Credits:

Episode producer: Grace Tatter

Co-hosts: Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson

Show producers: Samata Joshi, Dean Russell, Katelyn Harrop, Frannie Monahan, Paul Vaitkus

Mixer and sound designer: Emily Jankowski

“Should I be joking at a time like this?”

That’s the question then 33-year-old Brooke Eby asked herself when she uploaded her first piece of TikTok comedy in 2022, about being diagnosed with a terminal illness. Brooke built an audience of hundreds of thousands of people who were rooting for, and laughing with, her. Sometimes it got weird.

Brooke died due to complications with ALS earlier this month. She was 37.

In 2025, she talked to Endless Thread hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson about how facing death changed her relationship with social media and online community.

Show notes:

This content was originally created for audio. An auto-generated transcript is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Heads up that some elements (i.e. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text.