Ep 27: Campfire Tales: Are You Afraid Of The Dark

How do you remember summer camp? What stands out most for you? Is it the memory of mosquito bites? Winning that year’s capture the flag? Promising to write new friends, or your first love (and meaning letters with stamps, and only until school starts a… Read More …

Ep 26: Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Gay Mafia?

Have you heard that the gay mafia is running Hollywood? Well any disenfranchised straight guy in the entertainment industry will tell you about it. Hyperbole aside, the gay mafia is a running joke/ urban legend that keeps popping up in pop culture. Whe… Read More …

Ep 26: Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Gay Mafia?

Have you heard that the gay mafia is running Hollywood? Well any disenfranchised straight guy in the entertainment industry will tell you about it. Hyperbole aside, the gay mafia is a running joke/ urban legend that keeps popping up in pop culture. Whe… Read More …

Ep 25.2: Modern Folklore or Public Menace: Creepy Pasta

SPECIAL 2 PART 25th EPISODE PARTY: PART 2

 The website Creepy Pasta has become a nearly ubiquitous cultural phenomenon. This site offers users a chance to share short fiction in a variety of media. The stories are generally scary, but they range in genre from classic horror to speculative fiction to political thriller. It’s safe to say that among a subset of Internet users, a few of these stories have become legendary. Have the lines between written stories and oral tradition been blurred by the online community? Is this folklore? Are these stories urban legends? They’ve certainly left a mark, perhaps most infamously inspiring one attempted murder involving three 12-year-old girls. Join us this week as we celebrate our 25th episode, and explore the Creepy Pasta greatest hits from “The Russian Sleep Experiment” to “Slender Man”, and ask what this new form of story swapping means for modern culture. Read More …

Ep 25.2: Modern Folklore or Public Menace: Creepy Pasta

SPECIAL 2 PART 25th EPISODE PARTY: PART 2

 The website Creepy Pasta has become a nearly ubiquitous cultural phenomenon. This site offers users a chance to share short fiction in a variety of media. The stories are generally scary, but they range… Read More …

Ep 25.1: What We Talk About When We Talk About Urban Legends: Creepy Pasta

SPECIAL 2 PART 25th EPISODE PARTY: PART 1

 The website Creepy Pasta has become a nearly ubiquitous cultural phenomenon. This site offers users a chance to share short fiction in a variety of media. The stories are generally scary, but they range in genre from classic horror to speculative fiction to political thriller. It’s safe to say that among a subset of Internet users, a few of these stories have become legendary. Have the lines between written stories and oral tradition been blurred by the online community? Is this folklore? Are these stories urban legends? They’ve certainly left a mark, perhaps most infamously inspiring one attempted murder involving three 12-year-old girls. Join us this week as we celebrate our 25th episode, and explore the Creepy Pasta greatest hits from “The Russian Sleep Experiment” to “Slender Man”, and ask what this new form of story swapping means for modern culture.

To Check out Audio Dime Museum: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/audio-dime-museum/id1096211271?mt=2 Read More …

Ep 25.1: What We Talk About When We Talk About Urban Legends: Creepy Pasta

SPECIAL 2 PART 25th EPISODE PARTY: PART 1

 The website Creepy Pasta has become a nearly ubiquitous cultural phenomenon. This site offers users a chance to share short fiction in a variety of media. The stories are generally scary, but they range in… Read More …

Ep 24: Bystanders Affected

Every year anxious freshmen shuffle into lecture halls for intro
to psychology courses, they’ll learn names like Freud, Jung,
Skinner, James and Piaget. Without a doubt, they’ll learn the name
Kitty Genovese along with those. Unlike the others on that list,
Kitty never planned on being incorporated in the textbooks and
PowerPoint presentations (had any of them known what PowerPoint
was). She was murdered in New York City in 1964 by a violent serial
offender. Her story is robbed of its complexity and reduced to a
parable, used to illustrate the perils of urban apathy. The concept
is largely responsible for pioneering the study of the bystander
effect. There were real-word, long lasting, far-reaching
consequences, as well. The idea that 38 of Kitty’s neighbors
watched from their windows as she was attacked without bothering to
phone for help haunted policy makers and scholars of human
behavior, as well as people who read about in it newspapers all
across the country for decades. But is it just a story? This week
we take a look at the legend of urban apathy and get to know the
dynamic, brave woman behind the notes in your psych 101 notebook.
Join us as we explore the urban legend of the murder of Kitty
Genovese.

To check out Audio Dime
Museum: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/audio-dime-museum/id1096211271?mt=2 Read More …

Ep 24: Bystanders Affected

Every year anxious freshmen shuffle into lecture halls for intro
to psychology courses, they’ll learn names like Freud, Jung,
Skinner, James and Piaget. Without a doubt, they’ll learn the name
Kitty Genovese along with those. Unlike the others on th… Read More …

Ep 23: The Perverse & The Preserved: Mummies in Unexpected Places

Remember how you begged to go in the haunted house at the Halloween carnival when you were a kid? You know, right before you promptly freaked out and realized you were not as tough and grown up as you’d hoped and began begging your mom, dad, uncle who thought it was hilarious, etc. to leave? What did they all say to calm you down? ‘Don’t worry it’s all pretend?’ Right? Well, what if they were wrong? Once upon a time, not so long ago, they were. The body of Elmer McCurdy was discovered in a California fun house over fifty years after his death. We’ll tell his incredible story in this episode before examining other preserved bodies found throughout the world. From bog people to incorrupt saints we explore the world of mortal remains that remain long after their owners have made their exits, and how they effect the living. Join us this week as we analyze the urban legend of the funhouse mummy and other unsettling finds.

To enter the Audio Dime Museum: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/audio-dime-museum/id1096211271?mt=2 Read More …

Ep 23: The Perverse & The Preserved: Mummies in Unexpected Places

Remember how you begged to go in the haunted house at the Halloween carnival when you were a kid? You know, right before you promptly freaked out and realized you were not as tough and grown up as you’d hoped and began begging your mom, dad, uncle who … Read More …

Extra! The Devil’s Music

Extra! Sam had the chance to speak with Shelley Ritter, the Director of the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi about the blues, Robert Johnson, and the origin of “The Devil’s Music”  

Learn more about the Delta Blues Museum: http://www.deltabluesmuseum.org/ Read More …

Extra! The Devil’s Music

Extra! Sam had the chance to speak with Shelley Ritter, the Director of the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi about the blues, Robert Johnson, and the origin of “The Devil’s Music”  

Learn more about the Delta Blues Museum: http://www.de… Read More …