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January Bonus Room (Patreon)

Published:
2021-01-29 14:24:58
Edited:
2022-04-13 15:51:40
Imported:
2026-06
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Dearest Debunkmates,

This month's Ask Us Anything is (mostly) about how we talk. Some of the most consistent criticism we get about the show is about our upspeak, our vocal fry and our filler words. So let's talk about it!

Also addressed: ADHD, being recognized in public, empathic interviewing tactics and desert island books. 

Thank for all your questions and show suggestions! 2021 is the year is the year, we decided, that we're finally gonna talk about the McDonald's "hot coffee" case and Britney Spears. Comment below with any other topics we should cover on future bonus episodes or episode-episodes. 

Upspeakingly yours, 

Mike and Sarah 

P.S. Here's the excellent Vocal Fries episode about "like."

Files

Comments

Samantha

The biggest audio tick I've noticed is the big breath Micheal takes while reading quotes. I originally thought it was a sound issue😅

Natalie

I'm doing my studies in linguistics and just started training for a job as an audio transcriber... One of my exams during my master was for a phonetics class and was to isolate the audio signal segments of vocal fry while listening to an explanation of what the phenomenon is in English. (My studies are in France.) Vocal fry is such a natural part of language as a stylistic way of speaking, along with "filler" words that have caught on and are as you say, super useful in expression and conveying meaning. Both of you speak beautifully and the casual aspect of the podcast is part of what makes difficult and complicated issues more accessible to audiences... I think that a lot of the subjects you cover used to feel way out of my reach and too intimidating or overwhelming to tackle before I started listening and it definitely gives me more confidence and validation to hear subjects like those covered on your show portrayed in a manner that feels approachable. Thank you so much for all you do!

Ash

Im just now listening to this episode and I have say, as a woman, I love both your voices and how genuinely you both laugh. Your jokes make me laugh and I love that. The way these episodes are edited gives me the feel of hanging out with friends.

SugarAndSideEye

I'm super late to this but.... I effing LOVE Sarah's laugh. I love her speaking style, and her insights ("interruptions"). Sam can fuck all the way off.

Danielle G

I love both Mike and Sarah's voices. It sounds like I'm listening to a conversation between two people who feel happy and safe together.

Lydthekidmaybenowmid

Sarah, I love your laugh. I am confused as to why anyone would find it annoying. It's singsong and tinckly and enjoyable to the ear. I think you both have lovely voices I would (and have) listen to for hours.

Christina Osborn

Hi Sarah! I'm listening through the Patreon backlog for the first time and just wanted to say, I really enjoyed the conversation about talking and vocal tics, and the discussion of the word "like". I grew up in a house where I was simultaneously told I was smart and shamed for that intelligence, and my vocal style was strictly policed for years and it made it hard for me to talk in a relaxed way as an adult. I'm getting better, and I really really enjoyed hearing you guys talk about this. Listening to you, a woman, being super smart and going off on tangents and just talking about what you want to talk about in the way you want to talk about it is really good for me personally. I just wanted to say I love your brain and I appreciate you!

Samantha Stimpert

A you’re wrong about SIDS. People do not get what it actually is and don’t understand how it’s handled and medically coded in other countries leading to a lot of bad info.

Molly Kolb

GMOs!! This can either be a YWA or Maintence Phase but it would be a great ep!

Lauren

Yesssss Britney! Please could you do an episode about narcissism? I’ve seen this psychiatrist on YouTube who “diagnoses” random people with narcissism and it troubles me.

emily

For no particular reason id love to hear you all talk abt Buffy / any early 2000s tv that doesn’t include Law & Order haha, bonus ep tho cause not sure there’s a ywa angle!

Paul Bovis

I am so excited about Britney as well. I became a Patreon of the show after listening to the Jessica Simpson series. After Michelle Remembers, that has been my fave so far.

Jess Mack

In a couple years, a YWA the GME short will be great

Dana Johnson

I CANT WAIT FOR BRITNEY!!!!! I’ve become slightly obsessed with her conservatorship and I’d love to hear y’all’s take on it.

Rachel Miller

I love the way you talk. It sounds like a normal conversation! I also think the casual conversation keeps it light and allows you to make the jokes that you do! I love the show! I’ve listened to almost every episode twice and some more than that.

Rachel Miller

Do either of you plan to do any public appearances once Covid is over?

Spiritagnew

Aw whaaaat I love the way you guys talk

Amy Clark

I could listen to you both all day long! In fact, I literally have, because once I found you I binged you for weeks, and got really sad when I caught up. So...Sam should probably just stfu!

Amy Clark

Which I realize he probably has since it’s been a year since his gross emails...but anyway!

Tammy Manning

So excited for Britney! PTSD would be a good episode.. I think there's a big disconnect on what it looks like in the media and what it actually is.

nora

Damn, Sarah’s laugh is one of my favorite things about this podcast.

Elliot Asher

I’m really curious about nut allergies! People seem to think that they’re new and a result of modern life. Is that anything? Also some people get eugenics-y really fast with all the “if you can’t handle nuts maybe you shouldn’t be alive” jokes.

Abigail Candelora

Oh, this makes me so sad! Part of why I love this show so much is your lovely voices and laughs. I've been diagnosed with ADHD this year and trying to focus has been so agonising that at least once a day I put on an old YWA episode when I need to do something because I feel like it soothes my brain!. Much love and appreciation to you both!

Abigail Candelora

Also an episode idea I thought about the other day is Kony 2012 ... like what happened with that?

NikLovin

I could listen to you guys talk all day! I’m almost out of binging episodes and I’m so sad! 🤣

Eileen Morrow

This is one of the few podcasts I listen to because I can’t usually stand how people talk, I love your voices!

Lorelle

It makes no sense to criticise you guys about your voices like ??? They should try having their voices recorded for hours at a time

M King

I love listening to y'all talk. You sound like real people, like me and my friends, and also like two people who are having a blast.

Shindiglett

Sarah speaking in a sarcastic monotone gave me strong West Wing vibes

Erin Shaw

Ahhh Waco, please! You reference it all the time but I was too young to understand it, and now I refuse to look it up until you release an episode

slackmistress

Honestly the way you talk has been beyond comforting during quarantine. I’m alone most of the time so hearing “friends” in my house makes it way less lonely. I listen to other podcasts but they don’t have the same effect, because it sounds like I’m being talked to rather than talked with, if that makes sense.

Danielle

Wait, what?! Someone criticised the way you talk?! I actually end up speaking like you both and I've adopted Sarah's laugh! Not intentionally, I must just love it so much that I started to mimic it!!!

Jenna Russo

This podcast brings me so much joy and your relationship is the central part of it's awesomeness!

Nicole

Thanks for doing this episode. It was really heartening for me. Being a woman in her earlier 30’s, I use vocal fry and upspeak. I also have a moderate southern accent. I’m currently seeking employment and doing a lot of remote interviews. Often times, I’m so concerned with not being perceived as an airhead or a country mouse that I can barely concentrate on the conversation. I love hearing you guys speak. It’s always a highlight of my week.

Amanda Kimbrough

Mike, what’s your favorite kind of slipper?? The other slipper wearers need to know.

Sarah

I like Sarah’s voice so much that I play Why Are Dads episodes (that I’ve already listened to) to help me sleep.

Caroline Garland

Suggestion: Malls. Why did they become so popular and then just... stop? Does having any sort of attraction (like Mall of America's roller coaster) make people still go there (pre-pandemic)?

Sheridan Sayles

So excited for the McDonalds and the Britney Spears episodes! I'm still holding out hope for the White Collar Crimes and the Priest Sex Scandal episodes

Alexis Deighton MacIntyre

This is an excerpt from a talk I gave recently on value judgements of voices as part of a "fun" science communication thing, maybe of interest here: If women spoke at all in 14th century Italy or France, it needed to be “soft and rather low-pitched, uttered with a pleasant face and without excessive motion of the hands or body”, according to court writer and advice columnist Christine de Pizan. This wasn’t just a social code—like the cities of antiquity, there could be special laws governing women’s voices. In 1425, for example, after yelling and making accusations in a tavern about her stolen pan, one Agnes Le Spenser was fined 12 pennies. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the notorious so-called "man-woman" confirmed her pretensions to authority by speaking in public in New England, despite her contemporaries noting there was “scarce anything looks more indecent, than to see a young maid too forward and confident in her talk”. I probably don’t need to tell you that the Victorians were all over this line of thinking, and like the puritans of New England, they had their own “man-women” to deal with, with one 19th Century writer complaining of the “hoarse chest-voice, [a characteristic] of the modern girl of a certain type”. So, for women, talking “like a man” is bad, but talking like a woman is also bad. Margaret Thatcher famously opted for the former approach. In my own humble way, I went for the latter and sound, shockingly, like a millennial girl from the North American West Coast, and was therefore chastised by my boomer dad for both up-speak and saying the word “like”. '

Erica Scharbach

I have a beautiful intense parasocial relationship with your voices! Love them and love what they convey.

Linda Maleh

I love that this podcast sounds like a conversation and not just someone reading from a script! Never change! Also I think an episode on Project Paperclip would be really interesting!

Katryn Adams

Would love to hear more "people's history" type topics (eg, unions, the Red Scare, the Black Panthers, AIM) as well as revolutionary figures that have been whitewashed or turned into trends (MLK, Gandhi, Frida Kahlo, Che, Orwell). Also, some kind of crossover or collab with Behind the Bastards would be amazing. I believe Robert Evans lives in Portland too (you guys make me regret leaving!).

Elizabeth Fleming

The way you both talk is great—your humor and banter keep me going. Topics I'd love to hear more about are: anti-vaxxers, the Dionne quintuplets, and the law of attraction/power of positive thinking (e.g., "The Secret").

Marisa Shepherd

I love both Sarah's and Mike's voices! I kind of want to fight this guy that insulted Sarah. You're a gem, please don't change!

Jen

I love the way you communicate in the podcast and with each other. Your dynamic is one of the reasons I enjoy the podcast in addition to the subject matter. I would actually love what would be a series on the events leading up to 9/11, the day of from a personal level of survivors and victims, and the aftermath. I realize the scope is massive but i think we are far enough removed now to start debunking rumors and conspiracies around this fateful day.

JKS

I was just dealing with plumbing issues all this week, and the top of this episode could not be more relevant right now. Every time I asked a question (nicely, because I know how fragile the male ego is, and dammit, I wanted this done), I was brushed off or treated like I was paranoid, nagging, etc. Oh, and for the record, I was right and did know better than the plumber this time, and now have to find another one to take care of the work I can't do myself. Great episode, thank you for calling out the double standard, and I love both of your voices! <3

Melissa Katz

Typhoid Mary! Princess caraboo!!

Emily Hardy

my best friends dad (and my soccer coach) when I was growing up wouldn't respond to us if we used the word "like". He also had a rule that you couldn't say "like" in his car. I still get self conscious about using the word now!

Katryn Adams

Also, as someone who now lives in Scotland, "Braveheart" is a total mess. The Mountebank History of Scotland has a couple of good episodes on William Wallace. A lot of Scottish history and culture has been similarly fictionalised and sanitised in interesting ways.

Sarah

This conversation reminded me of a video (which I can't find right now) where a woman read off excerpts from Boris Johnson's speeches with the exact same speed and tone but in her less posh (I think Northern English) accent. It was funny because he sounds utterly absurd when you remove the posh male voice, often he is saying nothing at all, like the white kids in your Ebonics episode. And it's depressing because this man has ended up as our Prime Minister partly because his gender/race/class leads people to code his voice as authoritative and not hear the incompetent drivel it disguises

Hannah Payson

I love the way you talk - never change!

Audra Fitzgerald

Linguist here and I’m SO HAPPY to hear your healthy attitudes toward speech patterns. The way people across regions, across time, and even across situations, speak to communicate meaning or achieve their ends shows us so many cool things about human cognition and history and community values and political relationships and more — but should never be used to oppress, delegitimize or silence people. Sarah and Mike, your podcast makes me feel engaged and welcome and I hope you never have to waste cognitive resource on self-policing HOW you talk, ever again!! ALL MY BEST!!

Helen

I love your podcast so much because of the way you speak to each other. It reminds me of conversations with my high school and college friends when one of us would get hooked on a topic and be so excited to share and discuss it together. It’s so much more compelling an engaging to me because of the organic feel of your conversations.

Audra Fitzgerald

Yesss, the self-conscious byproduct is so counterproductive! I was teling a story at “The Moth” live shows in NYC and when I stood up to go perform, the women behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said “Don’t say like or um!” LIKE... GREAT. NOW I’M LESS NERVOUS

Suzanne Polzkill

“This should be easy for you” punched me right in the gut, Sarah!

Jobetta Hedelman

I am so excited that you are going to do the hot coffee story.

Jobetta Hedelman

Also, based on Michael tweeting about the stock market today, please consider an episode about that! Because I want to understand the stock market but my eyes glaze over when I try to understand financial reporting. I bet you two could make it interesting. Or maybe it would still be boring but you could explain it in a way that I understand.

Michael Kulachkosky

Yes! Hannah knows what's up. You two are gems the way you are.

Lauren L

That last question about the desert instantly made me think about the Larry king interview with Danny pudi

Jeff Guidry

I enjoy YWA precisely because of its conversational style. You two aren't broadcasters (in the sense of radio or TV anchors), nor are you voice actors. You're like two (much) smarter friends talking about things I'm interested in, and I keep quiet because my only contribution to the conversation would be "Wow, I didn't know that" or "Hell Yeah!" Fuck 'em. U B U.

Heather Jochens

I feel the slow reader thing I feel in my soul. I always got super frustrated with myself at uni because it could take me hours to read something. Then when I was done I felt exhausted just because I had to put all of my energy into reading this ONE sixteen page article. I had to basically skim articles or books to survive. I always felt ashamed because it feels like I didn’t earn anything I worked for. I feel like I just cheated

Emily Wetzel

Sarah, I enjoy the cadence and melody of your voice. Maybe that guy doesn't like it because he feels like you're talking down to him, and we can't have that hahaha

Jessica Robyns

I love both of their voices. I never even noticed the vocal fry, but now I'm listening for it lol. People are so rude

Gilia Angell

I love how you speak! Especially how Michael does that little uptake of breath before each paragraph when reading passages of testimony. The smart conversation you two engage in is captivating and illuminating. Thank you for the good you put out in the world, and in the style that you do.

Fred Maxon

There;s a really good Audiobook version of The Only Plane In The Sky that I'd recommend. It's an oral history of 9/11 from survivors, spouses. politicians, members of the media, etc. Very thoroughly done.

Matthew Wood

‘I’m sorry it reminds you of the therapy you should be in’ - pure fire !

Lauren McGuire-Wood

I already love this episode and haven’t even listened yet

Gosia Miklaszewska

I have to say I would be soooo interested to hear your take on the Michael Jackson situation. I feel like there's so much to cover there...!

Marisa Shepherd

Also, I really love the conversation about being an empathetic journalist. There is a certain (true crime) podcast where there's a recording of a woman reacting to finding out her boyfriend passed away. And she is so shocked and it seems like that she doesn't fully realize she's talking to a journalist. And it was just sooo uncomfortable - I couldn't continue to listen.

Elliot Asher

Do you listen to The Dollop? They do a lot of those kinds of topics — very different vibe from YWA but if you like Behind the Bastards I think you’d be into it

Elliot Asher

Just want to say I really enjoyed reading these comments! All y’all are so smart and nice I love it

Emma Christie

Sarah! P.G. Wodehouse would absolutely be my desert island book pick <3

Heather J

I love your laugh, Sarah, it sometimes makes me laugh and I have an annoyingly hearty guffaw. More so because YWA is one of my favourite dog walking podcasts and I will hear you laugh and then laugh along as I walk

Kaitie

"I'm sorry it reminds you of the therapy you should probably be in" is just so.. perfect 🥰

Natalie

Seconding this suggestion!

Jen

Thank you for the call out Fred, will look into it.

Rose Hart

I'm loving this episode and also really mad at that guy who insulted Sarah! ugh

Heather J

Also, I facilitate community bibliotherapy groups and I meet so many adults of all genders who are self conscious that if they read aloud, they will be criticised by others. I've been privileged to hear people read a poem despite suffering psychosis, or recite a opening paragraph after teaching themself to read using a dictionary when in prison. It's an incredible privilege to hear someone who is usually silenced speak about a topic that they care about, we'd hear so much more if the language policing stopped.

Natalie

This might be more of a Bonus Episode material type discussion but I would love to hear your take on any of the late 2000s TLC reality TV shows (19 kids and counting, toddlers and tiaras, Jon and Kate plus 8)

Jade Ohlhauser

I do have a problem with how Mike has the same laugh as my mortal enemy, but I don't think he's doing it intentionally.

Rose Hart

Nomination for a topic: Lizzie Borden. I was reading about her trial and aftermath recently, and from the little I know, it definitely seemed a bit reminiscent of some of the 1990s trials that you've covered. (aggressive prosecution, intense media coverage)

Shannon Godwin

Personally I made a ringtone out of Sarah saying “I love Shannon” and Mike replying “I KNOW” and Sarah laughing, and assigned it to texts from my friend also named Shannon who also loves the show, and I get a rush of serotonin every time I hear it, but go off I guess Sam

Jobetta Hedelman

Yes! I had babies at 34 and 37 and would have liked to. It be treated like I had one foot in the grave. Being told you’re “geriatric” at age 36 is not fun.

Aasia Bullock

wow would love a whole ADHD episode because you was spittin

Katryn Adams

I've actually been to a couple of the Dollop live shows! I like it a lot, but would love to hear those kinds of topics covered in Michael and Sarah's more analytical and in-depth style. I think they would also be able to reach a different audience that might be turned off by jokey or aggro dude energy.

Estelle

Yes please!

Jobetta Hedelman

It’s really interesting that vocal fry shows up on the audio waves! That makes me curious about the NPR reporters who say they get emails about their own alleged fry and how much of it is real vs. men just using “vocal fry” as a catch all term for female voices they dislike. Because I don’t hear it in a lot of those voices.

Dorothy H

Love the discussion about vocal ticks. I'm a qualitative researcher, which involves listening to lots of audio of people talking and reading lots of transcripts. And yeah, everyone has vocal ticks! We're humans! People who feel the need to be mean and critical about human behaviors need to take a hard look at themselves and do better at appreciating the beauty of humanity.

Emily Kosinski

You, Mike and Sarah, are "my friends in my ears," and I wouldn't change a thing about you or the way you speak. The unrehearsed, conversational nature of your conversaions highlight your intelligence and help us to get to "know" you. Thank you for being real with us. XO

Emily McDonald

AMAZING. I really want them to cover an Emily now. And love her too.

Emily Kosinski

PS, I NEED an episode on Casey Anthony. NEED IT.

Elizabeth Parker

loved this! I'm so happy I became a patron to the show. I find you both so engaging and I love the way you talk, especially about acting like a real human person when interviewing people. Not a question but wanted you to know that somehow i constantly confuse Mike with Ross Matthews from drag race, no idea why !!

Meg Ford

I am very here for Sarah's laugh. It is one of my favorite parts of the pod.

Alissa Pyrich

I'm Gen X and I honestly don't find that either of you say "like" all that often. I don't notice it at all. Since hearing the criticisms, I've tried to watch for it, and I STILL don't notice it as intrusive.

Mikayla Wiese

Hi! So during quarantine I have listened to each of your episodes at least 2-3 times to cope with the monotonous circus of my own depression. I only am leaving a comment just to say I am currently 16 minutes into this bonus room episode and frankly I am livid/can’t believe the comments that you guys have received concerning your tone of voice, choice of words, and the fact that Sarah is a woman that occasionally makes noises when listening. ...What the actual fuck. My mouth was open the whole time. I just wanted to say that you guys have opened my eyes to issues I was confused about or unaware of and also given me the verbiage to express my views/feelings in a more precise and meaningful way. Thank you for all the listening sounds and humanness in your podcast. You make me feel like I dont eat cereal alone.

Jaclyn O

Can we get a YWA bibliography??

Gabrielle Olliverre

So excited to listen! This pod has been such a big part of my life during the last year - thank you so much. For episode requests, I'd love one (or more) on Michael Jackson.

Ellie Abbott

You guys are the best! I love everything about this show - including the likes, fries, and interruptions from the woman. I’d love to hear an episode about standardized testing/common core/no child left behind. I just graduated from high school last year, so I experienced a lot of that stuff during my time in the public school system, but I don’t know much about how it came to be and what it’s impacts are.

Katie Crysdale

This was very satisfying - never change you two! As a future bonus episode idea, you could talk generally about the development of a single episode or topic from idea through to posting the finished episode. I know tons of time goes into the research, but what about editing, what makes a good topic/idea, do you discuss the topic before the show or just hit record and edit down the discussion? Hearing about the process would be fun. #methodologyqueen

Kerry Weinstein

So excited for the Britney episode. Would you do a tangent on how she and Christina Aguilera were positioned as rivals despite being different artists? If I recall correctly I remember a late 90s/early 00s MTV Video Music Awards show where they were paired up to present an award and there was a “dueling divas narrative”, as if the two women sharing the same space will blow up the world or something.

Emily Ahrens

Sarah's laughter is one of my favorite parts of the show!

Celeste Ellis

As someone who has been called out in person (and directly mocked) for saying "like" too much, I feel very seen. Whenever I am called out I like to say, "I said like to emphasize the fact that I am paraphrasing or this is an estimation." I recently started a podcast with a friend and your podcast actually inspired me to not filter my speech. The conversational nature makes it feel so much more relatable. There's something refreshing about having facts told to you like they are coming from your two smartest friends.

Mel C

Hi guys, love you two and f**k the whinging idiots. The laughter, listening sounds and "like" are all normal parts of conversation. Your podcast makes me feel like I'm listening to two friends having a conversation. I found your podcast whilst in lockdown in Australia (and we had a lot of time in lockdown) and the topics are amazing and the humour intertwined just makes it next level awesome. And soooo sick of attacks on woman, ENOUGH. We cannot do a think right in the eyes of some men, so let's stop listening to their "vocal fry". 😉 Mike and Sarah you are both so eloquent and intelligent and keep doing what you're doing.

Julia

I would love a “you’re wrong about” public defenders - we get a bad rap and some are definitely awful, but most public defenders I know are the most passionate people who just want to fight for our clients, burn down the criminal system, and abolish prisons. We’re just really overworked, under-resourced, and underfunded!

Bridey

The absolutely RUDE and horrible "Like HOW?" dad thing. MY GOD. My dad would put on a Valley Girl affectation and say "Like, like like? Like like like?" in a way that right this minute, years later, makes me want to punch him in the face.

Boognosis

I'd love for you guys to do an episode on "academic freedom" and the "profs living in fear of their students" BS that gets shoved down our throat. Could go nicely with a "history of PC" review about how that was an invented controversy bankrolled by conservative groups.

Holly Oaken

In my mind, this is a Why Are Dads crossover ep, as you have just described my father’s favourite annoying talking point :’)

Maddie Michael

IDC what the haters say, I love both Mike and Sarah's voices.

deadkitty

That's not cheating, that's working with your challenges to get the best outcome towards your goal. I get thst feeling though, it's haunting. *hugs* My placement supervisor 'confessed' she always felt worried she would miss sonething important if she didn't read every word twice until she was advised to only read the abstract, intro and conclusion unless she really needed to assess methodology etc. That would have been helpful info earlier on 🤦‍♀️ Anyhoo, I hope this doesn't seem condescending cause it's not meant to be. Uni is hard even when it's easy, and unless you bought your way through literally paying for essays and test takers you didn't cheat, you worked your butt off and earned everything You achieved xo

Katie Okonowski

At one point in an episode (forget which one) Michael had mentioned you should do an episode on Johnny Carson - yes please!!!!!

Crunchy Frog

I've been using Why Are Dads and YWA in tandem XD

Claire S

Please don't change anything. I love you both so much because you are so open and genuine. Like Sarah talking about her eyebrows.

Xingcat

I know it's really been debunked, but it was such a hot topic in the 70s/80s, so maybe a panic in itself, but I'd love a YWA about subliminal advertising. I had a book that had me looking for the word "SEX" in ice cubes in print ads for years.

Kate McDonell

How about an episode on intermittent fasting? Though that might be more in the wheelhouse of Maintenance Phase.

Kate McDonell

It might be a huge fucking bummer, but you could do an episode on ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis) and how this "therapy" is used to abuse autistic kids and the PTSD they are left with afterwards.

Kate F.

Not sure if there's a whole episode here, but I'd love to hear Sarah's thoughts on the Casey Anthony case - it feels like one of the last traditional "this woman is our national witch hunt" media blowouts pre-social media, and it would be really fascinating to discuss the transition from the old-school 90s scandals to how we interact with scandals and quote-unquote cancel culture in the internet era. (Although I'd listen to anything you two talk about with your lovely voices! People are such assholes, y'all have always sounded like the smartest people I have the privilege to listen to.) ...and for a bonus episode, I would *love* to hear y'all's thoughts about fanfiction and fan culture. As fandom has gotten more mainstream, the divide between mostly-male, mostly-straight writers/creatives of big blockbuster media and their mostly-female, largely-queer fandoms has gotten simultaneously bigger, smaller, and weirder to bridge, and there's a gender studies thesis worth of largely-unpacked bias and bullshit there. Reylo alone has a ton to dig into, in terms of how society is comfortable seeing women in media, how women in fandom are comfortable seeing themselves, how "mass media" seems afraid to commit to female-driven romantic love stories even when they're trying to expand their target audience and appeal more to women, the subtext that female protagonists have to "earn" the ability to be a relatable hero by losing their male love interests (while male heroes get love as a prize)...the list goes on.

Ellen

Oh yeah. I'd love to see how my, people just died before take matches up with the science on why they seem more prevalent now

Marauge

I find it's more the guests than the reporters on NPR. I like Eleanor Beardsley's reporting, tho her vocal fry is usually very strong. Otherwise, I rarely notice vocal fry on public radio, and I listen to it for hours every day.

Marauge

Sarah has a really nice laugh. IDKW anyone would have a problem with it.

Marauge

Yes! YWA has been like having my smartest friends with the best vocabularies, bringing their A game to fascinating topic after fascinating topic. So love it.

Jobetta Hedelman

I hardly ever notice actual vocal fry. I notice what people claim it is and don’t hear anything wrong with those voices.

ArcticFridge

I’d be supper interest in a Julien Assange episode, I feel like there support for him across the political spectrum which is very rare. I also think that it is most likely misplaced and he isn’t as important or ‘good’ as they all believe!

Sean Lane

I have a hard time with any podcast where people start reading from a book or script for an extended period of time. I just zone out unless the hosts remain overall more conversational. Anytime a segment of This American Life involves someone reading a story, I just skip it. If I see David Sedaris is on the list for the day, skip, he's always reading his own stories so I know what's coming. I am awful with audio books, and sometimes I struggle with radio plays too. I don't know what it is, but I do know it's a me problem. It's like I can imagine myself reading what they are reading off of the page and I would rather do it myself. I can just remember back to grade school where we would all have to read stuff out loud in order. For some reason this is how we had to read portions of To Kill a MockingBird in 10th grade? I would just have to go home and read it again myself. This problem actually makes me feel stupid instead of superior like angry vocal fry man.

Natasha T

My topic curiosities are The Hell’s Angels (are they criminal or just alt?) and FBI informants, inspired by Wasp Network. I also was so interested to hear more about Sarah’s love for Wonder Boys! My whole friend group in middle/high school loved that movie, but since watching it as an adult I felt all the female characters were short changed and it really ruined it for me.

Alyssa

Long live the fry! 🍟

Simone Almanza

Wow what Sarah described about her learning style having ADHD and navigating that and just accepting what works for her, really resonated with me. I struggle with learning the way I’m told and only recently have realized I’m an audio listener and I also move on quickly so suck up as much as I can.

Kristin Fletcher

I loved your thoughts about journalism and wish I had heard them when I was starting out in the field 30 years ago. I had always thought my empathy was a liability. Wish I had embraced it as the super power that it is.

hlynne6682

Similar note, what about an episode on the "Runaway Bride?"

Estelle

I love your voices and can't wait for the hot coffee episode! I would love to hear You're Wrong About Mormonism! I avidly consumed Under the Banner of Heaven (2003), the South Park episode (2003), and Carolyn Jessop's memoir (2007). Before the YFZ raid in 2008 and the controversy and media storm around it I definitely didn't think critically about our perceptions of Mormonism and polygamy (which I KNOW is not all of Mormonism that is You're Wrong About #1). Anyways I can think of no one better than Sarah and Michael to look at Mormonism in a way that acknowledges the many cases of abuse while intelligently discussing a religion that means a lot to a lot of people. Sincerely, someone very frustrated that you can't talk about Mormonism without people saying "LOLZZ polygamy and magic underwear 🤣🤣🤣"

Eleonor Pritchard

I love the way you guys speak! I especially love it when Sarah gets excited about things!!

Sarah Cadieux

Wait, wait, vocal fry used to be considered a speech impediment! It was historically considered a problem regardless of the sex of the speaker. It's not considered that way now, but hardly anyone realizes the history.

L N

Feeling a bit dumb here, but what are the Johnson books that Sarah's referring to?

Ruhee Dewji

Hi! I know that this is not a particularly fun or exciting question to address but I truly do want to know - back in the day you said on Twitter that you would not be the kind of show that provides paywalled/subscriber-only content, and now you do. This isn't meant as a criticism (I'm here subscribing, after all!) but I'm just curious what led to the change. Obviously extremely valid even if it was something as simple as "it takes money to run a show," just wondered. Thank you for the work you do.

Ruhee Dewji

I would be super down for a Hell's Angels episode!

Mia

I think a Darfur episode could be really interesting. I’m hardly an expert (and it’s been a while since I read it), but Richard Cockett’s book on Sudan convinced me it wasn’t a genocide, although I suppose that’s not terribly surprising given that Nicholas Kristoff championed the idea. Mike, I’m sure you know more about this than I do, but in general, it seems like the aughts had this interesting cultural moment where there was a lot of “concern” for Africa, but very little curiosity about the people or places we purported to help, which I’d love to hear you talk about. Of course lord knows Darfur is just one of many times the west and western media have done African countries few favors and hardly the most egregious.

Megan Deliberto

I would too!!!! Actually any religion I would be down for!

Carolyn Bishop-Seder

For the record, I enjoy your voices and your laughs! I’m obsessed with your podcast.

Carolyn Morrell

Sarah’s laugh, both the length of it and the joy of it, is a highlight of your exceptional podcast 😊

Ann Freeman

So true. You two are great kitchen company! This is the podcast that I respond out loud to the most (laughing, outraged "WHAT??"), and its because I really like and relate to your speaking styles. It's silly that people who dislike your style, and don't want to listen, feel like they need to email you about it!

Ann Freeman

You're so right! The anti-Kony/LRA presentation people came to my high school around 2005, encouraging us to spend a night sleeping in a park or something as solidarity with the displaced children and to raise awareness. It was very educational and affecting, but in retrospect just a "blip." Everyone in my social justice-y circles was super worried for a few months, then ... nothing. In the US, we hear very little about African lifestyles that don't involve disaster, violence, or "traditional ways." What a waste.

Selkie

This was amazing- as a women and an Australian - this is how I talk. When I was younger I once did a work course on public speaking - note I am ASD/ADHD and I really hate speaking in front of people. I go off track and and forget what I am saying. My feedback was nobody would listen to me because my voice was too feminine. Not everyone is a dick though - one of the older guys on the course sort me out to tell me that was absolute misogynistic crap and to never change my voice. Imposter syndrome sucks - Sarah it may always feel like you haven’t done the research - but it never comes across that way. The inconsistency that comes when you generally perform well academically but have ADHD means we can take on a lot of baggage. We want to be across everything because we feel like we are never enough - we have to be ‘best’ otherwise there is no point.

Ruth Tillman

OMG, y'all. There is a podcast I listen to, "Cults," in which the entire content is scripted and the hosts read it like a couple of robotic radio personalities who've been programmed with tone and inflection. I don't blame them unless this was their vision, I blame someone's vision for this. The podcast itself is....... wildly imperfect (my fave was when they said "as Marx said, 'to each, according to his ability.'" .........) but this part was almost certainly caused by someone who thought that podcasters could sound like newscasters. I wouldn't listen except that they bring me some weird cult groups I hadn't heard about before. But I delete the eps for things I'm familiar with because it makes me die on the inside to listen to them. All that to say -- if all podcasts took that one guy's advice, I would either be miserable or not listen to podcasts. Here for Sarah's laugh, the uptalk, the "like," etc.

Ruth Tillman

also on the subject of "like," I recently listened to an interview with a Freedom Rider and she used "like" just like I would an I was like "well, if someone of her generation (I guess Boomers) who's now a PhD uses 'like' like I use like I mean who is anyone to criticize me"

Monique

“I’m sorry it reminds you of the therapy you should probably be in” < killed me.

Monique

Also some extra Sarah love hearing about how people are extra shitty to you: I really admire the way you speak Sarah. You are clearly a highly intelligent woman but you still speak like a *normal* person and that makes it easier for your audience to understand. I love your analogies and quick one liners, they always make me laugh. The people who email in about how you’re annoying don’t hate you, they just hate women.

Becky Aizen

Both of your asides, grunts, and laughs bring me more joy and hilarity than an hour long Netflix special. You are both so deeply appreciated - you have been brilliant company during a hard lockdown.

Rosy OD

There are certain episodes that I listen to again and again because I love how your voices sound when you're discussing the topic. Sometimes I'm in the mood for sympathetic, softer voices so I'll listen to the DC Sniper episode about Mildred Muhammed or your Paula Barbieri episodes. The conversational nature of the podcast combined with the topics you discuss is what made me love it so much. Youre both great people whose moral compasses align very much with my own and I really enjoyed bingeing your backlog of episodes during (the first UK) lockdown ❤❤❤

Briony Crump

Like is also a very Geordie/North East England vocal tic. This has given me flashbacks to middle school music class and the teacher asking my very shy friend to answer a question and every time she said like he made her start again. After 4 or 5 goes he just dropped it but remembering that just broke my heart a little.

Cat Mount

I would really love a whole episode about the "psychopath" diagnosis. Sarah always talks about how problematic that term/category actually is which I haven't really heard anywhere else, I'd love a deep dive.

Laura Vidal

I also love Sarah's laugh, voice and sasssss :)

Lara Hogan

This was so great thank you! As above, I want to tell you how much I love you both! Since a friend recommended your wrong about, I've listened almost exclusively to your back catalogue, maintenance phase and why are dad's...all my other regular pods are abandoned cos I love hearing what you have to say. Thank you for everything you do and I love your voices and laughs also. Xxx

Annie Giachardi

Hey :) on the subject of diagnoses you covered a little here could you please do an episode on the DSM? I work in mental health and I see psyachiatry up close a lot and find it so bizarre that it started with a bunch of male professionals in a room classifying the moral panics of the time as illnesses......

Sarah A

Not surprisingly I am the hundredth person to rush in and say this, but here goes: the way you talk is WHY I love this show. The listening sounds, the laughing, the emotion, these are the things that make the relationship between the two of you extremely apparent to the listener. And I find that absolutely wonderful. When I try to describe why I love this show to other people, this is the first thing I say: the content is amazing, the research is amazing BUT it’s the rapport between the hosts and the way they listen to and receive each other and talk to each other and get each other that makes me love it. I also have to caveat this by saying that I actually dislike most podcasts that I try listening to, for reasons I often can’t quite put my finger on. But I try to think more about “what is it that makes me love THIS show so unequivocally?” And the number one answer is in the way you speak. So, fuck that guy (and Mike’s email replies to him just made my heart soar, because MORE MEN NEED TO DO THAT). Fin.

Paola Sada

I would love an episode about ADHD -- it's still so misunderstood. It's not just about focus and attention but about emotional regulation, motivation, sense of time, way of understanding the world. It can affect everything in your life, not just school and work. Girls and women with ADHD are often overlooked or misdiagnosed because they don't fit the hyperactive stereotype.

Leah Butler

What Michael said about men thinking they're all in a club and can therefore say sexist things to each other reminded me of my husband telling me that other white people who don't know he's married to a black woman will say racist things around him. He said it's like they're assuming "we're all white here, so it's totally fine to be racist"

Estelle

It might be a repeat of a lot of content you've already covered but Go Ask Alice would be a great YWA book club!!!

Elizabeth Gunn, sickly but cruel

I had forgotten about Casey Anthony. I would love an episode around those events. Another example of 'women are more mad than men about this woman's failure to be a woman,' just like Dingoes. Like, she was a shitty mother and I didn't get to be a shitty mother and we can't let her get away with it!

Amanda Breese

Fellow Sauvie Island resident here Sarah and I discovered you guys in 2020 and love you. My husband just listened to his first episode with me and he said he loves the way you talk Sarah! You are both great and this show is great!

Elizabeth Gunn, sickly but cruel

I'm thinking about the suite of speaking qualities associated with 'manliness' (I guess? or toxic masculinity or something) and that the more a speaker is in line with femininity the more they get shat on. One of the things I got dinged a lot for was upspeak and specifically, 'was that a question or a statement?' or 'it makes you sound uncertain.' WELL YOU KNOW WHAT. Teenage girls ARE uncertain. And LIFE is uncertain. And PRETENDING that you know exactly what's going on all the time and that you have all the answers by never letting your voice experience a rising pitch is insane. All this to say, I realized that uncertainty (and uncertainty leads to death!) is associated with the feminine and that I don't have to 'project confidence' that I don't fucking have in order to cosplay Used Car Salesman Masculinity.

Agnès Denie

Kavalier & Clay is one of the few books both my parents, my sister and I have read and loved!

Julia

Yes!! I actually just got diagnosed at age 26 with the predominately inattentive type of ADHD. It wasn’t until law school that i realized how bad my focus was compared to my peers.

Natalie Mason

Would love to have an episode on Accutane/iPledge and it’s very long murky past.

Veronica Kinard

For what’s it’s worth, I like the way you guys talk. I have trouble finding podcasts that sustain my interest, and it often has a lot to do with the way the person talks or tells the story. Listening to you guys is like when you’re hanging out with friends and one of them just gets really into some random ass topic that they love. It’s great.

Heidi Swenson

You need to do a show where you just talk about random things EVERY DAY because being all caught up is so sad. I need you in my daily life.

Grace M

Love the podcast and so excited to now be a part of the patreon YWA community! In a similar vein to Britney Spears as a future topic and the Jessica Simpson episodes you've already done, I'd love hear an episode about Mary Kate and Ashley - having an empire through their childhood and teen years to then choose to remove themselves from the limelight almost entirely. Overall, they really fascinate me and I'd love to hear a deep dive!

Berenice Corral

talk about the misconception about women wanting to get married or have kids, I am a 35 year old woman who's never wanted to have kids and don't have and always there's people either trying to change my mind or making judgmental questions about it because I am a woman and how dare I not wanting babies 🙄🙄🙄

Hopeful Cynical Romantic

Can I just say how much I LOVE both of your laughs? When I'm listening I feel like I'm sitting with two friends having a great conversation. So thank you for that!

Catherine G

I loved Michael's scathing response to the 'vocal fry' guy. This made me go back to the "This American Life" episode (ep 545) where the female producers talked about all the times people wrote to complain about their voices on the show. They also talked to a professor who did a study and found that people who can't stand young women's voices are usually older. I saw Ira Glass at a live show some time after that, and he said people stopped writing to complain about the vocal fry after the episode aired. I guess their listeners didn't like thinking of themselves as misogynists...or old.

Mike Baehr

This was a wonderful bonus ep; I love the peeks behind the scenes and how they enhance the parasocial feeling of the main show. I know you get a lot of requests to do a Michael Jackson deep dive, but if you're going to do Jacksons my vote is for Janet and LaToya.

Gloria Ambrowiak

I assume Samuel Johnson, who wrote a ton in the 1700s and had a huge influence on English literature and language.

Dayna Steinfeld

An episode on how we are all wrong about breasts, with Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams. A fascinating look at how the patriarchy and capitalism are ruinous for women’s health and bodies.

Zoë

I have never once noticed either of your guys' vocal fries 🍟 and I like your laugh Sarah!

Kirsten Vega

💕💕Sarah & Mike, please cover Phil Hartman's death by murder suicide & the media hysteria following!

Nav Sidhu

I’m a family doctor and during my medical school training I had one my teachers ream me out for using “like” in just an everyday conversation with my colleagues, saying “I need to sound smarter” but my male colleagues could say “awesome” a million times.

Francine Carrel

I usually wait until the end before commenting but just need to say your laughs are lovely. And I hate when people have a go at other people’s laughs. Why try and make someone feel weird about an *expression of joy*? Edit 1: the ADHD stuff is nail on head. I wish I could get over the moralising aspect of self-criticism/coping mechanisms Edit 2: definitely should have listened all the way through before commenting this time! Thank you for answering my question so thoroughly and thoughtfully. Being a person before a journalist will be a really good way of framing it in my mind. (I’ve very much still got to master the whole “shush and let people talk” bit...)

Robyn Harwood

I love how both of you talk! I distinct remember listening to your podcast for the first time and being immediately interested by your voices, specifically Sarah’s. You have a super engaging way of speaking that feels super genuine and I could listen to you all day. I can hear your humanity in your voice so thank you for that.

It's Johnny Million

You just typed everything I was thinking about typing. Thank you.

Helen Phillips

Thank you so much for the discussion on ADHD, I don’t have a diagnosis or anything but I get frustrated that I do thinks at a slower pace than others and get distracted so easily. Found it really reassuring to be reminded I can find my own way that works for me. By the way, I would love an episode on Guy Fawkes night. I really enjoyed hearing your perspective on weird British traditions in the Diana episodes (plus I think it needs debunking).

Helen Phillips

Same here! My learning style is mostly visual which means there are huge chunks from school I don’t remember (and from podcasts but I enjoy them anyway). Glad I know that now.

Helen Phillips

I hope you don’t mind me replying. I’m guessing it’s because ‘it takes money’ as you say, and they don’t have any ads, which is kind of incredible. Thats the main reason I’ve subscribed. Hope it stays that way.

Arthur Kumon

Loved this! First bonus episode for me. I really enjoyed the even more "good friends talking" feel.

Eleanor Parker

Loved your conversation on vocal patterns. Sarah I just want you to know that I find your voice very soothing/reassuring.

ElisabethJane

Yes! And related to this, how we are all wrong about breastfeeding (see Emily Oster's Cribsheet). I would *love* an episode dedicated to all the ways in which mothers are made to feel like crap for every choice they make, based on very tenuous science. You guys would kill it.

Jessica Phillips

I love the way you guys talk!!! I feel like I’m with friends.

Jessica Phillips

Also I LOVE LOVE LOVE when Sarah had a big gorgeous laugh. Like it brings me joy.

Becky Hawkins

You might like the podcast "Oh No Ross and Carrie." The hosts join different churches, spiritual practices, fringe science groups, etc. and come back with deep-dives. (From what I can tell, they're respectful deep-dives unless the group is like blatantly bilking people for money or causing serious injury.)

Matt

Vocal fry is also something metal singers use to get the more aggressive shouting and growling sounds. I never noticed it in your voices, weird thing to be bothered about regardless. I think your voices are wonderful.

Emma Komers

Hi y’all, only 12 mins in, but as I’ve been binging this podcast lately I often think about how sweet Sarah’s laugh is. It is genuinely heartwarming and I love it. You could find something wrong with anybody’s laugh if you try, and right now my brain is trying to do that because it’s been mentioned, but I’ve always found Sarah’s laugh to be lovely! Big fan of the show ❤️

John

Also want to chime in FWIW and say that Sarah's laugh has always been one of my favorite things about the podcast.

Gretchen G

Creating content for the general public must be so hard because of the amount of weird unsolicited feedback you receive. I once had a dude on a dating app tell me he thought the way I texted and the words I used were weird, and that single comment STILL sometimes makes me really self conscious of the way I speak and text. By the way, finding this podcast was one of the best parts of 2020 - really happy for the chance to listen to your voices and thoughts.

that bear over there

i've not noticed vocal fry or vocal ticks in either of your voices, but i have in other podcasts. i think it's just normal to like some peoples' voices and not like others. i dont see the point of reporting it to the person as if it is some useful commentary. i dont see how it is helpful. sorry it is mentally taxing to deal with these dumb comments

Alyssa Ballou

"I mean what's wrong with teenage girls!" YEEESSSSS call out that ageism and misogyny!!!

Claire Fraze

That Sam guy from the email sounds like a knob! Love the show ❤️

josie

still waiting for u to hit us with that mf adam lanza/sandy hook ep 😤

josie

also sarah sorry your dad sucks

Eden

Sam is an idiot! The chemistry between the two of you drives me to the show. I like love you two!

Amy Bond

I feel you guys would enjoy Desert Island Discs

Charlotte

Elizabeth Haysom is maligned af. Just check out the “documentary” Killing for Love, which is essentially a love letter from the German government to the Virginia parole board to exonerate her boyfriend and call her a witch.

Zen X Mama

My heart was broken a bit listening to this ep. You two are unicorns. Your friendship, your whateverthef*ck it's called voice crackle thing that I literally don't hear on your podcast at all but hear on a million others, your laughs, all of it. Your episodes move me - they change the way I see people and things. I've shared your Anna Nicole Smith ep with a million people because it's so incredibly good. You are both top notch researchers, podcasters and humans. THANK YOU!!!

Yasmin Lloyd

This bonus room was great, thank you guys! Particuarly loved the amount of calling out misogyny - I can't believe that guy actually referred to Sarah as "the woman". Also, calling out normal vocal and speech patterns is bizarre to me. I listen to one podcast where they clearly have cut out listening sounds and truthfully it bothers me, as it sounds like the other person isn't engaged at all. You both have amazing voices - I listen to your eps whilst walking then I re-listen if I'm struggling to fall asleep (not in any way because you or the content is boring, but because I find your voices soothing!) P.S. I am seriously requesting "I'm sorry it reminds you of the therapy you should probably be in" on merch.

Dana Anderson

I have so much fan-love for both of you (for very specific reasons I don’t feel I need to describe)🖤 thank you so much for everything you do, this is my favorite podcast.

Anne

I am a psychiatrist and I third this! (It is not a psychiatric diagnosis, although it is often presented in the media as such! The most you could say is that it sort of maps on to "antisocial personality disorder" but I have A Lot Of Thoughts about the construction of personality disorder diagnoses anyhow).

Natalie Mason

Anastasia is on Disney plus now for those interested!

Chris O.

I am so baffled that anyone would dislike either of your voices! I know we all have our specific tastes but your voices always make me super happy and liked I’d want to talk to you both for hours. Sarah, specifically, your laughs and your “likes” are utterly charming. Even though the focus was largely on misogyny as focused on women and how they speak, as a big ol’ queer I’ve definitely witnessed how often cis straight men freak out over any even remotely feminine vocal tics or elements of speech from someone they perceive as a man. It’s just a misogyny remix, but yeah. Oh and that email from Sam made me want to set something on fire with my mind. I hope he somehow heard this and is feeling like the assh*le he is!!

Cat Mount

That''s really interesting! Was it ever a formal diagnosis at any point, or is that just a complete media invention?

Jen B

For all those who might not know, there are some lovely ADHD specific creators out there - Jessica McCabe with HowtoADHD, Dani Donovan, Rene Brooks with Black Girl Lost Keys, and ADHD alien comics that all explore what it is like to have ADHD and tips on dealing with it.

Jen B

Ira Glass has a very strong vocal fry that he talks about no one ever complaining about - I think people really are often not understanding the concept and just want a reason for why they don’t like the women’s voices on the programs they are listening to.

EireandSea

Wow, yeah piling on the SM&MH love fest. You two are delightful, articulate, and magical. And as a former training facilitator, I'd get vocal fry from too many hours of talking. It just means you're vocal chords have gotten a good workout, or so I thought. Not exactly something anyone can control.

EireandSea

I regularly enjoy (like, smiling myself to slumber) a repeat listen to the podcast too! Because it's comforting & I feel like S&M are my buddies.

Nicole W

This episode made me reflect on my favourite podcasts. I adore their verbiage, that is how I become connected.

John J Fagan

"If we're gonna reach for something, we should reach for grace and not precision" Thank-you.

Rose Hart

I was going to suggest Oh No Ross and Carrie too :) They did join Mormonism, and I felt like I learned a lot.

Erik Zapf-Belanger

Totally have a teenager crush on Sarah's voice. Nothing I can do about it.

Erin Hale

A final comment - I would love to see you do an episode on Fight Club and teen boys inadvertently buying into fascism thinking they were being rebellious.

pickled lenin

Desperate for y’all to tell me what the fuck is real and what isn’t with the Russia hack.

Jeff

What? Sarah and Michael have great voices! I listen to a LOT of podcasts and Sarah and Michael are among my favourites. When I listen to YWA I feel like I'm mingling at a party and happened across two people having a really interesting conversation. I just want to stand there with my drink and listen. The conversation seems so fun and organic. The tone is loose and relaxed, like a couple of friends at a party who just happened upon the subject and it took them down a rabbit-hole. I'm two years behind, but I'm bingeing this whenever I can.

pickled lenin

Diagnosed at 29 here! I have a friend whose brother was diagnosed pretty early on (before 10) but she wasn’t until last year at 32!

Mark K

Both The Woman and The Man are wonderful people and you can count me among the 99% of listeners who think so. Speaking of Terri Gross, once she interviewed a disabled doctor who had received lots of “advice” about his condition. He had a great line: “Unwanted advice is always self-serving.”

beastleigh

Late to this because I literally just subscribed, but as another academically-minded woman who grew up with undiagnosed ADHD (I was diagnosed during undergrad), it meant so much to hear about how you manage research, Sarah! I’ve also been thinking a lot about my own ADHD during the pandemic. If you haven’t already read it or listened to it (or had it recommended to you), the book Driven to Distraction by Edward Hallowell and John Ratey is a very important book to me. It was the first time I’d ever read about ADHD as a holistic disorder that affects everything from social interaction to emotional regulation - and the first time I’d ever heard it described as something that people experience and not just as something other people have to put up with. It’s really thorough and helpful, highly recommend. ❤️

Stacy Sage

I just listened to the episode about the anti-vax movement and I'm from the Seattle area and would love to know more about the stuff about Vashon Island you mentioned. Do you have links to your sources you can share so I can do more research?

Rose Hart

An episode idea: Genres of entertainment that are unfairly maligned because of the demographics of who creates or consumes that media. The one I have personal experience is that I read a lot of romance novels, a genre that gets a lot of mocking and eyerolling, IMO because most writers and readers of it are women and other non-cis-men folx. I'm curious if there has ever been a full on moral panic about romance novels or if it's just always been dismissed. On the other side of the spectrum, I remember when I was a teenager, the adults in my life representing rap and hip-hop as something dangerous and scary. Looking back it seems obvious this was because most creators and fans of those music genres are Black. It also seems like right now we're having another wave of moral panic about video games. Anne Helen Peterson has been doing some great writing about that.

Vanessa Templeton

You two are a damn delight and it brings me so much joy when my phone alerts me to a newly posted High Maintenance ep! I suppose if I had to come up with some suggestions, I'd like to hear about fad workout equipment, like the Thighmaster, the Shake Weight, etc.

Lauryn Robaczewski

Fun fact: I love your vocal fry. There is something about when you talk about the impending doom of society. It eases me on an anxious day. You remind me how important it is to be me.

Larissa

Love both of your voices so much vocal fry 4ever

Brett Rowan

A couple topic ideas: Madonna’s “Sex” book; Thalidomide; Bernie Goetz; Vaclav Havel and the Prague Spring; and a very recent but fascinating story here in Hawaii, the public corruption scandal of the Kealohas where the chief of police and his wife a county prosecutor framed her relative for a crime he didn’t commit and they were convicted in federal court that uncovered a massive conspiracy

Erin Estabrooks

I love your voices too and wouldn't change a thing. 🥰🥰

Frances McGaffey

I would love an episode on sex work! Maybe with a guest? One thing rattling around in my mind - why are people so pissed that some of the twitch streamers are sex workers? Doesn't every medium get used for sex work eventually? Who cares?

A Shade In Shades

Really enjoying the podcast (and your voices). I would love to see an episode on the satanic panic around Dungeons & Dragons in the 80s. I've also been listening to the 5-4 podcast about the supreme court and I think a crossover episode would be very interesting.

Kim Wilson

I remember in the early 80s a teacher going on a rant about us kids using the word "like" all the time. This was middle school. And it was probably all the Valley Girl thing. "Gag me" was so much worse than "like" but, whatever.

Suzanne Weiner

I literally backed the patreon solely because I wanted to listen to this bonus episode, because I remember listening to my first YWA and immediately thinking, upon hearing Sarah's glorious laugh, "I bet they get hate mail about her voice." Also, I had a teacher in elementary school (don't remember what grade, but it was either the late '80s or very early '90s) who made us hold up signs with "LIKE" crossed out every time someone used it 'incorrectly.' I was SO self-conscious about it for YEARS afterwards. Now I say it more than ever.

Margaret Knapp

Have you guys seen the doc The Forgotten West Memphis Three? As I sit here and watch it I’m struck by the kind of compassionate journalism that Michael talked about. It’s really nice to see someone interviewing the friends and families of the victims with such kindness - I wish we saw a lot more of it in the true crime space.

Rose Hart

Yes, an ep on satanic panic on D&D would be great! I came to D&D after the 80s so I didn't experience that firsthand, interested in learning about it.

Jessica Ellis

I love it when you guys make each other laugh, especially the big ones where you can tell you have to lean away from the mic because it’s so LOL. It tickles me. I also love the empathy you both bring to the material. That’s what really hooked me. I’ve never heard anyone talk about true crime with compassion for everyone involved. Love you guys, please keep it up forever.

Lauren DeBoor

I’m sorry it reminds you of the therapy that you should probably be in 😭😭😭

Meredith Zolty

Unrelated, were we all wrong about Milli Vanilli?

Tanith Jones

Other than the great content, one of the big reasons I listen to the podcasts you both do because I like your voices!

Imogen Lucy

I would really like to hear what you guys think about the Manson Family! I've never quite understood it and I think you would both have really interesting thoughts on it. Otherwise, for bonus episodes I'd like to hear more about how you both ended up writing the sort of longform/deep dive things you write and what your ~professional journeys~ as writers have been like :) Thanks for making such a great podcast!

Imogen Lucy

also this bonus episode made me have a look at the one star apple reviews and I'm truly baffled by how many of them refer to both of you as "the ladies" or "the two women", presumably because of the assumptions they're making based on your speech patterns??

Jennifer

You did such good work with other medical episodes, I would be thrilled if you did an episode on Typhoid Mary. I saw something a little while ago about how she took the jobs she did because they paid more than lower-contact jobs (it was capitalism all along!) and no one really explained to her what was happening because Woman (sexism!) and she was institutionalized a few times (patriarchy!), and I'd love your take/explainer on the whole big mess.

RedAnnie53

Great job Sarah and the Man!

Matt Cramp

As an Australian, I do not care about upspeak in any way Mike's thought that men subconsciously fixate on women's verbal tics as a way of dismissing them is probably supported by neuroscience. There's an interesting phenomenon that the part of the brain that explains our decisions doesn't actually have access to our decision-making process. If I understand the science right, among other things, our implicit biases against women and minorities ends up amplifying any other negative thoughts we might have (even if you *are* a woman or minority), so the 'shut up woman' impulse comes back at the same time as the 'ugh vocal fry' impulse and then the commenter believes they just really hate this particular example of vocal fry.

Jane

For amazing paragraphs I also recommend Sarah Caudwell. Here is the first from "The Sibyl In Her Grave:" "The two men struggling on the floor of the Clerks' Room differed widely in appearance: one young, of slender build, dressed in cotton and denim, with honey-coloured hair worn rather long and a pleasing delicacy of feature; the other perhaps in his sixties, tending to plumpness, wearing a pinstriped suit, with the round, pink face of a bad-tempered baby and very little hair at all. They rolled this way and that, as it seemed inextricably entwined, uttering indistinguishable cries and groans, whether of pain or pleasure I could not easily determine. A ladder was also involved in the proceedings."

Joy Williams

Oh, thank God we're getting Britney! =D

Ansley W

A topic I would love to see covered briefly in the Britney Spears episode: remember when there was a 6 month period in the 2000s when there were paparazzi shots of Britney, Paris, etc. flashing their hoo-ha's as they got out of cars going out to nightclubs? It was like a trend for a brief time. Did someone arrange that? Did the paps always have those kind of shots and they just decided to release them? Did the girls purposely flash? I feel like it hasn't happened since...

Christopher S

Such a great episode, was hoping for more filler words though :(

Alice

Really looking forward to the Britney episode! I think an episode about Marilyn Monroe could also be really great.

Nicole McCracken

I think now is an important time to do some ones about geopolitics or US history/politics. People think Trump was an aberration. And the phrase "This Isn't Who We Are" is everywhere. People have misconceptions about the civil war, about the founding fathers, about the civil right's movements, about indigenous land and rights. They have misconceptions about "deregulation." Your show does a wonderful job of putting power into perspective and who possesses it and who is often at the mercy of systems/circumstance. I also love anything that wouldn't be accurately explained without congressional hearings.

Leil Bean

Please do one on the free Britney Spears movement !!!!!

Megan

I literally logged on to ask the same thing post watching the NYT doc.

Veronica D

I love Sarah's voice. It reminds me of my Aunt Esther and I inherently trust her more because of it.

Lea Cohodas

A future YWA I would love to see is Robert Latimer, especially in context of current debates around medically assisted dying (basically, if life is made impossible for disabled people under capitalism, is helping them die to avoid the suffering that we as a society have intentionally caused actually an ethical step forward... probably not!) I remember the news around his case when I was young and him being lionized as a loving father... after he murdered his kid.

Soledad Fernandez

I love Sarah's voice! I just increased my membership rate just to spite that email asshole. I was diagnosed with ADD as an adult, because I grew up in the country where diagnosing kids just wasn't a thing. I struggled- emotions were too much for me too handle and act "normal, teachers always said I could be a great student if I chose to apply myself, and later as a young adult a lot of self damage and cutting. Now as an adult it's hard for people to believe me, because they see someone who is clean and exercises and engages in hobbies. But people are different, and me, the real me, spends 4 hours reading anthropology books, engaging in deep thought, perfecting art and music, and running a very tight ship to be able to sustain my brain's hunger. Also, I obsess, about people I shouldn't all the fucking time. I ruminate, create parallel earth scenarios, go over conversations from years ago... But when I am not on medication, and my house is ok clean, and I am ok productive, and on the outside it seems like I'm ok. But it creates a deep sense of unease and depression because I am not living my truth, because my brain just won't fucking let be. Amphetamines have been a gift to my sanity.

Sgt8taco

The McDonald's hot coffee episode is very needed right now in light of the gorilla glue girl situation

louise cocchetto

Hey guys! Have you thought of doing a piece in the mil gram studies?! I would live to hear what you have to say about this disgusting piece of research.

Úlfdís

Just wanted to let you know i went on a 15 minute tear in my dance class explaining both the movie newsies and the actual newsboy strike to a bunch of confused 18 year olds.

Melinda Borie

I do agree with everyone who's said Marilyn Monroe. I've also been really really hoping there would be one on Patient Zero/Gaetan Dugas for a long time. I've been wondering if we were wrong about the "runaway bride" from 2002 (?) but have not looked into it to find out. In light of recent events I would also like to revisit how we were wrong about Marilyn *Manson* and school shootings (seems up your alley that the media invented a sensational crime for him to be guilty of when all along he has been guilty of garden-variety domestic abuse, a crime we apparently find very boring and unworthy of comment). Oooh ooh and Mary Shelley! I think a lot of people are wrong about Mary Shelley and the creation of Frankenstein on SEVERAL axes.

Susan D Ordway

I would love to hear more about Ralph Reed and the Native American Gambling scandal. Reed at one time a Time Magazine cover boy (there you go!) and the leader of the Christian Coalition. His name was everyone and then he went underground after partnering with Jack Abramoff and getting himself all dirty in the ensuing dustup.

Nicole Sealy

Can we get an episode about credit scores and how credit used to be determined by how neatly your white guy hair was parted or how nice your suit was.

Ashley Shew

Has anyone else submitted this? I recently started that weird sportsball Netflix documentary Last Dance on Michael Jordan and the 90s Bulls, and I really feel that Dennis Rodman was an unfairly maligned nineties celebrity. He was just ahead of his time! He was doing gender bending and identity branding before there was Instagram! He has some really salient points about fame as abuse, saying at one point: “I would play basketball for free, they pay us to deal with all this other BS off the court.” And I think that’s really true. Definitely not saying he’s perfect, there’s some questionable domestic violence incidents, but I know YWA and handle complexity. I just found myself (not a sportsball fan) wanting to hear more about Dennis Rodman and go back in time and smack the late night hosts using him as a punchline

Ellen Clarke

I am dying for someone to explain to me the class dynamics on Love Island UK -- especially in season 3 there are a lot of really bizarre popular audience votes that seem to hew on class lines but of course they're British so no one really talks about it. The Islanders' relationships act out tons of toxic behavior (think: Kem and Amber, Olivia and Chris) that some of the women have come out about following the show. I think there's also a fair number of suicides from people who have been involved in the show, including, recently Caroline Flack (presumably because of media scrutiny?). There's also really interesting follow on "careers" in influencer media after the Islanders return home that's a little bit, fame for fame's sake. A VERY RICH TOPIC.

Robert Gougher

Just finished the first Tipper Gore episode and wanted to share some personal experience that you might enjoy. Around 1983 I got paid to operate lights on my junior high school auditorium for what was billed as a free concert. In fact it was a staged infomercial performing hack textual analysis on Bowie, Duran Duran, Madonna, Ozzie, Frankie, etc. The presentation had the feel of the Moby Dick funeral reading in Heathers but offered hope in the form of Christian Rock (Albums for sale in the lobby or at the local Mustard Seed). I’m sure this roadshow graced many towns with its Schtick. One of the periods SNL writers must have been familiar with the moral panic strategy behind these sales pitches because SNL made a short film about children selling their bodies for quarters to play video games (“this is Mary - tonight she will make five dollars; the hard way; one quarter at a time”) but are saved by their treatment at The Columbia House - at which they are deprogrammed by forced listening Clockwork Orange style to Juice Newton. If you have never seen this SNL short film, you might enjoy doing so as you prep for episode two. Keep up the great work!

Sarah Eastland

These are all brilliant questions and I am cracking up at their content 💀💀😂😂

Liz MacNeill

Have you ever considered doing an episode on the Hare Krishna religion/cult. Who were they? Why were they? Where did they go?

Pamela

Loved your Tipper Gore episode 1 (as I do most of your podcasts). You have been fantastic running partners during the pandemic and thrilled to give a little back to you. As for Tipper, I literally laughed out loud to many of the lyrics as an 80’s teenager. I clearly never listened carefully or understood the meaning so the moral panic was definitely unneeded. I took my younger son to see Purple Rain when he was 10 at this cool artsy theater in Brattleboro VT and we had the best time! Apparently I am a bad mom but we had fun together, he loved the music and I had fun sharing my teen years with him. As a mother of 2 teen boys, I appreciated your comments in teens, Sarah. They so badly need us to support and understand them, embrace their sexuality and love them for who they are. Brilliant as always.

J.R. Weisser

This would be very interesting! However, they didn't... go anywhere. They still sit outside various subway stations in the city I live in, in large groups, chanting. They are definitely less popular than they were in the past, though!

Miranda Whalen

Finding this podcast in 2020 saved my year. With my anxiety, I struggled to read anything substantial for a long time. The podcast stimulates my curious brain but you both sound approachable, like we’re friends chatting over a cup of coffee. I love the side jokes and the vocal fry for keeping even serious topics easier to digest. You’re my Terry Pratchett of podcasts.

Cassie

love all you guys do! Topics I’d love to see- thalidomide, SIDS (so much is misunderstood here),lead poisoning

Cassie

Ditto this !

Tess Conrad

Yes! My dad worked in broadcast radio in his 20s and would always talk about how young people had too much vocal fry and upspeak (and pointed out it was particularly a problem for women). His critiques always made me feel uncomfortable and you put into words what I was feeling about it. Thank you!

Andy Zubac

Okay, story time. A few months ago, I finally got my best friend to listen to your show. She’s a huge Kurt Cobain fan and when I told her about that episode she immediately went and listened to it. The next time we were on the phone I asked her how she liked it and she said, “Oh um! The woman... Sarah? She has such a great laugh!” and then she told me how she went on to listen to the Courtney Love episode right after. She has continued listening since then and now we talk about the new episodes as they come out! Whenever you guys mention rude people insulting Sarah, I think about my friend’s first impression of your show. We’ve talked about this and we agree that the energy of your conversations make us feel like we have friends over. We both live alone, so your podcast is a dang blessing. When a new episode comes out it makes my day!

Stephanie Bell

I recently read an article about Stella Walsh, a Polish-American Olympic athlete who lived in Cleveland. She medalled in the 1932 and 1936 Olympics. She was well-known in Cleveland and after her death in 1980 during an armed robbery, it was discovered she was a person with intersex characteristics.

Stephanie Bell

Another episode idea is Betty Broderick. Fascinating story of how women are defined by their ability to be a good wife and mother. What if they excel at those jobs, but their spouse is a horrible husband who holds all the monetary power? Betty and Dan Broderick divorce acrimoniously and she decides not to play nice, with tragic consequences.

Corvin Greene

New Patron here! I also love the way y'all talk, and I feel like my voice sounds a lot like Sarah, so I'm biased, but this is my favorite podcast. Excited to hear the Britney Spears episode and everything else!

Michael Wiley

66 year old boomer dude saying that I think the you guys speak adds to the overall charm of your podcasts. This is the best, most entertaining and informative podcast that I listen to. Needless to say I lived through most of what you talk about and since my primary source of info was MSM I'm wrong about nearly everything. Thanks for setting me straight.

Kristen Esquivel

Hi there, long-time listener, new subscriber! I’d really like an episode on immigration. There’s so much misinformation and outdated information out there about how people enter, the benefits they supposedly get, paying taxes, the non-existent “line” they should wait in, etc.

Nox (yes my real name)

Also can we PLEASE get merch with “I don’t need to compel people to like my voice. Or my ideas. Or my personality.” That is perfection.

Luke Zwanziger

Just started watching “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” and I’m not loving their sensationalized treatment of houseless folk and Skid Row area, which got me thinking I know so little about skid row beyond it being a “scary violent place in LA” as told to me by my parents and media all through my childhood. So please tackle an aspect of Skid Row. I realize it’s a vast topic but I’d love your insights on any aspect of it in any era. How it came to be, public perception, etc. Also there a moment of “bystander apathy” remix in the doc and it made me mad, but also thank you for the deductive skills you’ve given me to recognize bullshit arguments.

Alyx Johnstone

I would love an episode about Trans rights and the discourse that is (predominantly) all over twitter regarding feminists that defend trans rights and how TERFS are accusing us of not protecting women’s rights. I think this whole situation for trans people seems to be history repeating itself in terms of how gay people were treated in the 80s with the AIDS crisis. Would love to hear your thoughts!

Heather J

For Trans Day of Renembrance 2020, I took inspiration from YWA and interviewed a couple of trans women with union backgrounds about transphobic hate crime, moral panics and what people can do. I was really humbled that these women offered to speak to me and explain what TDOR was and why it matters. the link is here, non monetized purely amateur podcasting stuff but really a learning experience.

Sarah Kelly

Hi! I would love to see one on the MOVE Bombing in Philadelphia. I just started doing research about it and yikes it’s so much worse than I thought.

Michael Wiley

How about You're Wrong About...the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness. If you ask anyone on the street what causes mental illness chances are they will tell you it is a chemical imbalance in the brain. However, psychiatry has been unable to prove this and is now trying to distance itself from the concept by saying, "We never SAID mental illness is caused by a chemical imbalance, we said it's AS IF there is a chemical imbalance." For references a good place to start is the works of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Robert Whitaker. This is a very sensitive subject with a lot of emotional attachment for a lot of people, so if you did it you could anticipate a lot of blow back. Our society would rather think of mental illness as a medical issue that resides in the individual than as a social problem caused by trauma, injustice, poverty and racism.

Katheryn Bartlett

I mean, I know you don't want to do maligned ep on Melania , but I would take an episode on how she's actually worse than we thought.

Katheryn Bartlett

YES! I definitely would want to know more about medically assisted death.

Katheryn Bartlett

After hearing a lot of contrasting information about the death of Hae Min Lee from Rabia Chaudry, and then the Serial team, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that whole situation. Like, what happens when we commercialize a true story/struggle for entertainment.

Heather J

BBC3 did this documentary about make up production and beauty youtubers went to see mascara ingredients were produced using basically exploited farmers who were burning chemicals without PPE and then dying of disease or the plastic landfill impact of empty palettes, it really put the whole youtuber make up industry in an entirely different light.

pancakesmarie

Mormons! Sarah constantly mentions them and I’d love to hear more as one of them. The way they are portrayed in media is really interesting eg Fallout: where they literally survive the apocalypse.

pancakesmarie

Idk would be an interesting listen. I personally tell people we gather under the full moon & howl at it once a year for fun.

Roherty Bird

You both are fabulous- don’t change anything about your voices or how you speak or interact. It’s part of the appeal of the show.

Wolf

Words can not describe how much this episode meant to me , I’ve been insecure about my speech for years . Thank you, thank you 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Also the chemistry between you two and the way you speak and listen to each other is part of the reason I keep coming back and recommending this podcast to everyone I know

LeeAnn Donnelly

I keep recommending this show for many reasons but my top reason by far is your relationship. It grooves along so effortlessly that I think of you two as long-time friends of mine. I think it was the first time I heard Sara’s “grrrrr” reaction that really pinged my heart

Effie

I feel bad that you guys get hate for your voices, but especially for the laughter? Like I really like Sarah's laugh, and it makes the podcast more enjoyable imo and like let's the listeners know you guys are actually having fun and enjoying yourselves?? And like on some of the darker havier episodes sometimes you need a good laugh.

Andy Zubac

You should do an episode about Wikipedia! I just read the wiki article titled “Criticism of Wikipedia” and I found myself wondering what you two would say about it, especially the section on the “Unfair treatment of women.” I found the article really interesting, but I don’t know what to think about it.

Jeff

YES!

Jeff

Oh thank God! I'm not the oldest dude here.

Erin Mather

I have a question for Sarah: To what extent, if at all, do you think the Satanic Panic is related to the Q Conspiracy? lovelovelove the show btw. If you ever do an in-person show in my area (in the After Time) I will be there!

Jane

Yesss, I thought this was super interesting.

Jane

Same same. Also as a recovering alcoholic I have strong feelings about the way addicted people who live in places like Skid Row are treated & portrayed.

Caitlin Wolf

I resonated with Sarah so much which was so exciting to me. I just discovered your podcast and joined patreon today. I have a very ridiculous laugh which I always thought was endearing ( because my parents told me so) and every once in awhile someone would tell me how obnoxious my laugh was... and it was like “ sorry I’ll work on that?!?” Also I’m 35 and just recently diagnosed with adhd. I have been diagnosed with multiple other mental health disorders but never adhd. One day I said I think I really am adhd( and all my coworkers looked and said of course you are... how do you not know that). I struggled in school but I had so many mental health issues that my parents didn’t really care. I’m a social worker and now on the correct adhd medication am feeling so confident in my career. Also the only reason I can listen to a podcast now is because im on adhd meds lol. Thanks for all you do!

Brett Simmons

There’s an awesome cross over episode with the Know Your Enemy podcast where they talk about this!

Ondřej Trhoň

Hey, new patron but long listener here, you're both rad. Suggestion: Antidepressants? Prozac Nation? SSRI craze, all the stuff around the lawsuits (at one point I took two substances that were both implicated in horrendouns malmarketing malpractice trials)? I'd love to hear those stories through your lenses and jokes. And there is actually a lot of leftist wohoo narcocapitalism vs this is science to unpack I guess

Alana Becker

I absolutely LOVE your podcast. I think both of you are well-spoken and unbelievably brilliant. Truly, I have your podcast on all day because I love hearing you both unpack phenomena. I wanted to comment on Mike's analogy of "you're really cool, but your wife is really annoying." I refer to comments such as these as "complisults." Compliments married with insults. LOL.

Rosie Tallant

As the child of a dad who is also very fond of correcting speech, I feel this.

Erin Mather

Thanks for this recommendation! Also I was new to Patreon and didn't realize they covered this in their very first AMA. So sorry! I'll do more research next time.

Meighan Boyd

Solidarity for the difficulty in reading during times of stress. I went into the pandemic w horrible burnout from a post doc job and am only now able to read more than a paragraph at a time. My comfort in my love of reading, research, and learning took the biggest hit, and I did not know what to do. Thank you for even mentioning this, sharing that difficulty felt very affirming.

Olivia Jensen

The Kardashians! More specifically Kris Jenner. I think it would be a great tie in to the OJ series. I had no idea they were connected until very recently. I’ve managed to bury my head in the sand about their dynasty and I would love a zoomed out (but also IN on certain parts) story about the rise of the Kardashians told by my favorite podcast friends :)

Amy

I second this!

Russell Lane

In the Exploding Ford Pinto episode, Mike says Johnny Carson is an absolute monster. I need to know more about this!

Anna Bergstresser

I like the way both of you talk, because it’s a way people talk. Everyone should chill. Keep up the great work :)

B Rudich

Hearing Sarah explain not having the right kind of energy as an symptom of adhd actually made me cry, it’s a little freeing hearing someone else explain something you deal with but could never put into words before!!!

IBR

Pretty sure the “fry” in “vocal fry” is etymologically derived from friable (easily crumbled or broken into small pieces), not anything having to do with frying (cooking in oil), just fyi! Either way, ignore the foolish, & clearly misogynistic criticism about either of your excellent voices ❤️❤️❤️

Careesa Kober

I am realizing I also make listening noises during this podcast...

Nicole Smith

I'm a mediator and I use listening sounds all day long. I love hearing Sarah's listening sounds. It makes me feel seen. 😂

Alyson J Dykes

I'm so excited you will cover the McDonald's coffee case! I learned the full story in law school and now work in the field of torts...fascinating how things are shaped by major corporations.

Zoë Abrahm

I really, really, want to hear Sarah especially talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Barry

How about an episode on the evolution of professional wrestling? That would include not just the regional promotions being consolidated by the WWE but also the curtain being lifted on the illusion of kayfabe. There was the Jon Stossel 20/20 expose when he got assaulted by a wrestler and also the death of Owen Hart.

la herba

I would love an Adnan Sayed/Serial Podcast and its relation to responsible investigative journalism episode. I will beg.

Cori Sebesta

I would love an episode about the LA Riots. Just reading the Wikipedia made me realize so much more was going on then I ever heard about. I got really interested in it after living through this summer as a Minneapolis resident.

Melodie Robelo

We all need someone who will stand up for us the way Michael stands up for Sarah.

Jex Milagro

This is my favorite podcast and I listen as much for the content as I do for the relationship between y'all. I'm learning how to be a better friend by observing your interactions.

Erica Boyd-White

I love both of your voices so much. When I’m feeling anxious or stressed I listen to YWA and it feels like a big hug. Love you guys so much.

Sadie tuescher

I LOVE both Mike and Sarah’s voices! Sarah, you could narrate my life and literally every audiobook!

Brooke Pierson

Hi! I joined Patreon (just for a quick second bc I’m poor) but I listen to you guys at work all the time, and I’ve learned more on your podcast than I’ve ever learned in high school. Some topics I’d be interested in hearing about are sex work (former stripper here, it’s a popular topic but rarely understood by the public), billionaires (what they do with their money and why the fuck do they hate the poor so much), or maybe just an episode of you discussing your favorite conspiracy theories. I don’t even care if I’m wrong about anything lol I honestly just love listening to you guys!! I always go about my day feeling a little bit better after listening to an episode, so thank you!

Lolo

i would LOVE a sex work related episode

Kailia Tomas

I personally love Sarah’s everything

Orchestructive

I'm so disillusioned! I always thought it was "Deserted Island" ... have I been wrong this whole time?

sarah jewel

I love the listening sounds!! It becomes more of a conversation that I’m listening in on, rather than a lecture on a topic.

Fiona Hutchinson

I cannot believe people complain about listening sounds, I like the fact you include them because it makes me feel like I’m listening to 2 of my friends having a conversation about something

Diana M

Yes! Me too!

Diana M

I love you guys so much. This is my favorite podcast and I talk about it all the time. I'm sure my husband is LIKE "shut up already. " (not an exact quote usage) LIKE you say, there are a million podcasts, people should listen to what they LIKE and just don't be a dick. Please keep going exactly LIKE you are. Love you!!!!

Anne

I love your listening sounds!! It does make me feel like it’s a conversation. Thank you for your rage on people commenting on how you talk. As a teen I was teased relentlessly cos I somehow sounded ‘too posh’ and tried so hard to change the way I speak. As an adult, people still often comment about the way I speak, because apparently now I sound ‘foreign’.... I often joke that I’m the only white person in Europe that gets asked ‘no but where are you *really* from?’ But it’s just so rude how complete randos feel the need to judge your speech. Keep doing what you do in the way that’s most comfortable for you! Like, fuck those people.

MBee

As someone with ADHD, reading takes a lot of energy for me too. I almost exclusively listen to audiobooks these days and have been able to cross off so many more books this past year than before because of it. I didn't know you had ADHD, Sarah! Its ways heartening to find out someone you look up to also has a funky brain 😎

Hannah Swainson

FYI, BTW, I’ve never noticed ANY issues with you voice/audio. Your voices are fabulous

Debbie Scholtes

I absolutely love both of your voices, laughter and swearing. It’s like being a part of an interesting conversation.

Jenni Aj

In case no one has said: Desert Island Discs is a bbc radio 4 show ("I haven't seen it" lol). You get the complete works of Shakespeare, the Bible, your book, luxury item, and 5(?) Vinyl discs

Margarita Junowitsch

I just now heard this bonus episode and wanted to let you know: I absolutely enjoy both of your voices but ESPECIALLY Sarah‘s. And I am an ASMR fan so THAT MEANS SOMETHING!!!!111 ;)

Emily Zaleski

I appreciate this, it's so fun. I am a sign language interpreter, and am constantly focussed on my speech/vocal fry (which is also called creaky voice and I will never call it anything else and I love it)/use of like/ etc.

Anastasia Redekop

I love hearing you guys talk! And I have no idea what Upspeak is... take away my charge cards! And both my degrees. Love YWA!

Opera Povera

This episode felt fraught and I don’t want to analyze creepy nothing crap. Mike, what’s your motivation for highlighting this loser’s opinion other than he likes you? He’s not emblematic of much but a loser. Weird feels from this.

Kelsey R

Maybe I’m not understanding you, but this is emblematic of a lot because it was one example of many many people commenting similar things. This guy was just particularly heinous, but comments like his are insulting and misogynistic and should be discussed and torn apart to the extent Mike and Sarah just did.

Natalie W

One of the things I love about this podcast is that it sounds so real and human. It's like listening to two friends discussing fascinating things. I don't notice the vocal tics that people complain about, but I would notice if they weren't there and Mike and Sarah sounded like robots.

Ruby

I love this podcast! I just remembered I'm a patron so I'm gonna listen to all the bonus episodes! Yay

Ruby

i love the way you guys talk! I have ADHD (which I thought I couldn't have because I always did well in school and I only learned the Little Boy Symptoms, not how it presents in teenage girls, which describes me to a T) so my stories definitely tend to follow a wandering path... I interrupt on accident and I forget to control my volume, I forget what I'm saying midsentence, I include unnecessary details.... I kinda run my speech like HTML code. I open a bunch of threads and then go back and close them all up in reverse order haha. And the more excited I am about a topic, the more my thoughts race ahead of me. And not to flex but people think I'm great! I'm a very fun conversationalist and I try to be a good listener too. I like how people can tell I'm excited when they talk to me. I like my creative bouncy mind. This episode made me feel better about the way I talk. Thank you.

Ruby

I'm making another comment because ADHD research has been MY wave of obsession recently. I just turned 20 and I only just realized I had ADHD/ sought treatment for it this year. It took no less than THREE other women with ADHD pointing out that I probably have it for me to consider that I might have it. You know what I was wrong about (badum tss)- ADHD! Even though I definitely have hyperactive symptoms, forgetfulness symptoms, executive functioning symptoms, etc etc etc...Because I was a little girl who did well in school and hid my problems, I wasn't diagnosed. I feel like the biggest problem with how neurotypes like ADHD and autism are treated is that it's always about how you look to others, not about how you feel on the inside, your struggles. And that's all well and good for kids who are too young to communicate their internal experiences, but for adults there should be a better way. For example (wow this comment is long) -- I am not doodling in class because I'm bored. I'm doodling so that I can listen to what you are saying without rocking back and forth and disturbing the girl sitting next to me. I'm doodling because it helps me listen better. If I was looking at the professor's face and writing plain notes, my mind wouldn't be occupied enough, and I'd have to start thinking about sewing projects or that comic I was reading or wondering if my professor knows he has a little yellow stain next to his shirt collar. Fidgeting freedom for all!

Laura

As a professor, I can answer--with complete confidence--that he has no idea about the stain on his shirt. I can also reassure you that if you aren't actively shopping for shoes on a laptop that I can see clearly or sexting and snickering while showing your phone to the person next to you, I am not even registering it. Lecturing and facilitating active discussion are active sports, and I would be so excited to see a student in my classroom with a notebook out that I would never be bothered by your doodling. Do what you need to do to learn without distracting other people from what they need to do to learn and that's everything I've ever wanted.

Jennifer M Balsley

Love this show!!! You are my favorite pod. All of the speech “ticks” both of yo by have are some of my favorite things. I LOVE way the pod is structured like two best friends having a conversation and the way it bounces between serious and silly. I loved this bonus. My son is ADHD. He is only 11 and he doesn’t yet have the life experience/ words (not to mention the fact that he is a tween boy) to communicate how he feels in a way that

Jennifer M Balsley

So I totally just felt old and can’t get this stupid quote box to scroll on my phone. I digress...

Jennifer M Balsley

Back to my son. This episode was really eye opening for me to hear Sarah’s experience with ADHD. I always learn a lot from each episode but this one just helped me understand my kid a little better. So thank you.

morgan cleopatra

The misogynist critism is so frustrating, but also kind of interesting, because it serves to point out exactly what I like about the show. Your dynamic has pointed out how low my expectations for men are in that I love hearing Michael take Sarah seriously and at face value (I love hearing how you value each other). Those critics have revealed themselves, more than anything...in that they need to quickly resist equality when they hear it before it gets a foothold! As always, thanks for your delightful work. It's such a joy to laugh along with you and to be aghast at abusive behaviour together, as well.

Carly Brindley

Sooo when I first got on to you guys thru an aussie podcast called "just the gist", I called my sister, because Sarah, my God, u sound exactly like her, especially you're laugh. And it gives such joy. We lives states apart, and don't get see or speak regularly, so you are my sister in my ears every other day....💜💜💜

Sunna Ben

I wish you would release this episode to the public because it is *like* ON POINT!

Jessica Klug

I love listening to this podcast specifically because of your voices and the style of the show. I feel like you guys sound like my friends and when I listen I have a smile on my face.

Jessica Klug

Also this whole comments section is like a “ywa” verbal sounds. Ha

anna mcallister

I love y'alls voices and when I listen I pretend like we're friends :)

Christine Amsden

Love your voices, although I listen at 2x speed so I doubt I'd recognize you if I heard you IRL. :)

Caroline Nickerson

Joining everybody else in the comments to let you both know I love your voices! Your podcast rocks :)

Adal Gibson

I LOVED this episode! I also have adhd and was only recently diagnosed and am still figuring things out. You talking about how you talk was amazing too. First of all, you both have wonderful voices! I also got emotional about the ferocity with which Michael was defending Sarah. Seeing very clearly how close the two of you are is really sweet!

Libby Nelson

Oh man, I’m excited to hear your take on the McDonald’s coffee story. The documentary “Hot Coffee” blew my mind and made me feel terrible about the constant jokes made about it.

Cindy Leveillee

Love your voices and absolutely love Sarah's laugh. It is infectious!

ash

*said like an incantation* altamont altamont altamont altamont pls

Ari

I absolutely love the casual tone of the show!! I love your laughing Sarah :( this really surprised me!

Ari

Why can’t guys like that pick another podcast or film. It’s like they think their taste is the only legitimate taste and the rest of the world must bend to fit it

Patricia Good

i love your voices! they make me happy

Cipora Cohon

I would love some discussion of psychedelics: the history, the positive and negative effects, the legal bs and rants about the DEA and how the drug classes don’t actually make sense (!) IMO. It’s a hot topic but like a lotttt of history

Cipora Cohon

This might be too recent but I was a hs student in arizona during the red for Ed strikes and NOBODY outside the states where it happened remembers it. It’s definitely something I wanna see/hear more about.

Kendra Allgood

I loved you guys really digging into the way we speak, I think it’s what makes this podcast so approachable, you both speak like real people about intelligent topics. It’s something I constantly monitor at my manufacturing workplace in the south. Towing the line between sounding professional but not robotic, articulate and approachable but not pretentious. But all the boyz can joke among themselves in meetings. It’s fine, it’s not as though the first 15 minutes of this episode struck a chord haha. Thank u guys for talking about it!

Rachel AM Martin

I love both of your voices. I am writing two books and when I read them back as I work on them I hear one in Sarah's voice and the other in Michaels. It's one of the reasons I tune in. I can't seem to find a new podcast I like because of your voices so much.

Alli Boley

This is funny because I just listened to some of the very early episodes and was unsettled by the lack of listening sounds! I don’t get how people are annoyed by them. The show doesn’t have the same intimacy and flow without them (in my opinion).

Melanie Manning

I actually cried when I heard Michael's emails to that mysoginistic jerk. I don't think I've ever heard a man more eloquently stand as an ally for a woman before. I wish I knew more men who understood as much as Michael does about how women are talked about and treated ❤️

Eleanor

I love this episode! I feel like it shows Mike and Sarah'a friendship dynamic and it's so heartwarming 😊

Jim Sabol

I can listen to Michael and Sarah talk all day and during the pandemic I definitely had days where they were all I listened to.

Leslie Primack

Love this - keep talking just the way you do! It feels like two friends, not some overly formal newspeak.

Jorgia

Omg so did I!! Love Just the Gist 😊

Sonja Frolek

Do the MANDELA EFFECT! Love you guys, thanks for the best podcast out there

Edward Jones

I love this podcast, the two of you, and I also love Sarah's laugh!! 10/10, and thank you for making this podcast. :)

Brittany Robison

I love your laugh Sarah! I find it heartwarming and infectious 😁

Heather Harris

Y’all are the jam. Thanks for being you

Nicole Wagner

I just became a supporter and I wanted you, Sarah, to know that as a former "gifted kid" who finds it surprisingly hard to do things, I felt so seen with your descriptions of experiencing ADHD (though I haven't gotten a diagnosis... setting up the possibility to be diagnosed is one of those hard things for me that shouldn't be). OHH and also I just bought that "Disco Never Died" slouchy tee shirt I've had on my list for a year. LOVE YOU GUYS and your podcast makes me a better person (no exaggeration).

Kate North

You've probably had lots of positive feedback about this AMA, but just wanted to say that your style of presenting - the casual but serious tones, the friendship shining through, the interruptions, the upspeak, the slang, the catchphrases, Sarah's distinctive laugh - is what (for me at any rate) pushes the podcast beyond merely an interesting exploration of the past into something far more - almost like being part of that friendship myself (but not in a creepy, stalky way).

Rósa

Hello I LOVE THE WAY BOTH OF U TALK IT IS LIFE 🙌 I am so fascinated by the amount of clever and funny that comes out of u and your voices so smooth n beautiful. So yea fuck these mfs who talkin shit like that. Best regards Rosa from Iceland hehehe 🥰🥰🥰

Amy Katsy

Anytime y’all talk about people leaving y’all’s podcast negative reviews I wanna force a Popeyes biscuit down their throats with NO DRINK AFTER (that’s quite a large insult here in the south) - I truly enjoy coming home + unwinding to y’all debunk various events ppl like myself + those around me have never bothered to question to the depths y’all have. Reading transcripts of ourselves speaking can be *~*bRuTaL*~* but I’ve only found comfort in the way y’all present information + I look forward to each new episode. Thanks for helping me not think I’m nuts as a Democrat balls deep in the Bible Belt. - Amy K

Alex Rachel

If the most consistent criticism you get is about your upspeak, vocal fry and use of filler words, you know you are doing something right. Some people will find anything to complain about, and they're criticizing your voice, not your content. Keep up the good work, love you guys! -Passionate and unashamed user of 'like' as a filler word.

Amelia Gaunt

Can you please do a book club ep about ‘Go Ask Alice’, that book tricked my partner and I for soooo long when we were younger. After a quick google turns out it was fiction and I feel like it’s involved in some sort of moral panic? I just think you guys would make it interesting!!

Hillary Dovel

I agree with this completely. It seems like you don't become accurately educated about SIDS in the US until you lose a child from it.

Erin

I just wanna say I love how you both talk and am outraged at these criticism. Sarah's voice is my virtual safe space 😍

Vikki Wiercinski

You both have kept me very good company during the pandemic and Sarah's laugh makes everything lighter. I've been thinking for days about this episode - as a woman so much of how men subtly interact with each other is opaque to me. The idea of a "Man Club": maybe it's an island where you strand all the garbage men who complain about laughter and speech intonations that bring real joy to other people's daily lives. You both just keep on doing how you do, it's the best thing <3

Maria Carroll

This is interesting. Through my child's diagnosis, I learned we have a disorder that causes low muscle tone. I always had trouble learning if we were in the floor vs desks (elementary). In grad school, a professor called me out for leaning my head on my hand, which he took to mean I was bored, when really I have to bc just sitting up straight is fatiguing. So rather than be able to learn, I had to always focus my energy on how I sat. I had a lot of male teacher policing through school. Looking up to think was eye rolling, my outfit wasn't suitable, I couldn't lean on my hands... Maybe there's an episode in that...girls wanting to learn but having to deal with BS from (male) peers and teachers.

Claire

Your voices are the best in my podcast world and the sound of my most safe and entertaining space. I go back and relisten to episodes just because I need your voices! (And Sarah, I have voice envy.)

Linda Freeland

I love your vocal fry Sarah! Especially your growly responses to Michael's narratives. They represent an amazing range of expression. You could make a whole language simply using your growly responses. (Marge Simpson's got nothing on you.)

lauren

i empathize with sarah so much! when i was in a psychiatric hospital group therapy session i was sharing and a boomer in the group interrupted me to lecture me about my use of “like” and it’s like really dude? now???

Emily Alice Dunn

I started listening to this podcast and IMMEDIATELY began to adore and want to hear more of Sarah’s voice. And there was an amazing Christopher Hitchens essay defending “like”, and filler words, I believe. Also, the Deep Southern use of “y’all” is creating a word which serves a purpose for which there is no other word in English: a plural “you”. Romance languages have such a word ie tu/vous in French, and we have no way of expressing that without saying “y’all” or in some areas “youse”, so why not promote these? I agree with the stances on filler words, &c spoken about here, but I do find my teeth gritting when I hear someone say something insulting and use mitigating phrases, such as “but, whatever” at the end, or “just saying, but” at the beginning. Wondering if I am oversensitive in thinking this: I believe it makes the insult worse. That is one habit I think we could do without, and I believe it might be a bit female-leaning so I would be glad to make an attempt to abandon this view if others feel this is in the same category.

Rebecca

Well, "thee" and "thy" aren't getting much use these days!

Britt B

Surprised to find out people don't like your voices. I get so much comfort in listening to the podcast that I couldn't imagine it with anyone else.

Apocalypse Insurance

New to the party and working my way back to front, I listened to this episode not long after looking up Sarah's Ted Bundy article. If you haven't already, you might find some interest in going down the rabbit hole of "female presenting autism" as described by "#actuallyautistic" folks-- specifically hyperempathy, really huge emotions that blow in quick, feeling like you study people to understand and better interact with them but are kinda an alien, all reminds me of my recent journey towards better understanding of my neurotype.

Lauren Schechter

It is not self-aggrandizing to wear a shirt from your own show! Plenty of dweebs like me wear merch from their work lol

Sami Brooker

Sarah, when you said the thing about your dad using the "like" thing as a way to silence you, I really really felt that :( <3 It made me think of when I was a sophomore in college doing a summer math research project in noncommutative metric geometry, which, six years later, looks like it's going to be the subject (broadly speaking) of my PhD thesis. So I was making my first foray into the thing I want to do with my life, and one day I was on the phone with my grandpa, telling him that I was accepted to give a talk at a conference at the end of the summer, and he asked me what my project was about, and I was totally out of my depth, trying to describe friggin infinite-dimensional matrix algebras - which I had only just learned about in like, the last MONTH - on the fly, to someone who never took calculus. And at the end of it, he said something like, "Y'know, Samantha, when you're explaining something to someone, don't say all that 'um uh like uhh' stuff so much, it doesn't make you sound very smart!" in the most grandfatherly condescending tone I've ever heard. It made me SO MAD, because he clearly just wanted me to shut up! And maybe to stop feeling so good about this work and these accomplishments that I was proud of, because it was making HIM feel insecure about his own intelligence. Jesus! Ugh. I'm fine, I'm over it, but listening to what you said about your dad reminded me so much of that, so I wanted to share this moment of connection. Love you, love the show. You are great and magical <3

Phoebe McDonald

I’ve recently joined the Patreon so I’m catching up on all the bonus episodes but wow this episode was so interesting and so relatable re dick language-snob Dad behaviour. My Dad is essentially an English elitist; the type of man who corrects you if you use “less” when you should have used “fewer,” and balks when you respond with “I’m doing good” to the question “How are you?” when you should have said “I’m doing well” because that’s proper English apparently. He also takes issue with swearing, especially in TV shows, movies and music, but also just regular people and how they might swear when they speak (like me, his daughter, even though he yells out “Jesus Fucking Christ” at least once a day). I’ve noticed though that he seems to particularly take issue and comment when it’s a woman who is swearing (recent example is Jennifer Lawrence’s character in Don’t Look Up, which I was like Dad! The issue is that it’s a horrible movie, not that a fictional woman is swearing too much). The point I’m trying to get to is that I think there is also misogynistic and weird male feelings about women swearing, similar to vocal fry, using the word “like, etc. I wonder if you, Sarah (and Mike if he still checks out Patreon comments), have experienced this too or have gotten similar weird and rude critiques about that. I also think there is a generational difference here - millennials do seem to swear more than baby boomers, or at least swearing is a more regular part of speech, and swear words have different meanings and connotations depending on their use. At least, this is how I use swearing in my own speech, and it’s something I’ve been noticing lately. All this is to say, I relate very much to the discussion about speech, and this was a great episode - thank you so much!

Mihaela Sacara

Very nice conversation about the voice and way of speaking. I find it so often about sexism - like people more often complain that a feminine voice is annoying, which is very telling about whom we want to / are used to listen to. I think what you're saying is super valid - if you don't like it, you don't have to listen to it. I have this with some yoga/workout teachers, if I find their voice annoying I cannot use their content, but it's very true that this a me problem, not about them. Thanks for talking about this! And I personally enjoy both your voices :)

Lexa

I had a hard week and am comfort-listening to back episodes. I have to say I felt amazing para-social community from pretty much every topic in this episode. In a non-blaming (people’s lives are what they are) way, I miss Michael because of a comment Sarah made about how she was excited that this is a podcast where a male-identifying and female-identifying person can listen to each other and be interested in what the other is saying and accepts/is delighted by how they say it. I’m glad he still gets to talk to Aubrey and Sarah talks to Alex, and I also love more female or NB people talking to each other (and just signal boosting neurodivergent and queer people) so I have also loved the continued episodes of You’re Wrong About. I realized while listening that my anti-imposture syndrome / GOALS for starting my own podcast or being more generally public with how I think/feel is that one day I might be a guest in the Why Are Maintenance Wrong / You’re Good Phase podcastematic universe and that would be the deepest confirmation that I don’t suck. Anyway, keep on keepin’ on. You are good!