Thongs

American Hysteria

W!ZARD Studios

Society & Culture

4.4 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Exposed thongs were all the rage in the early 2000s thanks to a handful of massive pop cultural moments, but as the craze reached the mainstream market and trickled down to teens and tweens, the skank-shaming heated up as did the moral panics and political backlash. Millennials, however, were far from the first generation to experience thong drama, and for this episode we will go back through the last ten decades to see how half of the time moral guardians have tried to legislate the thong out of existence and the other half of the time, the thong has been the thin black line that separated adventurous Americans from the long arm of the law. Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline at americanhysteria.com Sound Designer and Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler Voice Actor: Will Rogers Written, Produced, and Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	On this podcast, we explore fantastical thinking, moral panics, urban legends, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and crazes, examine the forces that shape our culture and tell the stories that create the realities we share, and sometimes the realities we don't.
0:24.7	I'm your host, Chelsea Weber Smith, and this is American hysteria.
0:32.1	Well, we're the song generation.
0:33.8	That's all the thong, thong, thong.
0:36.0	You showed the president of the United States
0:38.5	York farm under it.
0:41.0	Expect to show up tomorrow
0:42.0	on an outfit that does not reveal
0:43.2	your undergrounds.
0:44.3	Grab the win from the Mickey Mouse Club
0:46.3	to the strip club
0:47.3	go with your back down.
0:52.5	The year was 2001, and I had just turned 13.
1:02.9	My best friend, Ashley Erickson, handed me a pink-striped Victoria's secret bag,
1:10.6	topped with pink tissue paper, and I immediately knew
1:15.6	what was inside. It was a cursed, yet holy object, one that thrilled us and terrified us,
1:24.1	that outraged parents, principles, cultural critics, and even government officials.
1:31.6	These were the years of visible bra straps, spaghetti-strap tank tops, bare midrifts, and the
1:38.6	lowest of low-rise pants. When girls couldn't go five minutes without being called, calling, or hearing someone
1:47.4	call their friend, a slut, a whore, and of course, a skank. The thong, like the pink-striped one
1:56.6	that appeared as I pulled back the tissue paper that day was the ultimate uniform for the most
2:03.6	ambitious skank. It was worn proudly and defiantly in a style that came to be known as the whale
	...

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