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Apple Podcasts crowns Hysterical the 2024 Show of the Year

Apple Podcasts Award

Eh, what if it’s all in your head?

Apple presents the Hysterical series with the Apple Podcasts Award, an annual recognition celebrating a podcast that exemplifies quality and innovation. This seven-part series, created by Wondery and Audacy’s Pineapple Street Studios, delves into the investigation of a perplexing illness affecting a group of high school girls in upstate New York.

Hysterical launched on Apple Podcasts in July 2024 and quickly rose to the top of the Top Shows chart. Since its debut, listeners have kept tuning in, and the series achieved recognition as the No. 9 most popular new show of the year in the 2024 Apple Podcasts Top Charts 

The growing media attention drove creator Dan Taberski to investigate the story behind “Havana syndrome,” a mysterious illness affecting thousands of diplomats and experienced CIA agents worldwide. He remembered an incident involving a group of high school girls in Le Roy, New York, who had experienced a different perplexing illness years earlier. Intrigued by the possible similarities between these disparate groups, he thought, “What if it’s a hysterical illness?” 

“A lot of people still think it was an attack from some sort of microwave weapon,” Taberski says of the Havana syndrome news. “The media was pontificating about it, and they were interviewing all these people who were suffering from it, but everybody was really afraid to say, ‘What if it’s all in your head?’ So I thought it would be interesting to pair that story in Le Roy with what was happening to these diplomats and CIA officers to show that it can happen to anybody.” 

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