🍪 Fantasy cookie draft 🏆 well disasters 🕳️ Glory Hole Santa returns🎅 the so-called mystery of Rapa Nui🗿
🍪 Fantasy cookie draft 🏆 well disasters 🕳️ Glory Hole Santa returns🎅 the so-called mystery of Rapa Nui🗿
🍭 👂 TRUST ME! 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour!
Today is Monday, January 2. In case this email is too long, two remarkable podcast endings here and here, a shocking story your history books missed here, the wild naked butthole sunning, urine drinking sexual kung-fu instructor is real, here.
xoxo lp
ps If you are pleased with Podcast The Newsletter, please spread the word.
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Laura Mayer
Laura Mayer was a producer at WNYC, became employee number one at Slate’s Panoply network, moved to Stitcher as the Executive Producer in charge of new show development, and then cofounded the production company Three Uncanny Four with Sony Music Entertainment. She is the creator of Shameless Acquisition Target. Follow her on Twitter here.
Explain Shameless Acquisition Target in 10 words or less.
Selling out as hard and as fast as possible.
I read that some of your peers warned you that Shameless Acquisition Target could hurt your career. Do you think that’s true?
The jury is still out on that one!
I’ve basically only defined myself by work since I could work (starting as a librarian’s very junior assistant when I was 12). The question of whether my career has been hurt or otherwise changed in a negative way that I caused has kept me up some nights this summer. And, if I’m honest, has kept me up at night since I’ve had my kid.
Having a kid, getting acutely very ill right after having my kid (I’m good now!), and my work life changing so dramatically right around the same time, caused a bit of a crisis of … career confidence, that I think is probably more common than I once thought? There’s been a reassuring counterbalance to people who’ve expressed their concern about me being employable again. I’ve had people reach out to me about different opportunities that I wouldn’t have gotten if I hadn’t made the show.
Do you have a bad taste in your mouth about podcasting or are you still excited about it?
Not at all! I still care so much about podcasts, creatively, and the business of podcasting. I’m still excited by the podcast business, with the opportunities, with the business changes that I think will need to happen in the next years as the medium matures.
On a personal level, if it weren’t for podcasting I literally wouldn’t have my family (my husband and I met because he heard me on a podcast 10 years ago – talk about the power of the podcast ad!). I grew up listening to the radio. That was my primary mode of imagination. That’s continued, and will always continue, with me through podcasting – as a listener, as a maker, or a as a podcast POWER BROKER (I’m kidding).
If you were going to produce and host another show about anything…your budget is $1M and don’t worry about the logistics or whether or not anyone would like it…what would it be?
Given that I would have one million dollars, I’d make use of that, and create an imprint of shows in which the person at the center of it goes HARD on a journey – a buoyant, fun journey, with real emotional stakes – to go out and get theirs. Whatever that is. I might host a season on some other dumb goal that’s not trying to sell out as hard and as fast as possible.
I’m a bit of an accidental-on-purpose host. I think I’m a much better at working with talent and weighing the business/creative decisions than I am at being the talent. So this is to say, I’d both love to make a very specific network of voice-driven shows with hosts hellbent to achieve goals. I’d also love selling ads for that network and running that sweet, sweet P&L.
What did you feel when you hit publish on the first episode of Shameless Acquisition Target?
Really, really, really nervous! I scheduled the first episode to launch the night that I discovered the first of many, many mosquitoes that hatched in my floor. So also, itchy.
Fill in the blank. You will like Shameless Acquisition Target if you like _______.
Nathan Fielder, Elle Woods and/or the podcast Startup.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
In a move that shocked Honeys across the world, beauty talk shock jock, queen of creams, host with the most serums and the freshest fringe on the west coast, your favorite over 30 niche influencer and kooky Southern aunt Jackie Johnson has decided to close shop on Natch Beaut, the comedy/beauty podcast that has been uplifting my spirits and making me laugh for years. (And I’m not a beauty-head.) Jackie’s brilliance is in her comedic genius, her way with words, and her ability to make everyone feel fantastic. And her singing voice—she has kicked off every single freaking episode of Natch Beaut with her own beauty parody song. I can’t wait to see what she does next, but for now enjoy her goodbye episode, which is maybe my favorite episode of them all, and one of the best final episodes of a show I’ve ever heard. She gives a tearful thanks to her listeners, which is a reminder how much a podcast can mean to the person making it and the community they created, then interviews herself the same questions she’s been asking people for more than 400 episodes. This assignment takes her to a perfect tangent of calling her family members to solve a beauty-related memory from when she was a baby, which is so sweet and evocative of our own childhoods. Don’t be sad that it’s over, be happy that it happened. Thank you, Jackie J.
Pair it with a book: The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty, a magical and comedic take on modern love, the power of friendship, and the allure of disguise. See my bookshelf here.
oh hey
✨Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted Skyline Drive in her newsletter and podcast.
✨Podcast marketing and publishing: what's in and what's out for 2023?
✨Shreya Sharma wrote up a really nice podcasting 2022 year in review for Inside Podcasting.
✨Call 1-844-POD-AT-ME (1-844-763-2863) to hear a daily podcast recommendation, and leave your own recommendation at the beep! You can suggest your own show so this is a great way to market your show. Don’t worry, we won’t answer the phone! (We know calling random numbers can be terrifying.)
💎BTW💎
🎙️Laura Meyer’s finale of the glorious Shameless Acquisition Target is here, and it’s a lively, hilarious, honest, fascinating ending to Laura’s mission to making a hugely profitable and meta podcast about profitable podcasts. Ira Glass, who will not buy Shameless Acquisition Target, is guest (but…spoiler alert: someone else will!) but gives a great interview about This American Life as a successful business, something most people don’t think about, and Laura revisits all of her promises and goals of the show, how she faltered, how she succeeded, who she pissed off, and exactly how much money she made and lost. It’s all set to a catchy showtuney musical score that feels as dramatic as the show’s arc. This might not have been the ending Laura wanted but to many people like me, this is one of the coolest things anyone has done in audio. In my heart I can’t understand why this show wasn’t massively successful, in my brain I know why it wasn’t. But I guess it all depends on what your definition of success is. (I’d call it a huge success.) If you’re a podcast nerd, you’ll appreciate every second, and if you want to understand podcasts and listen to something totally different, it’s necessarily listening. Thank you, Laura. Stay tuned to Shameless Acquisition Target, there will hopefully be more on the feed in the spirit of the original show. Listen to the finale here.
🎙️I was late to listen to Rachel Maddow’s Ultra—I don’t think the name or cover art accurately captures what a wild, fascinating ride it is. But Arielle Nissenblatt strongly recommended it to me and I do whatever she tells me to and I’m glad I did. It starts with a the death of a Senator in a mysterious plane crash in 1940, an anecdote that opens the world of a plot to overthrow the government at the hands of members of Congress, and how US taxpayers funded Nazi propaganda that spread anti-Semitism channeled through our government for years. It’s shocking bomb after bomb of unbelievable facts (that would have been much more unbelievable prior to Jan 6, 2021.) A history that has pretty much gone untold. The story is anxiety-inducing but Rachel’s storytelling style is calming, somehow. If you weren’t listening the words, you might think she was reading you a pop-up book at the children’s library, making the complexities are easy to follow. The pacing kind of hits you over the head with the facts, but I’m glad because if a show like this was too dense it would be hard for people to get through it, and people really should get through it. It’s important, well done, and enjoyable to listen to. This is one of those shows you’ll want to pass along to someone, to share this secret that most history books have been neglecting. I devoured the website, which offers archival photos and bonus info. Listen here.
🎙️I assumed Man Thinkers would be full of lazy jokes about toxic masculinity, but as I’ve said before, co-hosts George Collins and Dan Finkelstein lean hard into the bit and the result is laugh out loud hilarious. They interview real doctors and experts about testosterone, egg-freezing, and being a better man, in the characters of two Libertarian/incel gross men who were cancelled by “liberal” YouTube and have found a place for their voice on a podcast. One of my favorite episodes was an interview with Will Blunderfield who drinks his own urine, suns his asshole, and teaches classes in sexual kung-fu. I was listening while I was putting up my Christmas tree with Justin and we were doubled-over laughing. I thought Will was a break in the format, a character. That this was a bit. But then I was listening to another new show from the BBC I just binged, The New Gurus, which posits that Americans are more religious than ever, but use technology as their conduit and put their faith in internet gurus, seeking the truth by people selling promises of wellness, riches, sexual prowess, and power. One of the episodes is with Real Person and “wild naked man” Will Blunderfield, which made me realize this guy is actually sincere in his butthole sunning tips. The entire New Gurus series is great, host Helen Lewis interviews tons of experts, authors, followers, and leaders to examine what humans are searching for these days, and the charlatans they look to for fulfillment. Each episode is an adventure in bizarre cult-like behavior, but as a whole this podcast illustrates just how desperate we are to unlock life’s secret to a more efficient, better life, in basically any way we can imagine. Listen here.
🎙️It’s that time of the year again…Who? Weekly’s 2022 Who, Me? Awards. It’s a celebration of this fantastic show, her smart listeners (who are a crucial element of the show,) and the highs and lows of the Whos and Thems in celebrity culture. I know there are a lot of best-of lists, and some truly historic things happened this year, but Who? Weekly’s 2022 celebrity time capsule that accurately captures the spon-con, the surprise marriages, and the terrible baby names of b-listers seems just as important as anything you’ll get on The New York Times. If you haven’t listened to an episode of Who? Weekly, I actually think this is a good place to start. You might feel like an outsider attending a party where you don’t know what anyone is talking about, but you’ll be inspired to turn into an insider and a Who? Weekly regular. I promise. Listen here.
🎙️Tink’s Audio Delicacies is chock-full of audio gems you might not have heard about anywhere else. These are the diamonds in the rough that were skipped over by most best-of lists and discovery apps. There were tons of shows that even I didn’t know about, which made me feel like an insufficient human being because it is my job to know about every podcast under the sun. I managed to miss Nobody Should Believe Me, a podcast hosted by novelist Andrea Dunlop about Munchausen by Proxy that Jo Piazza recommended for the list. It’s a personal journey for Andrea, whose sister faked her own illness and the illness of her child, and a deep exploration into a topic rarely discussed—information about why Munchausen is long-term torture that’s hard to pin down and a crime that’s becoming easier to commit. Andrea talks to experts and victims and the whole time is trying to get a hold of one woman in particular—Hope Ybarra, who faked pregnancies, subjected her second daughter to dangerous and unnecessary medical procedures, and probably poisoned colleagues who were onto her crimes. And she finally gets her on mic. That interview does not feel like an interview at all, it feels like a woman truly searching for answers about her family that she hasn’t been able to get before. Watch out for season two. Listen here.
🎙️Justin and I never miss an episode of All Fantasy Everything, but it’s been a kind of hard sell. A bunch of guys playing a game for a very long time, taking endless tangents, isn’t something I normally seek out. But the game (drafting everything from TV dads to fast food fries) is always fun to listen to, the hosts (Ian Karmel, David Gborie, Sean Jordan) are hilarious, and it’s the one podcast that is more than an hour long and I often wish it was longer. If you’ve ignored my pleas in the past to try it, they ran an episode last week that I think everyone will identify with—they are in search of the perfect cookie. A long, heated debate about the best cookies by an electric group of comedians seems like the opposite of a hard sell to me. Try it out and let me know what you think.
🎙️Season two of Suspect’s focus is 12-year-old Jonelle Matthews, who went missing in 1984. Her case remained cold until 2019 when her body was found. There are so many podcasts about missing and murdered girls, and this one is as devastating as the rest, the interviews with Jonelle’s family are painful, the emotions are still so raw. But I loved this show because of the host, former CNN reporter Ashley Fantz She feels close to the story and I trust her, she’s smart but has a warmth with the people she talks to and her audience that made listening feel good, despite the horrible details. I usually listen to podcasts fast, but I slowed this one down because I was enjoying the ride so much. Ashley had me convinced I knew where the story was going and then turned things around to an unusual man who had been harboring an obvious obsession with Jonelle’s case. Like Suspect season one (a chef’s-kiss fantastic story about 24-year-old software developer, Arpana Jinaga, who was murdered at a Halloween party in 2008) the story is perfectly plotted, filled with tons of research and original investigation. Ashley got hooked on this case when her baby was a new born, and like Jonelle, her daughter is adopted. Maybe that is why this is the perfect story for Ashley to tell. Whatever the reason, it feels personal and heartfelt, and just really good storytelling and reporting. Listen here.
🎙️Rose Eveleth bids adieu to Flash Forward with a three-part episode ruminating on how to think about the future—part one: hope; part two: precipice; part three: pupation. It contains poetry, metaphor, research, interviews, and a deep dive into those Buzzfeed “Restore Your Faith in Humanity” photo posts and what they tell us about us. I wrote down something she said at one point: people are good, it’s just often easy to forget. Listen here here and here.
🎙️The guest of one of my favorite You’re Wrong About episodes Blair Braverman, returned for an episodes about people being trapped in small places, sometimes dying, and the media circus that will ultimately surround these events, and why. It’s three mini stories that are basically all versions of Baby Jessica in the well. Only one of them actually is about Baby Jessica, the other are her predecessors, Floyd Collins who got stuck in a Kentucky cave during the cave wars of 1925 and three-year-old Kathy Fiscus, who fell down an abandoned well in California in 1949. These survival stories stand as allegory for a simple puzzle—someone is trapped in a situation we can see, the solution just out of our reach but is yet impossible. It’s the simplicity that has grabbed our attentions for centuries and will probably continue to do so in the future, for whoever the next Baby Jessica may be, whatever iteration of “well” they happen to be trapped in. Listen here.
🎙️Run, Hide, Repeat is the audio memoir of Pauline Dakin, who had an eerie childhood. She spent her life in hiding, being moved around in secrecy, and in fear for her life. So that’s pretty strange, but then she finds out why, which reveals a baffling family secret that is not what you expect. Nobody could foresee where this podcast is going, it does a good twist on your brain. It’s intimate and well-paced, and is able to capture the fear Pauline had as a child, the strangeness she can remember observing, and the confusion she felt when in one moment everything started to make sense, a realization that left her with even more questions than she started with. This is quick and you’ll want to binge it. Listen here.
🎙️A few weeks ago I interviewed Omar Samra and Omar Nour, hosts of Beyond the Raging Sea, and I finally finished the series, which documents their 3,000-mile unsupported row across the Atlantic Ocean. It was produced in collaboration with a documentary they shot that bears the same name, but this isn’t just a podcast version of the doc. Episode by episode, host Lobna Monieb takes you through the journey, looking back at exactly what went wrong and right, what The Omars were thinking and feeling, and she interviews experts to expand themes like (lack of) sleep and despair that became main characters in The Omars’ story. It’s a great story, but also an investigation into the human body, mind, and tolerance threshold. The Omars do not tiptoe around how hard and torturous this was, there is zero sugar-coating. Getting into the heads of elite athletes who have accomplished something that challenged them more than any of their other accomplishments gives you a clear idea what rowing across the Atlantic is like, and the expert interviews explain why it was like that, and how we can compare our own inner and outer struggles with the ones the Omars experienced at sea. They did this to raise awareness to the plight of people crossing bodies of waters in rafts seeking life in a safer place—this isn’t just good storytelling, it will give you empathy for every headline you hear about refugees. Listen here.
🎙️On Why Do We Do That?, explorer, paleoanthropologist, evolutionary biologist, writer and stand-up comic Ella Al-Shamahi is asking why we are wired to kiss, risk, and sit to take a shit. Ella is having quick but deep conversations with scientists to figure out if our habits are due to culture or biology. I devoured each episode and now I want more. They are a blast, Ella really brings herself into the interviews, and episodes feature so many lightbulb moments that will change how you think about your interactions with the world. Listen here.
🎙️On The Secret Room, a woman named Alice shared about her complicated relationship with her mother, a woman who went from loving mother to a stranger, and eventually an enemy, who accused Alice of trying to kill her. In this two-parter Ben Hamm takes his time to let Alice piece together her past, and try to make sense of what happened to her mom, and how she was able to make her way through the landmine that was their relationship. Listen here and here.
🎙️If you don’t think you love poetry, start a Poetry Unbound ritual and see if it doesn’t convert you. For each episode, Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama reads a poem in a soothing tone then helps you appreciate it by walking you through what it means to him, and then reads it again. This podcast feels like Lexapro, it’s always something that always cuts out the business of my life when I’m listening, and makes me approach my day a little differently. Naomi Shihab Nye’s “I Feel Sorry for Jesus,” a lyrical and twisty ode to regarding Jesus with silence, has been sticking in my mind. But each episode is a piece of poetry heaven and a calming little vacation for your mind and soul. Listen here.
🎙️Somehow, Jamie Loftus brought the gang back together for Santa University Part 6, reviving the roles of Glory Hole Santa, Gal Santa, Goth Santa, Dean Santa, and featuring Nathan For You Recap Santa, and Arms Where His Eyes Should Be Santa, Knife Santa, and more, featuring some of your favorite comedians. (Robert Evans, Sarah Marshall, Chris Crofton…) The theme of this year is: Papyrus font. No real notes, here. Just listen.
🎙️I love you!
From the Archives
Over the weekend I relistened to two of my favorite pieces on Outside/In, both happened to be produced by Felix Poon. Ginkgo Love was made in response to another Outside/In piece, Ginkgo Stink, which was kind of offensive and failed to consider a nonwhite perspective. For Ginkgo Love, Felix shares his personal relationship with the ginkgo tree, what makes them fascinating, resilient plants, and explores the history of food-related racism in the United States. This is the ode to the Ginkgo that should have run in the first place. Listen here. Another Outside/In favorite is The So-Called Mystery of Rapa Nui, a story that explains how the Moai (those big statues Rapa Nui is famous for) were moved. The answer is something that had been known by the people of Rapa Nui all along, but a National Geographic crew swoops in to claim the discovery as their own. This is a story about truth and storytelling, and who gets a voice in talking about their own histories. Listen here.
This week we’re getting to peek into the listening life of Arielle Nissenblatt, head of community and content at SquadCast.fm. She’s the founder of EarBuds Podcast Collective. She’s all podcasts all the time.
The app you use to listen: 70% Pocket Casts, 15% Goodpods, 10% Apple, 2.5% Castbox, 2.5% Spotify.
What speed do you listen to podcasts? Most at 1.7x, but some at 2.0x. And some at 1.2x.
How do you discover new shows? Newsletters and promo swaps.
One show you love that everybody loves. American History Tellers
One show you love that not enough people know about. Media Circus
Hot take: There is a perfect podcast out there for everyone. And when you find it, it’ll change your world.
Self-care tip: Go for a podcast walk if you’re ever feeling stuck. No destination. Just put a podcast on and walk. Ideas and solutions will come to you!