Things That Keep Me Up at Night

Recent media coverage of the Antiwork movement and the ongoing Great Resignation would have you believe that the working class is simply lazy and unappreciative - but how much of that theory holds water? Turns out, not very much!

Learn more about the Antiwork movement and how it helps the working class across the political and social spectrum, how corporations and the ultra-rich manipulate public opinion about workers' rights, and what we all can do about it. Plus, some fun stories about Olivia and Brooke's time in the retail world.

Featuring: the laughable notion of...

Y'all, we are so excited to get back in front of the fire with our sleeping bags and cans of beans to tell scary stories to our favorite listeners. And this time, the stories are written by YOU!

Thanks again to those who submitted stories, and remember you can submit your scary personal or fiction stories to us anytime at ttkmeup@gmail.com. 

Featuring: a white bunny, orange juice, and the smell of death.

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We'll be honest, this was an extremely hard episode to record. We've seen a lot of suffering in our lifetime, but nothing we've experienced comes close to the kind of physical and psychological agony the people who survived Chernobyl faced. There isn't much we can say to prepare you, but for transparency and so you can take care of yourself: TW gore, violence, body horror, abject human misery, the effects of nuclear radiation poisoning, etc. It was an honor to keep these people's stories alive.

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BLOG: https://ttkmeup.com/blog 

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode doesn't get into the worst of it, but we're still talking about a nuclear meltdown that destroyed an entire ecosystem and ravaged everything in it, so TW mild gore/violence, disease (specifically cancer), mutilation, emotional and physical distress, etc. 

Most folks are familiar with the 2019 HBO series, Chernobyl, based on the infamous meltdown at the tit...

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BLOG: https://ttkmeup.com/blog 

Remember how we said The Happening was the worst feature film we'd ever seen? We can't say that anymore! Everything about Old (2021) is bad, and all the interesting ideas are just screwed up versions of the good stuff in the source material, Sandcastle (READ IT IF YOU HAVEN'T). 

Featuring: bone origami, a dog that was only just alive, and eve...

We'd nearly forgotten about this show's one source of mood rehabilitation! We're bringing the good news train back into the station by sharing the positive stuff happening in the world - and in our own lives. Enjoy the mental R&R... until next time, when we start our Nuclear series!

Featuring: vaccines for parasites, basic human decency, and new chapters.

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode discusses the life and death of Pocahontas, which includes potentially-triggering topics such as rape and sexual abuse, pedophilia/child rape, murder, kidnapping, abusive power dynamics, and other disturbing sociopolitical atrocities. Please listen with care.

Basically Brooke went to a shitty daycare when she was a kid and was forced to watch Pocahontas II every single day for a few months and it left such an impression that she had to rope Olivia into watching it for the podcast. And it was INSULTING.

Featuring: rotten carrots, romanticizing assimilation, and OH MY GOD...

I'm so excited bro I can't even express how excited I am because guess what! My (Brooke's) first ever episode was on the Salem Witch Trials, and it was just okay. But now, three years later, I've done a WAY better job! 

Enjoy Salem Witch Trials 2.0, now with historical context, modern-day consequences, and fanaticism deprogramming techniques!

What do a chemical explosion and a dancing plague have in common? Nothing! Except that they're both subjects in this latest installment of our Freak Accidents minisodes! What drives people to dance until they die? What caused the explosion that was the Oppau disaster?  We've got answers-- and a lot of peanut gallery commentary while we're at it.

Featuring: psychedelic bread, some volatile molecules, and the worst dance floor ever made.

We're wrapping up Olivia's two-part episode on the Westboro Baptist Church - this time with a healthy dose of... empathy? Is that empathy I feel? Wuh oh.

Featuring: irony, a sad old man, and loving the sinner.

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone fit in neat little boxes? It certainly would be easier to say the Westboro Baptist Church and its members were born evil and will stay evil - but life just isn't that simple.

Today, Olivia is revisiting one of her oldest episodes on the most hated family in America. Get reacquainted with the Phelps family - this time with extra detail - and get ready for next week's Part II.

At least the audio quality is better this time around, eh?

Featuring: The God Rectum, paternal trauma...

Literally someone's penis turns into a monster. It's time for a terrible-movie-minisode, courtesy of Noodle on YouTube, where we review the most senseless movie we've ever seen. Is it a tongue-in-cheek comedy goof-fest? A horror a la John Carpenter? Who knows? The filmmakers certainly didn't.

Featuring: The aforementioned penis monster, a bug with a woman's head, and fully visible movie set pasties.

NOTE: Stay until after the end music to hear a shoutout to our patrons! We love ya!

This topic was admittedly a beast, and there are a million other details that could have gone into it, but here she is. Part 2 of Brooke's Heavy Hitter episode on Capitalism and Christianity.

This time, we dive into the historical intersection between the two, how they justify each other through time, and how they became weapons of nationalism and white supremacy.

Featuring: the U.S. as a business, churches that have record labels, and the origins...

Look, I get that it's supposed to be a campy, bad horror movie, but that won't stop us from complaining loudly about it. Because Leprechaun, starring a constantly sour-faced Jennifer Aniston and a constantly-gleeful Warwick Davis, is, like, the best trashcan of a film I've ever seen. The script, the effects, the cinematography -- all the worst of the worst. I adore it. It's awful.

Featuring: seven full minutes of running in the woods, thirty seconds of rolling up a bucket from a well, and death by pogo stick.

Welcome to our first two-parter ever! In addressing Capitalism in Christianity, Brooke lays the groundwork by covering the basis of Christianity in a historical context - and how it was perverted by the zealotry of Paul of Tarsus. 

Featuring: dogma, self-inserted baggage, and a really cool Jewish radical 

Jared Hess and Tyler Measom's new hit documentary Murder Among the Mormons has unearthed the "black eye" on the Mormon Church, and boy howdy - it's a doozy. Dive into one of the strangest stories we've ever heard, and find out just how dark the underbelly of the rare book and document scene can get.

Featuring: ozone, a genius, a monster, and the blurred line between the two.

Hey there, #Girlboss! Did you know that linking feminism and ethics to consumerism actively perpetuates Capitalism and exploitation?

This week, Olivia starts off our Capitalism series by unpacking how Capitalism has weaponized women's roles as primary household shoppers to condition us to believe we can buy our way to a better world. Spoiler alert: we can't.

Featuring: Mac red lipstick, Greenwashing, and absolutely hating Jeff Bezos. As usual.

WE HAVE RETURNED. Boy, I'm sure glad nothing stressful happened during the three months we were gone!

We welcome you back into the nightmare fold with the worst movie we have ever seen. Ever. Like, for real. Ever. Utoya Island, directed by Vitaliy Versace, is a masterpiece of trash. The gold standard of bad taste and worse execution. The film equivalent of waterboarding.

And yet, here we are. Watching all 90 minutes of it. 

Find out who Vitaliy Versace is, who he'd like you to think he is, and what gives his interpretation of a...

In the closing of our Internet series, we watched the documentary The Social Dilemma, which gave us... mixed feelings. Ultimately a vessel for a few good nuggets of insight, we discuss whether the doc went far enough the draw conclusions in light of information most people already knew.

Featuring: Marco Rubio for some reason, "Hello fellow kids," and a child with a hammer.

Congratulations! You are now about to hear the episode that completely broke Brooke! Suffer with us as we try to untangle the web of paranoid delusion that is QAnon. We start at the humble beginnings on 4chan and 8chan, slowly working our way to the very real and very concerning movement that exists today. Are you ready to go down the rabbit hole? 

We're not.

Featuring: Draco Reptilian aliens, maritime flag signals, and a pizza restaurant.

I know we were due for a heavy hitter, but (in case you haven't noticed) the world is falling apart and we wanted to focus on some positivity for an hour. Join us as we redirect our mental energy to the good in the world (except for in the last ten minutes or so), and try to feel better. It's the least we can do.

Featuring: no more coal burning, sustainable energy, and polio eradication

This is the worst movie we have ever seen. Period.

In an hour and a half, Shane Dawson's Not Cool managed to fit in wall-to-wall (TW) sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, classism, fatphobia, pedophilia, and, for good measure, actual sexual assault and rape - all of which is played as a joke. It is the most uncomfortable series of scenes we've ever had the displeasure of viewing. Our brains are different now. Listen to us suffer so you don't have to. 

Featuring: Class-A narcissism, full frontal nudity, and a couple edibles.

It's the start of a new series, and this time we're taking on the World Wide Web. Olivia kicks us off with yet another stunning example of overt racism, sexism, ableism, etc. etc. etc. of Shane Dawson, who is still somehow hero-worshipped on YouTube. We take a broad look at his behavior over the years, culminating in the latest karma-geddon incident, and discuss why (white) people are so hesitant to hold him fully accountable.

Featuring: loser behavior, white fragility, and learning our lessons

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode touches on explicit descriptions of sexual assault and abuse, attempted murder, prison abuse, mental health issues, racism and police brutality, and other sensitive subjects. Please listen with discretion and with your own emotional health in mind.

As we close out our Serial Killers series, we decided that we should focus on something that rarely gets attention in the True Crime community. Oftentimes, police officers are seen as the bumbling inconveniences at worst and heroes at best when it comes to murder cases. But the truth of the matter is: the police are no...

We're back with a lighter minisode, this time unpacking the mixed bag that is the Netflix documentary, Hot Girls Wanted. Produced by Rashida Jones, it seeks to unveil the sordid world of amateur pornography and the women who perform in it. But does it do its job well? Or does it commodify and moralize the very women it seeks to humanize?

Featuring: Body Odor Mountain, a lot of common misconceptions, and economists.

Jean-Claude Romand is just like you and me - except that he faked finishing medical school and becoming a highly regarded research scientist at the WHO, scammed everyone he knew to get money, and then murdered his whole family when his lies started falling apart. You know, the usual stuff. 

Featuring: Olivia's gross tongue story, an Animal Crossing betrayal, and a dog who deserved so much better.

Trigger warnings: murder, infanticide, dog-murder, abuse and assault, and gore in the case of a really gross story about Olivia biting her tongue

The last few weeks have only served to reinforce the continuous systemic racism and anti-blackness that permeates our society. Instead of our normal episode schedule, we decided to amplify black voices, businesses, and media while sharing resources for educating against and combating white supremacy in honor of Juneteenth.

In an unfortunately apt turn of events, Brooke and Olivia watched and reviewed The Forest (2016), one of the most racist films either has seen in a loooong time. 

As a secondary item of business, our next episode will be entirely focused on providing resources for combating internalized and systemic white supremacy, recommending black-run podcasters, products, media, etc., and learning what we can do to support the Black Lives Matter movement. All Patreon proceeds will go to the charity organizations listed on our social media.

Promo: The Harpy Hour Podcast

Featuring: a brown haired w...

Look, we know it's been done to death, but this insanity had to be addressed. What was supposed to be a simple take-down minisode turned into a 2+ hour analysis of every single claim Judy Mikovits makes throughout Mikki Willis' viral video. Let's sit around the fire, kids, and talk about why Judy Mikovits, disgraced microbiologist, is wrong all the time forever.

Featuring: science fact vs. science fiction, an Ojai dad, and 26 minutes of agony.

Promo: The Harpy Hour Podcast

We start off our Serial Killers Part 2 heavy hitter series and take a trip to lovely Italy, where we meet the infamous Soap-Maker of Correggio, Leonarda Cianciulli. But is she infamous for the right reasons? Olivia uncovers the truth about Cianciulli's life - and more than a little evidence that the American True Crime world has done her story a deep injustice.

Featuring: Neil Labute's twitter account, Google Translate, and some chocolate you should definitely not eat.

You've heard people talk about it on every film podcast in the world - now hear two completely sleep deprived scary-podcasters weigh in on the so-bad-it's-good classic: The Wicker Man. 

Featuring: Neil Labute Definitely Doesn't Hate Women, Nic Cage's Oscar-worthy commitment, and THE BEEEEEES. 

An episode eight months in the making, we finally wrap up our War Crimes heavy hitter series with the abuses and tortures at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. It's time to get mad about the human tendency to exploit power and systemic violence in the military, folks.

Featuring: a second recording of a very long episode, imagining how tired we are, and the strange creative horrors that broken humans create. Yeesh.

In a long-overdue, extremely long minisode, Olivia returns to her infectious disease roots and covers the current (as of March 24) state of the COVID-19 - or Coronavirus - outbreak. We discuss the timeline thus far, the biological differences between COVID-19 and the influenza virus, and explain our general unease about the whole affair. 

Please note that at the time of posting, statistics and numbers are drastically different from what is said in the recording. Keep updated on the situation on CDC.gov.  

This week, we interview friend of Olivia and Reseach & Communication Officer Joseph Goode from the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative. We clarify just what a war crime really is, and find that it's not so simple as it may seem. We also talk systemic and societal trauma, what it costs to ignore it, and how we heal it. And don't worry - we end on a light note.

Featuring: green M&Ms, the violin, and three week-old cupcakes.

Hey guys. Let's sit on cushions. Wrap ourselves in blankets. Pour some tea or hot chocolate. Forget about the world for a while, and talk about the good things that have happened recently to make our hearts warm. We all need to see the positive sometimes. *sip*

Featuring: The Scholastic Book Fair, Lo-Fi Hip Hop Beats to Study/Chill To, and human-sized onesies.

Newsflash: bad horror movies suck. This is a fact that continuously surprises Olivia and Brooke. Good thing it makes for good radio. This time, it's the not-Blumhouse Truth or Dare. 

Featuring: gratuitous teeth horror, a general understanding of electricity, and eight of the worst characters ever written.

TRIGGER WARNING: The content of this episode is extremely graphic and should be consumed responsibly. Triggers include violence, gore, graphic descriptions of injuries, rape and sexual assault, kidnapping, suicide, and death. Listen with your mental and emotional health in mind.

After a week of hearing Olivia weep via text about her War Crimes heavy hitter, we finally get to find out what it is. To start off the new series, we uncover what happened during the six-week Rape of Nanking. Thanks, Olivia.

Featuring: things we don't talk about during our high school WWII units and...

What did we expect? I'm not sure why Brooke was hoping for Schindler's f***ing List, but boy was she disappointed. In any case, she and Olivia put their film analysis skills to good use and analyzed the hell out of this absolute dumpster fire of a movie. Enjoy. We sure did.

Featuring: Daddy Warf***s, Tanner's beautiful pecs, and gingivitis C-3PO 

Ahh, the Paris Agreement, the world's humanitarian and selfless endeavor to save the planet. Or is it? Zak Kadletz joins us today to unveil the truth about the Paris Agreement, how we've done since its installation, and where we're predicted to go. Spoiler alert: it ain't pretty.

Featuring: internalized capitalism, the Bachelor, and the simple and elegant design of the guillotine.

Disclaimer: murder is bad

Olivia focused on how we screwed up the environment, but this week Brooke focuses on how the environment screws with us. Well, in addition to hundreds of years of systemic racism, slavery, and financial dependence.

Featuring: loud neighbors, neoliberalism reinventing slavery, and a no-win situation that plays out like a soap opera

Promo: Fresh Hell Podcast