The podcast I dropped everything to binge, Lauren Shippen's perfect new thing, something good marketed wrong, more.

🍭 👂"Whatever you do don’t turn on the lights" 🌈 🤸‍♀️

Bonjour.

Today is Monday September 8, 2025. In case this newsletter is too long…I was holding my breath the entire time I was binging this and now I’m dead, Lauren Shippen’s new thing is perfect, this is a great show that is marketed wrong.

xoxo

lauren

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🚨the one thing🚨

The setup for Wisecrack is good. Rain forces crime producer Jodi Tovay into a bar at Edinburgh Fringe, which is essentially her meet cute for Edd Hedges, the guy on stage, whose very funny set is transforming into something much darker before her eyes. He’s telling the story about growing up fat and awkward (haha) his class bully (haha) and how his class bully might have tried to break into his house to kill him and his family late one night after killing his own. Whatever you think this podcast is about, it’s not. This podcast is about sickness and trauma and murder and lies. Edd takes Jodi through a story that is full of them, some of them he admits, some of them not, to try to find out what actually happens. (There is a cameo from a comedian I love, Sophie Hagen, who thinks Edd is full of shit.) Layer upon layer, Jodi challenges the listener to think about what they believe happened that night. (“Had I just heard a true story of a double homicide wrapped in a comedy set told by a comedian who was almost the third victim or did he make the whole thing up?” Edd is challenged, too. This podcast sounds great, grips you from the first five seconds, plays well with its own metaness, and isn’t a second too long. The ending is perfect. I blew through it and could listen to it again right this very second. We’ve found our next Baby Reindeer.

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notes

✨On September 23 I’m hosting a live Growth Labs webinar with Captivate! More here.

✨Sign up here for my Podcast Marketing 101 Radio Boot Camp 9/22. I’m going to be sharing everything I know.

✨Yesterday, Arielle featured 5 comedy podcasts that roast late-stage capitalism (curated by Marianna of Sonar Podcast Network in EarBuds.

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~sponsored~

Drop the Mic: The Unapologetic Alternative to Podcast Conferences
The Feminist Podcasters Collective is hosting Drop the Mic, a free, four-day UnSummit for indie podcasters who are done with corporate fluff. Forget celebrity panels and cookie-cutter advice; we’re centering intersectional feminist voices, real conversations, and strategies that actually matter. Join us Sept. 15-18 to connect, collaborate, and reimagine what podcasting can be.

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👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋

Lauren Shippen

Lauren Shippen is an audio drama writer, director, and actor, who has been working in the medium for 10 years. She’s worked on dozens of shows - from her first independent podcast The Bright Sessions to podcasts for Marvel and Stranger Things; from elaborate mysteries like Passenger List to tiny microfiction narratives like Breaker Whiskey. Through her company Atypical Artists, she’s produced shows from other creators, and she’s always trying to find ways to keep audio drama the welcoming, accessible home for creatives that it’s always been to her.

Her new thing TWO THOUSAND AND LATE is insanely good.

Tell me about TWO THOUSAND AND LATE in ten words or less.
Millennial frustration, demonic possession, unlearning nihilism, and pina coladas.

What was the spark that made you say “aha, that’s the idea, that’s TWO THOUSAND AND LATE!”
When coming up with new ideas, it’s always fun to take stories you know well, or particular tropes, and think “what’s one way I could change that”. For me, the classic chosen one story where a teenage girl is given great and terrible power is always fun, and the thought occurred “well, what if it wasn’t a teenage girl, but a fully grown woman who is not doing well in her life”. The story evolved a bit from that concept, but that was the original idea - what would a not-at-all-impressionable adult do with sudden supernatural powers?

When you first told me about this show, you used the word rage. Can you elaborate what kind of rage and how you identify with it?
I don’t think I’m alone in feeling a lot of rage at the people in power these days–whether that’s the government, or tech overlords, or billionaires, or your bad boss, there are so many people with so much control over our lives who keep making terrible decisions and seem to be doing so for cruelty and no other reason. That specific rage–over things that directly affect your life but over which you barely have any control–is very much at the heart of the show.

You also used the word hope. But it seems like a kind of nuanced hope. Not hope that everything is going to be OK, but that the world is something to love and maybe worth fighting for. How do you see hope playing out here?
That’s such a lovely way of putting it–it isn’t hope that everything is going to be okay, but hope that you can find the energy and find the people that will help you fight another day. And that fight isn’t going to be easy or straightforward, but there is so much worth fighting for. The hope in the show is very much gritty and hard-won and not always easy to maintain. It’s the hope that, even when the world feels overwhelmingly difficult, you’ll never lose your ability to care about making it better.

What made you want to tap into rage when usually you go for a much softer and optimistic tone? (This question is from Wil Williams!)
I’ve felt a lot of rage in my life. It’s usually simmering right beneath the surface - a dear friend once described it as a “tiny little alligator demon sometimes waiting to snap its jaws living patiently inside the body of a softhearted guitar playing bread baking stucky shipper”. It is something that really only close friends see, because most of the time I do try to be soft and optimistic! I always try to see the best in people and in the world, but I don’t always win that fight. This show is very much a release of a lot of rage I’ve felt throughout my life - after years of learning how to manage it and express it productively, it felt like it was an emotion I could finally express in my public art.

Can you think of any adjectives you’d use to describe the SOUND because it’s amazing.
It IS amazing - Jeffrey Nils Gardner has done a spectacular job. To me, it’s like the best kind of magazine collage; the kind of thing I would make when I was a teenager, cutting out photos and headlines and vibes from my music magazines and pasting them into a hodge-podge expression of angst.

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💎podcasts i texted to friends💎

👂Lauren Shippen released the first two episodes of her new show TWO THOUSAND AND LATE, a scripted fiction show about a woman who, on her 36th birthday, gets possessed by a demon who was supposed to visit her on her 16th birthday. A possession story is not an easy one to tell with audio only and the way Lauren does it here is masterful. The demon’s personality alone is kind of a twist, let’s say she’s a bit more sophisticated and funny than the demons you’re used to hearing. What you hear, from the sound design to the acting to the dialogue, is impeccable, flowing and crystal clear it’s visual. It will really ruin other things for you. It’s also hysterical, I was writing down my favorite funny lines for some reason. What am I going to do with them? (I guess I’ll put them here: “I think we should kill Jared;” “no prison could hold us.”) The way Lauren was able to make me identify with the main character is hard to put into words—I felt like I was in her body and while her life details are oddly specific they felt like my own. Maybe that’s because this is a story about rage, something so many of us are feeling right now. But another twist is that it’s also a story about hope. Will getting angry pay your bills? Is the world a place good enough to be optimistic for? Listen to TWO THOUSAND AND LATE here.

How I discovered it: Email from Lauren

👂NO SUCH THING looks and smells like a chat show, which is why I have avoided it for so long. The name (not to be confused with No Such Thing As a Fish) sounds chatty, the cover art is of three guys, one of whom is wearing a baseball shirt, and I’m pulling these red-flag words right from the description: “three best friends settle their dumb arguments…” But it really is a collection of journalistic investigations of small things you want to know, even if you don’t know you want to know until you hear them talk about it. It belongs in this category that is popular and hard to do—the hosts are not just hosts but are fully part of the creation process. They research, interview, and take things to the streets to test their ideas and theories and questions in the world and bring back knowledge, insight, and fresh audio. The episodes I listened to had entirely different vibes—one brought on ICYMI’s Kate Lindsay to talk about why some restaurants don’t let adults order from the children’s menu. One was a bit of the history of Chris Hansen’s To Catch a Predator and a look at the modern online pedophile hunter landscape. Another talked to experts to get answers to questions about why weather apps are getting worse (this was terrifying) and why it seems like “random” on Spotify is never random. I texted the “do horses hate running?” episode to two people this morning. These guys have chat show vibes but are doing the work to make something fun and informative. Listen to NO SUCH THING here.

How I discovered it: I have been seeing it around but Lindsay Bowen recommended it for the Podcast Movement recap issue

👂How to Do Everything, the advice show that is more fun than advice (but still a shitload of advice) is back for a new season. Hosted by Ian Chillag (Everything Is Alive) and Mike Danforth (Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!) This was one of those episodes that, when it was over, I think I did that old timey “awww, nuts” snap in my armpits. Do you know what I mean? It was too fun and went way too fast. The show’s format is quick, offering tiny bits of advice with a variety of voices and styles. This episode starts out with the history of wearing white after Labor Day, there is a template for a hysterical OOO that I WILL be using when I go to Disney World on Friday, Sept 12 (email me then,) and we get some advice from Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon because Ian and Mike used their The Roses press junket time to ask them about baby teeth and kissing. This is like a little treat magazine for your ears. Listen to OOO Baby here.

How I discovered it: Subscriber but there was a press release to remind me

👂One of the most imaginable things I can think of is being accused of a murder you didn’t do. Or wait, it’s going to jail for a murder you didn’t do. Oh, no. It’s going to jail for killing your child, when you didn’t do it. The Lab Detective tells the story of Kathleen Folbigg, a woman who lost all four of her babies to unexplained deaths, which sent her to jail for life for being “Australia’s worst female serial killer.” But a scientist working in a lab discovered another culprit might be to blame, which meant that other moms who didn’t kill their babies were sitting in prison for not doing it, too. This is from Tortoise, it’s well-reported, gripping, and neatly made (the producer is the guy from Sweet Bobby, this one is even more twisty) and contains pretty surprising and insightful things about genetics, maybe some stuff about the criminal justice system that should be surprising but is not. The thought that was throbbing through my head like a heartbeat was saying can you imagine can you imagine can you imagine because I cannot. Listen to The Lab Detective here.

How I discovered it: Press release

👂I had to look up Courtney Rawlings, the host of the new show Always at War from The Quincy Institute because I was like, who is this person? She mentions she’s new to The Quincy Institute, and on the show, she along with Alex Jordan “exposes the monied interests, outdated ideologies, and entrenched powers that have driven the U.S. to wage nearly 400 wars and interventions.” Here is what I learned: she received her Ph.D. in Art History, with a specialization in the history of architecture, in 2023 from Emory University…” She has written for Artillery Magazine, Pioneer Works, Damage Magazine, and was fellows for a bunch of impressing sounding things. But she is entering this conversation about war as someone who isn’t deeply steeped in it and that is why this show is so good. She’s talking to brilliant people explaining concepts I’m shocked I haven’t heard about, like Sponge Theory…placing nuclear targets in less populated areas of the US so that in a nuclear exchange, those would get nuked instead of huge cities. But Courtney acts as the expert-whisperer. In conversations about the how think tanks sell war and how congress profits from it, America's terrorist designations, Vietnam Syndrome, they’re repeatedly asking, “what is the bedtime story we tell ourselves about these wars?” Listen to Always at War here.

How I discovered it: Recommended to me in Pocket Casts

👂Earlier on Debt Heads, we went to the mall to trace the source of Jamie’s money trauma, in the latest episode we got to hear from Rachel. For a kind of true-crimey investigation into what happened to the American Dream (where’d it go!?), they take us to Spokane Washington to meet Rachel’s parents to understand the environment boomers were buying houses and raising families in vs the ones millennials have now. (Amy Poehler has a joke “The Boomers are all about money. Gen X is like, is it all about money? Millennials are like, where is the money? And Gen Z is like, what is money?”) We hear in gorgeous, springy, fun-to-hear detail about Rachel’s dad’s upbringing, how Rachel shaped her own idea of the American Dream, and the context we need about what was happening in the late 70s and 80s that made consumer debt grow and grow and the American Dream seem not just something that went away, but something no one can even define or imagine. This is a history lesson, a nostalgia trip, a well-crafted treat for your ears, but the more I listen to this show the more I realize it is also a dip into a friendship. I love hearing Jamie and Rachel talk as friends. They are at different stages in their lives—Jamie was Rachel’s babysitter, that’s how they met. They are friends because they are perfect together not because they have a show together. I would listen to them talk about anything but they’ve figured out a beautiful and fun way to talk about money for now. Listen to Boomicorns here.

How I discovered it: Originally spotted it in an Apple Podcasts feature

👂Not every episode of Blindboy hits for me, but “The Woman whose name was Horse” was a good example of why it is beautiful. If you listen, don’t worry too much about the bird shit part at the beginning, I had no idea what he was talking about. But the rest was a lyrical and magical conversation about biomimetics (solving human problems by studying animal behavior) that gave me empathy for the fruit flies that I want to brutally murder every time I see them, and made me think about assumptions we make about everyone. These episodes are all sneaky ways, every single one I swear, to make you feel more empathy for the world. I think if everyone listened the world would be a kinder, calmer place. This feeds perfectly into this zany story about Blindboy’s grandmother, a woman with the nickname horse. Blindboy is such a brilliant storyteller and he knows we are putty in his hands. I’m just glad he uses his power for good. Sometimes I forget where I am when I’m listening. Listen to The Woman whose name was Horse here.

How I discovered it: Everyone recommends it to me and I listen sometimes

👂In case you missed it, ICYMI had a fascination episode about some drama over at The Cutting Room Floor, the Patreon-only fashion podcast started by Recho Omondi. The problem started when Recho TikToked a full-time, NYC-based job posting that was basically three jobs for $55K, which isn’t enough to survive in New York, unless you’re a very specific type of person who I guess Recho was looking for. The post also had a very “back in my day we hustled!” vibes, and reminded me of a few years ago when “cool” companies thought they could get away with exploiting people because they knew they could. If you’re online a lot you might know this story, but if you don’t you probably should. It has its tentacle in all sorts of places. One thing this episode in particular made me realize is that Gen Z doesn’t want to hustle like Millennials not because they’re lazy (remember guys, we’re the lazy ones.) It’s because the hustle bar got even higher, just like it got higher for millennials twenty years ago. Debt Heads was just talking about this, have we learned nothing? The job has been pulled, which sucks for the many people who actually wanted this job, any job, but Candice Lim and Kate Lindsay did a great job covering all the angles, from Recho’s response (her first one, not great) to some of the feedback she got. Listen to Is $55K Enough To Work At Your Favorite Podcast? here.

How I discovered it: Longtime listener, the word “podcast” was in the title so I listened immediately

👂I’m not on YouTube so I didn’t know about Disney Dan, but I should. He collaborates with Kevin Perjurer on Defunctland all the time and makes tons of Disney content that is my kind of Disney content, less about new rides and product/menu item reviews and more about the culture. Less informative and more fun. He has a podcast, FUN FUN FUN, which is about all kind of fun (arctic travel! Donkey Kong!) but you will find off-the-wall, weirdly specific episodes about why it takes Disney so long to build stuff, what it’s like being fat at the parks and nipples, for a conversation with Ed Larson from Last Podcast on the Left. It’s an all-over-the-place discussion about the characters with the best nipples and other nipple-related topics. This episode is for a specific type of person, either they love Disney but aren’t traumatized by rude Disney stuff or they love dark, funny things but aren’t turned off by Disney. The episode opens with a good conversation in defense of the Disney Adult (I didn’t know Ed was one!) Listen to Disney Nipples with Ed Larson here.

How I discovered it: Kim Winder, who is on the episode, mentioned it when she was a guest on The Daily Zeitgeist

👂I love you!