Panic World: An Internet Rabbit Hole of the Best Kind
Ryan Broderick's Garbage Day newsletter is already indispensable when it comes to understanding internet culture and explanations of what the hell is happening on most social media networks. He's fluent in internet; it makes him a great teacher.
But he's stepped up his game even more with a (relatively new) podcast: Panic World.
It's been going for about two months now, but I just fell into it like a rabbit hole today. Which is appropriate, since it's all about internet rabbit holes of the craziest sort.
The tagline with which he begins every episode describes the podcast as exploring the "moral panics, witch hunts, and viral freakouts that bubble up out of the weirdest corners of the internet."
Pocket Casts
I started with the episode on QAnon, in no small part because of yesterday's election and some of the cuckoo stuff that was going around online in the final days. And then I just couldn't stop myself. (Doesn't hurt that he interviews some of my favorites from other podcasts.) Caroline Calloway on being a woman the internet loves to hate. PJ Vogt on the Tide Pod Challenge (my goodness, I forgot that was an actual thing that happened). Ellie Hall on Kate Middleton conspiracy theories. Michael Hobbes on whether screens are frying kids' brains. David Sims on The Blair Witch Project.
Just a very thorough and entertaining primer on some truly crazy stuff that shouldn't really be a thing but totally is.