On this podcast, we explore fantastical thinking, moral panics, conspiracy theories, and urban legends, examine the forces that shape our culture, and tell the stories that create the realities we share and sometimes the realities

we don't.

I'm your host, Chelsea Weber Smith, and this is American Hysteria.

These people are as stupid as the day as long.

This giant snake having this wrestling match with the alligator.

It's the story you really haven't heard, the murder of Lobster Boy.

It's all in the name of spring vacation,

relicking with the hilarious abandon of his wacky, warm, wonderful young people.

No recollection of that happening at all.

At all. This store sells some good liquor.

They tell me what I deal with stupid, and I'll be facing some charges here soon.

Probably go to jail.

Probably not.

We'll see.

In 2013, a new and uproarious American folk hero rode in on the prehistoric back of a writhing alligator,

a character living with the kind of total abandon that exists only in the strange swamps of our most humid, half-forgotten dreams.

In the age of social media clickbait, the meme known as Florida man became what I believe

to be a permanent archetype, one that continues to gather power through a

variety of unhinged mugshots and bizarre local news headlines, such as Florida man driving with

clown mannequin had live grenade in his pickup truck. Florida man tries to evade arrest by

cartwheeling away from cops. Florida man tries to walk out of Walmart with chainsaw stuffed

down his pants. And of course, Florida man walks into strangers' home, removes clothes, starts shouting,

...