Endless Thread

Gather round for this week’s Snacktime episode, where Ben tells iLab producer Nora Saks two stories about found money, a gambling ruse in a Belizean casino, and why Bob Saget would block himself on Twitter if he could.

What is Geedis? Endless Thread revisits an episode from 2019 in which the team joined the internet's two-year-long quest to answer this question. The strange, furry character and his buddies in The Land of Ta had been a mystery of 80’s fantastical proportions. Follow us down the rabbit hole for an exciting discovery...

Fun fact: Ben wooed his wife with a mix CD, and Amory's husband wooed her with a mix CD. The lesson? Never underestimate the power of a good playlist. But if it's a "Weird Spotify Playlist," the object of your affection better have a sense of humor. In this episode, Amory introduces Ben to the fast-growing "Weird Spotify Playlists" Twitter account and subreddit, where song titles are way more important than the songs themselves.

Much like rewatching a favorite TV show in its entirety, it can be comforting to listen back to something from "the beforetimes." So this week, we're doing just that. We're revisiting an episode from 2019 that solved one of the internet’s most compelling mysteries. Inspired by a 2018 New York Times feature about glitter, people obsessed over identifying the mysterious industry buying huge amounts of glitter – information which glitter-makers have refused to divulge. No one had been able to find any answers … until the ET team took the case and dropped a glitter bomb on the whole mystery.

Ever heard of horse repossession? How about equine semen fraud? On this week’s Snacktime, Ben tells Amory about the still-very-much-alive sport of jousting and how it relates to a pretty wild story about a Redditor’s ex and a snowy white steed.

Is your voice your own? Not anymore. This week on Endless Thread, we present "Deepfake Dallas," courtesy of our friends over at Twenty Thousand Hertz, a podcast revealing the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds. Find out how someone, using artificial intelligence, can make an algorithm that sounds just like you.

One of the things that makes Starbucks so liked by people everywhere is the amount of customization you can do with your drink. But is there such a thing as too much customization? On this week's Snacktime, Amory tells Ben about the viral "Edward" order as well as the recent TikTok trend of ordering a drink from Starbucks' "secret menu."

From daily walks to sourdough starters, many of us found new ways to have fun and stay sane during the pandemic. For some, a new trend has plenty of... appeal. In this Snacktime episode, Ben tells Amory about an internet trend mixing personal hygiene and your daily dose of Vitamin C. Then, listen to the story of how one Reddit user's overthinking ended up being just the right amount.

In 2008, college student Kevin Toomey was cruising around Columbus, Ohio, listening to AM radio, when a jingle for Rotolo's Pizza came on. It was love at first listen, and it set him on a 13-year quest to find out who wrote and performed the jingle. In this Snacktime episode, Amory tells Ben about Kevin and his pizza jingle quest, which -- finally -- has a delicious conclusion.

Today's episode brings together three of our favorite things: mysteries, cultural deep-dives, and Dungeons & Dragons. It's an episode of Cautionary Tales, a podcast from Pushkin that tells stories of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, daring heists and hilarious fiascos of the past -- pointing out valuable lessons for us from all the dithering, death and destruction.

In this Snacktime episode, Ben and Amory talk about vaccine passports in Texas and the out-of-this-world contents of a mysterious box.

In this Snacktime episode, we explore a post made on r/HobbyDrama about how some local plant-trading Facebook groups have had their wholesome hobby corrupted by an alleged scammer.

We're cooking up a new season of Endless Thread as we speak, dear listeners. But in the meantime, we realized we could probably all use a snack to hold us over. In this episode, we hear about a Redditor who created a fake press pass and found himself in a war zone, and another who accidentally assembled an army of crows. 

The subreddit r/WallStreetBets has been at the center of a national story this week involving GameStop and a couple of angry hedge funds. To help us understand what’s happening, we call up Planet Money co-host Robert Smith. Then, we speak to Redditor u/Hungry_Freaks-Daddy who hopped on board the GameStop train earlier this week and says he has nothing to lose.  Support Endless Thread: wbur.org/socks

Today, we present episode one of Anything for Selena, a new podcast from WBUR and Futuro Studios. Growing up along the US-Mexico border, Maria Garcia felt torn between her two identities as Mexican and American. But then, something changed her life. She discovered Selena — the Mexican-American pop icon who proved she didn’t have to choose. In the premiere episode of “Anything for Selena,” host Maria Garcia explores how Selena helped Maria find her own place in the world. About The Show: In "Anything For Selena," Host Maria Garcia takes listeners on a deeply personal journey into the life and legacy of the Mexican-American popstar Selena Quintanilla. She shares how Selena's music and unapologetic sense of identity helped her find her own place in the world. And it explores how Selena's legacy continues to spark important conversations around race, class, and body politics.

In the aftermath of a violent mob storming the U.S. Capitol building, we got back in touch with Indi Samarajiva. Indi's a writer who lived through the end of the Sri Lankan civil war, and he was featured in "Things Are Bad," an episode we released last October in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election. The team caught up with Indi again to ask him about his thoughts on last week's events. Donate now: wbur.org/socks

Endless Thread is currently on break cooking up our next season, but we're getting back in touch with a special announcement. Donate Now: wbur.org/socks

While we're on break working on a new season, we recommend checking out Decoder Ring. In each episode, Decoder Ring explores a cultural question, object, or habit; examines its history; and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters. Today we're presenting one of their recent episodes: "Mystery of the Mullet." The mullet, the love-to-hate-it hairstyle is as associated with the 1980s as Ronald Reagan, junk bonds, and break dancing. But in at least one major way, we are suffering from a collective case of false memory syndrome. In this episode, the Decoder Ring team tracks the rise and fall of the mullet, and also the lexical quandary at its heart: who named the mullet?

Endless Thread is on break so we're sharing one of our favorite episodes from the past year. We published it back on Juneteenth 2020 after asking for stories that caught our listeners' attention at the height of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor police brutality protests around the country. The episode was recently included in a roundup of “100 Outstanding Podcasts From 2020” from The Bello Collective.

It's that time of the year again: Endless Thread is going on a winter break. But don't miss us too much. We'll be back in 2021 with a fresh, new, weird, and wonderful version of the show. Before we say goodbye for now, we check in with some of our favorite guests of episodes past. Episodes updated include: Get Motivated: https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/01/11/get-motivated Infectious, Pt 1: Scabs, Pus, and Puritans: https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/05/03/scabs-pus-puritans Brain Melt: https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2018/11/09/brain-melt Nick, Jess, and David: https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/12/20/autistic-redditors-explain-autism Shipwrecked: https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/06/14/shipwrecked Dear Anon: https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2018/11/16/dear-anon