Great respect for old media
An outtake with Ian Wheeler, and an afterthought on personality
Welcome to Human Pursuits, the column that features need-to-know names and stories in media and other creative spaces. Today, an outtake from my conversation with Talkhouse co-founder Ian Wheeler
Read part one of our conversation here.
Outtake
IW: It’s funny, we see it with How Long Gone, which is a podcast we work with–
ES: Laughs. Brother, you do not have to explain How Long Gone to me.
IW: The show is funny for people who live in New York and L.A., of course. They’re talking about Sweetgreen and Erewhon and stuff, and you connect with that. But I think if you live in Cleveland, for example, How Long Gone is your way to tap into that specific type of culture. It becomes so much more meaningful. I know when those guys tour and visit a place like Minneapolis, or someplace that isn’t an obvious liberal enclave, the audience is extremely receptive and excited. They feel so much more strongly about what those guys are doing. It’s a window for people.
I was always looking for something like that when I was young. I loved zines and stuff. I needed to become fully immersed in these subcultures, but they weren’t around. I had to find it.
ES: The show also takes that cultural ephemera and heightens it. Like, Chris and Jason are not exactly your typical Angelenos or New Yorkers. Their experiences are sort of aspirational. The way they reference things is like a VR headset or something. It’s world-building. They’re imposing their universe onto a world that already exists.
IW: It’s also funny because you can come into the show fresh and think “These are two very specific kinds of assholes” but they quickly reveal themselves to be complex assholes. It’s an endless punchline for me. They’re playing these characters, to a certain extent, but the amount of nuance is pretty remarkable.
ES: They sort of remind me of that old quote about the Velvet Underground’s first album. “It only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band.” I’m not saying everyone who listens to How Long Gone starts a podcast, but I do think they’ve informed the next generation of new media. At the very least, Human Pursuits would not exist without them. Have you noticed anything to that effect?
IW: I think modern media owes a lot to those guys. They’ve been at it for a while, doing different things. Chris has been in the media for a long time, and Jason has been doing remarkable things in the underground forever. They’re very influential and I think they’ll continue to be.
One of the coolest things about them is they understand podcasting and newsletters and these platforms we’re using now, but they have a great respect for old media and mass media. They’re very deferential towards that. And I think that’s the way forward. You or I need to be able to start something and scale it up to be that influential and meaningful. I think it’s totally possible in this day and age.
ES: What newsletter, if any, do you subscribe to?
IW: Mainly my friends. My friend is a restaurateur in Charleston. He’s a great curator. He’s amazing writing about food, but his music taste and style are on point. My friend , who was an oyster farmer, has a great Substack. He’s basically a marine historian. My friend , who used to be one of the most powerful booking agents in the music industry, he retired early to write. He's working on his first novel, and he's been running this literary collective for a bit. His newsletter is very cool and insightful.
I think part of it is having that connection, a close connection with the writer, and just feeling that proximity to me. It’s really interesting.
ES: Yeah, I think it’s always better when there’s a personal connection. Sometimes our friends will get my life updates via Human Pursuits, which is pretty fun. Like, “Oh I heard you saw Sinners last weekend.” Laughs.
IW: I always loved getting those letters at Christmas that update you on how the family is doing. “Jimmy’s 8 now and he’s doing gymnastics”. There was something cool about that.
ES: That’s funny, I think about that all the time. Family newsletters are a big reference point for me.
IW: It’s nice to get those updates from people and hear what’s going on in their world.
ES: And it doesn’t have to be some monumental thing. I love wishing people a happy birthday in my news roundups. It’s silly, but I feel like that sort of thing matters. I like the idea that I can interview someone and then acknowledge their birthday two years later.
Afterthought
In friendship, dating, and media, one thing remains true: there is no substitute for a great personality. It gives people something to latch onto. A way to contextualize whatever information is presented. Plus, it’s a lot more entertaining.
While the obvious examples are real people – Oprah, Anthony Bourdain, John Stewart, to name a few – it’s worth remembering that publications used to have personality, too. In the music sphere, the sensibility of NME was different from the sensibility of Rolling Stone, which was different from SPIN, which was different from Blender. Whatever you subscribed to signalled something about your tastes, and, essentially, your outlook on the world.
That’s a powerful level of influence, and one that few modern media brands have been able to tap into. MrBeast is one of the world’s most popular YouTubers, but I couldn’t tell you what his values are. Money? Elaborate competitions? Making things go SPLAT? (Editor’s note: I have not watched MrBeast).
Personality is hard to scale. If you’re being authentic, inevitably, you’re going to rub some people the wrong way (just look at Ms. Rachel). A while back shared an opinion on no-show socks that got him soft-cancelled. It happens.
I think that’s part of the fun. They may not be able to replicate the mass media of their youth, but Chris and Jason have clearly captured an attentive audience. It’s not the New York Times, or even Vice, but it could be the next Gawker. A reminder that great things can come in comparatively small packages.