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David Farrier

Flightless Bird follows journalist David Farrier as he learns about what makes America special from his unique perspective as a Kiwi accidentally marooned in the Land of the Free. Infinitely curious but never judgmental, each week, David (along with cohost and American Rob) seeks to understand what makes America so unique, strange, and wonderful.

Flightless Bird

In this week’s Flightless Bird, we reveal the results of the competition to guess Rosabel’s filthy email address, before David travels to Portland to see if it really is a raging city out of control. Rob also talks to some locals to get their take about what is going on in their city at the moment.

Email us your feedback: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com
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Portland Protests

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David talks to a man who lived as a train hopper for two years. They talk about the lifestyle, dangers and chaos of illegally hitching rides across America using the railroad system. The country’s first train tracks were laid down in the 1820s - and since then, America has gone on to have the largest rail transport network in the world - over 136,000 miles of train lines weaning their way across the USA. Which is why train hopping is part of America’s history.

Based on original reporting in Webworm: https://www.webworm.co/trainhopping/

Email us: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com 
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Train Hopping

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David attends his first Homecoming football game and Homecoming dance - and Rob and David discuss their feelings around dances, balls, and weddings.

Note: As discussed in this episode, Flightless Bird is hiring! We are looking for a “channel manager” to help look after a Flightless Bird’s Instagram, YouTube page, and other social media accounts. This is a paid position working 15 to 20 hours a week. If you are creative, organised and experienced please email us a short video explaining your experience and why you’re a good fit for this job - along with what you’re listening to at the moment (music wise or podcasts!)

Email us at flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com

Subject line: Flightless Bird Channel Manager
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Homecoming

In this week’s episode, David looks at the downfall of one of the world’s biggest Christian stars, Michael Tait. The (now former) frontman of The Newsboys, and former member of DC Talk, Tait led a secret double life that all came crashing down this year. Farrier talks to two journalists who covered the story, Jessica Morris and Josiah Hesse - as well as whistleblowers and victims like Israel Anthem. Farrier discovers a world of coverups and legal action in the world of Christian rock - learning about the sole owner of Newsboys, Wes Campbell, who some refer to as “The Devil”.

- This is based on original reporting on Webworm: https://www.webworm.co/thedevil/ 

- Email David and Rob: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com
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Christian Chaos

In this week’s episode David and Rob look at the world of Christian Contemporary Music, or CCM for short. Born out of the 1960s Jesus Movement, CCM was a way for kids to listen to “cool” music without any of the sin, and it became embedded in large parts of American culture. They’re joined in the studio by Underoath’s Aaron Gillespie who knows a thing or two about Christian music - and they talk about everything from Hell Houses to the good and bad of Christian music.Aaron Gillespie: https://www.instagram.com/aaronrgillespie/Underoath: https://www.instagram.com/underoathband/Flightless Bird merch: https://www.flightlessbirdpod.comEmail Rob and David: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com
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Christian Music

In this week’s Flightless Bird, Rob takes David to his first ever Chipotle Mexican Grill experience, before teaching him about what makes this American food chain so iconic, important and delicious. Founded on July 13, 1993, we learn about its history with McDonalds to its attempt at being sustainable, they try to answer the eternal question: Is Chipotle better than fast food or slightly better than fast food?

Flightless Bird merch: https://www.flightlessbirdpod.com/

Email Rob and David: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chipotle

In this week’s episode, David flies to Washington, DC to meet with Kala - AKA “Tunnel Girl” - a woman digging a tunnel under her suburban home. David descends into Kala’s tunnel, trying to figure out what motivates her to do this. Along the way they talk about her fame on TikTok, the controversies she’s faced, and what you can learn from a tunnel fire.

This episode was based on original reporting done for Webworm: https://www.webworm.co/tunnelgirl 

Flightless Bird merch: https://www.flightlessbirdpod.com/
Email Rob and David: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com
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Tunnel Girl

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David looks back at Invisible Children’s “Kony 2012” documentary through the eyes of Lilly, an intern at the time - and Jedidiah Jenkins, the director of idea development for Invisible Children in 2012. Lilly and Jed take David inside the viral hit - the first ever video to reach 1 million likes on YouTube, the speediest ever to reach 100 million views. A Pew Research poll at the time indicated more than half of young adult Americans had heard about Kony 2012 in the days following its release. The purpose of Kony 2012 was to make Warlord Joseph Kony “famous”, and raise money for Invisible Children’s cause. And then everything went wrong.Contact David and Rob: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com FB Merch: www.flightlessbirdpod.com 
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Kony 2012

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David Farrier meets Mike Masnick, the journalist and entrepreneur who came up with the term “The Streisand Effect” 20 years ago. The term has its origins in Barbara Streisland suing someone for $50 million for daring to take a photo of her house - only to have the photo spread to millions of people. Since then the Streisand Effect has been used to describe the effect of the rich and powerful trying to shut down information. Farrier and Mike discuss the legacy of what Barbara did, and its effects on the internet today.

LINKS:

David Farrier’s Webworm newsletter: www.webworm.co - please support it!

TechDirt, Mike’s site: www.techdirt.com 

Kenneth Adelman’s site: californiacoastline.org 

Lawsuit details: https://www.californiacoastline.org/streisand/lawsuit.html 

Contact Flightless Bird: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com 
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Streisand Effect

In this week's Flightless Bird, David Farrier explores cryonics - freezing human corpses in the hope they may one day be resurrected by future humans! We interview James Arrowood, CEO of Alcor, America’s biggest cryonics outfit, to talk about the perception of this practice and what it means for Alcor’s 250 bodies on ice. 

Email us your feedback: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com

Links

- Death To Dust: What Happens To Dead Bodies? http://www.galenpress.com/extras/extra32.htm 

- Melbourne Woman On Ice: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-16/second-person-cryogenically-frozen-southern-cryonics/105517102 

- A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/03/13/144721/a-startup-is-pitching-a-mind-uploading-service-that-is-100-percent-fatal/ 
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Cryonics

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David Farrier sets out to understand why Americans say “math”, while New Zealand - and most of the rest of the world - says “maths”. He speaks to Dean Koorey about the mysteries of language, before stumbling into the depths of math/maths and the perils of the metric system. How many ounces in a pound? How many pounds are in a stone? And why is America stuck using the imperial system when the rest of the planet loves the sensible metric system? Farrier is shocked to find that NASA once lost a space probe thanks to a metric conversion disaster, and meets with aerospace engineer Omar Abed to get to the bottom of the mess.
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Maths

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