๐ฅ A branded show you'll love โก๏ธ Web3's Fyre Festival ๐ weiner dog ramps ๐ถ balloon guy ๐
๐ญ ๐ You're in for a treat! ๐ ๐คธโโ๏ธ
Bonjour!
Today is Monday, March 21. Itโs Twila Dangโs birthday. There are 47 days until I go on my next Disney cruise. (Yes, I have been counting wrong this whole time. Itโs closer than I thought!) If you want me to send you a postcard from the cruise, fill out this form. And in case this email is too long, hereโs a branded podcast gone brilliant, take a trip to the web3 version of Fyre Festival here, I finally listened to this and oh my god.
This week weโre getting to peek into the listening life of Katherine Moncure, a recent graduate of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. For theย past two years, sheโs been volunteering as an audio editor and contributor to the Divided Families Podcast, a show that highlights accounts of family separation around the worldย and the cultural/political forces that cause it.ย
The app you use to listen:ย I use Pocket Casts -- I love the user interface and the fact that it's made by podcast professionals. It doesย mean that sometimes I have to switch apps if I want to listen to Spotify-owned shows that are exclusive to their platform, but it's worth it to me to have the majority of my shows in an independent app.
Listening time per week:ย Really depends on the week,ย but I probably average somewhere between 10 and 15 hours.ย ย
When you listen:ย I listen in the morning as I get ready and make breakfast, while I'm doing chores, in transit, while jogging, and while cooking. One of my favorite things is to settle into a good recipe and a good show at theย same time. I'll also sneak in a listen if I'm doing menial work that doesn't require much brainpower.
How you discover: Word of mouth, advertisements in shows, best-of lists from various publications and newsletters.
Anything else you want to say? Check outย Divided Families Podcastย -- we cover some really important cross-cultural issues and fascinating conversations! Youย can alsoย find some of my recent audio projects and writing on my website: katherinemoncure.com
xoxo lp
ps If you are pleased with Podcast The Newsletter, please spread the word.
๐q & a & q & a & q & a๐
Jay Ellis
Jay Ellis is an actor (Lawrence on Insecure,) producer, director, writer, philanthropist, and host of Lemonadaโs The Untold Story. Season one was about policing; season two followed criminal injustice. Follow him on Twitter here. Follow Lemonada on Twitter here.
You have a lot going on. Why was this project important to you, and why did it have to be a podcast?
Storytelling comes in so many forms and I think audio is just as powerful and impactful as any other medium to gain exposure, learn and find ways to take action.
How is the new season different from season one?
This season is similar because again I get to go on a journey where I get to talk to lawmakers, academics, data scientists and folks affected by some of the policies weโre covering. This season is different because we pivot to Pay to Stay policies, Felony theft thresholds and a bunch more stuff I really didnโt know about until this season.
What do you hope this show does for people?
I hope it gets people fired up to make a change. When folks hear these policies and how it affects peoples lives and our systems, I hope that they explore the ways they can create change in their own communities.
What have you learned about yourself making this podcast?
I love learning. With every person I talk to I find myself wanting to listen and learn more. I realized how little I know about so many laws, policies, and practices that not only cause huge backups and inefficiencies in our court and legal system but how they often have the ability to ruin folksโ futures.ย
If Lawrence had a podcast, what would it be about?
Ha! IN MY FEELINGS hosted by Lawrence Walker. He just wants yโall to know how he feels.
Is there anything I didnโt ask you about that you want to say?
Hope yโall enjoy this season and also go out and learn about these policies in your own communities. Go make good change.
๐จIf u only have time for 1 thing๐จ
I was absent the day everyone listened to S-Town, and it has been a missing piece of my podcast knowledge for years. I finally listened over the weekend and it was the biggest treat. The Trojan Horse Affairโs Brian Reed got a call from John, a man from a small town in Alabama who is convinced he needs Brianโs help to take on an unsolved murder, which sets Brian on this intense journey where he becomes close with John (who is one of the most colorful, complicated people Iโve ever heard on a podcast or otherwise) and everyone in the town, and finds himself embroiled in a mystery that goes deeper than he could have imagined. The hype is real. I canโt believe it took me this long to listen to S-Town. Youโre either rolling your eyes at me right now or learning about a show you should listen to right now. If youโre the later, drop everything and binge it.
โก๏ธNews from Sounds Profitableโก๏ธ
On Sounds Profitable (check out the newsletter and podcast) your favorite data master Caila Litman breaks down the numbers of women in podcastingโthe top podcast genres women gravitate toward (79% of women listen to Kids & Family podcasts, 63% listen to true crime,) how much time women are spending listening, and how more representation of women and other underrepresented voices in podcast programming will increase their audience bases. (And how no amount of audience data can capture the complexity of women.) Read/subscribe here.
๐BTW๐
๐๏ธI heard that Oatly had a podcast on American Hysteria and I am interested in branded podcasts, so I listened. Did I go in with low expectations? Yes. Was I completely amused? Yes. Do I recommend you listen to this? Yes. Oatly Lake is poking fun at true crime/murder investigation podcasts by sounding exactly like them. The episode (there is only one, and there will only be one) sounds like an episode of Serial, with plucky music and serious tone. But in this case, itโs mid-2021 and Oatly, the Swedish dairy alternative company, found a lake in Michigan with the same name as their brand. (Or so they thoughtโwe learn that nobody on the Oatly team googled it and there is a difference in spelling.) They send out Schuyler Swenson to interview the lakeโs proprietor Justin Hausler about who owns the lake and whether or not there is a connection with the milk. (Spoiler alert: thereโs not.) Itโs a completely meta experienceโSchuyler waits for an ad break and then is reminded by a producer that there are none because this entire episode is an ad for Oatly. I would love to know the budget for this thing, if it wasnโt so funny it would be considered a well-done true-crime shows. Oatly Lake is one of the most fun marketing campaigns Iโve ever encountered. Listen here.
๐๏ธHeads up to all of you who donโt think they could possibly give a shit about cryptoโPJ Vogtโs Crypto Island is here. It looks like it will be a limited series (it also looks fiction but itโs not) about crypto-evangelists Max Olivier and Helena Lopez who are trying to start a utopian society on an island full of โcrypto rich, bitcoin dynasts and dogecoin princelings,โ which PJ calls โthe web3 version of Fyre Festival.โ Iโll be tuned-in to see which crypto-bro/a dies first. Listen here.
๐๏ธLast March, Islamist militants attacked the Mozambique town of Palma, the site of a $20B gas project, besieging a hotel, where more than 200 civilians were taking shelter, waiting to be rescued. Tortoise Media has released the short series Left to Die that investigates the help that never came, focusing on the people who were rescued (a local politician, dogs) and the men, women and children who were not. Left to Die feels like a fast-paced action movie, with gripping audio and jaw-dropping anecdotes, focusing on two brothers who found themselves at the center of the attack, only one made it out alive. This is a story about privilege, whose lives are valued when it comes to a rescue, and whose stories are told in the aftermath of tragedy. It shares DNA with Sweet Bobby, another Tortoise show. Tortoise is putting out some great stuff. Listen here.
๐๏ธHopefully by our next world war we will have a better way at shutting down the spread of online disinformation, but right now, itโs complete madness out there. BBC disinformation reporter Marianna Spring is hosting a new show called War on Truth, where she talks to Ukrainian citizens (who are having factual arguments with Russian relatives that are even more fraught than the ones weโve been having with some of our parents about Trump,) Ukrainian social media stars who are fighting online hate, and an influencer who went from talking about beauty to propagandaโฆabout what itโs like to be on the front lines of the first online war. These are relevant, personal stories that are crucial in understanding the war in Ukraine. Itโs like if Bridget Toddโs There Are No Girls on the Internet had a very smart Ukrainian baby. Look out Harvard here she comes! Listen here.
๐๏ธPower is dedicating a season to Don King, and in the first episode gets into something that as a Clevelander, particularly interests meโthe Don King of Cleveland, where he killed a man in front of a now-defunct bar called the Manhattan Tap Room at East 100th Street and Cedar Avenue (and they almost renamed that street after him) and got his start in becoming the most successful boxing promoter of all time and both the best and worst thing to happen to pro boxing. (THAT WAS A LONG SENTENCE. Someone please edit this newsletter!) Don was absolutely eccentric and following his life you get pieces of Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, and the Jacksons, and the dark shit that Kingโs done that weโve all just kind of loled about over the years. Panama Jackson talks to people who worked with King, and they have some wild stories. (King declined the invitation to be interviewed for the show.) The guests werenโt trying to be funny, but the stories are so funny youโll probably be laughing. Listen now.
๐๏ธIf you think a tech/business podcast hosted by Jacob Goldstein, the former longtime host of NPR's Planet Money, might seem too techy/business-y, please keep reading. Whatโs Your Problem? talks with entrepreneurs and engineers about the futures theyโre trying to create and whatโs getting in their way. Itโs really a people podcast, a storytelling show. I mean the first episode is about weiner dog ramps. But a business student could be taking notes on what to do, what not to do, and how to think about business differently. Listen now.
๐๏ธOf all the podcasts I listen to, Straightiolab continues to contain the highest lol moments, yet continues to be smart and make me think about gender and sexism and homophobia in a new way. No, I wonโt shut up about it. This weekโs episode with Dave Mizzoni had a fascinating segment about handshake trauma (โthe greeting between a straight man and gay man will never not be fraught. The entire history of queer history plays out in one second. How do you not make it weird?โ) and the gross masculinity woven into male product branding (โMan branding is like, โyouโre the king of the castle.โ Woman branding is like, โeverywhere you look people think youโre disgusting, but when youโre home itโs your time to shine.โโ) Sam and George, let me know next time youโre at Boiler Room. I live across the street. Listen here.
๐๏ธIf youโre into Scam Goddess, youโll want to listen to Laci Mosley on Youโre Wrong About (debunking Ronald Reaganโs Welfare Queen) and I Weigh (where she talks about learning to love her body as much as her younger self did, colorism, and the racism she faced when iCarly announced her casting on the show.) There is a weird thing going on here where you start to wonder if thereโs a difference between Laci Mosley the person and Scam Goddess the brand. (At one point Sarah brings up Elizabeth Holmes and Laci says, โI love her!โ and you can tell Sarah is wondering how serious she is) but Laci breaks character on I Weigh. A whole new side of her is revealed and you get a great sense of the woman who is Scam Goddess. Listen to Youโre Wrong about here, I Weigh here.
๐๏ธThis is the last time I will be writing about Wild Boys because Sam Mullins has released the final episode. I have been listening to it nervously, wondering when I would get bored or stop liking it, but that never happened and the finale was perfect. Before trying to become some kind of fruit entrepreneur, Roen is sent to the US, where he is completely mishandled by the health care system. (He should have stayed in Canada.) The ending of this story feels perfectly wrapped up and a little bit peaceful, something I did not expect. I will miss the town of Vernon, Sam, and even Kyle and Roan. Listen here.
๐๏ธIf you havenโt been listening to the new season of Under the Influence, youโre missing out. Each episode is a thorough investigation into a different tunnel of how women interact on the internet. An episode about how women teachers are forced to shill for supplies on Instagram, while simultaneously being punished for being on Instagram, had me ragingโespecially when Jo considers that men are given more lee way when creating personal posts. Jo is a sharp pro in making you feel for the story just as much as she does, she is comfortable in letting you in on her vulnerabilities, and using audio footage of her own personal conversations that add texture to the journalism she is doing. Every episode is knocking it out of the park, coming together to paint a picture of what itโs like to be a woman onlineโshe puts to words feelings women-identifying people have surely had in their own digital spaces. Itโs eerie. Listen here.
๐๏ธSometimes I write about Maintenance Phase and think, โwhy am I doing this?โ Surely all Podcast the Newsletter readers are listening to each episode the moment it drops, right? (But I just asked my dad, who not just reads my newsletter but pastes each issue on his refrigerator, if heโd listened and he said whatโs that.) So dad, maybe just you, but maybe other people, tooโMaintenance Phaseโs two-parter on Jordan Peterson is both troubling and rage-inducing and sad and also annoying because Aubrey and Michael kind of get you to feel sorry for this guy. Yes, they point out some of the completely dangerous things he says and does, the carnivore diet that almost killed him, and his mysterious disappearance from public, but they also paint a picture of someone who isnโt well. Itโs really too bad that I doubt Jordan Peterson will listen to it (unless Iโm wrong about him, I was wrong about my dad, after all.) But on my episode wish list Iโm adding Aubrey and Michael appearing on Jordanโs show, something Iโm sure they would not like but I would pull out the popcorn for. Part one here, part two here.
๐๏ธDylan Marron dropped an episode of Conversations with People Who Hate Me that he kind of openly considered a failure, but ended up being the opposite. His guest was Michael James Schneider, aka โBalloon Guy,โ who gained notoriety for taking colorful photos of himself in front of big mylar balloons to impart serious, impactful messages like โStop trying to make the wrong people love you the right way.โ Itโs something you wouldnโt think would get him death threats, but it did. Dylan reached out to many of Michaelโs haters (many of them gay men, which adds mystery to the story because Michael is also gay) but none of them would come onto the show to have an open conversation with Michael. None of them. Usually Dylan scraps these episodes that donโt get to the stage where the internet hater and victim can get into a conversation with him (he laments inventing a show that by design, people donโt really want to be a guest on.) But he made this episode, anyway, sans trolls, and it led to an interesting discussion. What leads people to lash out over things as silly as balloons? Why didnโt anyone want to be a guest on the episode? Michael, who is at home with using cheerful phrases for his artwork, tells Dylan โhurt people hurt people.โ But Dylan pushes backโare they really hurt people? Is that whatโs really going on? Or has the internet just gamified everything to the point we can easily shirk responsibility for the waves we make there? It doesnโt seem like weโre all playing by the same internet rulesโsome people think their comments are harmless jokes, but when others take them more seriously, theyโre torn down once again. Listen here.
๐๏ธLast week on There Are No Girls on the Internet, spiritualityย writer Brooke Obie talked to Bridget Todd about the Whitney Houston hologram in residency in Las Vegas, which sparked a surprising conversation about death, memory, and the ownership we have over ourselves after weโve died. Whitney Houstonโs image is being constructed for her without her consent and sheโs being put to work even in death. (Maybe we should see our celebrities in person when theyโre alive.) Itโs a Black Mirror-y look into the future of our digital rights and the Metaverse and what happens when an estate owns your likeness. Brooke points out an Atlantic piece that I could not put downโMike Marianiโs โThe Tragic, Forgotten History of Zombies,โ which maps out the origins of the zombie archetype, which was born in Haiti from 1625 to around 1800, when Haitian slaves, who often committed suicide, worried that if they took their own lives theyโd be condemned to slavery forever, trapped inside their bodies but with no agency over what happened to them. Itโs an interesting tie to Whitney Houston, whose hologram is perpetuating the hit-maker Whitney Houston we want to remember, but maybe not the one Black queer icon that she was. Listen now.
๐๏ธOn CAFEโs Now and Then, historians Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman took some time to talk about some of the stories coming out of Ukraine about women doing remarkable things and why we need to think about them in a new way. We have been fed comfortable stories about women warriors throughout history, women who were fictionalized (โMolly Pitcherโ) or just completely misrepresented (Harriet Tubman) all because there is a certain way the media likes to spin women in combat stories. If you like Citations Needed like I do, youโll love this conversation. Listen here.
๐๏ธConstants is โpart anthology series, part radio play and part existential meditation,โ that will topple your brain by dipping into the occult, the paranormal, and stories that have been told around campfires for centuries. The sound production makes you feel as if youโre dreaming, the writing is sharp, and the voices are haunting. Time stopped as I listened to the quiet yet terrifying Chumboy, a cautionary tale about a boy who feels a special connection to someone being bullied. Listen here.
๐๏ธWe think of Brown v. Board of Education as a hopeful moment in history that ended legal segregation in public schools, And it was. But a new show from Lemonada, After 1954, is telling the full story, how the firing of tens of thousands of Black teachers in the south led to generations and generations (itโs still happening) of Black students thrown into environments that did not represent them. Educator and nonprofit leader Aimรฉe Eubanks Davis addresses what Black educators can have on a Black studentโs life, and what happens when Black representation in schools is denied. Itโs a tough subject but I couldnโt believe how much I enjoyed listening. Listen here.
๐๏ธAPM Reports, KUER, and The Salt Lake Tribune have come together to produce an investigative look at Utah's massive teen treatment industry that has enveloped some 20,000 teenagers from every state in the country over the last six years. After death, allegations of abuse, criminal charges, bizarre punishments, and an influx of whistleblowers, the state protected these centers. Why? Sent Away has dug up all the facts and voices from the people who have survived to try to find out why we couldnโt keep these teenagers safe. Listen here.
๐๏ธLiza Treyger is working through shit with her enemies and exploring enemy culture on her new podcast Enemies. She talked to the owner of NYC's legendary Comedy Cellar, Noam Dworman, about a very personal beef they had and how Noam fosters conflict-forward debate among the performers at the Cellar.ย Itโs a give-no-fucks, uncomfortable conversation about comedy and giving stage to comedians who are saying contentious things, and where Noam draws the line. Listen here.
๐๏ธFor reasons I will not get into now, I listened to You Must Remember Manson in its entirety at 3x speed which took a mere 161 minutes and when I find out what kind of damage that did to my brain I will report back!!!! Itโs an excellent series and looks at the Manson murders in a new wayโwith the context of Mansonโs musical dreams, and the role Hollywood played in the cultโs growth and the eventual murders of Sharon Tate, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and Jay Sebring. Join me, wonโt you?
๐๏ธContinuing on their boy band series, Chelsey Weber-Smith invited This Ends at Promโs BJ and Harmony Colangelo onto American Hysteria to talk about pop music, the emo scene (the haircuts!,) the freedom of fan groups, how hair metal is a huge middle finger to masculinity, and so many other fascinating things about pop music that I was underlining nearly the whole thing in my brain. Listen here.
๐๏ธI love you!