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.

Cal officials say a pyrotechnic device from a gender reveal party sparked the El Dorado fighter.

A crock dusting plane dropping 350 gallons of pink water.

It's a girl.

And police say they are continuing with the investigation.

And in case you're wondering, by the way, it was a boy.

A Boy.

Chelsea Ray Weber was born on August 19, 1988, early on a Friday morning to a 26-year-old mother loudly pleading for the drugs it was too late for her to be given.

From the magical divination of the sonogram, she knew she was having a little girl and had originally chosen the daring name Charlie for her daughter,

but her friends convinced her that choosing such a masculine name would mark her as ridiculous

in the highly gendered 1980s. And so, seeking a more appropriate title, she went with Chelsea after being introduced to a character

on the popular soap opera The Guiding Light. But as the years passed, it was becoming obvious that

Chelsea was not like the other little girls. Her father noted that she would stop

dead in her tracks as she tottered through the toy store, stunned by the violent hot pink of the Barbie

aisle, backing out with her hands in front of her like a frightened cartoon.

In a backwards baseball cap, she instead headed to the abandoned lot to turn over wooden pallets,

looking for lizards sleeping in the shade and snakes in the tall grass of the field.

But still, well-meaning relatives and friends performed our American

custom. And thus, the cursed Barbies continued to catwalk their way into Chelsea's room, as if to

...