Internet Culture Podcasts

Endless Thread, from WBUR in Boston, makes the clearest case for internet culture as reporting. In these episodes, hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson start with something online and then go and find the people involved. Lost Without You features Redditors remembering houses. Scooter1021 recalls his grandparents' itty-bitty dining table, and Wayne describes a childhood summer home his dad worked overtime for years to pay off. The episode then turns to Hurricane Katrina, twenty years on, and to how Google Maps' satellite view gave one family something to do while their neighbourhood flooded: they scanned the images for a roof, hoping something was left to rebuild. The episode also asks whether GPS is weakening our sense of direction. Near the end, the hosts get lost looking for a park and ask a passing runner for help, only to learn the runner is from Canada.

Endless Thread goes out to find a story. ICYMI and infinite scroll bring the story to the table and argue about it. ICYMI is Slate's podcast about internet culture, hosted by Kate Lindsay, and the episodes here pair her with a guest who knows one corner of the web. The show says it asks every first-time guest for their earliest internet memory, and the answers can be small gifts. In Wikipedia Is The Most Human Place On The Internet, the guest recalls a childhood journal entry about reading the entire Wikipedia article on milk. The conversation builds toward calling the site "a triumph of humanity," with examples that range from a high-school editor whose mom drove him to local history centers for sources to the reasoning behind the site's ban on AI-written articles. Are You the “Finger Princess” In Your Group Chat? stays closer to home. It sorts friends into types, such as the golden retriever who never makes the plans but never flakes. The “My Husband Hates Me” Influencer, with journalist and TikToker Melanie Hamlet, takes a sharper look at women defending their husbands in the comments. It separates a small subset of creators rage-baiting for reach from women still working out their own situations.

Some shows care less about the day's controversy than about the moment a habit gets a name. It's A Thing, with Molly Wood and Tom Merritt, is built around that moment. In Body Doubling - It's a Thing 413, they discuss paid sessions where someone simply works alongside you, and they realise that recording a podcast together already counts. Moon Joy - It's a Thing 414 treats the memes from the Artemis mission as "a moment of shared beauty," then reads from a CBS story about the claims made online for peptides. The Lifestyle page is a natural next stop for the wellness-trend side.

Outside the Fox: A Firefox Podcast brings the same curiosity to the tools themselves, with a plainer agenda. It comes from Firefox, and Why Firefox built a free VPN into the browser is a product explainer with guests from the Firefox team. The other episodes work better as gentle consumer gut checks. In the 18-minute Are navigation apps guiding you... or steering you?, a host who doesn't drive explains relying on rideshares, and another tells a story about using an app to find Maui food stalls and then choosing by eye. Are algorithms shaping your music taste? explores why a CD a host commits to buying feels shelf-worthy to them.

Then there are hosts who live inside the internet and talk you through it. In Slop Chop!, host Harvey reacts at length and without a filter. This Fraternity Hazing Video Is INSANE | Slop Chop! is a play-by-play of footage showing police arriving at a hazing incident, with Harvey noting that he was in a fraternity himself. The jokes sometimes turn into confession. In The Worst Airline Just Declared Bankruptcy | Slop Chop! he says "everyone that posts themselves online, myself included, has the same disease." When Your Entire Movie Leaks | Slop Chop! pairs a film-leak saga with a candid account of nicotine cravings. Near the end, he advises taking a selfie mid-doomscroll to see what it does to your face.

Legiterally., hosted by Sam England, is chattier. Two Thousand & Sixteen (2016) is a nostalgia session with a guest, Mick, covering Snapchat flower crowns and rating Vine's six-second format above TikTok for the creativity it forced. AFL Grand Final (LGBT Variant) mixes jokes with memories of homophobic harassment, including a glass thrown at Sam and a friend from across a street, and includes a pointed plea to football players near the end. The LGBTQ+ page is the place to continue.

The Scafachiverse Podcast sits furthest from internet culture as a beat. Anthony Scafachi and Alan Gegax are lifelong friends trading invented lore, fake sponsors and college football video game talk, and the show is explicit. It still has its moments. A segment in Anthony & Trever vs Their Livers vs Cancun takes apart "sludge content," the split-screen videos the show says are designed to hold viewers longer. Leave Your Dignity at the Door - How Alan Beat Cancer turns out to be a tender recovery story under the jokes. Alan's "spoiler alert, I lived" gives way to a careful description of pain as a barrier between wanting to move and moving. Personal Journals is a neighbouring route.