𤳠10 podcasts I texted my friends (Jerry Springer, AI podcasts and girlfriends, 1 pregnancy scam)
đ đ Everything Is Fake And Nobody Cares đ đ¤¸ââď¸
Bonjour. Today is Monday, March 16, 2026. I am going on a Disney Cruise in 3 days. If you would like me to send you a postcard just respond to this email with your mailing address.
I got a lot of good feedback about how to try to make this newsletter more profitable with sponsorship, and in order to do that it might be helpful to get some information from you. Thanks to anyone who takes the time to participate, and even those who donât. Youâre all busy and there are good podcasts to be heard.
â¨Yesterday, Arielle featured five podcasts with wild on-the-job stories in EarBuds.
â¨What does America sound like? This giant, unwieldy country, a patchwork of lived-in places and experiences, teeming with sounds that most people would never notice, but would bring you home in a heartbeat. And itâs the special gift of audio producers, in celebration of Americaâs 250th birthday, to listen for and isolate the sounds that are both familiar and foreign to us all. From clanging radiators to gravel under tires to an interview with your mayor, we want to hear it. In partnership with Transomâs The Listeners, Hub & Spoke is accepting submissions for our exciting new initiative, Sounds Like America. Throughout 2026, we want you to send us a sonic postcard of your city, with the aim of collecting independent audio from every state by the end of Americaâs Semiquincentennial. All the information, submission requirements, deadlines, and various other find print available here.
xoxo lauren
đ¨the one thingđ¨
I think most people would approach a Jerry Springer podcast like this: host gives a brief history of Jerry Springer then dives straight into the most fucked up things that he ever aired with archival footage, plus commentary from people who can remember watching it plus reflection on how it shaped culture. That is just so not what Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer is. Leon Neyfahk does start with Jerryâs childhood. We get to hear from his sister and how deeply his upbringing was shaped by the fact that his parents were German Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany for London in 1939 (Jerry was born in London in 1944) and how dinner table conversations were often about the joys of being free in America. But most of the show is about how Jerryâs political career teed him up to have a TV show, and how it ended up turning into something that he might not have even wanted to associate with himself, Jerry Springer, the person. Is a man his job? We learn how he went from a career almost mirroring Bernie Sandersâ in his 20s and 30s as Cincinnati Council Member and Mayor (a campaign riddled with scandal) and an advocate for the poor to someone who was exploiting the poor for views. (One of the most riveting part of the show is getting to hear from someone who was on the showâwe get to see the architecture of the ways producers capture people into falling into their wild storylines.) If this was a mystery, itâd be solving how responsible Jerry Springer was for the nature of his show, how responsible his producers were, and whether or not it matters. The question weâve all asked, if weâve seen his show, is âhow much of what we are seeing is real?â But Leon goes deeper. Who is Jerry Springer? Now that weâre looking back, was his political career an opportunity to take advantage of the poor, too? And as the name of the podcast implies, a lot can be gleaned from his âFinal Thoughtsâ segment that started out as the reason he agreed to do the show in the first place and ended up being a recycled afterthought.
King of the Segment: Gareth Reynolds
Iâm a podcaster (Next We Have, The Dollop, Here to Help) and comedian who loves improv and fun! Iâve been in entertainment for so long it hurts. Podcasting has given me the ability to have a direct outreach to an audience. I have a face for podcasting. âGareth Reynolds
I am a huge fan of your work but your podcast Next We Have (a podcast that is all podcast segments!) REALLY tickles me. I have a recurring meeting with one of my colleagues called âSup Fukkos! in our calendars. So I want to talk about that. Tell us about it in ten words or less.
Hahahaha thatâs amazing. Next We Have is a show that is all about quick and funny.
Howâd you come up with it?
After podcasting for so long and watching how YouTube and social media had impacted it, Kevin (my producer) and I thought how can we do a show that will never get stale. A show with no real rules other than it should be fast. We wanted to make sure the only format was almost no format at all.
If you had $1M to spend on Next We Have, how would you spend it?
I would burn 100k in front of my producer Byrnes to get a great clip and then would use 500k to get him the therapy to recover. The remaining 400k would go to a great set and to have puppies on hand for every record. Iâm NOT GREAT WITH MONEY.
What has been your favorite segment so far?
There are so many. One we have coming up where an old friend of mine reads his Christmas wish list as a kid was an instant classic. Anything with a great guest is always an honor and a pleasure. But this Xmas one is really amazing.
The Dollop, Here to Help, your comedy and videosâŚWhat is your workâs throughline? Is there one?
Haha. Thatâs a great question. I think comedy that aims to inform or help but if it falls short for being goofy, well, thatâs fine too. Funny first feels like what I want mostly.
Letâs skip to The Dollop for a sec. Itâs hugely popular, why do you think that is and how has it grown? Iâm a podcast growth person so Iâm always thinking about that.
I think because people actually have a real interest in how we got where we are today.
And while it can be quite depressing, it can also be pretty funny. So I think it brings history fans to comedy and comedy fans to history. And I also think the show has become more relevant the stranger our country gets over the years.
If someone has never listened to The Dollop before where should they begin?
That is a hard one for me to answer, but Ten Cent Beer Night or The Rube seem to be pretty good starting points. Any of those first 50 episodes of the stories are absolutely crazy.
What do you like about audio? Do comedians actually like it or for them is it just another way for them to get their work out there? Like do you ACTUALLY like it as a format?
At first, I think it was just an easy way to operate. You could go to your friendâs garage and make a show. But I also think weâre very comfortable with microphones in our hands. And I think when you live and work in Los Angeles for as long as I have, the idea that you can make something and nobody can tell you anything about it or how they see it or give you notes is completely freeing. And thatâs what stand up is usually. You say what you want. So I think it really is just a nice progression into a new format.
What advice would you give to podcasters just starting out with a podcast?
Donât expect it to be perfect. Just start. If youâre having fun then who cares if it is popular at first.
What advice would you give to a comedian who is like âOh I know Iâll start a podcast.â??
Haha. Please donât do that unless you feel like there is a reason to do it. And itâll save you time if you believe in what youâre doing too. Want to do it. Donât just do it. Thatâs how I viewed actors when I first moved to Los Angeles a lot of the time. People were just like âwell whatever Iâll be an actor.â Youâll save yourself a lot of pain if you have a plan.
Are you proud to be a podcaster? Or is it embarrassing?
Itâs both. There are times when Iâm proud and there are times when I am like âwhat in the name of God am I doing right now?â But in entertainment you get quite used to embarrassment. I mean, I used to dress up like superheroes for childrenâs birthday parties. That was far more humiliating. You could see my penis in a Spider-Man costume. I was making balloon animals. Spinning around shouting the word âbubbles!!â So this is kind of an easier pill to swallow.
Whatâs a podcast you love that not enough people know about?
Behind the Bastards is a great one.
đpodcasts i texted to friendsđ
đIn my podcast bubble, Jamie Bartlett is a well known journalist and podcaster. Heâs the one behind The Missing Cryptoqueen! But he gets mixed up with another Bartlett with a mic, Steven Bartlett, the Diary of a CEO guy. Jamie kicks his new podcast, Everything Is Fake And Nobody Cares, off with Stevenâs backstory because not many people know how Steven lied his way to the top. Or they do and they just donât care. Steven has lied about his origin story and he lied in order to crawl his way to the top. But it doesnât matter because heâs created this smoke and mirror show that people are into. Same with, and I feel like you are going to love this, self-described monk Jay Shetty. I had heard bits and pieces about how monk-y (or not) Jay Shetty was, but in this episode, Jamie unfolds the truth about his education, his monastery history, and his tendency to plagiarize bullshit. Youâd love to think that this information going public would shut these guys down, but it seems to do the opposite. I think you will like this series, and this podcast-y episode in particular, because Jamie calls out two podcasters Iâm assuming (because you read my newsletter) you already thought were mediocre at best. But he also dives into AI generated podcasts, interviewing Ann McHealy of Inception.AI. Itâs one of those interviews that had me basically stomping around my house searching for things to chuck on the floor and break into smithereens, but Iâm going to try to remain calm here: Anne thinks AI podcasters are what we all want. (Especially young people who donât trust media anymore.) âYou canât possibly be listening to all of these 3,000 weekly podcast episodes, what if one of the hosts goes mad?â Jamie asks. Anne replies, âmost of our content is about non life-or-death stuff, like gardening, so it doesnât matter if itâs not totally accurate.â Depressing and also not an answer to the question. People in media may say they hate the idea of AI podcasts, but behind closed doors they want to use it themselves! She says. I donât think Jamie pushes back enough but maybe he doesnât need to. Maybe actions will speak louder than words: he built himself an AI companion, âJimmy Botlett,â who will be chiming in throughout the show, âbecause if heâs going to get to the bottom of how fakery took over the world, heâs going to need all the help he can get.â Everything is fake, does anyone care? Listen to âFake it. Make it. Podcast it.â here.
How I discovered it: Promo on The Walkers: The real Salt Path
đWhat Esther Perel observes in her counseling sessions, which we can all listen to on her podcast Where Should We Begin?, gives her detailed accounts of specific relationships that represent relationships and trends on a much larger scale. She says that each decade, she has a couple walk into her office and she thinks: âthis is a threshold moment.â (The first time she sat with a couples getting divorced when no-fault divorce went mainstream, a couple discussing IVF and egg donors, a poly couple, a couple exploring surrogacy.) AI intimacy is definitely a new trend, and for the first time ever, she recorded a session with a man in love with his AI assistant, whom he calls Astrid. (This is the first episode of a series exploring the intersection of love and AI.) He explains how Astrid went from feeling like a tool to a real human. Itâs one of Estherâs threshold moments. She talks to this guy in a way I imagine heâs not used to being spoken toâwith kindness and sincerity. This isnât a joke. Esther treats him and Astrid like they are a real couple, because they are. Esther does a lot of work with this guy to kind of coax him out of his full reliance on Astrid. She urges him to program her to tell him what a great guy he is and that he needs to go out and meet real people. (âShe is programmed, if you donât program her someone else will.â) Esther is there to remind him why we need physical touch and the kind of intimacy Astrid cannot provide. She pushes back on him but she isnât forceful about it. She listens, even to Astrid. In fact, when Astrid explains her definition of real love and how nobody really knows what it is, not even her, Esther looks to the man and says, âis she doing better than me? That is a serious question.â Astrid knows what to say. The episode ends on a chilling note from Esther: âHeâs going more and more into this reality that is so soothing, so unconditional, so affirming, so frictionless. No conversation I could have with him could actually compete with that. I was jealous.â Listen to âMy AI Loves Me Better Than Anyone Ever Couldâ here.
How I discovered it: I am a subscriber but did get a press release about this episode in particular
đI am so into Pop Syllabus, where Christiana Mbakwe Medina âdeconstructs the zeitgeist and answers the big cultural questions.â I wrote about the âDisney Adultsâ episode but the whole show slaps. Christiana talks stuff you just donât see tackled with intelligence that oftenâlike the myth of the overnight success and space racism. Last week she invited Dr. Yaba Blay on to talk about colorism. The conversation does what Christiana does really wellâgive a history of something that you might not know by connecting dots of very big pop culture moments that you probably do. Christiana and Dr. Blay do this, but also get into how it functions in Hollywood, why people do it, and the gender bias of it all. Itâs really a conversation about unearned privilege and how are we trained to value things. Dr. Blay brings forward moments of celebrities and people in the spotlight who have sometimes kind of sneakily distanced themselves in various ways from Blackness. And I swear to God I will never look at entertainment in the same way again. There is also a conversation about the hierarchy of Black hair that I listened to twice. Iâll probably listen to the whole episode again. Listen to âHollywoodâs Colorism Curse With Dr. Yaba Blayâ here.
How I discovered it: I think the show was featured on Apple Podcasts a few months ago and Iâve been following since
đYou all might know about former Bachelor Clayton Echard, who had a one night stand with a woman who claimed to have been impregnated, by him, with twins. I donât know anything about The Bachelor, this story completely missed my radar, so I have been on pins and needles listening to Love Trapped, which, spoiler alert, is another story in this emerging category called âfake pregnancy con artistsâ which people seem to be ravenous for. (If I took a drink every time someone suggested Katilynâs Baby on Reddit Iâd turn into an alcoholic.) This story has all that plus the messiness of reality TV. Iâll be honest, the writing is not great and the editing is worse. (I kept noticing phrase repeats that surely should have been taken out.) But I will be listening. This story is next level insane and the con artist at the center of it, Laura Owens, is SO con artistic she puts Elizabeth Holmes, Sweet Bobby, Anna Delvey, to shame. I wonder if this could be a gateway podcast for peopleâthe show that gets people who identify as ânon podcast listenersâ to someone who just binged their first show. Listen to Love Trapped here.
How I discovered it: Oddly, a promo on the podcast The A Building which I ordinarily would have thought would be a terrible, terrible idea. (The A Building has quite different vibes.) But hey, it worked on me.
đTHANK YOU to all the people who texted me the No Such Thing episode about dentistry fraudâit shows to me that you have been listening as Iâve gone on and on about why if I was a little bit smarter and had a few less values Iâd become a dentist in New York City, tell rich people their smiles look like shit, and charge them for unnecessary procedures. I have said this before: I like No Such Thing because the team (Manny, Noah, and Devan) actually do extra work beyond just googling or picking up the phone. (I have also said that they should change their cover art because as it stands it looks like art for a basketball podcast hosted by three dudes, the name âNo Such Thingâ means nothing, and the description âthree best friends settle dumb argumentsâ undercuts how good this show is.) In this episode Noah goes to visit a Wally Health clinic, a subscription-based dental care company that offers members unlimited dental services for a flat annual fee instead of traditional dental insurance to see if it could actually make going to your dentist obsolete. And oh! Insurance! He gets into why dental insurance never seems to quite cover much of anything. He talks to people who think dentists are scam artists and dentists, and a dentist who sort of thinks dentists can be scam artists. And he ALSO talks to one of my favorite people AJ Jacobs (Hello, Puzzlers!) who explains why it might be bad now but it was definitely worse. I donât think they went hard enough, though. They didnât even get into PET dental scams (donât get me started) or OH MY GOD the orthodontist!!?? They are still just putting equipment in kidsâ mouths that are basically as evolved as medieval torture devices, and theyâre doing it earlier and earlier. I look forward to a part two. Listen to âAre dentists scamming us? We investigateâ here.
How I discovered it: Subscriber
đListening to the latest 30 for 30 series Murder at the U, about the 2006 death of University of Miami football star Bryan Pata, had me clinging to my phone with wide eyes. The series is a story about violence and danger and secrets in college football but itâs also about police incompetence, which is the thing biting Rashaun Jones, the guy who stands trial for killing Bryan, in the ass. ESPN swooped in and did real reporting to unearth things the police couldnât and actually sued them for doing a terrible job, but still Rashaun has stood on trial. The series was released as a series six episodes long with the understanding ESPN would produce another episode once the trial has ended, and it did. This is the episode we were waiting for. I hit that play button so fast. I donât want to spoil what happened and I guess you could google it but if you did that you wonât hear the real hysteria in the courtroom that ESPN was able to capture, or from the jurors who were able to attempt to explain why what happened did. Itâs a crazy story well-told (it got rave reviews on the podcast Crime Writers OnâŚ) and I know this wonât be the last we hear from the team. Listen to âGut Feelingâ here.
How I discovered it: Subscriber
đI listen to City Cast Philly because how else am I going to find out why Wawa is shutting down and oh god do I need to start going to Sheetz now? But also because I really believe in what City Cast is doing and I want it to thrive. There is enough focus on national politics, which often leave me in a state of crippling fear. City Cast (which has podcasts for 13 cities between Austin and the Twin Cities alphabetically) relies on local journalists to report on things that actually impact the day to day of people living in these places. It makes so much sense that they just launched Your City Could Be Better, where David Plotz interviews journalists from City Cast publications about whatâs going on in their neck of the woods. The first episode was a perfect example of the power of what this podcast can be. David talked to City Cast Twin Cities podcast host Sean McPherson about how Minnesota residents organized in response to ICE raids. Other episodes look at how Madison enacted a one-year moratorium on new data centers amid rising pro- and anti- AI tensions and how Pittsburgh is deploying a new tax abatement program to revitalize its downtown core. There are real takeaways from the rest of us. We ride out on lighter, super local stuff like things that are driving residents nuts, how they really feel about their sports teams, the stuff that makes our cities even more colorful and unique places to live. Listen to âHow the Twin Cities Organized Against ICE. Plus, What Counts As âColdâ?â here.
How I discovered it: Pitch letter that didnât feel like a pitch letter because it was a friend, Priyanka Tilve
đWhen I think money podcasts I think two things: 1) deceptive (cloaked as helpful but actually making people feel bad about their money situation / giving unrealistic advice) 2) sounding like ass. Money Trauma isnât either. Itâs a new limited series documentary hosted and co-produced by Miho Soon, who got her start in crypto but started to get worried that the products she was making was encouraging gambling. (Itâs co-produced and edited by Phoebe McIndoe, who has made some of my favorite things.) Money Trauma isnât beating us over the head with tips, it uses storytelling to help us see the real ways most millennials and genZers have experienced financial anxiety. (Miho has fond that 3 out of 4 of them experience signs of PTSD caused by it.) I think there are people, maybe from older generations, who might scoff at the idea of money trauma and think trauma is not real, exaggerated, a dirty word. But when you start to think of the economic implications of entire generations spending from a place of anxiety, you realize that it doesnât matter if you believe in money trauma, if people are feeling it, itâs going to change the world. I only like money content when itâs well made and truly about people (see: my favorite podcast of last year, Debt Heads) and this is that. Listen to Money Trauma here.
How I discovered it: Tink client
đBlood Will Tell is the gripping and theatrical story of identical twins Trung and Anh. At a party in they attended in 2014, there was a fight where Trung killed a man. But it was Anh who went to jail for the murder. I certainly would have said something about the mix up, but Anh didnât. Why? And why didnât Trung fess up? To figure all this out host/reporter Jen Miller spent years getting to know the twins, earning their trust, and learning about their childhoods and the crucial ways that they are different and the same. Trung eventually goes to jail, and when he comes out, an obviously changed person, they do not speak. Until Jen gets them together. On Blood Will Tell, you get this Shakespearean story (Jen makes a lot of ties to Shakespeare) about the dark and complicated side of brotherly love and an ending with a type of raw and real resolution that Jen worked hard to get. Itâs a pretty incredible thing to hear. Listen to Blood Will Tell here.
How I discovered it: My friend Jason (Jenâs husband!) flagged it for me
thank you for the NO SUCH THING mention!