by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Even though I’m an Old, I try to be hip with Fellow Young People. But before I begin, let me be clear — there are many, many interesting and unique podcasts out there and so even the best effort to serve the needs of the Youngs in a hypothetical “vibe shift” podcasting network probably wouldn’t work.
But I need something to write about in between writing the last few scenes of the first draft of my first novel, so you get this. Anyway, there is definitely an underserved audience when it comes to keeping up with Julia Fox’s every twitch.
Now, the question is — why would you want to do a podcast when you could do some sort of YouTube channel that might feature another It Girl, Emma Chamberlain?
Good question.
I think it’s because podcasts don’t require your complete attention. You can listen to them while making breakfast or driving your car. With a YouTube channel, the medium is the message and it’s assumed you’re going to watch what’s on the screen.
Anyway, all of this is just a daydream and I just feel like writing about this because it’s fun and I — you guessed it — like to daydream.
But in my daydream of a podcast network for the vibe shift, someone like Emma Chamberlain would be the host of one of the podcasts — maybe the main one –and the podcast would try to be very much like Spy Magazine or Gawker back in the day. Instead of Julia Allison getting a parking ticket and video taping it, this podcast would, I don’t know, interview Ms. Fox on a regular basis or even — it the nacent little media company was lucky — have her as a co-host with Emma Chamberlain.
Maybe, the title could be, ‘It Girls.”
And it would be Fox and Chamberlain talking about boys, fashion, being “bi-coastal” and whatever else Youngs have on their mind at any particular moment. That business plan virtually writes itself, now doesn’t it?
But all of that is just the ramblings of a very broke aspiring novelist in the middle of nowhere. I wish someone would do something with this idea, though. We, as a nation, need something fun-interesting to distract us from global climate change, the rise of fascism, you name it.
And, yet, I think what’s really going on is I want my youth back. I want my 30s back. My pining for snark is just another form of middle-aged nostalgia. My youth is never coming back, and if anything fun-interesting ever happens again it probably will be in the context of the metaverse and probably will in some way be a distraction foisted upon us by our new fascist MAGA overlords.
Instead of being fun-interesting, it will be a real-life episode of Black Mirror.
Anyway, like I said — this is very fun to write about.
