00:00:49.980If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:00:55.400Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:01:04.060Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.
00:02:40.080So we are doing a mailbag episode as promised, but when Joey and Mike and myself sat down to record, we realized that a lot of the conversations we were having were sort of focused on one area, and that is our careers, our backgrounds, how the podcast comes together.
00:02:56.500So this is sort of a mailbag theme episode that speaks to those issues.
00:03:01.120We'll have more mailbag episodes to come.
00:06:38.780I do think that you're onto something about the media bubbles because we were talking about how before Trump made his comments about Rob Reiner,
00:06:48.500I saw popular right wing figures saying, do you see how no one is besmirching Rob Reiner in death?
00:06:56.860And then 10 minutes later, Trump had that horrible tweet.
00:07:00.560And part of me, you know, when people were surprised by Trump comments about that, part of me was like, do you know this man?
00:07:07.900Like, there's the only information that you're getting about Trump.
00:07:09.800Like, what kind of media bubble are you in that the idea that Trump would be disrespectful of his enemy, even when his enemy was brutally murdered, like the next day?
00:07:21.640In what world are you living in, in terms of your media bubble or algorithm, where that would be surprising information or not completely expected information?
00:07:30.440I had the exact same response. And I think they probably just don't see that stuff.
00:07:35.580Well, it's actually, I thought, a good segue into our mailbag episode.
00:07:41.860You know, we, I was thinking about this before we got on the mic and we've never done a mailbag episode before.
00:07:48.340So bear with us if it seems like we're not so professional at this because this is our first time doing this format.
00:07:54.660And I was thinking, why did I want to do this?
00:07:57.260Why was this something that I had in my mind?
00:07:59.280Because we've been doing this podcast.
00:08:01.360We launched the show in summer of 2020.
00:08:05.580I think May of 2020. So we're coming up on, we've been doing it over five years. We're coming up on
00:08:11.300six years. And since that time, I feel that we've learned. So I've learned so much. I feel like we've
00:08:18.480heard so much from our listeners, the audience. I've, you know, when we first started this,
00:08:25.620it was just me and our producer, Tari Harrison. And then Mike was more behind the scenes. And
00:08:31.540then we gained joey i feel like we really become a a team so like in addition to all the different
00:08:38.280shows and stories and rabbit holes and tangents of the internet that we get to explore i feel like
00:08:43.360we've all kind of learned and grown a little bit together in this work i don't know maybe maybe
00:08:47.680this just sounds a little sappy because it's the end of the year and i'm having a margarita but
00:08:51.500what do you all think yeah maybe the real podcast for the friends we made along the way maybe maybe
00:08:57.600Yeah, I'm with you. I feel like I've learned a ton doing doing this podcast, getting to work on it. You know, got to know more about you, Bridget. Got to know Joey and Tari. Learned a lot about podcasting, sort of the business side, the production side.
00:09:16.960and so much about our digital landscape
00:16:07.000it honors that putting the podcast together is actually kind of a lot of work. It's work that I
00:16:12.280love and it's work that I am grateful and lucky to be doing. And it's work that you will never
00:16:18.480hear me complaining about on the mic. Not to say that it's not, you know, I definitely have times
00:16:22.680where I'm like, this is so much work, but it's not energy that I bring to the show ever because
00:16:28.200truly, you know, it's a voluntary project and I'm so lucky that we get to do it together and all of
00:16:32.640that um and then also I would say the the work that goes into putting together a show I do even
00:16:40.300even though it can be a lot to manage I do find it interesting I I do I I do I am like a dog with
00:16:48.640a bone where if I just get an idea about something researching it is sort of part of the part of the
00:16:52.820fun of it so I would say how episodes come together is generally I start with some conversation that
00:17:01.320is happening where like every it's in the zeitgeist right if you don't need to have you're not it's not
00:17:06.340a it's not a hidden pocket of the internet it's a conversation everybody is having and then i'll
00:17:10.840try to say like well what are what are the parts of this conversation or the threads or the nuance
00:17:15.040that is getting missed and typically more times than not there is some aspect that reflects the
00:17:21.620marginalized experience and whether that's the experience of women of black folks people of
00:17:26.700color, trans folks, queer folks, people with disabilities, indigenous folks, you know,
00:17:31.520working folks, right? A lot of our media, tech media especially, really centers the idea of like
00:17:37.440CEOs and founders and Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg. And we kind of forget about the
00:17:41.960everyday person who is using technology, who is a working person, not somebody who is wealthy,
00:17:46.220right? And so I try to find the missed ways that identity is actually fueling something. And for
00:17:54.880For me, a lot of times that jumps out, but sometimes I have to like take a little bit
00:17:58.580of time to think about it because, you know, this is going to be a weird comparison, but
00:18:03.600if you've ever seen that movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, where the Greek dad is like,
00:18:07.820I can make it, tell me any word and I can tell you how it's actually a Greek word.
00:18:12.400I feel that way about tech and internet stories.
00:18:14.700Tell me any tech or internet story and I can tell you how it's actually the story of like
00:18:18.120a marginalized person or a marginalized experience or something like that.
00:18:21.200um then i'm laughing at that but like that really is by the way most stories though you can find
00:18:28.180that element because it is that's the thing about working into issues of like inequality of like
00:18:32.860gender or race or whatever is there's all that's always going to be rooted in whatever at the end
00:18:36.500of the day so yeah i this is similar to how i uh that's on a tangent but i was my friends will
00:18:44.020make fun of me because they're like every single time they'll like go watch a movie together you
00:18:47.140will like at the end be like and here's why it actually was a gay allegory and i'm like because
00:18:51.700because everything is a gay allegory i yeah i love that that's the best part of media jobs
00:18:56.380side note i did just get into a very long back and forth on reddit about the movie and book
00:19:02.560american psycho and the gay oh my god gay allegory do people not know that's a gay allegory y'all
00:19:09.280gay allegory i watched that movie this year for the first time finally after i finally like actually0.94
00:19:15.220sat down and watched it and I immediately was like oh my god yeah that's like this was written0.63
00:19:20.400by a gay man I can tell I oh yeah so once I have kind of gotten whatever the the identity thing0.95
00:19:29.520that I that I want to sort of like blow up and make the whole story I kind of have my marching
00:19:33.680orders from that point is the research and if I had to say there was one thing that people probably
00:19:39.340don't see on the show is how much research goes into not just every episode everything that I say
00:19:45.900I am the kind of person that like I will there I could probably count on one hand the amount of
00:19:51.200times that I've said something on the show or I was not absolutely certain because I have read
00:19:55.520no less than three articles about that thing sometimes I'm put on the spot and I'll have to
00:19:59.360say well in my opinion but for the most part every line that I have said is something I have read and
00:20:06.380can confirm and have based on something. And so I'm generally reading multiple like long form
00:20:12.740articles or having interviews and conversations, some of which don't even make it on the show
00:20:19.200to help flesh out, you know, the story that I'm trying to tell. In the episodes that you all hear
00:20:24.400that have like an interview, I'm listening to basically I'm like finding the right person to
00:20:31.480speak to an issue. I'm pre-interviewing them. I'm outlining like where I want the conversation to
00:20:36.100go, but also sort of trying to strategically leave room for the twists and turns and where
00:20:42.040they're going to take me. I've had many an interview where from the beginning of that
00:20:45.980interview to the end, I was, I could not tell you where we were going to go. So leaving room for
00:20:49.840that. The editing process, I don't even know if this is interesting to people to hear this,
00:20:54.900how the sausage is made, but you know, I listen through every interview multiple times, just the
00:21:00.980raw audio and you kind of you kind of get an ear for it right you get an ear for the beats of the
00:21:06.880story you get an ear for the things that are like okay well this can be cut you get an ear for
00:21:10.220how to prune this into a story that that you know isn't just a good interview but has a beginning
00:21:16.920middle and end mike will tell you that when we first started the podcast i would probably spend
00:21:22.620just in terms of making edits to audio i probably would spend what would you what would you say
00:21:29.520Oh, I mean, I'd be hard pressed to say what is like editing versus like researching, but you you would spend like tens of hours on every episode, which was just like not sustainable. Right. And yeah, you know, it's it's funny. I started this segment saying about, you know, I got to gotten to learn so much over these years working on the show.
00:21:55.920and that's certainly true uh some additional things that i didn't mention that i've learned
00:22:00.820are like uh getting the skills of uh conducting an interview the skills of
00:22:08.740editing footage to tell a story um and then the additional skill of doing all of that under like
00:22:18.640a super tight deadline of you know got to get two episodes out per week got to get it done
00:22:25.040You know, I came from an academic-ish setting where research projects would unfold over months or sometimes years, right?
00:22:34.200There would just be like seemingly endless research and then writing a document would be a task that involved multiple people over, again, many weeks or months of revisions.
00:22:47.740um and then ending up with a like a research article which is just a very different thing
00:22:53.920than the storytelling that you're able to do and uh and it's just been really cool uh and and fun
00:23:01.520and interesting to to get exposure to those skills um and Bridget you're like very good at it
00:27:40.680so when we first got greenlit for the show i would spend
00:27:48.460a few days from soup to nuts at the beginning each episode was a few days of like deep work
00:27:58.780and i was so you remember i was so hung up on the editing right i was like
00:28:03.140the reason I want to do this show is because I think that marginalized people deserve beautifully
00:28:07.980edited, beautifully stories, like stories of our digital resilience and our digital selves and
00:28:14.160lives. And, you know, when I would pitch it, I would talk about how, you know, if you listen
00:28:17.900to a podcast like This American Life, or for me, it was a Starly Kinds mystery show, you get these
00:28:23.260beautifully layered, beautifully thoughtfully edited stories. And I was like, that's what
00:28:28.500That's what we deserve. When people talk about internet stories for marginalized people, so often they're just so hastily thrown together. And I was like, I want to document our loving tributes to ourselves online. Well, it turns out that's a lot of freaking work. And it was like, I don't know that the story, I feel like the stories are good. And all of the editing that I was bringing was important to me, but it was sort of just icing.
00:28:53.540and so now where I and also when you are doing work like that you don't get to respond to what's
00:29:00.000what's current right because if all if all your work is made in advance in the can when something
00:29:05.380really happens and you're like I want to speak to that you don't really have a way to do that
00:29:08.800so I found myself kind of getting into a trap where we were putting out content that I was like
00:29:14.540very proud of but it wasn't speaking to the moment then we started doing the news roundup we got to
00:29:19.300hear from Mike and Joey and other folks in the who are on my radar and the tech landscape and
00:29:25.040I feel like that really changed the game as well because one it created a space where I could speak
00:29:33.460a little bit more off the cuff you know when I'm interviewing when I'm interviewing somebody
00:29:37.000their interview it's very important to me that their interview is like take center stage and
00:29:41.940is the main thing that you're that you're hearing and so you don't hear a lot of me and people would
00:29:45.940say i like the show but i don't really feel like i hear bridget or know who she is and the news
00:29:50.580roundup i think it kind of lowers the stakes a little bit and also gives a chance to you know
00:29:56.240wrap up like what are the things that happened this week and weirdly i feel like the news roundup
00:30:02.520has become more of the podcast than the interview episodes in some ways we have been getting more
00:30:07.520listens on the on the news so we have just from the numbers on omni if it's yeah yeah yeah i will
00:30:13.060say though that when i see people on like blue sky or something uh just randomly reference an
00:30:19.140episode they're usually referencing one of the interview episodes oh yeah well listeners tell
00:30:25.360us what you like it would actually be useful to know what like how people are engaging with this
00:30:31.020so yeah let us know how that lands for you and lauren thank you so much for this email i hope
00:30:37.720this answered your question i also hope that was interesting wait do you want the post-production
00:30:41.260oh my god what am i doing i'm sorry post-production listeners this is what always
00:30:48.020happens is that i'll get an email this is a perfect this is a perfect tangent because what
00:30:53.200happens is bridget does all that and then thursday night somewhere between 10 p.m and 3 a.m yes i0.84
00:31:03.480will get an email from bridget i'm i can't stop this is so real this is absolutely fucking0.82
00:31:11.140i can't fault you because again we've talked about this where i'm like bridget i get it i'm0.91
00:31:16.680also somebody that i'm either awake at 3 a.m or i fell asleep at 9 p.m and i'm whatever so
00:31:23.280listeners if you're wondering why friday episodes now since they've switched to news roundups uh
00:31:29.100suddenly come up come out like really late at night it's because and this isn't and i'm not
00:31:34.800bridget i'm not saying this is a fault it is a heart it is like you know what that's the thing
00:31:38.600with if you want to be like with love if you but that's it is the thing of you if you want stuff
00:31:43.380that is like responding to the immediate stories sometimes so there's a little bit of like there's
00:31:47.460gonna be some turnaround time um but yeah um I guess like real quick for me to kind of what you
00:31:55.580were saying before Bridget like people come up to me all the time they're like I love podcasts like
00:31:59.180what is your daily job like what does it look like and I'm like so you don't know the amount
00:32:04.060of work that has to go into even just a talk show where it's because because this the way that the
00:32:08.300I took over editing the Friday episodes when I originally came out of the show, which originally were similar to the Tuesday episodes where it was an interview and a story.
00:32:17.480And then at some point we switched over to the News Roundup format.
00:32:22.120But for even something like the News Roundup where it's just two people talking back and forth, like I get the files.
00:32:29.280I did earlier say that I failed the one physics class I ever had to take.
00:36:48.380It's been more of a like, I know what you were trying to say, but I don't know if that's it.
00:36:53.180But I'm like, you need somebody to listen back and tell you like, hey, the thing you're, I get what you're trying to say, but that's not coming across.
00:37:03.460I once when I was first working as a podcaster so we had done an episode early early on it might
00:37:11.300have been my second or third time even like doing a podcast where I was on the mic and she was like0.97
00:37:17.380I don't think we should run this because Bridget you sound like a fucking like what did she say1.00
00:37:26.160she was like you sound like Valerie Solanis like you're gonna go start taking the oh my god murdering0.99
00:37:32.220And I listened back and I was like, I sound insane. Is this what I said? Like you, you could not, I, you could have told me that they had, they had done an AI vocal clone of my voice because I was on such a rant, but in the booth, it felt natural and it felt normal.
00:37:48.680But listening back, you know, when your cortisol has gone down and you're no longer in the moment of, like, ranting and ranting, I was like, I sound insane.
00:42:44.880Seeing as though we all have kind of come from different professional backgrounds to do this work,
00:42:50.800I was surprised that we got so many emails from listeners who were interested in sort of our career trajectories and the idea of like making career changes and how we came to podcasting in the first place.
00:43:01.400We got an email from Chase that says, I hope you guys are doing well and taking time for yourselves during this crazy time.
00:43:07.560My name is Chase. I'm 24. I've been listening to your podcast for a few months now.
00:43:11.260I enjoy it and I love hearing your takes on all things tech, media and society.
00:43:14.680You both are so insightful, and I appreciate your work so much, especially during this
00:43:18.160time of misinformation and the lack of integrity in mainstream journalism.
00:43:21.080So I said that all to say, thanks for the work that you do.
00:43:43.360And I, it's written to me, but I know that we've all had, I don't know, interesting career paths. My career path has been very cattywampus. My late father, God rest his soul, used to say that when I was in college, because I majored, I double majored in English literature and women's studies.
00:44:05.280And he would tell people, this is my daughter.
00:44:07.720She is majoring in future unemployment.
00:44:14.320He used to beg me to say, like, oh, please take a minor in business administration or chemistry or something.
00:44:21.720So I went to undergrad at East Carolina University.
00:44:24.760I kind of had a couple of different majors, dance performance, which, again, my dad was not thrilled about because I loved dance.
00:44:31.400And I loved kind of the intersection of theater and dance.
00:44:34.200And I anything involving this physicality was my thing. And so I did like modeling and portrait modeling and dance. And I thought I was going to have a career that I don't know how you how you didn't say it. I thought I would. I thought I would be happiest having some kind of a physical career where my physical self and my physical body and presentation was part of how I how I made my money. Right.
00:44:58.620um a performance career a performance career i feel like that yeah yeah that's the word i'm
00:45:04.040looking for you too joey i also yeah i was gonna say i was talking to you like frigid what do you
00:45:08.060we've never talked about this before i didn't know you were a dancer too um so i also kind of came
00:45:13.740i'm just ironically also from a performance background but i left a little bit earlier i
00:45:20.780didn't end up studying it in college it's funny because i've talked to so many people that come
00:45:25.600from a like like a like a modern dance or or theater or performance background who now do
00:45:32.360tech and media work there's like an intersection there producer mike and i were just in barcelona
00:45:36.600interviewing uh someone who is like a digital rights activist now and part of her work brings
00:45:42.780in her background studying performance and and what she calls like the theater of the absurd the
00:45:48.080theater of protest and her work is all about using data to make a kind of a public spectacle
00:45:55.580of embarrassment uh for people in power and that is so grounded in her work as a theater professional
00:46:02.020and so I do think there's some sort of intersection point between these two things
00:46:06.060um yeah and so I you know when college I was a little miss on campus right I this this is I
00:46:13.320I've said this before I don't know if I said it on the podcast but I wrote I had my own column in
00:46:18.220the paper I had a zine I was a dj on the radio on our our college radio station WZMV I was dj
00:46:24.840coleslaw um which is a name it's a it's a it's a goofy name it's i got it from the graphic novel
00:46:34.260ghost world by daniel close the main character of that graphic novel was a girl called enid coleslaw
00:46:40.400who i felt was my like spiritual twin and so that's why i was dj coleslaw and there was one
00:46:46.480day a month on campus where my column came out in the paper you could hear me on the college radio
00:46:51.880station you know you could get the zine basically my opinions were coming at you from land sky and
00:46:59.660air right there was no escaping my voice if you were on campus and yeah I guess that really was
00:47:07.160my north star you know just being somebody who had something to say I mean it sounds so cheesy but
00:47:16.800I feel like every aspect of my career and my passions of my life have come back to
00:47:22.080the importance of self-expression, the importance of the truth. I don't want to get too personal,
00:47:31.280but I grew up in a household where it was sometimes difficult to express yourself and
00:47:38.340it was sometimes difficult to say the truth and really say it with conviction and say what you
00:47:43.560meant there was a there was a sometimes there was a cost or a penalty attached to saying something
00:47:49.360and saying it true like like saying something that that carried emotional truth and so I think that
00:47:54.120today when you say the truth the truth always finds an audience even when we're living in a
00:48:00.620media climate where lies abound right like when when when you live in a media climate where lies
00:48:05.760are everywhere and lies are cheap and lies are fast and lies are easy to produce and lies are
00:48:09.360incentivized truth is what cuts cuts through and so i think that's really been the north star of
00:48:13.900my career um i had a a disastrous stint in graduate school i went to university of maryland0.99
00:48:20.880i was accepted into their ma phd program and y'all i was the the dumbest person in my fucking phd0.86
00:48:28.060program i was like the i like just could not get it together i i i genuinely i genuinely like i0.98
00:48:35.660would have nights where i would say like oh what am i doing here i would i would be up at night
00:48:39.060being like this is not but also it was very important to my parents and my family in general
00:48:45.560that I get an advanced degree I am I am the least educated person in my family and yeah I I I mean
00:48:55.200I say this yeah I am the least educated person in my family uh and uh it's just funny because
00:49:05.180I, in a million years, never thought that the career that I am in would be where I was. And
00:49:10.960I gotta say, I am so grateful every day that I had the guts to leave my graduate program,
00:49:17.120because if I was still in that, there's a version, I know people who are still in that
00:49:20.260grad program, and I dropped out like 15 years ago, right? Like, it is, for people who have PhDs,
00:49:26.500Mike is one of them. Genuinely, I do not know how you did it. The fortitude that it takes,
00:49:32.340I do not have. Yeah. So I guess I guess I said to say that I am someone who has started over a lot in my career.
00:49:41.440We got another email about, you know, what it's like to start over for a long part of my career.
00:49:46.340I thought I wanted to be in academia. That didn't work out.
00:49:50.420And I realized what I enjoyed about academia was being in front of a classroom and working with young people and students.
00:49:55.680Like that was really where I found an energy that I had that I had been looking for.
00:50:00.380But, you know, in academia, the teaching is supposed to be like supplementary. Academic research that you're producing, that's meant to be the main thing. And I was like, oh, I'm really more into the teaching. So then I taught for several years. Then from there, I worked more in like political activism and organizing. I got a job at MSNBC, started doing journalism. I really have taken kind of a strange circuitous route.
00:50:21.000I'm rambling. And I was going here because I wanted to set up to dovetail to Mike because you are somebody who actually did finish your PhD. You never make me call you Dr. Amato, even though you could.
00:50:36.340You should. I think it's your right. I think it's your right to say you're Dr. Amato. Let's go.
00:50:41.940When he's like emailing a company with a complaint or like he wants something free, you're not above doing it.
00:50:48.140That's the main time I pull it out when I'm, like, complaining about something and want them to know, like, no, I'm someone whose complaints are backed up by evidence.
00:50:59.620I guess quick addition to that, because Chase, when Mike and Bridget sent out this email with the prompts that we were talking about, I flagged this one where I was like, I, like, in your email, you said I'm 24, I'm 26, so I'm two years older than you.
00:51:16.480and i i was like i'll give my opinion as somebody who like i gotta get it i don't know i guess i
00:51:24.400because i i resonate a lot of what you were saying i really resonate with where i think like it is a
00:51:28.080time in your life where and i'm saying this year where i i'm still figuring out what the hell i'm
00:51:33.140doing and what i want to do with my life um personally though i will say like my route to
00:51:38.780getting into podcasting was because i also this is something where it's it's not a traditional
00:51:44.880career path everybody I work with has a different path they got into it for me I studied journalism
00:51:50.760in college I for a while really wanted to go into the film industry uh and then sort of got to
00:51:56.600college and was like never mind I'm more of a writer I want to do all of this studied journalism
00:52:02.260got really involved with the Bridget you kind of you mentioned this when you're talking I got
00:52:07.300involved with my college's radio program uh so i i was not as like the big name on campus bridget
00:52:15.520todd but but you know but i was i was super involved with the radio studio i kind of found
00:52:20.660my niche of like media that i was into i was doing a lot with that i had some audio editing
00:52:25.740experience because of that i got kind of lucky in a weird way where i graduated in the middle
00:52:31.880of the pandemic but also it was right when podcasting was taking off
00:52:37.300Again, that's why I say I'm like, it was lucky in a way, lucky in an unlucky in a way, because
00:52:41.180if you know anything about if anybody listening was a was a junior or senior at the time when
00:52:46.320COVID started, it was a weird time. I had an internship that I was about a month into that
00:52:52.020got cut short that I immediately freaked out and was like, my career is over. I'm never going to
00:52:55.980whatever. But but it also it was like it was a time when they were looking for people that had
00:53:00.260audio experience. It was a new industry. And I just happened to have that experience. But yeah,
00:53:07.160I the thing that I really emphasize I think for a lot of people is like I I'll be real like when
00:53:12.460I wasn't I never was a big like podcast listener before I started this career path yeah because I
00:53:19.300and part of it was just that I was like I knew I was into media I knew I was into like storytelling
00:53:25.400talking about things I was into the like pop culture I again for a while really wanted to
00:53:31.280go to film I had that like that background too I had done a couple internships that were in like
00:53:35.980the documentary sort of field and it worked out really well where it was like this these things
00:53:41.960that I like doing and there's an industry that I'm able to do all of them podcasting was the
00:53:46.920thing when I graduated that was the big thing there's going to be something else currently or
00:53:50.800in a couple years that's such a good way to put it because the stuff that I the skills that I got
00:53:58.200this sort of like fell ass backward into that I use every day now would have been really helpful
00:54:03.000of my career there are things i would have never you know thought would pick up like i i got into
00:54:08.120podcasting because i was a the opposite of you i was just a voracious listener of podcasts early
00:54:13.120on and i was i was i was there for that early wave of podcasting the the sort of wild wild west
00:54:19.940before that second boom when you were graduating into audio production like i was just there as a
00:54:26.280as a listener of podcasts and the field at that point this was like 2008 2009 it wasn't that big
00:54:32.440of a space. And so just by some being somebody who likes podcasts a lot and like knew all the shows
00:54:38.040and had listened to them all, I was able to show up in that space professionally. I never thought
00:54:42.960that would be something that would be an avenue for me. So I say that to say it really reflects
00:54:47.680your career path of just sort of happenstance, luck, being at the right place at the right time,
00:54:54.980and then also really following what it is that feels like an alignment. I could never have on
00:55:00.720paper planned for the career that I have now I think all of the twists and turns and you know
00:55:06.800weird stopovers and pit stops are part of it in a kind of way that's that's sort of part of the
00:55:12.900journey it's that sounds so cheesy but it's true no it's real though I mean I like the first
00:55:18.960because like and again I came into this show as a producer and I came into iHeart as a producer
00:55:25.300but like the first episode that i wrote and co-hosted was like about like a comic book
00:55:31.940character for stuff mom never told you where they had like mentioned that they wanted to do an
00:55:36.040episode and i was like i emailed samantha nanny the host who like they're amazing love them and
00:55:43.460i was like you mentioned this character you mentioned one doing an episode about this i
00:55:47.080i really love this character i would love to be involved with it somehow and like they were like
00:55:51.960if you want to write it go ahead and i was sort of like oh wow okay so yeah it is like a weird
00:55:55.920like you kind of just got to wait for the opportunity which and again i'm i'm saying
00:55:59.900this too this is a it's a double-edged sword of also i will recognize like i said earlier i'm 26
00:56:06.860i feel like i've been really lucky we're like i success is like is it's i feel so like wow i'm
00:56:14.500one of those like barstool podcasts or something being like oh my god the key to success is but
00:56:19.540but for real but really like the key to success is like the key to never mind forget i know i know
00:56:25.000but you know what i'm trying to say you know what i'm trying to say i think the way to do well is
00:56:29.220it's the it's the combination of like having those skills ready where again i was like i have this
00:56:33.360background in radio i've worked on audio i have a portfolio i can send people and like when i got
00:56:39.180the interview for this job i was like here i have all these things i can send you that was really a
00:56:43.860leg up but also being like and once you were ready for me to be like can you write an episode about
00:56:48.820this i was like yeah let's go i love this thing let's do it and it's kind of been like a snowball
00:56:53.420since then i think luck is a huge part of pretty much every successful career uh and hopefully
00:57:01.260some good luck but like a lot of bad luck too but uh you know what what's the the old saying
00:57:08.220that like luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity that's what i was thinking of
00:57:13.260Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's really true. You know, I'm also somebody who's had a non-traditional career. It's hard to put a lot of labels on exactly what my career is, but non-traditional perhaps fits better than anything.
00:57:27.980uh and yeah there was a lot of what i would want to call luck but was more just sort of like
00:57:38.520unexpected opportunities that for whatever reason i had a mix of qualifications for
00:57:47.720and or a willingness to take a risk and an ability to take a risk you know and i think
00:57:56.800uh for anybody who's contemplating a non-traditional career path uh and you probably
00:58:04.340know who you are right like if that if you hear that phrase and you're like yeah that's me then
00:58:09.020yeah you're probably one of us uh you know you just have to know for yourself like
00:58:16.600how risky are you willing to be i think that's a a big question that needs to be answered
00:58:23.760yeah if anybody this I don't know if this is interesting for anybody that's not trying to
00:58:29.320get into media but like I was just having a conversation with a family member over the
00:58:33.220weekend about this about the sort of balancing act that goes into at least for my work it goes
00:58:40.160into like making the financials work and then the math math and how you have your one client that
00:58:45.420pays for your ability to take this other client or your ability to do this other passion project
00:58:49.440that doesn't really pay but maybe it will like it really is a little bit of a spinning plate dance
00:58:53.420I will say we got an email from Steph from Winnipeg who said that she heard that I used to be in education, which is true.
00:59:03.160What a different world than podcasting.
00:59:05.020I'm in my mid-30s and I've considered a 180 career change myself, but it's very scary.
00:59:09.660Does Bridget have any advice on how to do it without ruining your life?
00:59:12.440I hate the idea of starting over, but this is not it.
00:59:14.920For reference, I'm currently in accounting and administration looking at agri-sciences, lots of farming around here.
00:59:20.540And first of all, I just I love this email. I am all about a second, third, fourth act. I feel like I've had many of them in my career. But Mike, I do feel like this email speaks to what you were sort of answering. Right.
00:59:34.960Like, you know, when I when I first met you, this is you were just a lowly data, just a lowly PhD haver who was, I don't know, just doing some like piddly little thing, running a data team of one of the country's largest public health nonprofits.0.91
00:59:51.340And I plucked you from that world of garbage and obscurity.
01:15:05.540I don't always agree with what they say, but there's something about hearing somebody express themselves and explain themselves in their own words and make a case for how they feel.
01:15:15.640If they tweet, if they condense that into a tweet, it's so easy, or a short form post, it's so easy to be like, I don't agree.
01:15:24.020Podcasting, people really, it's just a different, the people who listen to podcasts, people who make them, it's just a different kind of space.
01:15:31.800People are very forgiving. People want to hear challenging attitudes and opinions. And I don't know, I'm lucky that this is the medium that I'm in.
01:15:39.800We did a whole meeting with Cool Zone in the wake of Charlie Kirk's death where one of the things that came up was how, you know, there is something about it where, you know, we're not like, I don't want to say the wrong thing and like diminish the work of any other creator, but like, we're not like drama YouTubers or anything, right?
01:16:01.320I think that podcasting the reason why I'm a podcaster and I feel very lucky to be in this space is that people listen to what you have to say and it's like a long form medium and if somebody really wants to you know be combative about your opinion they have to listen to like an hour of you speak plus ads and I think it's so different from other communities online like the YouTube community which I really admire I love and I'm not putting anybody down who was part of it but I know it's not for me because YouTube has this culture
01:16:31.320of, you know, I'm going to respond to what this other creator said, and then me responding to
01:16:37.920that creator. And then it's like, there's so many levels where you don't even remember the take that
01:16:42.060somebody is responding to anymore. That is so not my ministry. And I think that being in podcasting
01:16:48.680as a medium, I think it like is a little bit protective of some of the kind of back and forth
01:30:28.980None of us want to have any sexual relations with Elon Musk.
01:30:32.320there was a i think a poll on x the other night that like you're you're sitting next to elon musk0.96
01:30:40.820and you can say three words what are your top three words and the top choice was kill yourself
01:30:45.340now oh i saw that i saw that which is like pretty mean and like he should not kill himself but like0.99
01:30:52.700god damn never tell anybody to kill himself but also if you're gonna tell anyone to kill0.96
01:30:57.680I mean, I mean, I will say I there's not even part like I was like, well, is it is there because like you don't have to like somebody or like enjoy somebody's company to be interested in what sex with them would be like.0.99
01:31:12.960And I keep asking myself, is there any is there any reality?
01:31:17.020Unfortunately for me, maybe that's just me.