribute band that may actually be ghosts. This winter, we will release the phantoms of the past year and make room for the spirit of the new. Get your tickets here: https://linktr.ee/amassiveseance DEC 3 + 4 | PORTLAND, OR DEC 11 | SEATTLE, WA JAN 11 | SAN FRANCISCO, CA JAN 24 | LOS ANGELES, CA Produced in collaboration with Woody Shticks + Miranda Zickler *May contain exorcisms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Disney Gimmick That Conjured a Ghost with Jim Perry of Euphomet

Season 5 · Episode 117

Monday, August 12, 2024 • Duration 58:14

Our paranormal correspondent Jim Perry is back to tell us about his recent ghost hunt inside the Queen Mary ship, where he discovered that Walt Disney had installed some ghostly gimmicks decades ago, inadvertently creating a haunting that continued on long after Disney sold the vessel. We discuss what happens when horror entertainment influences our consciousness and helps to create our modern relationship to the paranormal. Listen to Euphomet wherever you get your podcasts Check out SpectreVision's other podcasts Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts Find us on Instagram @americanhysteriapodcast Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com 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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Scene Queens with Podcasters BJ and Harmony Colangelo of 'This Ends at Prom'

Season 5 · Episode 22

Monday, March 21, 2022 • Duration 01:00:03

'This Ends at Prom' is a podcast that dives deep into coming-of-age and teen girl movies from the queer, feminist cisgender and transgender perspectives of wives and film analysts BJ and Harmony Colangelo. Today we chat about millennial pop groups, the emo scene, pop punk, hair metal, gender contamination, boy band haircuts, and what we hope for the next generation of stars and the fans that make them. Listen to This Ends at Prom! Twitter: @thisendsatprom @BJColangelo @Veloci_trap_tor Become a Patron and support our show! Follow American Hysteria on social media: Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch at americanhysteria.com American Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Produced by Miranda Zickler Sound design by Clear Commo Studios Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Boy Bands

Season 5 · Episode 21

Monday, March 7, 2022 • Duration 54:46

Behind every manufactured boy band there is what the press calls a Svengali, a puppet master who assembles the group and styles everything about them. This episode will introduce us to the eccentric producers and talent agents who have long shaped pop music from behind the curtain. American Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Sound design by Clear Commo Studios Research and co-writing by Riley Smith Co-produced and edited by Miranda Zickler Voice Acting by Will Rogers and by Riley Smith Become a Patron and support our show! Follow American Hysteria on social media: Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch at americanhysteria.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Fangirls

Season 5 · Episode 20

Monday, February 21, 2022 • Duration 47:23

Hysterical fangirls have become so commonplace in popular music that we hardly pay attention to them anymore, no matter how loud they scream. But there was a time when the screaming, crying, fainting teenage fan was seen not only as a psychological puzzle but also as a major threat to the American empire. Today we’ll cover four eras of landmark swooning starting in the mid-1800s and heading through to Beatlemania, taking a look at the moral panics they inspired and the new power these teenage girls were able to create with just the power of their screams. Our next episode will pick up right after Beatlemania to explore how the music industry capitalized on fangirls’ tastes by manufacturing what we now know as Boy Bands. American Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Sound design by Clear Commo Studios Research and co-writing by Riley Smith Co-produced and edited by Miranda Zickler Voice Acting by Will Rogers and by Riley Smith Become a Patron and support our show! Follow American Hysteria on social media: Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch at americanhysteria.com Head to greenchef.com/hysteria130 and use code hysteria130 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Context Clues: Teenage Sex

Season 5 · Episode 19

Monday, February 14, 2022 • Duration 39:18

To prepare for our series called Fangirls and Boy Bands, we are heading back to the fantastical realm of the teenager and the reactionary moral panics their sex lives have inspired since the days of the Puritans. In this episode, pay special attention to the invention of the teenager in the 1920s and 40s as well as the way the small revolutions that music and dance were able to incite, and then come back next week when we will break down the archetype of hysterical fangirl and see how these seas of swooners were seen as both ridiculous and extremely dangerous to the very fabric of America. Head to greenchef.com/hysteria130 and use code hysteria130 Become a Patron and support our show! Follow American Hysteria on social media: Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch at americanhysteria.com American Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Sound design by Clear Commo Studios Research and co-writing by Riley Smith Co-produced and edited by Miranda Zickler Voice Acting by Will Rogers and by Lily Orrey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Twitter Saves Megan from the Westboro Baptist Church

Season 5 · Episode 18

Monday, January 31, 2022 • Duration 41:42

*Please listen to our Westboro Baptist Church episode first!!* Megan Phelps-Roper was born and raised in the WBC, a fervent believer and lover of cruel funeral pickets. But when she got on Twitter to preach the hatred of God, she was met with thousands of replies from thousands of different people, a few of whom would slowly help reveal to her the error of her ways. Make sure you read Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper Become a Patron and support our show! Follow American Hysteria on social media: Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch at americanhysteria.com American Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Sound design by Clear Commo Studios Produced by Miranda Zickler Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Westboro Baptist Church

Season 5 · Episode 17

Monday, January 24, 2022 • Duration 01:03:40

The Westboro Baptist Church outraged both sides of the political spectrum throughout the 90s, 2000s and 2010s, picketing the funerals of AIDS victims and soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, touting their loud and always shockingly foul-mouth message that America was doomed because we had accepted homosexuality. Today we explore their most memorable “antics”, the life of their asshole leader and the family that makes up most of their following, trying our best to demystify one of America’s most infamous pop-culture supervillains. CW: homophobia, religious abuse, death Become a Patron and support our show! Follow American Hysteria on social media: Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch at americanhysteria.com American Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Sound design by Clear Commo Studios Research and co-writing by Riley Smith Co-produced and edited by Miranda Zickler Voice Acting by Will Rogers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Context Clues: Televangelists

Season 5 · Episode 16

Monday, January 17, 2022 • Duration 57:42

Next week we will be covering the Westboro Baptist Church, the small family clan and hyper-Calvinist group who have long outraged both the left and the right with their severe anti-gay and anti-military funeral pickets. To put their story into context, this rerelease will illuminate the history of American mainstream Christianity and show what the major players of the Evangelical right were really up to behind closed doors as they criticized the publicly inflammatory tactics of the WBC. Become a Patron and support our show! Follow American Hysteria on social media: Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch at americanhysteria.com American Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Sound design by Clear Commo Studios Research and co-writing by Riley Smith Co-produced and edited by Miranda Zickler Voice Acting by Will Rogers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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American Hysteria – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

American Hysteria – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other2

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Other2

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities