On why it's cool to care

What was the process like between having the idea for Sixteenth Minute of Fame and launching it?

I’ve worked with the same producer for half a decade now. We’re very passionate about the same kinds of stuff. We found ourselves talking about this on the phone all the time, and I was like, “I want to listen to a show about this, but I don’t think it exists.” And she was like, “Well, if that’s still true in six months, we’ll start making it.” It was just a show that I wanted to hear that didn’t exist yet, and that was exciting, because it feels like with podcasts, everything exists. But this one didn’t, or at least not from the angle I wanted to hear about these stories.

When you’re talking to your producer about your ideas, is there a point at which you start putting things down in a notepad or the Notes app in your phone?

I definitely keep running lists wherever. For this show, I had a list of topics in a Google Doc that just kept growing, of either people I’d not seen or spoken to before or people that I’d only seen asked the same three or four questions, and all the media about them was based around these 14 seconds of their entire life. When we got the show [green-lit], it was a matter of going through, “Which of these characters are important to just me? Which of them have a wider appeal?” and figuring out what the approach was going to be.

In your book Raw Dog, there’s a joke early on about readers forming a parasocial relationship with you. How do you navigate parasocial relationships in your creative work?

My feelings about parasociality change a lot… The majority of people who listen to my stuff, and [who] I meet at events or whatever, understand what parasocial relationships are at this point. I’ve found in general that people are very respectful… There’s definitely a line there, and I’ve had my share of people who overstep. That just has taken time. It took me so long to figure out that not saying yes to everything was not a personal failure. I learned that by observing other people who did similar work to what I did. It’s just setting a boundary and seeing it accepted—because most people will accept a boundary, especially if it’s someone who they feel that connection with. They want to respect their wishes.

It’s been a learning curve for me. I also feel like [there’s] a learning curve for media consumers of, “Hey, it’s really weird if you come up to me and start asking about my shoe size.” But there’s a sick enjoyment of it, too. I can’t lie and be like, “I hate attention.” I check my Wikifeet page. I like to see if they’ve figured out what my shoe size is, and they still don’t have a clue. So I don’t know. I think it’s a combination of needing to prioritize my own boundaries and comfort, and that’s my sophisticated answer.

I know you’re talking about boundaries and saying no in the context of parasocial relationships, but it makes me think about the importance of saying no when people ask you about your availability for creative opportunities. What’s your experience with that?

Oh, constant. I would be lying if I said I was really good at it. And again, it’s something I’ve learned through observing people who I admire. My default was, “If you can do it, you should.” It’s this scarcity mindset that encourages you to undervalue yourself a little bit, where I was like, “I should do this even though it’s maybe not the thing I’m most passionate about.”

This is more what I was struggling with in my early 20s, because you never know when the bottom is going to fall out of your life. And I understand why I thought that way, but at some point, you’ve got to take a risk to take a step forward, and that is inherently scary. But ultimately, it was scarier to me to think about saying yes to everything and standing in place forever.

You can argue that Raw Dog is a niche book that’s about hot dogs, but it’s also an approachable book precisely because it’s about hot dogs. How have you figured out the balance of how to make your niche voice something that people will pay attention to?

It’s always a risk, and it doesn’t always work. Sometimes mid-project I’m like, “This might be more interesting to me than to most people.” And that’s fine. Whatever medium it is, you can tell if someone cares about what they’re talking about. That’s always the most important thing to me… versus just choosing something that algorithmically would be interesting to talk about, and talk[ing] about it dispassionately. There’s plenty of that. I don’t need to be clogging [people’s feeds], because then it really does start to feel like [just] content, if you don’t feel any which way about it. I try to be like, “Am I creating ‘hashtag #content,’ or am I really engaging with something and coming from a place of curiosity?”

Given that you’re very much you in your work, what does your curiosity look like?

I have clinical OCD, and I’m trying to weaponize it in a way that my therapist feels okay about. I struggled with that for a really long time, and I didn’t get a diagnosis until I was well into my 20s. Once I felt like I had a better understanding of why my reaction to things—interpersonally, but also [with] objects or topics of fascination—was so strong and wasn’t personal failure, and once I had treatment, [I realized] this is not something that is going to change about me. It’s something that I need to understand and manage. I do like that part of my brain, when it’s being treated to the point where it doesn’t hurt me. So much of how I thought about OCD, even when I first learned that I had it, was with this mentality of, “We have to kill it,” which is not how that works.

Through the work I do, [due to] that part of me, I will know very quickly if I’m interested in something. I really love topics where there’s more to it than it seems like there is. The hot dog is a great example, where it’s a hot dog and that’s funny and interesting and something everybody knows, but you can connect it to all these areas of study. You can connect it to class, you can connect it to race, you can connect it to history… I’m very interested in a lot of broad things, so I’m always looking for something specific and recognizable to open a conversation to the broader things that I care about.

How do you balance your primary avenue of humor with more serious topics?

Through trial and error. The most basic question is, if I’m choosing to make a joke at this moment, first of all, is it funny? Well, actually, second of all, is it funny? First of all, am I punching in the right direction? Again, it’s just having people in my life who I trust tell me, “No, maybe not there.” At the end of a difficult topic, [I like] finding a way that I could release the pressure a little bit, in a way I would want to hear. It’s a reward for having to learn something horrible. You’re like, “Here’s a treat. Okay, back into the horrible stuff.”

Unfortunately, money exists and we live in a society. On the financial side of things, have you found that pursuing niches is something that makes for a sustainable career? Or do you have to do things like write for TV because you’re pursuing niches?

I realize that I’ve gotten very lucky getting to do what I do, and I think some of that is privilege and some is just lucky timing. I think if I had gone into podcasting a couple years later, it would’ve been much more challenging. I would be doing better [financially] if I was chasing the trending topics. But I wouldn’t be making stuff that I care about. Of course there’s always going to be negotiation because, like you said, we live in a society, baby! I’m not trying to imply that everything I’ve ever done I’m unbelievably passionate about. If you look at my resume, you probably could pick out what I was not as excited about. But I do think it’s worth it for me—and I try, where possible—to take on other jobs where I feel like I really am learning and trying different stuff. If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have ended up in podcasting in the first place.

Is there anything more you want to say about creativity?

I like to keep challenging myself. If you’re able to support yourself creatively, you’re so lucky—I do feel like it is almost a personal responsibility to try and provide stuff for others. The creative landscape we’re in is very clearly systemically unfair, and I feel lucky to have seen that change ever so slightly over time, but I would just feel like a selfish asshole to not try to uplift and support others.

On the hardest days of doing my job, I have to stop myself as I’m stress-eating a bowl of Chipotle and be like, “This is what I wanted for myself. I wanted the stress bowl of Chipotle. This is the best-case scenario.” I feel so unbelievably lucky to get to connect with people. Especially with the show I’m working on now, I feel like, if you’re asking others for their experiences and time, you have to be willing to give some of yourself over as well—or you’re just hoarding others’ life experiences. That’s why I try to also be like, “Here’s why I care about this,” because I think that’s missing from a lot of stuff. I want to know why people care about what they’re talking about.