This week on Endless Thread, we're raiding our refrigerators and rating our favorite condiments with TikTok creator and author "Condiment Claire" Dinhut. We learn about the surprising history of some of our favorite flavor-enhancers, and Claire shares her secrets for using up the last bits of sauce in a jar and how she keeps her online presence appetizing.

Show notes:

The Condiment Book (Flatiron Books)

Credits: This episode was written and produced by Grace Tatter. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus. It was hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson.

In the hours leading up to Israel commencing its June missile strikes on Iran, X users were posting about pizza. Specifically, how pizza places around the United States Pentagon were experiencing an unusual spike in business.

The Pentagon Pizza Index refers to a theory that dates back to the Cold War, suggesting that increased pizza orders around the Pentagon could be a harbinger of imminent military action by the U.S. or its close allies.

In this special episode of Endless Thread, Ben and Amory dig into the Pizza Index, its history and make some calls to Pentagon-area pizza places for a hot slice of reality pie.

Show notes:

• Pentagon Pizza Report (X)
• Happening Right Now: Dominos Nearest the Pentagon is "Busier than usual"(Reddit)
• Pentagon Pizza Monitor Appeared To Predict Israel Attack (Newsweek)
• What is the Pentagon Pizza theory eating away at the internet? (Euro News)
• Pentagon Pizza Index: The theory that surging pizza orders signal global crises (Fast Company)

A picture's worth a thousand words, or in this case, a podcast episode.

This week Ben and Amory bring two very different stories from Reddit about pictures on the internet. First – what legal rights do we have over our photos after posting them on Instagram? Then, Ben indoctrinates Amory to The Game.

Show notes:

• Unauthorized use of my photo being displayed in every corporate store in US. Where to start? (Reddit)
• Let's confuse the younger generation (Reddit)

Jeffrey Ngo is from Hong Kong. He used to talk about politics all of the time with his friends in group chats and on social media, from casually sending memes, to planning protests.

What happens to online speech when you're unsure how much the government is monitoring your speech, and what the repercussions will be if they don't like it?

Show notes:

• PROFILE: For Jeffrey Ngo, The Fight For Hong Kong is Far From Over (The Hoya)
• Social Media and the Hong Kong Protests (The New Yorker)
• Hong Kong protesters join hands in 30-mile human chain (The Guardian)
• Hong Kong national security law: What is it and is it worrying? (BBC)

Men's fashion might seem like a niche topic. But people of all genders and sartorial sensibilities follow Derek Guy on X for his clothing takes... even if they're not quite sure how they found his page.

Endless Thread talks to Derek about how he weaves together humor, history, cultural criticism, and political commentary to make fashion feel relevant to people who have never seriously considered it before.

Show notes

• @dieworkwear (X)
• Die, Workwear!
• The Post Trend Universe (The New York Times Style Magazine)
• Status and Culture, by W. David Marx

'Tis the season to show some skin! Perhaps some tattoo-adorned skin?

In this week's episode, Ben tells Amory about the r/tattoos community's reaction to a man whose friends made him self-conscious about his flowery tattoo. Amory tells Ben about the science behind why tattoos stay put on our bodies, which has only recently come to be understood.

The thing about social media when it was created was that it was public. Ideas shared were debated for all to see. Today much of that is happening behind closed doors—in group chats.

Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of the media outlet Semafor and co-host of the podcast Mixed Signals, speaks with Endless Thread about the elite group chats on Signal and WhatsApp that are shaping American politics.

*****

Credits: This episode was produced by Dean Russell. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski. The co-hosts are Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson.

The bots are here to stay, and they're everywhere. The trouble is, learning how to spot them.

On this week's episode of Endless Thread, Ben and Amory discuss two stories from Reddit about undercover bots. First — is there such a thing as an easy tell for identifying bots? Second, what happens when internet users accept bots as fellow humans, only to discover the truth later?

Show Notes:

‘The Worst Internet-Research Ethics Violation I Have Ever Seen’ (The Atlantic)

OpenAI used this subreddit to test AI persuasion (Tech Crunch)