• 21 minutes 15 seconds
    Endless Thread presents "The Midnight Rebellion"

    Introducing The Midnight Rebellion, a new climate fiction podcast from WBUR — a rollicking adventure to a flooded, robot-infested world where you choose what happens.

    When Joule Watts-Green steps into her mom’s mysterious machine, she’s swept off to a polluted city of tides. Streets are rivers, “tin-skins” shoot lightning, and everyone eats gooey Algae-Os. To get home, Joule must be brave, clever, and make friends. She may even discover how to save the world — with your help.

    Each chapter ends with a choice. YOU decide what’s next. This is Chapter 1.

    Triumph or failure, it’s up to you.

    Choose wisely.

    This is Chapter 1 of The Midnight Rebellion.

    And if you liked what you heard, listen to the rest and follow The Midnight Rebellion wherever you get your podcasts.
    5 May 2026, 10:00 am
  • 28 minutes 36 seconds
    Extraordinary vs. Extra Ordinary

    Ben and Amory take a hike with producer Grace, following the digital trail of  "Ridiculoubs" — a mysterious climber who traverses the world's peaks in striking footwear. Then, Amory celebrates the beauty of daily life with the Dull Women's Club, a Facebook group with nearly 1.6 million members.

    Show notes:

     

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    1 May 2026, 9:00 am
  • 32 minutes 53 seconds
    Close Encounters of the Hexagonal Kind

    Endless Thread goes to space! First, host Ben Brock Johnson goes deep on radio signals of unknown origin, with an assist from real-life radio astronomer and Reddit MVP Yvette Cendes, aka, Andromeda321. Then, producer Kalyani Saxena takes Ben down the metaphorical black hole of Saturn's hexagonal storm, a massive vortex twice the width of the Earth that's inspired internet conspiracy theories every bit as unweildy.

    Show notes:

    • This storm never ends: Saturn’s north pole (Reddit)
    • Cassini Images Bizarre Hexagon on Saturn (NASA)
    • Cassini: Saturn's Perplexing Hexagon (NASA)
    Credits: This episode was produced by Grace Tatter. It was researched and co-hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Kalyani Saxena, and edited by Meg Cramer. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus. Episode art credit of NASA.

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    24 April 2026, 9:00 am
  • 27 minutes 58 seconds
    A Beige New World

    What's your favorite color? If you ask the algorithm, the answer is probably beige. The  internet loves neutrals. Aesthetic coffee shop videos feature white walls and minimalist decor. Influencers film from houses decked out with all the beige fixings. When you shop online, you'll be presented with products in a wide range of bland colors — from eggshell, to taupe, to... slightly darker taupe.

    So where did all the color go?

    Hayley DeRoche, a librarian and writer known as SadBeige on Tiktok, has been watching this unfold for a while. Hosts Ben and Amory talk with Hayley about the internet's love affair with beige and discuss her new book “Dress Your Baby In Sage and Taupe: A Handbook for the Sad Beige Parent.” 

    Show notes:

    Credits: This episode was produced by Kalyani Saxena, and co-hosted by Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson. It was edited by Meg Cramer. Mix and sound design by Marquis Neal.

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    17 April 2026, 9:00 am
  • 20 minutes 52 seconds
    How Afroman turned lemons into lemon pound cake

    When you think of rapper Afroman, chances are his early 2000s hit song "Because I Got High" is already playing in your mind. More than two decades later, his music has once again broken containment. Host Ben Brock Johnson and Producer Grace Tatter dig into how Afroman turned a police raid and defamation trial into another moment of internet virality.

    Show notes:

    Credits: This episode was produced by Grace Tatter and Kalyani Saxena, and co-hosted by Grace Tatter and Ben Brock Johnson. It was edited by Meg Cramer. Mix and sound design by Marquis Neal.

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    10 April 2026, 9:00 am
  • 28 minutes 39 seconds
    Rewind: Digging Deep with TikTok's "tunnel girl"

    In this throwback from the Endless Thread archives, hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson revisit an episode from 2024.

    In 2022, a TikTok creator who identifies herself as "Kala" began digging. What followed was an increasingly viral series of TikToks chronicling the efforts of Kala, who some on the internet dubbed "Tunnel Girl," as she excavated and constructed a tunnel system under her suburban home. Her more than half-million followers watched and weighed in with support, suggestions and, at times, concern. That is, until a stop-work order halted the project in its tracks.

    Two years later, we have some updates on the story.

    This episode was originally published on February 02, 2024. It was produced by Katelyn Harrop and co-hosted by Katelyn Harrop, Ben Brock Johnson, and Amory Sivertson. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski.

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    3 April 2026, 9:00 am
  • 29 minutes
    Beautiful, Terrible Internet

    Warning: This episode contains multitudes! Hosts Ben and Amory explore how viral clips of DOGE staffers' video depositions found a new life online after a judge temporarily ordered them removed. They also dabble in a Reddit thought exercise with a potentially dubious origin

    Show notes:

    Credits: This episode was produced by Kalyani Saxena and hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson. It was edited by Meg Cramer. Mix and sound design by Marquis Neal.

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    27 March 2026, 9:00 am
  • 24 minutes 53 seconds
    Sexy spines or literary red flags?

    Maybe you can't judge books by their covers. But can you judge people by their books? Reddit's bookshelf detectives say yes. Producer Kalyani Saxena guides hosts Ben and Amory through the stacks and offers a picture of her own bookshelf to the Reddit detectives as tribute.

    This episode was produced by Kalyani Saxena and Grace Tatter. It was co-hosted by Kalyani Saxena, Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson, and edited by Meg Cramer. Mix and sound design by Marquis Neal.

    ***

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    20 March 2026, 9:00 am
  • 31 minutes 21 seconds
    Digging Up Lily's Garden

    A woman sitting blissfully on a vibrating laundromat dryer. A faked pregnancy test to dump a bad boyfriend. In 2019, the internet was abuzz about bizarre ads for a mobile game called Lily's Garden. The ads were only about 15 seconds each, but they evoked a whole universe of drama amongst a cast of zany characters that inspired countless YouTube videos and copious internet chatter.

    The thing is... the story in the ads had almost nothing to do with the story in the game. In this episode of Endless Thread: creative differences, the wilderness of mobile games, and where the Lily's Garden game-world and the ad-world diverged.

    Show notes:

    This episode was produced and written by Grace Tatter, co-hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson, and edited by Meg Cramer. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus. Special thanks to our 2025 Bloomberg Arts Intern Cendy Charles. 

    ***

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    13 March 2026, 9:00 am
  • 30 minutes 33 seconds
    What it's like to be undressed by Grok without your consent

     Note: This episode describes sexual situations that are non-consensual.

    Sharing a photo of yourself online has always carried some risk. But things got a lot scarier this year when users began using Grok, X's generative AI chatbot to create sexualized deepfakes of women and children. Iona Fyfe, Scottish folk singer and activist, was one of the people who had an image altered and manipulated by Grok. Hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson talk to her about her experience.

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    6 March 2026, 10:00 am
  • 24 minutes 59 seconds
    Obscure music is good and nice!

    Some rare folks are born with the perfect music taste. But most of us have to look elsewhere for a tune that sparks a shoulder shimmy or two. Hosts Ben and Amory spend some time jamming to obscure music from Reddit. They also explore how a TikTok original became Dr. Pepper's catchy new jingle.

    And "baby, it's good and nice."

    Show notes:

    27 February 2026, 10:00 am
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