The Terrible Thing People Say When They Think No One Is Listening (with Ben Palmer)

About this episode

Comedian Ben Palmer discusses his social experiments that reveal human behavior and racism.

Comedian Ben Palmer (Palmer Trolls) does sort-of-pranks that have evolved from satire to social experiment. Using aliases, fake websites and a “deportation hotline,” Palmer reveals how easily ordinary people are drawn into exposing their own bad behavior and unabashed racism (he would make a terrific CIA case officer). Watch his video about pretending to be the social media person for three months for Republican Congressman Ted Yoho. Palmer’s work reveals truths about human behavior and predatory systems, exposing the parallels of American’s current experience to that of authoritarian regimes. Watch Mission Implausible on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MissionImplausiblePod

People in this episode

Host: Mission Implausible

Guest: Ben Palmer

Topics covered

• social experiment
• human behavior
• racism
• satire
• authoritarian regimes

Keywords

• Ben Palmer
• social experiment
• racism
• satire
• human behavior
• CIA
• authoritarian regimes

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Palmer Trolls, CIA, Republican Congressman Ted Yoho, Mission Implausible, YouTube

More episodes of Mission Implausible

• Swinging at Curveball: When You Want It Bad, You Get It Bad (with Bob Drogin) · June 7, 2026 · 53 min
• How Everyone Else Sees America (with Gabriel Gatehouse) - ENCORE · May 31, 2026 · 42 min
• The Hawaiian Cult that raised Tulsi Gabbard (with Christine Gralow) - ENCORE · May 24, 2026 · 37 min
• Hunting Weapons of Mass Destruction (with Andy Weber) · May 17, 2026 · 42 min
• How the CIA Decides What’s Legal (with James Petrila) · May 10, 2026 · 50 min
• Crypto: The Trump Family Business (with Zach Everson) · May 3, 2026 · 48 min