11 Comments
Sep 15, 2023·edited Sep 15, 2023Liked by Sruthi Pinnamaneni

Surely you can leave the number of listeners in a comment though? :D

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PJ - thanks for your poignant insights on the podcasting industry, particularly in light of the Spotify/Gimlet news from this week. I feel like you strike such a good balance between transparency and discretion when addressing this stuff.

A couple of thoughts on this (very good!) ep:

1) Not Millie Bobby Brown catching strays with Maya’s comment on actors “starting skin care companies”! 👀😆

2) Loved the nod to Stranger Things in the scoring of this episode. Very synth-y and totally 80s!

3) Maya’s character Robin is one of THEE BEST parts of Stranger Things season 4. So hopeful for an equitable conclusion to the strikes soon so we can collectively cry our eyes out with Season 5!

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Sep 29, 2023Liked by PJ Vogt

I was telling my youngest child about this episode, and said "It also had Maya Hawke - do you know her? She played Robin."

The look I got was peak "You are so very out of touch, dad." Apparently Maya Hawke is extremely well-liked amongst "the youth."

Not really related to the episode, other than it brought me a very amusing bonding moment with my kiddo. ;)

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Yes.. someone should write that book. If only there was someone with the experience of the industry at that time who also happened to be a skilled investigative reporter with access to contacts that would be willing to help paint a picture of what it was like. 👀

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Love this pod already! The "submit a question" link wasn't working, so I'm posting a question that has haunted me for years here in the hopes it gets through:

What's going on with the art email scam? Every artist knows The One I'm talking about: "Hello, my name is [insert generic American name] from [insert random American city] and I have actually observed my wife viewing your website. I guess she likes your works, you are doing a great job!" The person proceeds to inquire about specific paintings. The scam eventually involves a shipping overpayment and a bounced check. The scam itself isn't the mystery. What I want to know is why, after so many years, this email scam is still going around? Who is behind it? How many people are sending the emails? Does it actually work on anyone? If so, how much money do they make from it?

I really hope you guys do an episode on this one. The entire artistic community would love to know.

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Sep 21, 2023·edited Sep 21, 2023

Hello! Wasn’t sure how to submit a question that might be interesting to answer on the show, so figured I’d just do it here. My question is, what is the bare minimum variety of foods that a person can be healthy on? I read about this crazy story of a 17 year old British boy who went blind after years of only eating fries, potato chips, and white bread. I was curious if he’d only eaten a couple other random food items he’d have been able to thrive just fine.

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I'm amazed you made it though this entire episode without mentioning Bo Burnham's "inside". I feel like that's the best summary of the situation with streamers and content creators.

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I was selected to be a Nielsen home in 2021. They measured my streaming data by monitoring when streamers were sending data to my router combined with capturing audio samples from the shows and movies I was watching. Is there any reason that data isn't sufficient to maintain the status quo for viewership numbers?

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Amazing episode as always!

I want to comment on something you said at the very end. How you love when people write in, and how they’re your favorite thing to get on your phone.

I used to do a heavily-Reply All-inspired internet mystery channel called Nothing Is Revealed (it’s dead now but check out a vid https://youtu.be/tcsq-s0Msdw?si=MGL3AfMoGxolQ24A). At its height, I had a handful of patrons and got occasional emails.

And I LOVED IT.

No one ever talks about how amazing it feels to get that engagement from those who consume your art or storytelling. Or to hear someone say, “I love your storytelling, please tell my story!”

So yeah, appreciate you ❤️

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What’s a definition of “watch”? Is it one episode, is it a whole season, is it 5 minutes? Same for podcasts! What about music? A whole album, a song, last 10s of the song? I always wonder how these kinds of stats wash out!

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