Oh, you like podcasts?
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Sure, its literally correct, but come on.
Through the show, theyve pushed deep into interviews, produced reported pieces, and worked to start conversations.
They always knew there could be more.
In 2019, we named it one of the ten essential conversation podcaststhat shaped the genre.
Call Your Girlfriendis now coming to an end.
Its also been seven and a half years; people get antsy.
you’re free to have different relationships that matter more to you than conventional relations might.
you’re free to build a different structure of work.
We can have a different world.
Tell me about the decision to wind down the show.
Gina Delvac:It was a long time in the making.
I was also ready to figure out what the next phase looked like.
We all have competing pressures on our time that we didnt have when we started.
The show was originally devised to consume an amount of time that just two people chatting would take.
And honestly, part of the thing for me was that I got kind of bored with the format.
And the thing that has always struck me is how safe that question felt.
There was never a fear of, Can I ask my collaborators if theyre okay with this?
We built a collaboration where that question was never the most dangerous thing you could ask.
That is a very new feeling for me.
I dont think I can say that about all employment situations Ive been a part of.
Also, the show was never any of our main gigs.
It was never positioned as this end all be all.
Im just not interested in that.
Today, its professionalized in a way that I dont have a ton of interest in.
So that makes leaving feel good as well.
To your point, thereisa tax, right?
A lot of it is just time.
To just genuinely enjoy each others company.
Heres the thing: All kinds of relationships are complicated.
We basically grew up alongside all of it.
It doesnt really feel like that touches much of what we have going on between us right now.
A lot of that swirl of internal, emotional energy got brought into the passion for the show.
Were so much about that.
This is such our shit.
You oncecompared our show to a zine, Nick
Friedman:Still the best characterization ever.
Delvac:Well, for me, Im not stepping away from audio or podcasting.
Im running an original content studio for Spotify.
So, yeah, Im not going anywhere.
I dont exactly know what that looks like, but it will not be a chat show.
Im still really interested in audio in general.
Im just so excited by the creative space that stepping away fromCall Your Girlfriendis going to free up.
Sow:Im very much bored by the chat-show format too.
But thats true in general.
Im bored by chat shows on television.
It might be a phase in my life.
Its hard for me, because I genuinely enjoy shows where people are being interviewed.
Even withKeep ItorThe Read.
I spent the entire pandemic listening to every single episode ofThe Ezra Klein Show.
Minnie Driver also has a podcast that I really like.
Lovely interview shows are things I get very, very, very into.
So we own every part of our company, farm to table.
Theres a reason for that.
We could have sold if we wanted to.
I dont love it.
to make it sleep at night, there are rules we like to play by.
Im really proud of the business we built.
I know what its like to pay everybody a fair wage.
I know what its like to say, These ads are not great.
Were not going to run them.
So its hard not to roll your eyes at people who tell you it cant be done.
That its inevitable there will be union busters.
That any kind of accessibility captioning is so hard to do.
We know how hard it is.
Thats why we kept the company at the scale it was at.
There were really hard decisions we made every day on a small scale.
I see how people who are not white creating media on the back end get screwed.
I know that very intimately.
Im not saying podcasts are somehow worse than any other industry or enterprise we have.
What do you thinkCall Your Girlfriends legacy will be?
And in a way, it feels like those are still the people who the profiles are written about.
Not 100 percent, but Im thinking about publications…
Sow:LikeConan discovering podcaststhree years ago?
You find them and you go, Oh shit, they were writing about this not long ago.
Maybe thats too cynical, but thats my gut response.
I really love that sort of upside of those tough questions about parasocial relationships.
Thats a legacy Im really proud of.
Sow:I think Im worse than you, Ann.
I dont even think were going to be a footnote.
We see this all the time.
Sow:I actually really like that show.
Sow:I like that show a lot.
Its funny, now that Im no longer doing a podcast, I actually listen to podcasts more.
Im like,Wow.
Some of these men, actually, sometimes, you know, worth listening to.
Friedman:You know your burnout is dissipating when youre listening to podcasts again.
Delvac:To men again!
Friedman: Listening to Men Again: The Aminatou Sow Story!
Sow:Listen, some men make good podcasts.
What can I say?
Not all of them; slow your horses.
Truly, though, I will say the best podcast made by a man isThe Ezra Klein Show.
Its very, very, very good.
Who is producing podcasts?
Mostly women who went to liberal-arts schools.
(You know, radio-people problems.)
Whos getting written up for making podcasts?
We all know those things are a scam anyway.
We ran a really successful business for as long as we wanted to.
We didnt have to ask some corporate radio daddy to be let out of our contracts.
Some of them went to social jail.
But I feel really proud, honestly.
I feel proud of our corporate practices.
Of the ways that we showed up.
Of the ways we were a pain for every single corporate entity that had to deal with us.
The business we ran I really hope that this is a model for whoever wants to still do it.
I dont know if thats still possible today, but I hope that it is.
