(S4, E9) Look, We’re Talking About the Titan Submersible. Sorry.

This week’s episode of Pop Culture Boner looks at the OceanGate submersible tragedy through the lens of the online discourse that sprung up around it. Between the wreck of the Titanic, missing billionaires, lax safety regulations, international waters, video game controllers and James Cameron, it was 5 days of unbridled digital chaos. We take a look at the timeline to examine why it held our collective attention for so long, and why exactly James Cameron yearns for the deep.

You can find a full list of references below:

• Al Jazeera (2023) - Titan sub timeline: when did it go missing and other key events

• Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Jenny Gross and Anna Betts (New York Times, 2023) - OceanGate Was Warned of Potential for ‘Catastrophic’ Problems With Titanic Mission

• Anushka Patil (New York Times, 2023) - Submersible Pilot’s Spouse Is Descended From a Famous Titanic Couple

• John Psaropoulos (Al Jazeera, 2023) - Greek coastguard faces tough questions over refugee boat tragedy

• Joshua Doss (@appliedscience11 on Tik Tok, 2023) - Here is why you are seeing all of the submarine jokes

• Hank Green (@hankgreen1 on Tik Tok, 2022) - Submersible implosion

• James Cameron (2005) - Aliens of the Deep (Trailer)

• Rax King - Patreon

You can download a full copy of the transcript here.