Episodes
In the grand randomly timed tradition of Internet Explorer, we're back! This time, Katie and Ryan discuss how not even Facebook understands how it works anymore, what's wrong with Gushers, and Ryan maybe turns GamerGate. Then the inimitable Cates Holderness brings us 5 things that are actually still good on the internet. One of those things you must see to appreciate so here it is: http://moehistory.tumblr.com/Lastly, we've got a great excerpt from BuzzFeed News' latest podcast, THE NEWS...
Published 09/01/18
Published 09/01/18
Ok, Katie and Ryan didn't actually eat the Tide pods, but they discuss predictions for 2018 with their best friend and yours, Cates Holderness. There's some reflecting, a bunch of predictions, but mostly a lot of marveling on the delicious wonder of Tide Pods. 
Published 01/29/18
Your two favorite trolls, Katie and Ryan, are back to discuss what the heck happened to the internet in the year since Internet Explorer last aired. There's Nazis, furries, YouTube Stars, and things that are bad, and (a very limited few) things that are good.
Published 09/01/17
Ryan and Katie are back! Surprise! In this one-off holiday spectacular, you can listen to all the disgusting things people did on the internet this year without having to look at it. Long-time friend of the show Cates Holderness stops by to discuss the worst things on the internet from 2016. And in the grand tradition of the worst things, Katie and Ryan interview one of the illustrious people from the list. One hint: He does stuff with his dick and then posts photos of it. It's been a...
Published 12/30/16
Holy frick! Fancy-pants genius filmmaker Werner Herzog talks to Katie this week about harambe, robots, the internet, teens and so much more. Also, we'll have an update from Ryan, who's in Rio covering the Olympics. Werner's latest film, "Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World" is both about the history and the future of the internet, technology, robotics and space and it's in theaters August 19th. And yes, we're going to be taking a break from the show for a bit, but you won't have...
Published 08/12/16
...uh, probably not, but Brazilians are pretty psyched about the conspiracy theory behind it. And Ryan should know! He's in Brazil where things going the way of the This Is Fine dog. Meanwhile, Katie is looking at how Pokémon Go is being regulated when it comes to sex offenders in New York State. Also! Also. Stay tuned for next week, when IE has a ~big interview~ with a fancy person whom you may know from the internet. Read more about Beyoncé's Cativeiro here:...
Published 08/05/16
This week's a big one! Katie and Ryan get together IRL to talk political conspiracy theories and to remember Harambe once again, of course. Katie debunks the conspiracy about Trump's alleged speech writer Meredith McIver and the two gargoyles themselves perform live onstage in Philly at the Democratic National Convention. Oh! And definitely stick around for Ryan's update on Marina Joyce, with help from Senior BuzzFeed reporter Alan White. Listen to more from the live show here! ...
Published 07/29/16
The world is still s**t, but Katie and Ryan are reunited and they're out of their gourds on #content. This week (and everywhere) Katie and Ryan revel in the true joy that is Pokémon Go, and they do a quiz to determine whether or not Ryan's encyclopedic knowledge of Pokémon detracted from his book learning. Jules Darmanin shares his experience as a native of Nice, France and tells us how Pokémon Go made him feel a little less horrible. Ryan basically can't help but put his dick out for...
Published 07/22/16
Hold still there's a Charmander behind you Yes, Pokémon Go is very much happening. Katie is off this week, but Ryan has awesome guest co-host Gena-mour Barrett on the show to talk about all that is awful and all that is weird this week. The UK left the EU and has a new PM, and Australia is obsessed with HSPs, which makes this episode description sound like something out of the UN. ;) The world is really really awful. Ryan attends a #blacklivesmatter protest in London and ends this week...
Published 07/15/16
Meet Lucia Cole. She's a new pop star with music on Spotify, Tidal, and iTunes. She has a Twitter and Instagram and she's even been interviewed. The only problem? She's a catfish. This week, Katie and Ryan bring you one of their favorite stories from the archive, with some updates. Read Katie's pieces on the Lucia Cole saga here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos/how-teen-boys-on-the-internet-uncovered-the-greatest-catfish and here:...
Published 07/07/16
This week we're asking one of the fundamental questions of our time. Ryan is away, but Katie sits down with future emoji-Pulitzer winner and Senior Tech Writer Charlie Warzel to mine the shadowy depths of the Unicode Consortium. The Unicode Consortium is the organization that decides which emojis make it into rotation, and the backstory is very :thinking face emoji: Julia also goes out on the street to ask people which of their recently used emojis symbolizes their love life and Katie...
Published 07/01/16
A stan is a superfan who defends a celeb at all costs. Myleeza Mingo has been obsessed with Kim Kardashian for over a decade, but she's about to retire. What happens when a person whose identity is intertwined with their celebrity has to collect their gold (Apple) watch and give up the life of being a Twitter bouncer? Katie talks to Myleeza and to Senior BuzzFeed Editor (and Kim K. expert) Kevin Smith about the stan life. And guess what's back? LETTUCE CLUB IS BACK, people, and it's a...
Published 06/24/16
Congrats! You've been fooled into the biggest hoax of all time: this podcast. On week's episode, we find out why fake news is irresistible with help from Craig Silverman, founding editor of BuzzFeed Canada. Test your own skills at identifying fake news here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/test-your-b******t-detector?utm_term=.hg1rRG7jn4#.gqpDzmZpGX Ryan talks to BuzzFeed France reporter Jules Darmanin about his obsession with the French sodomy horse picture ("it really looks like...
Published 06/17/16
Katie and Ryan talk to Cooper Fleishman and Anthony Smith about the punctuation mark that antisemites are using on Twitter and other platforms to target their harassment. It's weird, but that goes without saying as far as the internet is concerned. Read Cooper and Anthony's pieces for Mic.com here: https://m.mic.com/articles/145459/the-neo-nazi-echoes-symbol-is-officially-hate-speech#.ir1KQfuHg And...
Published 06/10/16
He's a 13-year-old kid who is forging his path to stardom by using a lip-syncing app called musical.ly. Welcome to the Teen Industrial Complex in 2016. Katie and Ryan talk through teen topics, then switch gears to call Tamia Thompson, a mod/curator of the very popular Facebook page Post Aesthetics. The group was nearly shut down because of a discussion about whether or not Pepe and Dat Boi are racist, and everybody has opinions about it. Leviticus the Safety Frog highly recommends listening...
Published 06/03/16
Slack bills itself as a messaging app for teams, but Katie and Ryan aspire to live in a world where it's a messaging app for... memes. This week we tried an experiment where we made a Slack that anyone can join. That's right, you too can now scream the lyrics to All Star with like-minded weirdos. Katie and Ryan also talk to Adrienne Jeffries, of Vice's Motherboard about her experience quitting Slack for a week. And of course, we talk about Chewbacca mask lady who had the most viewed...
Published 05/27/16
There's no thirst quite like that of a male ally looking for a cookie, and this week we go deep into the world of performative male feminism. Michael Blackmon, a BuzzFeed writer whose post about Matt McGorry unleashed a storm of woke & bae onto the internet comes on to talk about how weird it is to take on performative male feminism in 2016. Ryan also takes off his shirt in the name of being a #malefeminist and lives to tell the tale.
Published 05/20/16
It's time to talk memes. Friend of the show Brian Feldman, of the NY Magazine blog Select All, stops in to share his talents as memeologist with Katie and Ryan. We learn what loss.jpg is, how apologetic Daily Dot writer Miles Klee is to have killed dat boi and why exactly people take memes so seriously. Feldman on dat boi: http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/05/the-strange-journey-of-dat-boi-the-years-best-meme-so-far.html Feldman on loss.jpg:...
Published 05/13/16
Katie and Ryan are joined by Doreen St. Felix and Niela Orr to talk about how race and cultural appropriation play out as memes spread. And our favorite scammer, Joanne, aka Branden Miller was scammed himself and Katie has an update. Read up on Doreen and Niela's great pieces: Doreen St. Felix, at The Fader: http://www.thefader.com/2015/12/03/on-fleek-peaches-monroee-meechie-viral-vines Niela Orr, on BuzzFeed: https://www.buzzfeed.com/nielaorr/black-trauma-remixed-for-your-clicks
Published 05/06/16
Queen of Youtube Grace Helbig stops in to chat with Katie and Ryan about her latest project, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl this week guyssss!! Ryan also tells the world about an insane conspiracy theory about Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto. https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/mexicos-possible-photoshopping-president And if you want to know more about politics but don't have a way of forming your own opinions, download BuzzFeed's first-ever politics podcast, No One Knows Anything!...
Published 04/29/16
This promposal season, we talk to Joanne the Scammer aka Branden Miller, whose character Joanne the scammer has inspired robber *and* fraud. Then, Katie and Ryan make sure you are all up to date on the latest memes with Meme Update. Please feel free to consider this podcast a scam and make sure to email your thoughts to [email protected] or tweet at @iexplorer.
Published 04/22/16
It's a crossover episode! To celebrate a year of BuzzFeed podcasts, Tracy Clayton and Heben Nigatu of Another Round talk to Ryan (who is in NY!) and Katie about the toughest questions the internet can pose. Is Louis Tomlinson's baby fake? Is the internet good or evil? Is Macklemore forgivable in any way at all? Check out Another Round here: https://www.acast.com/anotherround And if you like IE, please review it as if it was a McDonald's here:...
Published 04/15/16
To close out our 3 part series, we go back to 1999 and talk to the internet's greatest monster: the man who invented Microsoft's Clippy (jk he's a really nice guy named Kevan Atteberry). We hear from the folks of Open Diary, one of the first social media/blogging sites and talk to Olia Lialina, who has been preserving and archiving Geocities sites. Katie and Ryan force Julia to read some erotic Clippy fanfic, but we need not speak of that.
Published 04/08/16
For part 2 of our series, we go back to 2005 and talk to some pretty big personalities. Tila Tequila and Perez Hilton join us, along with BuzzFeed’s Anne Helen Petersen and the internet's foremost Tila Tequila historian Nicole Milfie. Plus: the dulcet tones of Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain." 2005 is the dawn of Youtube, at the peak of Myspace, and when people were just jumping from the internet onto TV. Join us next week for the finale of the series, a look at the magic that was 1999 on the...
Published 04/01/16