31: Into the Great Wide Open

We're turning back the clock to 2009 to discuss an epochal turning point in our society, namely, the Balloon Boy incident. While perhaps not as "earth shattering" as some of the other topics we've covered, we make the argument that this incident does mark an important turning point in the nature of media, in that it was one the last "crises" to occur before the 24-hour news networks were subsumed by the all powerful, crushing rise of social media. We recap the incident, look a little bit at the family involved, and also consider the ways mass media events have been transformed in the 2010s and 2020s.This episode contains spoilers for the Balloon Boy Incident (he wasn't in the balloon).Send us Fan Mailhttps://www.instagram.com/theendoftheworldwms/https://youtube.com/@TheEndoftheWorldwMS?si=xmj-2e0s58JdN8-Bhttps://linktr.ee/endoftheworldwithmichaelandstu