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.

And all of Florida means life and youth and fun, a land of joyous days, and alluring night.

Is there anything that calls out to the true, tacky soul of America, quite like a photo op of an elephant acting as a golf caddy for the president of the United States.

According to the imprint that one elephant left on Miami Beach and the nation at large?

Potentially not.

Oh how we Americans so dearly love a gimmick, myself very much included,

and these spectacles have always been potent tools to get our attention and then our cash.

In our last episode, we discussed the meme Florida Man that makes viral the most ridiculous crime headlines and mugshots out of the state.

A social media phenomenon that's been keeping us

entertained since 2013. But what we haven't explored yet is another brand of Florida man, the

huckster, the charlatan, the kind of Florida man that created the unreal allure of the Sunshine State as we know it today.

During the Florida land boom of the mid-1920s, Americans poured into what was then called the last American frontier for what would become the 20th century's

gold rush. Florida real estate was essentially high-stakes, Beanie Babies, Pokemon cards, cryptocurrency,

a fantasy of potential wealth too potent, too hopeful to let go of until it was too

late. To get a sense of how this massive chaotic craze was whipped up by eccentric American

business moguls lacking in any real moral code, will follow the antics

of one such eccentric, a true master of the gimmick, of the super spectacle, a man chocked

full of that reckless cannonball confidence that powers not only the Florida men of our memes, but also our

country's most confounding confidence men. Carl Fisher, whose life story is skillfully laid out

...