Few podcasts have found such a perfect balance between deep, relevant investigative reporting  and hilarious, off-the-cuff dialogue as Gimlet Media’s Reply All. Hosted by PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman, the five-year-old show has gained a cult following for its stories about the internet and life online. In addition to well-researched stories about odd corners of the web, there are also recurring segments like “Super Tech Support” where Goldman tries his best to solve bizarre tech problems, or “Yes Yes No” where Vogt and Goldman explain memes, Tweets and other oddities to Gimlet co-founder Alex Blumberg. Though it was difficult, we were able to narrow it down to (what we feel) are the best Reply All episodes to date.

Despite the techie topics, Reply All is hardly a “tech podcast,” and you will never hear product reviews, startup gossip or even anything too technical. The real focus of the show is how technology influences people, and how people influence technology, and stories always have a human aspect. The hosts are as concerned in how certain digital problems are affecting the people involved as they are in actually figuring out what the solution is.  

You can listen to all 130+ episodes of Reply All at gimletmedia.com/reply-all. The show is also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, with new episodes released on Thursdays.

1. Long Distance, Parts I and II

Episode 102, July 27, 2017

Episode 103, August 3, 2017

Episode 102 and 103 of Reply All show how the podcast has managed to set itself apart from other similar shows. After getting a bit too invested in a scam call from India, host Alex Goldman does what any adventurous podcaster would do and books a flight to Delhi to track the caller down. What follows is a true story that feels almost like fiction, a true radio adventure for the 21st century.

Reply All has done a few similar episodes on scam calls and robocalls, including a recent look at how robocalling has found a place in the healthcare industry (#135 “Robocall: Bang Bang”), but the effort and risk in this pair of episodes sets “Long Distance” apart. So often, internet reporting takes place from behind a computer, but Goldman proves that to truly get to the bottom of something you need to dig a little deeper.

2. Today’s The Day

Episode 36, August 27, 2015

Podcast hosts and editors will love this beautifully-produced piece of radio storytelling where Vogt and Goldman decide to go outside for a day. After an interview falls through, the two co-hosts go on an adventure through New York City that takes them all the way from Central Park to Coney Island. It is a truly special piece of radio that shows off Vogt and Goldman’s friendship and proves how their chemistry has made their podcast so successful.

3. The Russian Passenger

Episode 91, March 2, 2017

The perfect episode of Reply All is one where Vogt and Goldman dive into a tech problem and the listener immediately can relate it to an issue they faced, or heard about a friend having. “The Russian Passenger” is an investigation into how Alex Blumberg’s Uber account was hacked, digging deep into common and easily solvable problem. As the hosts go through possible causes for the hack and consult an expert to get a more complete answer, Vogt and Goldman share truly helpful information about the benefits of password managers and how to avoid being hacked yourself.

This episode continues with two follow up episodes, #93 “Beward All” and #111 “The Return of the Russian Passenger” that actually reveal how the account got hacked.

4. Exit & Return, Parts I and II

#23, May 7, 2015, #24, May 14, 2015

Above all else, Reply All is a podcast about people interacting with the Internet, and this pair of episodes about Hasidic Jewish man reflecting on his first introduction to the Internet perfectly captures the human experience of life online. The two episodes, produced by Sruthi Pinnamaneni, at times felt more like episodes of This American Life because of their deeply personal nature.

At the beginning of the episode, Goldman introduces the episode as “a story of the internet destroying someone’s life completely” and then “the internet transforming someone’s life for the better.” What follows is an emotional look into not only the role of the Internet in Hasidic communities, but also introduces corners of the Hasidic web that listeners probably did not even know existed.

5. Shine On You Crazy Goldman

#44, November 5, 2015

This is the episode where PJ Vogt and producer Phia Bennin microdose on LSD and report on if it could bring about positive change in their lives. The conclusion is that it is probably not a habit they will continue, but the reporting gives a better perspective and more insight into microdosing than most over coverage that was happening on the trend at the time.

Unlike so many gonzo reports on drug use, this is not about Vogt and Bennin proving they are “cool” or trying out a trendy drug just for the thrill of it. Instead, there is a clear objective to see if in fact LSD microdoses can lead to more productive work days. The show starts with an interview with a psychedelic researcher and manages to stay educational and insightful, despite the trippy topic.

6. Lost In A Cab

#76, September 8, 2016

Another episode of “Super Tech Support” that takes Alex Goldman offline and into the real world to investigate, this episode revolves around trying to track down a camera that was left behind in a New York City taxicab. After explaining some of the bureaucracy of New York City taxis, including the massive Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) and a semi-affiliated website called, YellowCabNYC.com, Goldman realizes just how hard it is to not only recover items lost in taxis, but also get even the simplest answer from the TLC.

The story takes an unexpected twist when Vogt shares an anecdote about Delta Airlines that turns out to have more in common with taxis than either host expected. As the episode continues, Goldman and Vogt share their findings on how taxis, airlines and other online customer service forms and lines have come to be and the role that Google ad search may be playing in making it impossible to get your questions answered.

7. Why Is Mason Reese Crying?

#16, March 18, 2015

Jonathan Goldstein is the affable host of storytelling podcast Heavyweight, and in this early episode of Reply All he stepped in to offer a similar look into the life of former child actor Mason Reese. Goldstein also spent several years reporting for This American Life and is known for his weird, sometimes too personal looks into the lives of regular Americans.

In this story, he noticed a series of videos being uploaded to Youtube that featured Mason Reese, and were uploaded by Reese himself. Taken aback by why a former child actor would be uploading his whole archive of work to Youtube some 40 years later, Goldstein tracks down the now 53-year-old and asks. The resulting conversation with Reese is an open and honest reflection on falling out of childhood fame.

8. Apocalypse Soon

#114, January 18, 2018

In “Yes Yes No” episodes, Goldman and Vogt bring in a guest, usually Gimlet co-founder Alex Blumberg, and explain a certain aspect of the internet to them. The episodes begin with the guest explaining what something they encountered on the internet, and the group going around and saying if they understand it (thus, “Yes, Yes, No.”

This episode from 2018 stands out because of just how much Internet trivia gets touched on as Goldman and Vogt dive into a semi-viral Tweet that features references to Logan Paul, Tide Pods, Smash Mouth and more. While most of the memes and cultural moments mentioned in the episode have come and gone, the hilarity that ensues as the hosts peel back the layers of the Tweet still make for a great listen.  

9. Reply All’s 2018 Year End Extravaganza

#133, December 20, 2018

While the first half of this show where Vogt, Goldman and some of the show’s other producers check-in and update listeners on stories from the year is certainly worth a listen, it is the final fifteen minutes of the show that hit the hardest. From time to time, Reply All has opened up their phone lines for calls from listeners on a wide range of topics. To close out the year end extravaganza, a collection of calls from listeners in remote, lonely or unexpected places is played.

The calls take us to the mountains of Ethiopia, the coast of India and a wooden bridge near Melbourne, Australia. It is a short segment but the messages Reply All received are moving, inspiring and heartbreaking. Bringing together a collection of calls from isolated places also has a profound effect on listeners, who somehow feel like they are able to join the caller in that place. In the end, it can make everyone feel less alone.

10. The Takeover

#29, June 25, 2015

17-year-old Thomas Oscar is the subject of this story, which details to rise and decline of Stackswell and Co., a totally made up company that Oscar imagined up in the form of a Facebook group. After putting out a call for applications and “hiring” his friends, the teenager from Australia enjoyed several months of mundane office role-play before noticing that the group, which essentially served as a digital meeting room for the fake company, was skyrocketing in popularity. New members were requesting to join, applying for jobs if you will, and changing the tone of Oscar’s dull online office place.

After a new member introduces a swarm of imaginary iguanas to the office, Oscar loses it and the whole company goes spiraling down. What is discussed in “The Takeover” is not so much a pressing issue of the Internet, but instead a great example of how the web can bring us together and also tear us apart. It is a sweet, humorous story with just enough at stake to matter.

11. Zardulu

#56, February 25, 2016

Everyone remembers Pizza Rat, the viral rodent that was seen crawling through the New York City subway with a slice in hand, but few know the real story behind that image. In this episode, Vogt and Goldman attempt to track down the illusive Zardulu, the performance artist who has taken responsibility for the viral moment and alleged it was staged. Described by Vogt as an “art villain,” the story shares Zardulu’s background and features interviews with New Yorkers that were involved in the Pizza Rat scheme and other viral rat attempts.

One of the highlights of the show is Vogt’s description of what Zardulu actually looks like from a photograph a source provided. Although Vogt and Goldman never get the interview with Zardulu that they so desperately want, their reporting is fun, revealing and feels like it is getting much closer to the truth than lots of the other news about Zardulu that came out when it was first introduced that Pizza Rat may be a hoax.

12. The Snapchat Thief

#130, November 8, 2018

Revolving around the story of Lizzie, a Snapchat user whose account was hacked and “hijacked,” this episode goes deep into the world of OG handles and SIM swapping. If those terms are new to you, don’t worry. Reply All is here to explain it.

After getting locked out of her Snapchat account, Lizzie consulted Goldman to see if he could get to the source of the hack. Lizzie’s Snapchat username was “lizard,” meaning it was an OG handle, or a rare, single word handle without any numbers, shorthands or other complexities. Goldman’s research puts him in contact with a group of European teenagers who track down OG handles that may be hackable, lock out the original user and then resell the username. The episode ends with an especially satisfying conclusion and has a great balance between technical insight and detail and personal narrative.  

The post The 14 Best Reply All Episodes appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

Spotify, for their part, has been aggressive over the last 12 or so months in expanding their podcast strategy — both with original podcasts and their streaming platform. They brought in indie-favorite music podcast, Dissect, then offered Amy Schumer a reported $1 million to create a podcast, and later brought in politics and sports personality Jemele Hill to create an original podcast. They’ve added these podcasts in tandem with opening the doors for podcasters to submit their feeds and be listed on the platform.

Their added focus on podcasts has largely been met favorably by the podcasting community who are mostly tired of Apple’s near-monopoly and lack of innovation on their app.

Whether or not this is good for podcasting, I’ll let my friends Ely and Eric discuss. My take: it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad for podcasting, it’s inevitable. The great consolidation.

State of the Podcast Industry

I segment the podcast industry into three main buckets: creators, distributors, advertisers. Though these are intended as buckets, some companies blend the lines between several segments.

• Creators: Podcast networks and a large swath of independent whose primary goal is to create a compelling podcast.
• Distributors: These are the companies responsible for the podcast going from creator to consumer. They’re separated into micro-segments, the streaming platforms and the hosting services.
• Advertisers: These companies leverage and monetize the content.

The not-so-new trend has been either bundling solutions from all three buckets, like what Scripps has done by merging Earwolf, Stitcher, and Midroll into a consolidated podcast strategy. Other examples are distributors creating original content in an effort to commoditize their streaming platform — the aforementioned Spotify examples plus Stitcher’s Wolverine: The Long Night, and others.

The inevitability I mentioned at the top is consolidation among siloed solutions. iHeartMedia acquired Stuff Media (nee HowStuffWorks) in September for $55 million and I suspect this will be a common storyline over the next 18 months.

By owning the creation, distribution, and money associated with a given podcast or group of podcasts, a sole proprietor could theoretically operate more efficiently and increase their margins by cutting out the proverbial middle man.

What’s Next?

Spotify’s aggressive push into podcasting should raise eyes at the folks at both Apple and Google. Apple has been mostly complacent on their podcast strategy, only minimally innovating their app (allowed startups like Overcast and Pocket Casts to gain substantial followings), slow rolling their hyped analytics, and overall squandering their massive head start.

Google announced their podcasting strategy in 2018 which mostly came and went without any fanfare. Instead of a native app on every Android phone — the Apple method — they instead incorporated podcasts into their search on mobile. The experience has mostly been criticized by podcast fans or ignored by the general public.

As a larger player in the industry, Spotify is in the unique position to service both iOS and Android users and convert a portion of their massive pool of existing music listeners to become podcast fans. If they’re able to leverage Gimlet’s popularity and window exclusivity on new content, Spotify has a chance to convert even existing podcast fans who have already grown accustomed to another podcast app.

The post The Great Consolidation: Spotify in talks to acquire Gimlet appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

Earlier this month, Gimlet released three new original podcasts, Sandra, We Came To Win, and The Habitat. Coming off our

Together Ma’ayan Plaut, Brendan Hutchins, Wil Williams, and Kevin Goldberg voiced their review and thoughts of The Habitat.

1. What’s your tweet-length review of The Habitat? Your final grade?

MA’AYAN: I got to a point about halfway through listening to The Habitat where I needed to make the decision of listen to everything left because I like it so much and wanting to save it because I didn’t want it to end. It was a lovely look into human drama, in a compelling way that TV reality shows don’t usually appeal to me, but somehow I couldn’t stop listening to. I give it an A-.

BRENDAN: I don’t like reality shows. I didn’t binge this because of that reason, but I did get through it within 3 days. The Habitat also has the patented Gimlet Lens. I felt the ending was exactly what it should be: one crew comes out and the next goes in. C+

WIL: I wanted to love this because I love Lynn Levy and Megan Tan. What I got was a reality show but more listless and less eventful. C

KEVIN: An interesting docu-series exploring a relatively interesting subject … something you likely won’t remember a year from now. B+

2. What was your favorite part of The Habitat?

MA’AYAN: Hearing both The Habitat residents and past astronauts talk about how to think about life on Earth while in a different zone was both heartbreaking and poignant, and made me think a lot about where I place my time and energy in thinking about the world around me and how I exist in it. I loved the use of archival tape to bring perspective to this isolated glimpse into NASA research.

BRENDAN: hhmmm… the Space Oddity covers?

WIL: Surprisingly, I think the episode about the compositing toilet breaking. It was funny, in a kind of dumb way, but the production in this episode was really great. It was dynamic without being obnoxious, and I loved that it connected the story to something bigger in the realm of space travel.

KEVIN: Maybe low brow, but the bathroom episode juxtaposed with issues of actual problems in space was the most compelling to me. Overall, it was unique and I think we need more of that in podcasts.  

3. What was your least favorite part about the podcast?

MA’AYAN: It was difficult to listen to the crew talk disparagingly about another member of the team, and to project from there (well, I guess back in time) to know how that experience played out for the group over the course of a year.

BRENDAN: the drama. Oh does this person not like that person wooooo! Jazz hands.

WIL: I’m deeply uncomfortable with how a relationship between two people in the experiment was handled. I get that romantic relationships are going to be a part of the discussion, and it’s going to be a curiosity—but to go so far as to pull audio the people clearly didn’t want on the record and use it makes me concerned about the journalistic ethics of the project overall.

KEVIN: I wasn’t a huge fan of the self-editing. Since the podcast producers were reliant on the pseudo astronauts to do their own recording, it wasn’t as genuine and raw as it probably should have been.

4. What would you do to improve The Habitat?

MA’AYAN: One episode discussed some of the numerous surveys taken by the crew, and I thought that was ripe with potential anecdotes. I’m not sure they could even use such things, but it felt like a view into the mind of the crew in a self-reflective way that wouldn’t have been self-edited for Lynn’s tape collection.

BRENDAN: Tell me more about the science and the things learned from the experiment! Ok they came out aaaand? What now? What’d you learn? What different for the next experiment?

WIL: Making a podcast with a high-concept that relies on organic responses from other people is a risk. It would be asking too much—and skewing the narrative too much—to want the show to set out with a thesis. Still, I wish there had been some actual . . . point. I wish it would have connected with space exploration more. I wish more of a statement was made besides, “When people are confined together for a year, some people hook up and some people get mad at each other.” There’s nothing novel or compelling in that being the end result.

KEVIN: I get the production challenges, but if the podcast team could have been embedded inside with the pseudo astronauts, it would have resulted in a better podcast where listeners had real insight into what went on.

5. What did you think of the crew members on the mission?

MA’AYAN: I honestly don’t know how to answer this question. I liked them? We didn’t have much choice in who was in there, but if I had a choice I would have loved someone with interview or journalist training to ask questions of each of the crewmates to each other… but it also makes me wonder if/how involved or affecting to the research it is to have such an inquirer in the group.

BRENDAN: They seemed cool. Adventurous. I’m a bit sad they didn’t become best friends afterwards. I would have been that blindly optimistic guy wanting to have 5 new besties.

WIL: I think they were real human people who were chosen for this experiment based on criteria that would make them a good fit for an experiment—not for a podcast.

KEVIN: I couldn’t tell them apart (shrug emoji). Also, Wil’s answer echoes my thoughts.

6. What unanswered questions do you have for the crew?

MA’AYAN: Given how much time was spent speculating about the various relationships in The Habitat, I would have loved some investigation into what it means to do human interaction research at a place like NASA. Especially HOW this particular group was selected, and how you design for that variability in human subjects in quantitative research.

BRENDAN: What did they learn?

WIL: Do any of the participants actually feel like this would help them be prepared for space travel?

KEVIN: How did they rationalize this with their careers? Their families? Their friends?

7. How would you have done inside The Habitat?

MA’AYAN: I would not have been able to do this, hands down. I would shrivel up without sunlight or a breeze, and I do not like random people enough to even contemplate the thought of being stuck with people I didn’t choose for 365 days.

BRENDAN: Good question. Proooobably fine? I mean, I wouldn’t put myself in that scenario… but if that was my only option, I would have spent a year getting better at guitar. The food prolly wouldn’t bother me. A bunch of people super close wouldn’t bother me. Nowhere to run or move wouldn’t bother me….

But no podcasts for a year…. nope! Can’t do it.

WIL: Oh man, so bad. I’d be the person honking on the didj, the person shouting “TORTILLA!”, and also the person who was overly bossy. Having me there would have made for a more interesting podcast, because probably I would have been actually murdered. The Habitat could have been our next prize-winning true crime podcast.

KEVIN: Nope. I’d get cabin fever and go stir-crazy within the first 72 hours.

The post Roundtable: What’d you think of Gimlet’s The Habitat? appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

Pods Review Pods is a weekly segment where podcasters review fellow podcasts.

My name is Valerie Landis, a fertility-focused advocate working in the women’s health industry and two time egg freezer. My podcast is called Eggology Club redefining the modern day journey to parenthood and changing the conversation with unfiltered real-life stories about fertility and family planning topics.

The Pitch

Gimlet Media – The Pitch: features real entrepreneurs pitching real investors for real money. I like this podcast because I like knowing about new ideas and products that are trying to come to market. This is a great podcast to help think like an entrepreneur and hear what investors think of their idea. (if you like this show — a similar and equally good podcast show is Side Hustle School with Chris Guillebeau or another by Gimlet, StartUp first season)

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher

No Limits with Rebecca Jarvis

No Limits with Rebecca Jarvis: telling successful entrepreneur stories of the most impressive women who have influenced the world to gain wisdom, learn from their experience, and the tradeoffs it took to get to success. (if you like this show — similar and equally good podcast show is NPR – How I Built This with Guy Raz or The Startup Pregnant Podcast by Sarah Peck)

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher

Podcast Brunch Club

Podcast Brunch Club by Adela Mizrachi: this is like a book club but for podcasts who recently teamed up with Sara DaSilva of Audible Feast Podcast to help record reactions from podcast topics and playlists from that month’s topic that listeners react to. Adela started PBC and then it grew to local chapters where people who listen to podcasts also meet up for brunch (obvi) to talk about them.

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher

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1. What’s your tweet-length review and grade of Sandra?

KEVIN: A colossal waste of Kristen Wiig’s talents. Overall a pretty boring Black Mirror knock-off. B-

BRENDAN: Excellent voice acting and audio environments in Sandra. I felt grounded and that it was a realistic world through the Gimlet lens. I enjoyed the plot as Siri, meets Her, meets TalkSpace. The disappointingly ambiguous ending makes me expect a second season. C

WIL: I wanted to love this, because I love more visibility for audio dramas. What I got was a shoddy narrative and shoddier design work. D+

2. What was your favorite part of the podcast?

KEVIN: Imagining real people are behind the smart voice assistants we use everyday was a fun thought experiment. Whoever are behind mine would likely just be bored crazy with me asking about weather updates ten times a day and snicker because i’m too lazy to turn my coffee maker on.

BRENDAN: The part where Helen talks with the little girl Teresa and convinces her Sandra is real was adorable.

WIL: Kristin Wiig and Alia Shawkat did their very, very best with the material. I was pretty delighted by how convincing the usually hammy, broad Wiig was as a Siri stand-in; her moments in some of the final scenes, where she was acting as Shawkat’s character but still maintaining the robotic monotone voice was pretty fun.

3. What was your least favorite part of Sandra?

KEVIN: I couldn’t shake off how inefficient and unrealistic a human-powered Alexa would actually be.

BRENDAN: So many ads or the fucking ending? Hard to pick.

WIL: The sound design here was so distracting, and it sounded so amateur. It seemed like the producers thought more sound effects mean more immersion, but they wound up being so distracting. I’m of the belief that good sound design work is like that moment with God from Futurama, you know? “When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.” You don’t want people to pay attention to your sound design, and I couldn’t stop paying attention to it here.

4. How would you improve the podcast?

KEVN: Maybe have a conclusion next time? It ended with 1-2 episodes worth of story to go.

BRENDAN: Charge the advertisers more so there are fewer ads (I mean, the ads are personalized enough to warrant a premium!) and write a satisfying conclusion (just saving the one lady we don’t know or care about isn’t a satisfying ending. The two should have met IRL somehow.)

WIL: I would have hired a writing crew and a production crew who actually knows what they’re doing in audio drama. The entire time I listened, I couldn’t help but think, “What if Mischa Stanton or Alexander Danner had done the design work?” or “What if Eric Silver or Eli McIlveen had written this?” If you want to make a well-written, well-produced audio drama, why aren’t you using people who actually make those things?

5. Who was the most compelling character?

KEVIN: Donny — albeit a caricature and simplified stereotype — was a nice point of levity.

BRENDAN: Alia Shawkat for sure. I was drawn in by her presence. (I assume Kristen Wiig was Sandra? That could have been anyone to me…)

WIL: The . . . bird? I’m sorry, y’all. I really did not like Sandra, and that opinion is not getting more favorable with time.

6. How do you feel the Sandra tech fit into today’s society?

KEVIN: It was semi prescient with the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica news, but overall fell flat. I imagine folks at Apple, Google, and Amazon laughed when they heard how their fictitious device worked in the backend.

BRENDAN: The tech felt perfect for a fictional alt-present day setting.

WIL: Oh, not at all, not even a little. The entire premise made me think about that episode of The Simpsons where Marge and Ned Flanders are manually Big Brother-ing all of Springfield. That episode came out almost ten years ago. It felt too on-the-nose quirky and there was no way I could buy into it.

7. What did you think of the ads?

KEVIN: Ads were well done and felt natural, there were just ~5x too many.

BRENDAN: Soooo many ads!! I listened to all the ads for the first 3 or so episodes. They were good! Mostly.

Actually, Rant: the Firefox ads were awful. They were negative ads! I kept thinking “oh I’m going to have my identity stolen or be tracked or all this bad stuff if I use Firefox. No thanks!” Tell me the benefits; don’t paint a doomsday scenario.

I did enjoy that they tied them all into the theme of personal assistant. That was a great touch. Keep me in the fictional world.

WIL: What baffles me the most about the ads is the spacing of them. The ad reads were a weird forced fit into the vibe of the show, but I was mostly annoyed by their rhythm. If you release an entire audio drama in one fell swoop, obviously to be binged, having ads bookend each episode and intrude in the middle destroys your plot’s momentum. How am I supposed to take the stakes seriously when the suspense is broken up with ads for Quips or whatever they were?

8. What do you think Gimlet paid Kristen Wiig?

KEVIN: NOT ENOUGH! How do you have the greatest character actress in the last 25 years, known for her emotions, wacky antics, and distinct personalities …. and deduce her to a robotic voice????

BRENDAN: Dunno. Don’t care. If that’s the reason there’s so many ads, they should have passed that cost onto the advertisers and not made the consumers pay for it.

WIL: Not enough.

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Gimlet doesn’t rest on their laurels, which is why they’re busier than ever. Fresh off a surprise release of three new original shows —

In partnership with the ubiquitous podcast advertiser, Squarespace, and hosted by Heavyweight’s Jonathan Goldstein, Casting Call promises to turn the winning podcast into its own full-blown Gimlet show. Starting today, they’re inviting ambitious podcasters to pitch their idea to castingcallshow.com. Submissions will be judged by Anthony Casalena, founder and CEO of Squarespace, Nazanin Rafsanjani, VP of New Show Development at Gimlet Media, and Aminatou Sow, co-founder of Tech LadyMafia and co-host of the podcast Call Your Girlfriend.

“I am so looking forward to hearing up-and-coming voices from across the country, and I hope we’re able to give a platform to an exciting, new voice in podcasting,” said Rafsanjani. “Squarespace has been a supporter of Gimlet’s and of the entire podcasting industry since the beginning. I can’t think of a better partner to produce this show with.”

While Gimlet will undoubtedly profit from this project — they are a business after all — it’s incredibly refreshing to see larger podcast networks extend their resources and bring a would-be podcaster or existing independent podcaster into the fold. It’s also a pretty ingenious crowdsourcing talent strategy. Theoretically, the winning podcast will have already gotten the stamp of approval from veteran podcast business-minded folks, but has also piqued the interest of would-be fans. It’s a win-win all around.

I am curious to see what the actual competition part of the podcast will look like. The press release says the three finalist podcasts will record a pilot at Gimlet’s studios which will run as standalone episodes for Casting Call, however, the entire podcast is six parts. It’ll be interesting to  learn the selection process and hear the feedback we get from the judges and Goldstein. Whether it’ll be a Pitch-esque show where the prospective podcaster discusses their idea while the microphones record real-time feedback from the judges and/or Goldstein, or if the podcast will take us behind the scenes into the mechanics and business side of what ultimately earns a green-light at Gimlet.

I’m about 99% onboard with this idea. Though Gimlet (and Squarespace) are going to sensationalize a search for new podcasts, I’m optimistic the end results will justify the means. Interestingly, Goldstein teases his podcast type preference  “we’re looking for people who are good at conducting audio interviews and telling non-fiction stories.” I wish they didn’t exclude audio dramas and narrow the possible applicants, especially since Sandra could have benefited from some influx of fiction writing talent. That said, I could see how opening the floodgates on all genres would make the judgement criteria impossible to manage.

Here’s a quick teaser by Goldstein:

The post Gimlet’s Casting Call aims to be the American Idol for podcasts appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

In 2015, a writer took his passion and decided to create a short story podcast, each episode depicting another tall tale or conspiracy. Amazon premiered Lore in October 2017.

Tonight, ABC will premiere Alex Inc. — a sitcom starring Zach Braff based on the first season of the podcast StartUp. Which as it happens, is a real podcast account of Gimlet Media founder Alex Blumberg creating the now podcast empire.

Podcasts, like all relatively new mediums, have become a haven for creative folks to flex their muscles. Because of the low barrier of entry, podcasts are alluring because there are no restrictions, you can tell your story however you’d like. As documentarian and podcaster, Andrew Jenks recently told me, “If it’s three hours or ten minutes, tell me the best fucking story you can. In that sense it’s the most raw form of storytelling and it’s awesome.” Because of this onslaught of creativity (gasp), some amazing stories have been told that larger studios and networks want to get their hands on. In this age of #content, podcasts are pumping original IP out available to be bid on.

An unconfirmed story I once heard tells of the days after Disney acquired Marvel, a team scoured through every comic book, noting every original character. These characters were now Disney’s property, original stories that Disney could option into any number of projects at any given time. Whether this actually happened exactly as I was told or not is irrelevant. Disney didn’t buy a comic book company, they bought the future those stories would tell. Several movies, TV shows, and billions of dollars later, the Marvel Cinematic Universe looks like one of the best purchases in recent history.  

Podcasts are the next wild wild west, where the big fish are gobbling up the little fish to turn a profit. Movies, TV shows, books, and more are just some examples of podcast adaptations already in the works.

This isn’t just a one-off trend either. At least one company, the aforementioned Gimlet Media, has a dedicated full-time employee focused on these greater-than-podcasts adaptations. Meet Chris Giliberti, Head of Gimlet Pictures (a thing). Giliberti joked on The Wolf Den podcast — a meta podcast about the podcasting industry — that “he’s the steward of Gimlet’s audio library and think with a view into how our stories could live in another format.” In short, his job is identify which podcasts or podcast episodes are ready for primetime. He’s very good at his job. In addition to Alex Inc., Gimlet also has agreed upon projects for a film version of a Reply All episode, an Amazon series based on Homecoming, and I’m sure several other yet-to-be-announced deals.

Asked about his recent success, Giliberti told Variety, “We really have just this incredible trove of super high quality stories.” He continued, “With audio storytelling there’s just an incredibly high bar for the maintenance of attention. You don’t have something for folks to look at.”

Not only are the stories told through podcasts a potential goldmine for would-be buyers, but these larger organizations can also find new talent. These podcasters are providing free focus group and beta-tested talent hotbeds. Looking for a new comedian, storyteller, actor, or journalist? Check out their podcast resume and gauge their fanbase. Akin to how YouTube opened the talent floodgates for Saturday Night Live — no longer only relying on the local improv groups —  networks can find talented people they’d like to work with and give them the resources. Netflix has been doing this for years, “here’s a bunch of money, go make something dope.” HBO recently premiered essentially this same plan with 2 Dope Queen creators, Jessica Williams and Phoebe Robinson. In lieu for their talent and unique voice, HBO gave them a four-special deal. They continued this trend with a deal with Crooked Media.

What we’ve seen now is only the first wave of many. Netflix, you had a breakout hit with Making a Murderer and missed out on Dirty John (two current adaptation deals), can I introduce you to Atlanta Monster? Nameless movie studio, check out the Reply All episode Long Distance. Hulu, here’s a nudge nudge to listen to the first season of Ear Hustle. HBO, Heaven’s Gate by Stitcher would be a compelling miniseries.

With more advertising money, creative podcasters will continue to produce amazing stories, and as the “peak TV” model continues it’s insatiable desire for more #content, this trend will only continue as podcasts further entrench their way into the mainstream culture.

The post Dear podcasts, you’re ready for prime time appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

I was trying to describe Heavyweight not too long ago, but had some difficulty. It’s hard to properly articulate the proportions of deep personal stories, host Jonathan Goldstein’s threaded (sometimes dark) humor, yet the true feeling of genuineness that comes from the episode. I guess if you forced me to create a comparative franken-amalgamation, I would say it’s like a good Chicken Soup for the Soul story, mixed with Wes Anderson humor, with a little Woody Allen* neurotic Jewish values sprinkled on top. And I say that with the greatest amount of praise I can.

Here, it might actually be better if I quote Reply All podcast host, PJ Vogt’s description of Heavyweight:

It’s hard to capture all of what’s great about it. It’s very very funny, and very very heartfelt. And like tender, which is an embarrassing word to say on the radio. But you listen to it and you feel like a person who loves other people which is a pretty nice feeling to be connected to.

In case you’re unfamiliar, Heavyweight is hosted by CBC and This American Life alum, Jonathan Goldstein. Each episode follows Goldstein as he helps another person reexamine something, or more usually someone, who impacted their past. A lot of times, these events are full of regret and re-opening the door and having an honest discussion becomes almost therapeutic for all the parties involved.

Heavyweight remains on my must-listen list and constantly tells stories that stoke all your emotions.

I was fortunate enough to get the chance to speak with Jonathan about Heavyweight. Our conversation spanned several topics including his origin story, his thoughts on speed listening, his unique relationship with This American Life, and how he balances the comedy and serious manners of his podcast.

*in light of recent — and not so recent — events, we really need to find another example. Larry David maybe?

Listen: iTunes

***

Kevin: To start things off, can you give us a little bit of background on who you are, how you came from the CBC, to This American Life, and now Gimlet with Heavyweight?

Jonathan: I was doing some freelance radio essay type stuff for the CBC, and I was given a summer radio show on the CBC in the late 90s. The idea was I was going to travel to each of the Canadian provinces and do an episode on each. I was sent with this very large digital camera, that was the size of a stereo box that took floppy discs. At the time, it all felt very new. I got into radio at that point just sideways as a writer, as a venue to read my work, not thinking about radio per se.

I had a friend at the time who was involved in This American Life, Paul Tough. He knew they were looking for a producer and he encouraged me to apply. This was before podcasting, so people didn’t know about This American Life in Canada, but he introduced me to the show and I listened to it online.

I fell in love with This American Life. The idea of working at the show became very exciting. I sent off some of my radio work, which at that point was only a couple episodes of the summer radio series, and some of the radio essays. It had similar sensibility to what This American Life was doing, even though I didn’t know anything about radio. I didn’t know how to use software, how to cut tape or anything. I was hired and learned everything on the go. It was like a master class in radio. Worked there for a couple years, got some of my own stories on. Came back to Canada and did WireTap for 11 years and now I’m doing Heavyweight.

Kevin: It seems like the podcasters I’ve talked to seem to have non-traditional routes into podcasting, mostly because podcasts kind of sprung up out of the blue. It seems like your route fits that track as well. Talking specifically about Heavyweight, can you describe how you source a story and then go through producing the podcast? Obviously, some of the stories are from family members but some are from relatively unknown people.

Jonathan: Yeah. The second season was open to everybody. Heavyweight went through a big change from season one to season two because season one was mainly family and friends. People I’ve known my whole life and, in a sense, stories that have been incubating for decades. Then in season two, with that exhausted, the challenge was how do we take the literal premise of the show and apply it to people I don’t know? I didn’t know how that dynamic was going to work or whether it was going to work at all. That was scary, but it went okay and that’s heartening because it makes you feel the whole enterprise has legs and can keep going.

Kevin: Yeah, definitely. That was telling with season two. As you source the story you’re undoubtedly going to hit some walls. What percent would you estimate of your time spent ends up on the proverbial cutting room floor?

Jonathan: Not as high of a percent as a place like This American Life that has greater resources and staff. I don’t know if this is still the case, but half their stories — even ones that go into full production– end up getting killed. It’s how they maintain the level of excellence they achieve. In the case of Heavyweight, it became a different kind of challenge because there was more pressure to make things work. Really, the batting average was pretty good. There were a couple of stories that ended up on the cutting room floor and one that’s still undetermined. Another one kind of fell apart for a whole bunch of different reasons.

The challenge was taking things that were flimsy, made up of all kinds of disparate parts, and working it through doing rewrites and having very smart people bring their minds to bear on the materials. Sometimes, I believe simple stories became richer through this process. We try to give a sense of time passing in some of these episodes. It was a wonderful thing to be allowed to have the time to work on things in this way.

Sometimes the difference between a story that turns out really well and a story that dies walks along the razor’s edge for a while. Sometimes the stories that turn out to be great, are great because they almost tip into not existing.

Kevin: On that note, Heavyweight obviously deals with a lot of very personal, serious matters and some dark areas in people’s past lives. Throughout, however, you’ve maintained your comedic presence that’s interwoven within the stories. Was this a conscious decision going into the podcast, or something you knew was inevitable with your personality?

Jonathan: Yeah, my personality is kind of what it is at this point. I didn’t consciously decide it’s going to have such and such percentage of comedy versus this percent of seriousness. I figured it would be an offshoot of the way I write, and talk about things, and see the world. It wasn’t conscious but it still is something my editors, producers, and I wrestle with. Sometimes you don’t want to overwhelm the story with too much jokes.

To me, the best stories are the ones that have their funny moments and their dark moments. I’m probably totally mispronouncing this word, but “chiaroscuro”, a painting where the light is so beautiful because of the darkness. In this case it makes the funny parts funnier and the sadder parts even sadder, because you’re toggling between these two extremes. If you get that balance right, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s easy to get wrong and sometimes I do get it wrong, but that’s the challenge of doing this kind of thing.

Kevin: Yeah, that’s actually a great way to put it. I’m sure there’s another kind of delicate line you have to balance to add some levity but not to belittle the subject matter.

Jonathan: Yeah that’s right. I try to make it at my own expense as much as I can. I don’t want to belittle the subject and you don’t want to make light of someone else’s pain either, but you also want to be true to your own way of seeing the world too and not be too reverent.

Kevin: What’s something an everyday listener doesn’t know about you, the show, or the process behind the scenes?

Jonathan: The first thing that comes to mind is all of the people that weigh in on it and the collaborators in the process. It’s a collaborative effort to create this thing that sounds as personal as it does.

There are people who are transcribing the tape, pulling the tape, fine editing the tape, and helping to structure it. There are a lot of talented, smart people involved with each episode. Often times, I’ll play a near-final mix for my wife, Emily, and she’ll catch important things that would substantially change people’s enjoyment. There’s moments like that all throughout and you end up feeling fortunate to have people who are able to see and hear things that you’re missing.

Kevin: I was trying to explain Heavyweight to my wife, and I was having difficulty but then I heard PJ Vogt on the crossover Reply All episode describe it as “tender”. Is that how you would describe it or how would you give your elevator pitch of Heavyweight?

Jonathan: I have an elevator pitch, but it’s a little reductive and makes me feel like Dr. Phil. It’s sort of in keeping with the therapeutic project, it’s about being able to journey to the past, and actually being able to deal with the past in the present in order to move forward. Journeying back to some significant transitional moment in a person’s past in order to unpack it and see how that moment shaped the present. Because it’s a personal story, often times those moments were complicated and require unpacking, and sometimes have been traumatic. That’s probably not a very good elevator pitch.

Kevin: No, that’s good, at least it wasn’t canned; It was genuine. So changing gears a bit, focusing on podcasts and the realm at large. What are some podcasts you enjoy listening to in your spare time?

Jonathan: I’m now resurfacing from the past couple of months being caught up in production and everything of Heavyweight, but there are things I want to catch up on. There are certain comedy podcasts I enjoy. The Daily, I think takes up a lot of my time now — as maybe it does for a lot of people — it’s so consistently good I marvel how they do it. So many Gimlet shows I’m catching up on now. Reply All, of course, is the best. I’ve been enjoying Uncivil and catching up on The Nod. I really get such a kick out of Science Vs. It sounds like I’m focusing on Gimlet here. I recently listened to the No series From The Heart. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard, it’s incredibly unique and ambitious. Benjamin Walker’s series Theory of Everything. This American Life, of course. There’s so much stuff I have standing by I want to listen to, I know I’m missing all kinds of things too.

Kevin: Speaking about This American Life and you brought up your wife Emily (Managing Director of This American Life) earlier, are there any friendly podcasting rivalries between you two.

Jonathan: With This American Life? I also forgot to mention Serial. Whenever Emily is able to communicate to me what they thought of a particular episode, it always means a lot. In terms of rivalry, they set the bar. I feel like they’re the level you are trying to rise to. Simply knowing the people you admire so much are listening to what you’re doing is so … both nervous-making and kind of keeps you on your toes and always trying.

Kevin: One of the conversations that has been going on in the last couple of weeks is about speed listening. A lot of the apps nowadays allow you to listen at faster than 1X speeds, but from my conversations from other podcasters, it’s kind of a dig at them because they’re spending so much time producing and editing, and making sure all the pauses are worthwhile. What are your thoughts on speed listeners?

Jonathan: I think for produced radio it’s, the word coming to mind is “abomination”, which feels way too strong. But I must admit, there are certain long podcasts I will listen to at 1.5x speed. But for produced radio it undoes everything. It’s about timing, it’s about thinking about the way time works and to impose your own kind of listen to it at whatever speed you want undoes that. I think you’re not really listening to it.

But then again, who knows? I love watching silent movies and they’re all sped up. In some ways that stuff got screwed up, I don’t know if it’s the way it was originally seen by the audiences. So who knows how this stuff is gonna survive and how people will listen, and how people’s brains will change as a result of listening to things at double speed. Maybe whatever I’m saying right now will prove to be archaic and will look like something you’re watching from a newsreel in brown and white in sped up motion. Maybe that’s my fate, but my feeling is you’re better off listening to something properly than listening to a whole bunch of things at double speed.

I don’t think I’ve given a very articulate defense of listening to it at one speed. It’s more than honoring the intentions of the producers. It is — it sounds very banal to say — but it is an art form or medium that exists in time. It has to unfold as something that remains loyal to that. Would you listen to the music you like at double speed?

The post Jonathan Goldstein perfectly blends humor and personal stories in Heavyweight appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

StartUp, the flagship podcast by Gimlet Media, originally focused on the creation of a podcast company, Gimlet itself, and then for five additional seasons followed other companies as they ventured through the trials of starting a new business from idea to dating app, t-shirt company, social network, and more, over the course of months. Sometimes StartUp followed one company over the whole season and other times covered several per season.

In this miniseries, StartupBus, they’re doing things a little differently by hopping aboard a hackathon bus from New York to Louisiana and releasing one half-hour episode for each of the five days of the trip. Twenty want-to-be entrepreneurs collaborate in teams to win a pitching competition in New Orleans.

StartupBus strips out the thing I loved most about StartUp, taking a whole season to provide an in-depth look at what it takes to create a viable business venture. I especially loved seasons one, two, and four that focused on a single company the whole time, with the natural drama and tension coming from creating a company, the anxiety to approach investors, the indecision of including a co-founder, and the tension of launch day. As an entrepreneur myself, there was a ton to relate to.

In StartupBus, the tension and drama stems from the small groups’ infighting due to the close proximity of being on a bus with strangers, and it almost feels inauthentic. Instead of hearing a person or group passionate about a product and seeing it grow from idea to reality, every decision feels forced and ethereal. None of the choices they make, from picking a CEO to what the product actually is, seem to matter at all to them—it’s all about money, fame, and winning. It’s like listening to business summer camp; they’re all bickering like kids, and I doubt any of the products will last.

From previous seasons, I know that StartUp can be amazing, and this miniseries does have some redeeming factors. The audio and production throughout is the top-notch quality expected from a Gimlet project. The host and previous StartUp contributor Eric Mennel, who is fulfilling his childhood dream of being on reality TV by being central to a reality podcast series, does a more-than-competent job explaining what is happening, translating from entrepreneur-speak to plain English, and interviewing the contestants as they share strategies and ideas on how to throw together a company quickly.

I’ve listened to the first three episodes so far. By the third episode, the people on the bus are either realizing they cannot work together and avoid each other, or they are forming better bonds and the banter becomes a bit more tolerable.

StartupBus is my least favorite season of one of my favorite podcasts. Previous seasons are for those seeking the story and challenges of starting a business, whereas StartupBus is better suited for listeners interested in drama, or participation in a hackathon themselves. In my opinion, I just don’t think Gimlet or StartUp had to change a winning recipe by adding a gimmick, the bus itself. There will always be compelling entrepreneurial stories and – at least for me – this is what made StartUp special.

Here’s the trailer for StartupBus:

Listen: iTunes | Stitcher

Update:

I finished the full season of StartupBus and wanted to add an update to see if my thoughts changed or continued through the entirety. I’ve also added a rating system for all the seasons of StartUp if you’re interested in hopping in somewhere.

Episode 4: this episode is mostly filled by an intermediate pitch competition where some of the New York bus group’s don’t make it to the finals. Distractingly, there are many periods where clips from the first three episodes are played for context and to remind you what’s happed, but when the series is designed to be binged and released daily, this just feels like repetition because it’s unlikely you’ve forgotten.

Episode 5: finally some deep human conversation and meaning! … Then conspiracy and drama starts to overtake the narrative because the losing teams from the previous episodes are asked to form a super group, but who would own it? ooooOOOOoooo *jazz hands* That’s resolved uneventfully, as expected. In the end, there’s a nice resolution to the whole competition with some wrap ups and check ins, like the end of a biopic where you get to see where everyone ended up.

Like I expressed in my first impression, there is some great story here about the people and the companies, but the extra drama and confusion could have been stripped out. StartUp is great; no need for a bus.

The post StartUp takes a new route with StartupBus miniseries appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

Raise your hand if you’ve heard a Blue Apron ad read on one of your favorite podcasts. Ok, looks like everyone has their hands raised.

Blue Apron is far from a stranger to the podcasting world. As one of the pioneers in the at-home food kit space, they quickly identified podcasts as a profitable medium for their ads. For a few years, it seemed like they advertised on nearly every podcast I listened to. If they didn’t, it sure felt like it. But with their latest endeavor, they’re taking the more nuanced approach. They’ve partnered with Gimlet Creative on a branded podcast, Why We Eat What We Eat, a kind of food anthology hosted by food blogger and author Cathy Erway.

Blue Apron follows Gatorade, Tinder, and Microsoft with the branded podcast motion put on by Gimlet Creative, the advertising arm of Gimlet Media.

I’ll be the first to tell you, if you didn’t know Why We Eat What We Eat was a branded podcast by Blue Apron, you’d likely never know. There are no ads, no schilling, no corny “unboxing” of a Blue Apron package — it’s just an entertaining and interesting podcast about food culture. Recent episodes discuss the origin (and importance) of potlucks, how climate change may affect our diets, and why some people are prone to be picky eaters. On the Gimlet Creative website, it describes Why We Eat What We Eat as a podcast “for anyone who has ever eaten” and yeah, that makes sense.

I was fortunate enough to get connected to Cathy Erway and discuss the podcast, how she ventured from blogging to podcasting, and the relationship she has with both Gimlet and Blue Apron. Below is our discussion, lightly edited for clarity.

Listen: iTunes | Stitcher

***

Kevin: With your history being a blogger and an author, can you walk us through how you migrated from strictly text-based medium to podcasts?

Cathy: Sure. It’s so funny when we think about blogging. It really was this new frontier that … We didn’t use the word back then, but it kind of disrupted print journalism and food journalism, because there’s suddenly all these food blogs. It was like this renegade writers and so forth. Food blogging has become, for better or for worse, a profession that you can earn a living off of rather than a space to be creative and share. I guess I’d like to say, authentic perspectives about food from an individual rather than some corporation.

Anyway, yeah. Having that background, it’s been fun to see how just the entire media world evolved throughout that time. Now we have social media. Instagram and Snapchat and all that stuff, but also podcasts. That’s a really exciting … I think that it’s the new frontier of when it comes to storytelling too. We’ve seen radio shows, and I’ve actually hosted a talk show podcast with a non-profit called Heritage Radio Network for a number of years. When we started in 2009, we didn’t see this whole podcast phenomenon coming on the way it has.

It’s really exciting to work on a narrative podcast with Gimlet because it is a sort of new area for me. I think it’s a really exciting space. I think it’s super engaging. It takes a lot of work. It’s very different from doing the live podcast format that I’m used to. There’s pros and cons to both of those, but, I think it all comes from that sense of charting new territory and finding new frontiers in media and food media in particular.

Kevin: That makes sense. When you were getting started, did you ever anticipate that you would get to where you are today, or was this always your career path?

Cathy: No, because wherever I am today didn’t really exist before! The blog was an alternate to become a food writer. Who knew that the tables would turn and becoming a blogger was a viable path on its own rather than being a freelance food writer and all those sort of glossy magazine jobs and editing jobs in food media are dissolving as we speak? Lot of changes.

I did want to be a writer, and I was obsessed with food, so that seemed where I wanted to go. And let me tell you. I’ve tried to do TV spots. People have tried to put me on cooking shows. I am terrible in front of the camera. I was like, “That’s not going to work for me.” So I’m really excited about working in podcasts. I was always really comfortable with the podcast and radio format. It’s just a lot of fun.

Kevin: Speaking of that, because you did make the transition from blogging to podcasting, was there any sort of training? Did you ever work on anything specifically so your thoughts could be translated better to an audio medium? Any voice training or anything like that?

Cathy: Training has been really on-the-job do-it-yourself figure-it-out training. It’s ironic because I’ve taught classes in food blogging, yet, at the time, we were sort of inventing the genre back in the early 2000’s, the early aughts, and so forth. Who trains who? You have to invent it.                                 

When it came to podcasting, our objective [at Heritage Radio Network] was really different. We wanted to talk about important food issues, and a radio program seemed like an engaging format to do that and to get really cool experts and guests on air and hear them live and impromptu. My training has been simply doing it and figuring it out and adjusting as we go on. My Heritage Radio Network show has had a couple different evolutions and now, for the past few years, it is focused on food books. I found that it’s convenient because when people are on a book tour they want to get publicity. It’s easy to book people, especially when you’re the sole producer and everything of the show. Also, it’s a really great way to dig deep into a topic without having these pretenses of coming up with a theme and getting three or four different experts. You can really have that extended interview format, which is really nice.

Kevin: How do you balance the content on both your podcasts, Why We Eat What We Eat and Eat Your Words? Is there ever an overlap or conflict?

Cathy: Not really. There was a couple of times where I was thinking of having a guest on a show that I was like, “Oh, maybe she would be a great expert for ‘Why We Eat What We Eat‘”, but it didn’t really turn out that way. Working with Gimlet, there’s a lot of collaboration. The script changes a lot throughout the course of just a few days or a day of editing. We produce them with a team over a week or so. We’ll have some rough idea of each show, of each episode topic, but really it comes down to what kind of tape we get from the people that we interview. That leads our direction. We ended up, in some cases, leaving some tape on the editing room floor because some interviews just took us in a tangential way, and we decided to change direction and so forth.

It’s possible that there could be overlap, but it’s a really different format. It’s never going to be the same. One show is a story that is told through my narration and multiple people that we have speaking. “Eat Your Words” is a live, 30 minute conversation with an author. It’s totally different either way.

Kevin: How did you come to host “Why We Eat What We Eat”? Did Gimlet or Blue Apron hear and read your previous work and approach you, or was it something you pursued?

Cathy: They just approached me out of the blue. Out of the blue or not out of the blue, because, as we were saying before, it’s sort of like pursuing your passions and doing it for free eventually leads people to find what you’re doing. That’s what happened with my blog when I was approached by a publisher to write a memoir based on it, which came out in 2010. It’s “The Art of Eating In.”

I also had no idea that anyone would ever approach me to host a podcast, like with Gimlet. That they would actually pay me for it. That wasn’t even in my hopes. It was not on my radar. It’s the same case for when I started my blog. I had no idea that was going to happen. It just goes to show people will find what you’re doing if you do it with passion, if you do it because you mean it, because you just have to do it and you don’t care if you’re going to get paid for it.

Kevin: On that note, I think what Gimlet Creative is doing is especially well done because the podcast isn’t shelling any sort of product. If you didn’t already know it was a branded podcast, you likely wouldn’t realize. How is your relationship like with Blue Apron? What kind of partnership do they provide? Do they try to steer the editorial one way, or is it mostly like, “Hey. We hired great people to come up with great stories, and we’re just going to let them do what we do and consider us lucky that our name’s attached”?

Cathy: That’s a really great question, and that’s what my first question was when I was approached by Gimlet. For the record, I have no contact with Blue Apron for the process of making the show, but some producers of course do.

However, when Gimlet approached me about this, I was like, “So, aren’t they going to want to vet everything and be super involved with the creative process?” They were like, “Actually, no. It’s really not like that. They’ll look everything over and they’ll approve, etc. It’s really rare that they’ll have a problem.” They showed examples of their other branded podcasts, which was the Gatorade one, The Secret to Victory, and DTR, the Tinder one. I listened to them, and I was like, “Oh my gosh. This has nothing to do with these clients.” It’s like it’s brought to you by Gatorade, but then the show is about Serena Williams or something else. The same with DTR. It’s about relationships. It’s not about Tinder. It made a lot of sense.

I think that Blue Apron is a really great brand to bring about a modern food narrative show, because they really try to be that intimate company that tries to get in and go further, and get you involved in cooking from a personal … I mean, cooking is really personal, so I think it makes sense that they would want to have a show that speaks to not just cooking but why we eat what we eat. I thought it was really refreshing and honest.

Anyway, that said, Blue Apron does give feedback but we’ve had very little pushback or anything. It’s really cool, and I think that Gimlet is really paving the way for saying, “No. This is how sponsored podcasts should be. They shouldn’t sound like a commercial, because people won’t listen to it.” The clients are listening, and they get it. I think that’s awesome, because now they’re kind of setting the status quo, which is great. A really good status quo.

Kevin: It seems like an ideal partnership. As long as their content’s good without overtly selling anything, keep making them. I’m all for branded podcasts as long as it’s quality content. On the Gimlet side of the house, do you have any interaction with some of the other Gimlet shows, producers, hosts? Is there some sort of Gimlet knowledge-share out there?

Cathy: I’m sure there is. We shared the same recording booth. When our time is up, somebody is always kicking us out because they’re booked up every single minute of the day. But we’re working with Gimlet Creative, which is the arm of the company that does branded shows.                                 

Given that, I don’t really have much reason to interact with other shows. Perhaps we will once the season dies down. It’s very all-hands-on-deck right now. Going through this six-episode season with each episode coming out a week after the other has been really intense. Once that dies down, hopefully we’ll have more mixers and get to mingle a bit more.

Kevin: That’ll be nice once it calms down a bit. I’m sure the production schedule is real hectic. In a past episode, you admitted your picky eater confession was avoiding cheese; however, you forced your way through a cheese tasting. Just wanted an update on that. How is the constant cheese reinforcement coming along?

Cathy: Once I have it in my head that I’m going to conquer something, I’m like, “I really should do this.” So I went through the rest of that cheese. I haven’t really seen … I haven’t been around blue cheese too much since, so it’s not something I’m actively doing. But next time I have an opportunity at somewhere, like at a party, I’m going to definitely make an effort [to eat blue cheese] this time rather than not.

That was a plot twist that just came up organically, too, during a meeting. That episode in particular was really fun, because it was going in all different directions. After a few conversations, it turned into, “Let’s go to Murray’s Cheese tomorrow.” Who knows where the episode is going to go after? I was like, “Oh God. I don’t want to make this about me.” But I think it was funny. I think it was funny how that turned out.

Kevin: It was definitely good to bring that side. Have you had a cheese curd yet?

Cathy: I love cheese curds.

Kevin: You love cheese curds? I had my first on last summer. I went to a wedding in the Midwest. I just couldn’t stand how they squeak in your mouth. It was just an odd sensation.

Cathy: It is kind of weird, but I love it. I love it because it doesn’t really taste weird. It’s the mildest. It’s just salty and mild. It’s totally within my safe range.

Kevin: Now, going into a speed round, what’s one podcast that you couldn’t live without or that’s on your must-listen on a weekly basis?

Cathy: I’ve been really dipping and dabbling around. It’s hard to say. I have been enjoying lately Still Processing with Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris one. I like Reply All. I’ve been just listening to a lot of different things too, but those two I really do like.

Kevin: What surprised you about podcasting when you first started? Was there one thing that just stuck out to you that you weren’t expected?

Cathy: Yeah, just how much fricking work it is. How many people, how much time, how many hours of editing. Then there’s so many different roles. There’s the sound engineers. There’s the mixers. There’s the musicians who are coming up with original music to go with this. It’s really amazing. I realize that’s not always the case, this is Gimlet, but it’s really amazing to see how much goes into it…. Before Gimlet approached me, for the last several months before, I was trying to figure out how to hack out my own narrative podcast about food. I was working on this, and I was going around with a zoom recorder and trying to edit together things on my own and then write script and then narrate it. I was like, “Wow. This is going to sound like it’s such a bad effort if I don’t figure this out a little bit more. Also, this is going to take me like 100 years to make one episode if I try to do this on my own.”

Then, thank God, randomly, just coincidentally, Gimlet approached me out of the blue about their narrative food podcast. I’m like, “Hey. That sounds like almost just what I was trying to do.” It’s quite amazing. Now I’m even more like, “Wow.” It’s a lot more work than I even imagined.

Kevin: At brunch a couple weeks ago, we were ranking our top five favorite fruits and realized there’s not much of a consensus. Do you have a specific five that you like?

Cathy: Ha, um. Pineapple. I love apples. Mango. Watermelon. I love snow pears, Asian pears.

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