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- 🇺🇸US · Technology#8730K to 100K
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16K to 53K🎙 ~2x weekly·61 episodes·Last published today - Monthly Reach
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31K to 106K🇺🇸94%🇸🇬3%🇵🇭3% - Active Followers
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On the show
From 17 epsHosts
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Recent episodes
The $55B Deal That Has Sims Players Worried
Jun 24, 2026
45m 07s
A Queer History of The Sims
Jun 17, 2026
44m 32s
How To Prove You're Not AI
Jun 10, 2026
36m 14s
Escaping the Surveillance Pricing Trap
Jun 3, 2026
39m 22s
Musk v. Altman Was Peak Silicon Valley Theatrics
May 27, 2026
36m 39s
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| Date | Episode | Topics | Guests | Brands | Places | Keywords | Sponsor | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6/24/26 | The $55B Deal That Has Sims Players Worried | When shareholders of gaming giant Electronic Arts approved an acquisition of the company by a group that includes Jared Kushner’s private equity firm and the Saudi Public Investment Fund late last year, it rocked the entertainment industry. The sale worth an estimated $55 billion sent the player community of the EA-owned game The Sims scrambling, afraid that a game known as a haven for LGBTQ+ expression might be changed for the worse. In this second part of our exploration of the inclusive history of The Sims franchise, we dive into what the deal might mean for the game, how it’s reshaping the future of the industry, and why a popular Sims streamer is ready to walk away from the game in protest. Guests: Kayla Sims, Twitch streamer and YouTuber known as “lilsimsie” Zefrine, Twitch streamer and organizer with The Players Alliance Loel Phelps, senior game design director at Maxis Jessica Croft, senior designer at EA on The Sims 4 Further Reading/Listening: Bay Area Gamers Rally Against Electronic Arts’ $55 Billion Acquisition — Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, KQED 'Gaming is the new oil:' How the EA buyout 'diverges from the traditional playbook' — Nicole Carpenter, Game Developer Congressman Teams Up With Popular Sims Streamer To Oppose Saudi Purchase Of EA — Nathan Grayson, Aftermath US representative Maxwell Frost protests Saudi buyout of EA — Diego Argüello, Game Developer Sims streamers are distancing themselves from EA, but for some the choice is hard — Ash Parrish, The Verge EA Advertisement Isn't New: A Look Back At The Sims' History With Brands (And What Comes Next) — Callum Bowyer, Sims Community Private Equity's EA Takeover: Corruption, Contradictions, and Exploitation — Daniel Stone, Center for Economic and Policy Research Read the Transcript here Email us at CloseAllTabs@KQED.org Follow us on Instagram and TikTok Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard and Chris Egusa. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 45m 07s | ||||||
| 6/17/26 | A Queer History of The Sims | “Did The Sims make you gay?” is a long-running joke among Sims players. For millions, The Sims has been more than a video game — it’s been a place to experiment, tell stories, and explore identity. Long before LGBTQ representation became common in mainstream games, The Sims allowed same-sex relationships, helping create a devoted queer fan base that reshaped what players expected from virtual worlds. In this episode, Morgan Sung talks with The Sims 4 senior designer Jessica Croft and Electronic Arts’ senior game design director Loel Phelps about the game’s unlikely emergence as one of the most queer-inclusive franchises in gaming. They explore the legendary story of how same-sex romance accidentally made it into the original game, the challenges of translating sexuality and gender into game systems, why so many LGBTQ players discovered their own identities in The Sims long before they felt safe doing so in real life — and why some players are worried about where the game might be headed. Guests: Jessica Croft, senior designer and lead designer at EA on The Sims 4 Loel Phelps, senior game design director at Maxis Further Reading/Listening: The Kiss That Changed Video Games — Simon Parkin, The New Yorker Unearthed The Sims design docs show the internal debate over same-sex relationships — Steven Messner, PC Gamer Did The Sims make you gay? - a video essay. — Alexander Avila, YouTube The Sims Knew I Was Queer Before I Did — Megan Elliot, BRICKS Magazine Gay weddings for Russia: How The Sims became a battleground for the LGBTQ+ community — Tom Regan, The Guardian The Sims designer says that the series’ diversity is “critical, especially at times like now” as the games must recognise “the fundamental truths of our humanity” to stay successful — Lewis White, FIVR Read the Transcript here Email us at CloseAllTabs@KQED.org Follow us on Instagram and TikTok Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional production help from Francesca Fenzi. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard and Chris Egusa. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 44m 32s | ||||||
| 6/10/26 | How To Prove You're Not AI✨ | AIdeepfakes+4 | Thomas Germain | BBCThe Interface+4 | — | AIdeepfake+5 | — | 36m 14s | |
| 6/3/26 | Escaping the Surveillance Pricing Trap✨ | surveillance pricingconsumer behavior+3 | Lindsay Owens | Groundwork CollaborativeJetBlue+4 | — | surveillance pricingJetBlue+6 | — | 39m 22s | |
| 5/27/26 | Musk v. Altman Was Peak Silicon Valley Theatrics✨ | courtroom dramaSilicon Valley+3 | Rachael Myrow | KQEDWIRED+4 | Oakland, California | Musk v. Altmancourtroom drama+3 | — | 36m 39s | |
| 5/20/26 | Iran Is Winning The Slopaganda War✨ | propagandaAI+4 | Michał Klincewicz | KQEDTilburg University+4 | — | slopagandaAI-generated videos+5 | — | 40m 19s | |
| 5/13/26 | How an OnlyFans Model and a Cosplayer Are Fighting Nonconsensual Deepfake Porn✨ | nonconsensual deepfake porncreator protection+4 | MorgpieZander Small | FanlockKQED+4 | — | deepfakeOnlyFans+6 | — | 37m 04s | |
| 5/6/26 | My Therapist Is a Chatbot (Reload)✨ | AI therapymental health+4 | Lesley McClurg | ChatGPTKQED+3 | — | AI therapychatbots+4 | — | 31m 32s | |
| 4/29/26 | Somebody’s Watching Me: The Crackdown on Stalkerware✨ | stalkerwarecybersecurity+4 | Eva Galperin | Electronic Frontier FoundationCoalition Against Stalkerware | — | stalkerwarecybersecurity+5 | — | 30m 39s | |
| 4/22/26 | The H-1B Visa Process But Make It a Video Game✨ | H-1B visavideo game+4 | Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman | KQEDReality Reload+8 | — | H-1B visavideo game+5 | — | 33m 20s | |
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| 4/15/26 | Save or Scroll: Looksmaxxing, AI Fruit Love Island, BTS Arirang, and Meta Lawsuits✨ | looksmaxxingAI Fruit Love Island+3 | Steffi Cao | KQEDMeta+9 | — | looksmaxxingAI Fruit Love Island+3 | — | 31m 38s | |
| 4/8/26 | The Secret Lives of Mormon Momfluencers✨ | Mormon influencerssocial media+4 | Fortesa Latifi | Church of Latter-day SaintsLike, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online | — | Mormonmomfluencers+5 | — | 37m 55s | |
| 4/1/26 | Bee Movie, "We Are Charlie Kirk," and the Enduring Bait-and-Switch Meme✨ | memesinternet culture+4 | Spike FerestenBret Strauch | University of Colorado BoulderBee Movie | — | Bee Moviememes+6 | — | 38m 20s | |
| 3/25/26 | To Hack a Tractor: How Farmers Won the Right to Repair✨ | right to repairfarming+4 | Jason Koebler | 404 MediaKQED+4 | — | right to repairfarmers+8 | — | 34m 28s | |
| 3/18/26 | The Fight for Your Right to Repair✨ | right to repairconsumer rights+4 | Louis Rossmann | Rossman Repair GroupWIRED+4 | — | repair movementconsumer rights+5 | — | 36m 33s | |
| 3/11/26 | 'Twitter on a Vape' and The Great E-Waste Crisis✨ | e-wastevaping+3 | Samantha ColeYogi Hale Hendlin | 404 MediaKQED | — | e-wastevapes+3 | — | 39m 40s | |
| 3/4/26 | Sex Workers Tried to Warn Us About Age Verification Laws✨ | age verification lawsfree speech+4 | Dr. Olivia SnowAnna Iovine | KQEDUCLA’s Center on Resilience & Digital Justice+4 | — | age verificationKOSA+7 | — | 38m 02s | |
| 2/26/26 | Send Pics? Roblox Wants to Know Your Age✨ | child safetygaming+3 | Rachel Hale | RobloxUSA Today+2 | — | Robloxage verification+3 | — | 34m 19s | |
| 2/18/26 | Lessons for U.S. Netizens from Behind China’s Great Firewall✨ | internet censorshipChinese internet+4 | Yi-Ling Liu | The New York Times MagazineWired+4 | — | ChinamaxxingGreat Firewall+5 | — | 42m 30s | |
| 2/11/26 | Love In The Time Of Doom Scrolling | In honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re bringing you an episode about love. We start with TikTok creator Jojo Manzo, who turned his late-night doomscrolling into a matchmaking experiment when he invited thousands of strangers to flirt in his comment section. Then we talk to Maria Avgitidis, a third-generation matchmaker, about why friction, community, and a little discomfort might actually be the point of dating. And finally, we get to the physical … or, at least, geographical. When you find someone you care about, do you share your location with them? Is it intimacy, convenience, surveillance or all three? We explore what it looks like to find human connection in a deeply digital world. Guests: Maria Avgitidis Pyrgiotakis, matchmaker and CEO of Agapematch Jojo Manzo, musician and content creator Friends of Close All Tabs: Mandy Seiner and Jackson Maxwell, Anna Iovine, Tanya Chen, Amanda Silberling, Harriet Weber, and Taj Weaver Further Reading/Listening: You Don’t Need to Swipe Right. A.I. Is Transforming Dating Apps — Eli Tan, The New York Times To Share or Not to Share? How Location Sharing Is Changing Our Relationships — Modern Love Podcast ‘Perfection without the connection’: How AI is becoming a digital wingman — Hani Richter, Reuters The Doomed Dream of an AI Matchmaker — Faith Hill, The Atlantic Ask A Matchmaker: Matchmaker Maria’s No Nonsense Guide to Finding Love — Maria Avgitidis, Matchmaker Maria Is U-Hauling Real? Here's What's Behind The Lesbian Stereotype — Lea Rose Emery, Bustle What's The Deal With U-Haul Lesbians? — Kira Deshler, Paging Dr. Lesbian Read the transcript here. Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional producing support by Gabriela Glueck. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Katie Sprenger is our Director of Content Operations. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 44m 14s | ||||||
| 2/4/26 | How the AI Data Center Boom Impacts Black Communities | Picture this… You move to a cozy home in an idyllic neighborhood: fresh air and birdsong in the morning and gorgeous sunsets at night. One day, you wake up to find an AI data center is being built right across the street. Your view of trees turns into piles of dirt, the songbird’s trill replaced by the hum of machinery. That’s the reality for many Atlanta metro area residents right now, facing an explosion of AI data center construction. In this episode, Morgan is joined by reporters DorMiya Vance and Marlon Hyde from WABE in Atlanta. Vance and Hyde recently looked into why so many companies are targeting the Atlanta suburbs for their builds. They’ll break down what this means for the infrastructure of local energy companies, how to contextualize this trend within the historical strain placed on predominately Black communities, and what can be done to prepare for “stranded assets” if the bubble bursts. Guests: DorMiya Vance, Southside reporter at WABE Marlon Hyde, business reporter at WABE Further Reading/Listening: Data centers power our online lives. The business is growing faster in metro Atlanta than anywhere else in the US — Marlon Hyde, WABE South Atlanta residents brace for major data center development — DorMiya Vance, WABE Microsoft vows to cover full power costs for energy-hungry AI data centers — Benj Edwards, Ars Technica After a White Town Rejected a Data Center, Developers Targeted a Black Area — Adam Mahoney, Capital B A Historic Black Community Takes On the World's Richest Man Over Environmental Racism — Adam Mahoney, Capital B The People Say No: Resisting Data Centers in the South — Media Justice Data centers spark a ‘fight for the soul’ of this mostly Black Maryland county — Lateshia Beachum, The Washington Post Georgia leads push to ban datacenters used to power America’s AI boom — Timothy Pratt, The Guardian Read the transcript here. Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 35m 38s | ||||||
| 1/28/26 | The Real Cost of AI Slop | How much does your own AI use matter? With all the warnings about AI’s adverse impact on the environment, it can be tough to understand what that means at the individual level. In this episode, Morgan breaks down the hidden costs of generative AI into something more relatable: microwave time. She’s joined by MIT Technology Review reporters Casey Crownhart and James O’Donnell, who spent months investigating how much energy and water AI systems actually use. Together, they unpack how AI models are trained and which ones are more resource-intensive, what effect the expansion of AI data centers has on local energy grids and just how much electricity it takes when we ask AI to generate text, images and videos. Guests: Casey Crownhart, senior climate reporter at MIT Technology Review James O'Donnell, senior AI reporter at MIT Technology Review Further Reading: We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. — Casey Crownhart and James O’Donnell, MIT Technology Review AI Energy Score v2: Refreshed Leaderboard, now with Reasoning 🧠 — Sasha Luccioni and Boris Gamazaychikov, Hugging Face Stop worrying about your AI footprint. Look at the big picture instead. — Casey Crownhart, MIT Technology Review Google says a typical AI text prompt only uses 5 drops of water — experts say that’s misleading — Justine Calma, The Verge Read the Transcript here Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at CloseAllTabs@KQED.org Follow us on Instagram and TikTok Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 36m 03s | ||||||
| 1/21/26 | Your Digital Footprint Reveals More Than You Think | How easy is it to find someone from a single video posted online? To find out, Morgan put her own privacy to the test. She asked TikTok creator JoseMonkey, who’s famous for geolocating people who send him videos asking to be found, to track her down. JoseMonkey started as a geolocation hobbyist who turned to creating videos to bring attention to common mistakes people make when posting online. In this episode, Morgan breaks down why personal operational security matters and what digital hygiene actually looks like in practice. JoseMonkey walks through how he finds people using the smallest scraps of information, and the steps you can take to make sure you aren’t exposing too much in your posts. And Eva Galperin, cybersecurity director of Electronic Frontier Foundation, explains how to use a process called “threat modeling” to protect your online privacy in a way that’s practical rather than paranoid. Guests: Jose Monkey, content creator and online privacy advocate Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation Further Reading/Listening: We partnered with KQED’s audience news team on a companion guide that breaks down online privacy in a clear, shareable format. You can find it, along with other explainers and guides, on KQED’s explainers page. Have LLMs Finally Mastered Geolocation? — Foeke Postma and Nathan Patin, BellingcatSurveillance Self-Defense — The Electronic Frontier Foundation How micro-online posting can be a macro privacy risk — JoseMonkey, TedX Talks Read the transcript here Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at CloseAllTabs@KQED.org Follow us on Instagram and TikTok Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 41m 56s | ||||||
| 1/14/26 | Are You Allowed to Record ICE? | When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, it became an instant flashpoint in the ongoing escalation of federal law enforcement violence. It also put a spotlight on the U.S. government’s efforts to prevent people from documenting federal agents in public. In this episode, we dig into a simple but important question: do you have the right to record ICE? Criminal justice reporter C.J. Ciaramella explains how the Trump administration is working to create a chilling effect around filming law enforcement, why legal challenges are intensifying, and how courts are increasingly pushing back. Guests: C.J. Ciaramella, Criminal Justice Reporter at Reason Further Reading/Listening: ICE officer fatally shoots driver through car window in Minneapolis — Max Nesterak, Madison McVan and Alyssa Chen, The Minnesota Reformer The Trump administration says it's illegal to record videos of ICE. Here's what the law says. — C.J. Ciaramella, Reason DHS says recording or following law enforcement 'sure sounds like obstruction of justice' — C.J. Ciaramella, Reason Recording the Police: Tips for Safety and Awareness — Carly Severn and Mina Kim, KQED DHS Claims Videotaping ICE Raids Is ‘Violence’ — Matthew Cunningham-Cook, The American Prospect ICE detains U.S. citizen for 7 hours after she photographed agents in Oregon — Yesenia Amaro, The Oregonian Dozens of felony cases crumble in DOJ push to punish protesters — Michael Biesecker, Jamie Ding, Christine Fernando, Claire Rush, and Ryan J. Foley, The Associated Press What Happens When Federal Officers Use Force — Miranda Jeyaretnam, TIME California is banning masks for federal agents. Here’s why it could lose in court — Nigel Duara, CalMatters Read the transcript here Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at CloseAllTabs@KQED.org Follow us on Instagram and TikTok Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 30m 55s | ||||||
| 1/7/26 | Save or Scroll: OpenAI’s Head of Preparedness, Global RAM Shortage, AI Artists, and a Manosphere Antidote | In a holiday installment of Save or Scroll, Morgan and the Close All Tabs team get together to talk over the stories they can’t stop thinking about. From OpenAI’s concerning new job posting, to a major RAM shortage, AI artists on the come up, and an antidote to the Manosphere, they’ve got a lot to chew on. Save or Scroll is our series where we team up with guests for a rapid-fire roundup of internet trends that are filling our feeds right now. At the end of each segment, they’ll decide: is the post just for the group chat, or should we save it for a future episode? Guests: Morgan Sung, Host of Close All Tabs Chris Egusa, Senior Editor of Close All Tabs Maya Cueva, Producer of Close All Tabs Chris Hambrick, Editor of Close All Tabs Further Reading/Listening: Sam Altman is hiring someone to worry about the dangers of AI — Terrence O'Brien, The Verge Why OpenAI's $555,000 Head of Preparedness Role May Be Hard to Fill — Sarah E. Needleman, Business Insider Memory loss: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise — John Ruwitch, NPR Why is RAM so expensive right now? It's way more complicated than you think — Wayne Williams, TechRadar AI Singer Xania Monet Just Charted On Billboard, Signed $3 Million Deal. Is This The Future Of Music? — Doug Melville, Forbes How Many AI Artists Have Debuted on Billboard’s Charts? — Xander Zellner, Billboard The ‘Manosphere’? It’s Planet Earth. — Joseph Bernstein, The New York Times “2024 self interviewing my 2025 self” — @seanjaye1988, Instagram Reel Read the transcript here Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at CloseAllTabs@KQED.org Follow us on Instagram and TikTok Credits: Close All Tabs is hosted by Morgan Sung. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, editor Chris Hambrick and senior editor Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. Additional music from APM. Audio engineering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 44m 52s | ||||||
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Chart Positions
3 placements across 3 markets.
Chart Positions
3 placements across 3 markets.