The closest approximation to the type of podcast I want to listen to every day would be much like Crooked Media’s new What A Weekday podcast that Jon Lovett hosts. But my vision for a podcast would be centered around NYC life, entertainment and media, rather than the vaguely political vision of WAW.
We need a NYC-based podcast obsessed with Julia Fox’s every twitch.
I don’t even live in NYC, but it sure would be fun to have a podcast based out of NYC that was completely obsessed with the constant power struggles at The New York Times. Or be obsessed with whatever weird thing Julia Fox is doing at any particular moment.
Maybe Crooked Media could make my dream come true?
Most of all, it would be snarky. It would have that sharp comic edge that Late Night with David Letterman had as did Spy Magazine and Gawker. That’s why the Lovett show is very close to what my vision is, it just isn’t as focused as what I think my specific vision for a NYC-centric podcast would be.
Anyway, I hope someone does something with this idea before the window of opportunity closes because AI has taken over everything and we’re all consuming media via our AVP.
It is clear to me that all of this is just so much mental masturbation. Even if I somehow stick the landing with the novel I’m writing and it’s a breakout hit success, I would not have the funds necessary to do any of this until I was nearly 60.
Oh well.
But I’m young at heart, so here goes.
As I’ve written before, if I was going to do a successor to Spy Magazine and Gawker, I would make it some sort of podcasting network. And the person I would want to build the snarky podcasting network around would be some like Julia Fox.
Emma Chamberlain
She’s got a knack for generating buzz by just being herself.
A person I would also fixate on would be Emma Chamberlain.
I would be obsessed with Fox in a fun way and with Chamberlain in a snarky way. Chamberlain is a gorgeous young woman, but she would be really easy to tease because she’s so iconic to young people with thin skins.
I think some sort of podcasting network that had a lot of savvy young people as hosts who churned out a number of podcasts a day would be a hit. The vibe I am thinking of would be a snarky, non misogynistic version of Barstool. Something like that, but done in a way that would not drive young, well educated women away.
The goal would be for those types of young women to be in on the joke, once they realized that all the snarky comments about Chamberlain were done in good fun. And I think if the podcasting network was really, really obsessed with Julia Fox’s every twitch that that, too, would be something both men and women would enjoy.
But, again, the Internet of 2024 is very very very very different from the Internet of 2004. Even podcasting is a mature market and media landscape is so diffuse these days that it would be difficult to generate the type of buzz that Gawker did back in the day.
And, yet, the counter argument is that the dynamic that made Gawker so popular — that of media outlet that was totally consumed with the goings on of the media and entertainment elite in NYC that we plebs could enjoy — is still a viable option.
I’m not saying that there aren’t podcasting networks that don’t do some of what I’m talking about. But there’s not ONE network that replicates the vibe of Gawker from 2004. I would want the morning podcast of the network to be something that media professionals streamed every morning on the their way to work, and so on.
But, again, lulz. It’s over. This is the twilight of the type of media I love.
I really like Julia Fox. She’s got to be one of the weirdest, most interesting public women in the world right now. She claims she’s deadened to sex because of her time as a dominatrix when she was younger, but…lulz? Anyway, the thing about Ms. Fox is she’s a prime example of how there is a huge void in the media world at the moment.
Julia Fox
There is a space that isn’t being serviced — the old Gawker space.
Barring aliens landing on the front lawn of the White House and demanding a new Gawker being founded…I fear that era of media is over. Just like rock is sadly dead, the era of snarky celebrity coverage is dead, too. That era petered out just about the moment that Twitter cooped snark to the point that it’s everywhere and nowhere all at once.
So we have someone like Julia Fox and no one site to read about her exploits. All we have is a bunch of rabid Twitter accounts that follow her every twitch — and there are a lot of them. I mean, now she’s talking about how she only dated Ye because she wanted to get him out of Kim’s life? What the what?
And she does this all the while running around the major cities of the world in barely there “fashion forward” apparel. You can’t make this shit up.
Anyway. More power to you, Julia. You’re a very interesting woman and maybe when I blow up with my DJ money one day soon I might — might? — get to meet you. Wink.
Now that Pete Davidson is single and ready to mingle, who should he fuck, I mean date? Here are some options for our modern Warren Betty.
Emily Ratajkowski This is the top pick for people on Tik-Tok, apparently. It would definitely help their careers if they hooked up. He’s all chaotic energy and she’s got a very, very languid personality. So, they would play off of each other very well. If they were able to linger together long-term they would be an It Couple.
Miley Cyrus She and Davidson are so much alike in some ways, that it seems like they would have a really intense relationship then burn out as quickly as it all started. But for the few weeks their relationship existed, they would be an It Couple. Julia Fox They circulate in the same circles. Of course, this would open “Skete” up to talk of “sloppy seconds.” But despite this, they would make a cute couple and it would be the very definition of an “It Couple.” She’s an It Girl and he’s an It Boy. So, perfect.
Alexa Chung She likes rocker badboys and she’s a brunette. So, I think she might be open to a little fling with Pete Davidson. He’s a little younger than her, I think, but that hasn’t stopped the Stud of Our Generation.
Cassidy Hutchinson She’s a cute brunette and it would break the Internet (or at least Twitter) if they dated for even a little bit.
Melania This one is silly, but it would be funny if Melania left orange dingus for Pete Davidson.
Pretty much no one reads this blog. Most of the traffic comes from a trickle of people in Red States who have a boner for a civil war looking for how they can start murdering people like me for political reasons.
But, from my obsession with the analyzing the Web traffic of this Website, I can give you some sense of how one might start a new publication. The key take away from my all-consuming obsession with my traffic is there’s a real audience for celebrity news. It’s insatiable. The celebrity topic is one of the few things that people are willing to leave their passive media bubble to search for.
As such, if you wanted to start a new publication of some sort, I would suggest you really lean into covering celebrities, at least at first. So, I suppose if you wanted to get high concept you might say my idea is for TMZ meets BuzzFeed meets Spy Magazine Meets the old Nick Denton version of Gawker.
Or, put another way, I might suggest starting a podcast first that is hyper focused on snarky hot takes on celebrity news then build a Website out from that. Celebrity news definitely seems to be the clit of the infotainment industrial complex at the moment.
If you were to focus — as I’ve long suggested — on Julia Fox’s every public twitch then leverage that into politics and other infotainment elements you would have a hit on your hand.
Julia Fox
But who am I kidding. No one listens to me. Everyone gets all their information passively from Twitter, Facebook and Tik-Tok now. The only way my dream will ever come true is if I somehow managed to win the fucking lottery and do it myself.
I swear to God, if I win the lottery anytime soon I’m going to start a publication devoted, in part, to making snarky comments about Julia Fox’s every public twitch. She’s such a character, so of the moment, that it’s a shame that she keeping doing quirky, provocative things in NYC and LA and there’s no one central publication that makes note of what she’s up to.
The latest weird thing she’s done is walk around with pants cut so low that we can see her…uhhh…mons veneris. Any lower and she’d be giving us lip, if you know what I mean.
But I find it all very weirdly amusing. So what. We have a fascist ding-dong well on his way to destroying America as we’ve known it for 250 years, what’s a little bit of apparel cut too low between friends?
I do find Ms. Fox very interesting, which, I guess, is the point.
I continue to find it very aggravating that we’re experiencing something of a “vibe shift” in pop culture…and yet it’s not really being breathlessly documented by some new podcast, or Website or whatever. I mean, Julia Fox is someone I’m so interested that I’m willing to step outside my passive Twitter media bubble to find out what she’s up to — and there’s no central repository of information about her.
So, again, it seems to me that there is money to be made via say, a podcast that would direct people to a Website. Something like that. Something that would be multimedia in nature.
And, yet, the argument could be made that even podcasting is pretty much mature. The Web is definitely mature. And it would take millions to bootstrap a new print magazine.
So…lulz? I think this is it. No one wants to be cool and make money by documenting Julia Fox’s every twitch in a snarky way. I suppose that something unexpected might pop up at some point, but things are looking kind of bleak when it comes to pop culture coverage at the moment.
It is a testament to where things are right now with American pop culture and media that Julia Fox is out there, being a walking meme…and there’s not really any one blog or magazine (or even podcast) that I associate with her rise.
I mean, back in the day, there was Gawker and Julia Allison. That was an interesting dynamic that was a lot of fun to see unfold. She was young and dumb and Gawker enjoyed documenting her hot girl silliness.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that Julia Fox is one of a number of post-pandemic things that are part of the general “vibe shift” that is occurring in America at the moment.
And, in a different world — one where I had, like, friends and stuff — I would try to start a blog or a podcast that would do what the old Gawker did with Julia Allison. But, in a sense, I think that says more about my lost, squandered youth than anything else.
I just love the process of starting a new media outlet, however small, and it would be so much fun to start a new blog or podcast that hoped to not only document Julia Fox’s ever twitch, but also follow in the snarky tradition of Spy, Late Night With David Letterman and, of course, Gawker.
But it’s not to be.
Even if I managed to pull it off, it couldn’t be a blog, it would have to be a podcast. That’s where all the buzz and energy is these days. I can go months without looking at any media outlet other than Twitter and YouTube. And, I suspect, millions of other people are the same way.
I look at New York Magazine’s blog or the Undead Gawker’s blog and…it’s all very underwhelming. Meh. So what. Give me something hyper modern that talks about all the interesting, cool cultural developments in post-pandemic America.
We’re in the middle of a vibe shift and the celebrity press is really dropping the ball on Julia Fox. She exists as the Very Of The Moment It Girl, and, yet, there isn’t any one central media repository that picks apart her every public move. This happens, yes, but it’s there’s not like a Spy Magazine or Gawker that does that with her at the moment.
“It Girl” Julia Fox
Yes, Ms. Fox trends a lot of Twitter, but it’s not like there’s a publication or site that gives us, the public, a daily snarky take down of her every twitch. But, as I have said repeatedly, lulz, that moment has passed.
Unless someone like Elon Musk does something really innovative with Twitter, we’re just not going to have a new Spy Magazine or Gawker blog. It’s just not going to happen.
Just like rock music isn’t going to come back and the snark of my youth aren’t going to come back, either.
It’s really annoying to me that it’s pretty obvious there is a media niche that’s not being filled at the moment — a successor to Spy Magazine or Gawker. Now, some context.
Twitter has pretty much so absorbed the snark of Gawker that, lulz, it’s kind of pointless to try to start something that would be a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. As I keep saying, blogs are dead. Apps are dead. I get all my news passively from my Twitter feed. If I wan’t snark, I got to Twitter.
So, lulz, this is all moot.
And, yet, come to think of it, it would be nice as an Old to have a blog that was completely obsessed with Tik-Tok pop culture. It would be something of a companion piece to it. With that in mind, here’s what I would with Julia Fox.
Julia Fox is “the moment” as they say, and it would be fun to run around New York City with her. Have her wear a GoPro or something. Something, anything to be weird and different and NOT BORING. And, in that context, do a really up close and personal personality profile of Ms. Fox.
Anyway, absolutely no one listens to me. No one cares. It’s just irritating that I can see there’s a need for a new media outlet and yet I am, in real terms, powerless to do anything about it.
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