This American Life

This American Life

Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.

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  1. 22 hr ago

    Testosterone

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered everyone over 30 in the military to have their testosterone tested. That inspired us to rerun this classic episode where everyone at This American Life tested their testosterone and compared results. It did not lead to workplace harmony. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with producer Alex Blumberg, who explains that he wanted to do this show because of his conflicted relationship with his own testosterone. He tells Ira that the reasons go back to a girl in his 8th-grade homeroom. We also hear from a man who stopped producing testosterone due to a medical treatment, and found his entire personality was altered. (10 minutes)Act One: What’s it like to get injected with testosterone? When Griffin Hansbury transitioned, he got massive shots of it and was surprised at the effect it had on him. (17 minutes)Act Two: The men and women on staff at This American Life decide to get their testosterone levels tested to see who has the most and least, and whether personality traits actually match hormone levels. (13 minutes)Act Three: What happens when a man suddenly loses all of his testosterone? We return to Alex Blumberg’s interview from the top of the show with a man who that happened to. He says life without testosterone is life without desire. By that he doesn’t mean sexual desire. He means any desire. (6 minutes)Act Four: Novelist Miriam Toews interviews her 15-year-old son, someone at an age when boys experience a jolt of ten or twenty times the testosterone they had as children, about all the things she doesn’t understand about what he’s going through. (11 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

    Testosterone

  2. 2 days ago ·  Bonus • Subscribers Only

    A Bonus Episode We Weren’t Sure About

    And by the end we were like “Wait, that was AMAZING.” Featuring producer Diane Wu, who makes Ira cry.

    A Bonus Episode We Weren’t Sure About

  3. 19 Jul

    Trapped on a Bus

    People on journeys they did not intend — or agree to. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: A woman on a nighttime bus ride wakes up to discover the bus driver is taking the passengers somewhere none of them want to go. (8  minutes)Act One: Ayman Oghanna was reporting in Syria when he got a surprising call from home: one of his neighbors had been arrested for spying. (13 minutes)Act Two: Eileen Sosin Martínez describes life in Havana right now, where blackouts have become so constant that it’s nearly impossible to make ice and garbage trucks don’t collect the trash regularly. (11 minutes)Act Three: A beloved tree in England, more than 100 years old, is mysteriously cut down overnight, leaving the country bereft and enraged and out for justice. (15 minutes)Act Four: When she was 16, Leticia flew from Sao Paolo, where she lived, to Germany. She was seated next to an older woman who did something so surprising during the flight that Leticia still tells people about it today. (9 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

    Trapped on a Bus

  4. 12 Jul

    The Test Case

    Some people in this country think Antifa is a dangerous domestic terror organization. Some think that’s a complete myth. This week, we go to the federal trial where, for the first time, the government sets out to prove that Antifa is real. Zoe Chace reports. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Host Ira Glass tells the story of what happened at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. The government claims this was an attack by an Antifa cell. The defense says it was a protest gone awry. This argument goes to court in a first-of-its-kind trial. (7 minutes)Act One: Reporter Zoe Chace walks us through one of the worst days for the defense: all these guns. (5 minutes)Act Two: Zoe takes us through the testimony of the government’s Antifa expert. The defense team is optimistic that things are going well for them. (8 minutes)Act Three: Zoe goes to jail to talk with one of the cooperating witnesses for the prosecution, a former church lady named Lynette Sharp. She has a lot to say about the events in her life that led her to accept a plea deal and testify against her friends. (24 minutes)Act Four: The verdicts come in. (12 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

    The Test Case

  5. 11 Jul • Subscribers Only

    New Life Partners Perk!

    Ira is writing a new weekly newsletter just for our Life Partners, with recommendations and behind the scenes updates. Listen to get the private Substack link.

    New Life Partners Perk!

  6. 5 Jul

    Maximal Americanness

    On this country's 250th birthday, we bring you stories about the most American people, places, objects, and social norms that make this country what it is. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Ira talks to Pablo Torre about Major League Baseball’s new challenge system, and how it’s been optimized for maximum drama. (10 minutes)Act One: Writer Jiayang Fan wrestles with a very common question she has never quite understood. (5 minutes)Act Two: People come from all over the country to walk down one of Michigan’s tallest sand dunes, and then promptly turn around and trudge back up. Aviva DeKornfeld talks to Americans spending their limited vacation time on this punishing activity. (8 minutes)Act Three: Emanuele Berry talks to Ira about Season 13 of the reality TV show, Survivor, known to fans as the “race war” season. (8 minutes)Act Four: Years before his famous dictionary, Noah Webster wrote a book that took on a life of its own and served an unexpected purpose. (8 minutes)Act Five: Emmanuel Dzotsi investigates a musical phenomenon very particular to the United States: singers embellishing the end of the national anthem. (9 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

    Maximal Americanness

  7. 21 Jun

    There’s Something About Hail Mary

    We spend an hour in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter, behind and desperate, with people trying any damn thing they can think of. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Five years after Ora first started experiencing mysterious and debilitating health problems, she decides to try a treatment that she knows very well might kill her. Host Ira Glass talks to her about the experience. (9 minutes)Act One: Two lawyers have just three months to stop their client's execution. In Texas, where this story takes place, these kinds of appeals to get people off death row fail 94% of the time. (38 minutes)Act Two: At the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, migrants figured out an ingenious way to communicate with the activists gathered outside of the detention center’s walls. (13 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

    There’s Something About Hail Mary

  8. 14 Jun • Subscribers Only

    Mistakes Were Made

    It’s the late 1960s, and a California TV repairman named Bob sees an opportunity to help people cheat death with the new science of cryonics. But freezing dead people isn’t easy. And apologizing for the mistakes you make along the way? Even harder. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks about the way most political apologies go, and chats with a man named Derek Jones about similar sorts of apologies among preteen girls and King David, in the Old Testament. (7 minutes)Act One: In the late 1960s, a California TV repairman named Bob Nelson joined a group of enthusiasts who believed they could cheat death with a new technology called cryonics. But freezing dead people so scientists can reanimate them in the future is a lot harder than it sounds. Harder still was admitting to the family members of people Bob had frozen that he'd screwed up. Sam Shaw reports. (42 minutes)Act Two: There's a famous William Carlos Williams poem called "This is Just to Say." It's about, among other things, causing a loved one inconvenience and offering a non-apologizing apology. Producer Sean Cole explains that this is possibly the most spoofed poem around. We asked some of our regular contributors to get into the act. Sarah Vowell, David Rakoff, Starlee Kine, Jonathan Goldstein, Shalom Auslander, and Heather O'Neill all came up with their own variations of Williams's classic lines. (7 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

    Mistakes Were Made
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Hosts & Guests

About

Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.

Information

  • Creator
    This American Life
  • Years Active
    2006 - 2026
  • Episodes
    507
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 1995-2026 This American Life
  • Show Website
    This American Life
  • Provider
    AMERICAN WHATEVER LLC

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