Hey, true weirdos. We just wanted to take a minute and thank you so much for your support.

True Weird Stuff has won the best history podcast in the Women in Podcasting Awards,

and we've also won a Signal Award in the paranormal category.

And that's only happened because of you, our fellow strange people.

Thanks.

Stick around if you want after the episode for a little bonus content and conversation.

There are more than 5.5 billion people on the internet now. Five and a half billion voices

screaming into the digital void. Almost 64% of Earth's population is on social media.

More than a billion websites are out there,

even though most of those are nothing more than digital ghost towns now.

The overwhelming majority of people on this planet access the internet via mobile phone.

Are we just chug-a-lugging all of the collected

knowledge of humanity while we wait in the dentist office or a jiffy-lub? No. We're playing games,

checking email, watching YouTube videos, scrolling social media, saying hateful things to and about

each other. In just three months in 2024, Meta flagged over 16 million hateful posts. The artist formerly known as Twitter clocked 66 million complaints about hateful content.

Most of that doesn't even include the personal nastiness directed at people's relatives,

co-workers, and neighbors.

Are humans worse than we've ever, ever been?

Also, no.

Humans have always found ways to be absolutely terrible to each other.

Like in ancient Greece, where there was no internet.

Instead, there were curse tablets.

...