Ira finds a ridiculous comment thread on the Internet about an optical illusion.

Chana Joffe-Walt talks to Kiana, who went to a school that was overwhelmingly black and Latino, but when some white students showed up one day on an exchange program, she went up to them eagerly. And since then, has embarked on a one-woman school integration program.

Jane, Julia and Ella continue describing the complex social map that is constantly changing in their phones.

Zalena (pictured, right) lived in paradise. She grew up in American Samoa, hanging out on the beach, doing normal teenage things with her friends—until senior year, when her dad decided he was going to move the family to the exact opposite of everything she’d known—a tiny, isolated town in Alaska.

A story about a substance we've played "not it" with for generations, and why maybe we shouldn't anymore. Producer Zoe Chace explains.

Three teenage girls explain why they are constantly telling their friends they are beautiful on Instagram.

Residents of the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans felt so strongly against hurricane tours after the storm, that legislation made the bus tours illegal there. Ira Glass talks to residents about the problem with bus tours, and takes us on a walking tour of the area, to meet people who are there now, 10 years after the storm.

Producer Ben Calhoun tells Ira about a secret move his friend uses all the time — the "good guy discount" — that gets Ben's friend money off all sorts of items when he's shopping.

Ira talks with a guy in Chicago named Josh who likes to spend time going bird watching. But one day, Josh was out in a park with his binoculars and he discovered something he definitely did not want to know about.

Ira talks to Joel Gold, a psychologist and author, about a strangely common delusion known as the "Truman Show Delusion," in which patients believe that they are being filmed, 24/7, for a national reality television program.

We bring you this very matter-of-fact article from 1853, about something profoundly troubling: a slave auction in Virginia.

Ben tries the good guy discount, to see if he can pull it off, as Ira tags along.

Most big grand transformations we go through really come down to a hundred little things that we change about ourselves. This recently happened for a refugee from Afghanistan, now living in Detroit.

A lot of people lost their homes during Katrina, but a lot of people lost their homes afterward, too—in ten years of post-storm debt, foreclosures, and hard loans. Zoe Chace talked with Roy Bradley, a Saints fan who’s facing losing his house right after he rebuilt it.

Producer Zoe Chace gets into the room that Ira has been wondering about. Specifically, the headquarters of fast food chain Hardee's.

Adriana's story continues, as she ventures deep into a mysterious world of heroin addiction treatment centers where no one seems to be taking responsibility for the people they're treating. Adriana is the editor of the bilingual newspaper The Gate.

Radio producer Scott Carrier quit his job at a low moment in his life. His wife left him and took the kids.

Mark Oppenheimer reports on agunah in the Orthodox Jewish community. An agunah is a woman whose husband refuses to give her a divorce – in Hebrew it means "chained wife." If you're an Orthodox Jew, strictly following Jewish law, the only real way to get divorced is if your husband agrees to hand you a piece of paper called a get.

Some of the best improv actors in the country join us for a special Christmas themed performance recorded live at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn. Scott Adsit, Mike Birbiglia, Aidy Bryant, Chris Gethard, Tami Sagher, and Sasheer Zamata dream up a magical world on stage that’s only possible at Christmas.

Harmon Leon is a writer and comedian whose cocktail party story about “the-weirdest-gig-I-ever-did” is more weird—by a lot—than anyone else’s we’ve heard. He answered an ad several years ago that called for a hilarious sidekick to a celebrity on a hidden camera show.

Chana Joffe-Walt tells what happened when a group of public school students in the Bronx went to visit an elite private school three miles away.

Producer Neil Drumming talks with his friend Ta-Nehisi Coates about Ta-Nehisi’s newfound fame and their friendship.

Michael Leviton was raised in a family who encouraged him and his siblings to tell the truth all the time. They believed it was better to be honest and work things out.

Kim Jong-Il loved movies – but hated all the movies made in North Korea. So he kidnapped a famous South Korean director and his ex-wife, a South Korean film star, locked them up in a villa in North Korea, and forced them to make movies for him.