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.

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.

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.

*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.

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.

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.

This is a sneak peek of our new Patrons-only podcast Hysteria Home Companion, where we share with you all the hottest gossip from the cutting room floor. This week we’re talking about the outrageous celebrity alien encounters of Demi Lovato, Anne Heche, Elvis Presley, Fran Drescher, and Miley Cyrus.

Today we're talking to podcaster Jim Perry, the host of Euphomet, a paranormal documentary series that explores the unknown and our relationship to it through the stories of supernatural Experiencers. But Euphomet is less interested in what is real and what isn't and more interested in the emotional side to the most unexplainable experiences, including our own.

In this classic episode, learn about the battles fought for and against this controversial American holiday from the Puritans to the present as well as some of the forgotten traditions that may change your perspective on this "season of giving" for good.

For part two of our series, we will look at skeptics' explanations for the alien abduction phenomenon to see what factors they believe may be creating these visions: repressed memory hypnotherapy, sleep paralysis, and cultural fears. We will also ask what deep human needs may be expressing themselves through these stories of 21st century secular supernaturalized trauma.

For part one of our two-part series, we will learn about the lives of some of the most influential abductees and the people who've studied them in order to set the stage for part two, in which we will use every intellectual tool at our humble human disposal to try to better understand what on earth, or off of earth, is going on.

Satanic Ritual Abuse in Space? To get us ready for our two-part series on Alien Abductions, we are talking about the flurry of spurious satanic ritual abuse memories that were unintentionally implanted by therapists during repressed memory hypnotherapy.

Here's a little more information about our new Patron's-only talk show Hysteria Home Companion, in which producer Miranda Zickler and I dive deeper into the show's current topic and share all the gossip from the cutting room floor as well as a little more of our personal experience with the whole self esteem thing.

Sarah Marshall and Alex Steed host the feelings/movie podcast 'You Are Good'. On this episode, we talk about our own self-esteem, the movies that made us, and break down the secular myths we've created. Sarah is also the host of 'You’re Wrong About', so expect lots of Satanic Panic content too.

In the late 1980s, a New Age America began telling children that they were special, that if they just believed in themselves all their dreams would come true. Not only that, but spiritual seekers and psychologists began making claims that programs in self-esteem could solve all our most pressing national issues, an idea soon supported by law and order conservatives as well.

This rerelease episode is about America's lifelong obsession with Get Rich Quick magical thinking. It will help us put into context next week's brand new episode called Self-Esteem and the magical thinking behind a movement that promised to solve all of America's ills, inside and out, based entirely on a lie.

If you want to learn more about the topics covered on American Hysteria, subscribe to our Patreon talk show with myself and producer Miranda Zickler in which we gossip about all the juicy stuff left out of the episodes, share our own experiences with the content, and chat about what else we've been interested in this month.

Today we talk to the wonderful Shar Mayer, a 45-year veteran of Scare Acting known in the haunt community as "The Mother of Monsters".

Today we'll be talking about the fake-blood-covered history of Haunted Attractions, their raucous origins wrangling violent pranksters, the gory charity haunts that once ruled the scene, and the extreme iterations that still scandalize and fascinate the nation. We ask the burning question: Why do some of us love to be scared?

This ghostly re-release (with a new introduction) is here to help us fit next week's brand-new episode 'Haunted House Attractions' into a larger American haunted history. Re-listen or listen for the first time, you might be surprised by what the "other side" has to say.

Join us October 18th for our spooky season premiere on Haunted House Attractions and learn a little more our show's new structure. Click here to become a Patron!

In 2017, YouTube Kids was embroiled in a major scandal when it was discovered that a dark underbelly of inappropriate cartoons, computer animations, and live action videos were lurking just under the surface of the supposedly safeguarded app.

In preparation for our upcoming *Weirdest Episode of All Time*, we are rereleasing this minisode on a mysterious phenomenon where large numbers of people remember an event or cultural detail differently than it really was.

(Make sure you listen to part one first!) Today, Chris shares his experience becoming a sudden villain in the fringe conspiratorial zeitgeist, and then we move gracefully on to sharing the value we have found in talking to strangers, him as a podcaster who has conversations on an anonymous hotline, and myself as a former hitchhiker.

Chris Gethard is a stand-up comedian, podcaster, actor, filmmaker and author of Weird New York as well as an editor at Weird New Jersey and Weird US, all of which cover local ghost stories, urban legends, and roadside attractions.