What to Listen to Instead of Reply All

Last updated on March 8th, 2021

On February 4th, 2021, Gimlet’s podcast Reply All dropped an episode of a series that would shape the conversation around race, workplace toxicity, and media–but not necessarily in the way the Reply All team imagined.

The series, producer and host Sruthi Pinnamaneni explained in the first episode, would focus on the catastrophic and public downfall of Bon Appetit‘s test kitchen. Bon Appetit‘s popular YouTube channel was revealed to be an unhealthy, deeply racist workplace. Our “unproblematic faves” went full milkshake duck, leaving many viewers shaken.

The Reply All series started with an episode that was well-received by Reply All‘s general audience, and the promise of exhuming and illuminating racist workplace practices. Pinnamaneni interviewed several prior of and current members of the Bon Appetit staff, using only the audio of the people of color instead of any of the white staffers from the food magazine. The series would have felt like a necessary investigation, had it not been a mirror for what was going on at Reply All‘s own network, Gimlet.

On February 16th, Eric Eddings posted a thread about his own experiences with Gimlet. The thread discusses how closely Bon Appetit‘s problems matched the problems he experienced at Gimlet. I–Wil Williams, specifically, writing this introduction, the managing editor for Discover Pods who is, important to note, white–highly recommend that you read the thread in full.

Brittany Luse, Eddings’s co-host and co-creator of The Nod, expressed her own frustrations with the Reply All series:

In the following days, more Black producers, creators, and employees of networks and public media shared the experiences they’ve had with racism in the workplace. I want to especially highlight an essay by renowned producer James T. Green titled “Glass Walls” about his own experiences with Gimlet:

Gimlet was a risk worth taking. Prove your worth, and you’ll stay on.

We believed it, or at least we tried to. We noticed the new batch of contractors were Black and Brown like us, and the Full Timers were mostly white.

James T. Green, “Glass Walls”

Edit 3/8/21: C. C. Paschal, another Black former Gimlet employee, has also shared their experiences in an essay. Like Green’s, Paschal’s essay, “Hidden In Plain Sight,” should also be read in full:

After reading countless narratives and records from and about enslaved people, including Harriet Tubman–star of the award-winning episode––whose values diminished in the eyes of their white masters after their bodies were broken from their work––I realized bringing my nonbinary femme and Black body to the team was not enough to counteract the toxicity. Instead, my body was the sponge––trying to sop up the worst of the mess as we pushed content out to the public. 

C. C. Pashcal

Vogt and Pinnamaneni have since stepped down from Reply All. They shared a short message about the series–which they are canceling, regardless of the unaired interviews with Bon Appetit employees whose stories have yet to be told–on the Reply All feed. I am not linking it here, because frankly, I do not want it to get more download numbers.

All of which is to say: in our Slack, the writers all felt like we should be listening to other podcasts, while taking this time to actively support those least respected and represented in the tech, media, and audio industries. Here’s our list of things to listen to instead of Reply All. We hope you give them a listen, and I hope that you take the time to read and process what people have said about the podcast and the company itself.

---

The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson

Journalist, author and filmmaker Jon Ronson has a long list of credits to his name, but The Butterfly Effect takes the cake for being one of the more curious ones. The podcast investigates internet pornography and Pornhub’s effect on the industry, starting with the story of eccentric founder Fabian Thylmann and then zooming out, or perhaps zooming tangentially, to share the website’s direct and indirect impact. The seven episode season was produced by Audible in 2017 and is a great binge listen at just over 3 hours total. Despite the subject matter, is not risque or explicit and instead tells personal, sometimes emotional stories of the people that Pornhub has impacted, and continues to impact. What makes the show especially enjoyable is that it is presented without any judgment or critique, yet it remains sharp, witty, and impactful. 

Read more: Over 200 Audio Professionals Sign Anti-Racist Open Letter to Public Media

If you enjoy this investigation, Ronson did a second project with Audible in 2019 called The Last Days of August, focused on the 2017 death of pornographic actress August Ames. The two shows are different, but on most platforms are released on the same feed.

–Brian Benton

---

Decoder Ring

Pop culture, tech, and the internet are like the BLT sandwich of the media these days. When you’ve got those three ingredients together, it usually leads to a story you really want to sink your teeth into. From the mania that Bart Simpson caused, to the truth about that iconic song about Fridays, Decoder Ring loves all kinds of cultural curiosities. Each episode, host Willa Paskin seeks to answer a question about the impact these sometimes seemingly insignificant things actually have on society.

Since the show references a lot of pop culture, there’s also so many opportunities for fun and nostalgic sound bites that really add to the depth and entertainment. Honestly, some of the clips used are so perfect that I also just want to know how Decoder Ring‘s producers found or remembered a quote that good. It’s like finding the gif or meme that emphasizes your point exactly. Audio memes should not be underestimated, and Decoder Ring has many to be appreciated. Beyond the memes, the producers also always finds the best voices to help crack these mysteries. Sometimes they’re pop culture experts with seriously niche knowledge, or the people closest to the story like Rebecca Black herself.

–Devin Andrade

---

Endless Thread

How many internet moments or memes have you stumbled upon, wondered about, and never known the origins of? On places like Reddit, the threads can go on and on. Sometimes the search for the answers behind internet stories, especially the really strange or obscure ones, can feel endless.

Getting to the bottom of internet mysteries is Endless Thread’s specialty. Each episode dives into a thread, question, or trend found on Reddit and searches for the full story behind it. Hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Siverston have mastered their way around Reddit and reached out to other redditors for answers about everything from international anonymous gift exchanges to piles of plates in a forest. It’s not uncommon for these stories to span beyond the web and into real life, which helps remind you that the web’s weirdness is a reflection of just how strange real life can be. Redditors as a community already tend to band together to solve mysteries on the internet, and Endless Thread captures that same collaborative effort when they dive into each story. Not to mention, the chemistry between Johnson and Siverston also gives way to some excellent puns and banter.

–Devin Andrade

---

Minority Korner

Maximum Fun’s Minority Korner is a look into pop culture from an intersectional lens, dissecting how we make and interact with media and what that says about society. It’s a fun chatcast in which host James Arthur M. talks about what’s hot in the zeitgeist with his co-host of the week, but it’s more than just poppy fun. James’s knowledge of pop culture and its history is encyclopedic, and the discussions tying cultural conversations together is riveting and enlightening.

Like Reply All, Minority Korner aims to dissect and explain the cultural conversation du jour. The episodes aren’t focused on tech in the way that Reply All‘s often have been–but those who have been paying attention to Reply All for some time know that their episodes don’t really anymore, either.

–Wil Williams

---

There Are No Girls on the Internet

Bridget Todd’s internet culture and news podcast is there to set the record straight about marginalized people on the internet and how they have shaped it. It’s a sharp, empathetic chronicling of marginalized folks and their experiences online, so often overlooked. Todd gives an incredible breadth of space to her interviewees to tell their stories in detail, sometimes including the times that they laugh together which gives this podcast a welcoming, inclusive vibe.

Read more: Black History Month: Integrated Diversity in Podcasting

There’s a tendency in nonfiction storytelling podcasts to dramatize and craft a narrative for entertainment in the style of public media, one sanitized and framed for the consumption of the dominant culture. Todd, in the way that she keeps so much of her interviewee’s speech and voice and the kind of additions and links she provides as a narrator centers the marginalized people these episodes are about. And the topics are complex and varied and too-often covered only by cis, white men in media is covered at all, like the #NotYourMascot campaign, how The Matrix symbolizes a trans experience, and a miniseries within the podcast about the spread of disinformation and the women fighting it at the frontlines.

–Elena Fernández Collins

---

You’re Wrong About

As they explore internet wonders and pop culture highlights, You’re Wrong About feels like two friends eagerly sharing the new thing they learned with each other. It might sound like it’s going to be just a chatcast but it manages to go beyond that with a bit more attention to its production value. Hosts Michael Hobbes and Sarah Marshall are essentially just talking with each other, but not without extensively researching their topic beforehand. With that research also comes the addition of reference audio clips that make the story feel richer and more engaging.

Each episode looks at a cultural moment, phenomenon, or memory that has been misunderstood. Whether these misunderstandings come from people not educating themselves or from the spread of misinformation, Hobbes’ and Marshall’s research takes you along as they work to better understand these stories. They’re critical, unapologetic, and love to see how far down the rabbit hole they can go. This also means sometimes we get treated to special mini-series like one on Princess Diana because there’s just too much you need to know! Their show is a reminder that just because you heard about something in a tweet, doesn’t mean you understand it.

–Devin Andrade