anything goes with emma chamberlain - bittersweet

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

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Hey, hi. How are you? Yeah, I am feeling a bit awkward today, if I'm being honest, because I have to sit you down and have a serious conversation with you today. That's really what it feels like. Jokes aside, it literally feels like I'm sitting down a friend to have a serious conversation. And that's never fun. Yes, it can be productive and healthy and beautiful, but that doesn't mean it's easy. That doesn't mean it's fun. Hell, it's never fun. Today, I'm going to be giving you some news that I consider to be bittersweet. For those of you who enjoy anything goes, it might be shitty news. For those of you who hate anything goes, oh my God, this is going to be your favorite episode I ever make. In fact, turn it up. Turn it up.

You're going to love this one. Let's just rip off the Band-Aid. Okay? Let's stop beating around the bush. I am taking a little podcast break. Okay? Yep. Taking a little podcast break.

Now, let's rip the Band-Aid all the way off because that was just ripped it halfway off. Let's rip it all the way off now. I don't know how long the break's going to be. I wish I had answers for you. I don't have answers for you. I'm taking an indefinite podcast break. Now, I know you're thinking, Emma, that means quitting. That means you're done forever. Emma, where did this come from? This is coming out of left field. I feel betrayed by you. You're a fucking bitch. You suck. Go fuck yourself. Go punch your, go into the backyard and beat yourself up, you're a bitch and you suck and I'm unsubscribing and I'm blocking you and you suck. Honestly, if you feel that way about this news that I just gave you, I take that as a compliment

because the fact that you enjoy this show enough to be mad at me is actually really nice. But yes, okay, I understand all these feelings if you're feeling this way. I also can't tell if I'm like, am I being too self-important? Like, does no one even give a fuck? You know what I mean? Am I like, okay, you guys, let's rip off the band-aid with this bad news. I'm taking a podcast break and everyone's like, okay. Okay, all good.

See you later. Don't care. I don't know. But sometimes when I speak about myself or what I do in this way to the audience, I'm like, wait, am I completely delusional and no one really cares? And I'm like, oh, I hope you're not mad at me that I'm doing it. And then, like, everyone's like, yeah, no one's mad. No one cares.

Well, just assuming that there's one person out there that is maybe a bit bummed by this news, I get it. It did kind of come out of left field. However, it has been something I've been ruminating on for a while now and been avoiding. But I ultimately had sort of an aha moment about a month ago where I realized it was time to do this. And once I knew that I needed to do it, it was like, okay, I got to do it. And, I consider this episode, okay, that I'm making right now to be bittersweet. I don't think it's sad because I actually feel really inspired by this decision. It's not like I'm making this decision because I'm feeling really down in the dumps. I'm feeling really bummed out. I'm feeling really burnt out. I'm making this decision because I know it's time to grow and evolve and restructure. Go back to the drawing board career-wise for me. And that's really scary because when something's doing well, when something's working, it is not necessarily intuitive to say, okay, now I'm going to take a break and go back to the

drawing board. You know, it's not intuitive. It's intuitive to just continue. However, in my soul, and I wish I could explain it, but I can't, in my soul, I woke up one day and I knew that I needed to go back to the drawing board because I knew that the way I was doing this podcast, the way that I was not even beyond this podcast, the way that I was structuring my work life was not working for me. And it's up to me to step back, make necessary changes, and then re-enter. And here's the thing. I'm not like disappearing off of the internet. The thing is

with the podcast is that the podcast is a scheduled thing, right, whereas everything else is not. So that's why it feels necessary to come here and say, I'm taking a podcast break. And I'm not doing that with anything else. And I've never done that with anything else in the past because it hasn't been on as rigid of a schedule. But going back to what I was saying, this is a bittersweet episode, in my opinion, because I'm not making this decision from a place of weakness of sadness. of sadness. It's not coming from a place of burnout. It's coming from a place of excitement,

inspiration, and the desire to restructure things in a way that will actually allow me to create more of the things I want to create. Because I've always been somebody that likes to do everything myself. I've always been someone that has to have her little grimy hands on every single thing, that she does. And listen, I will continue to be that way. However, there are various structural shifts that I can make in my career without sacrificing integrity that would actually allow me to create more than what I'm creating now, allow me to put out more than what I'm putting out now, if I just take a step back, go back to the drawing board, and figure out how. And I know I need to do this because again, I like woke up one day and just knew. And whenever I have intuitive feelings

like that, I really try to honor them. And I will say, I've been kind of feeling that for a little bit and kind of ignoring it. And then I woke up one day and it was really loud and I just knew. And now we're here and this decision has been made. But it's ultimately because there's more things that I want to do. and in order to do those things, I need to restructure, if that makes sense. And I don't really want to elaborate on what that means because I tend to prefer to work in silence, figure it out on my own, and then come back when it's finished, you know? And so I'm sorry for being vague, but that's one thing. Another thing is, in addition to more of a technical restructuring of my career,

I also am feeling really inspired by the idea of not being on a schedule, not being on a schedule at all, which is a luxury and a privilege that I do not take for granted, that I'm able to do that. But I would love to just have some time to, like, create freely. This idea of, like, freedom where I could make whatever I wanted. If I wanted to make a podcast episode, one week I could do that. If I wanted to make four YouTube videos, I don't get any ideas. But I'm just saying, like, if I wanted to make four YouTube videos one week, I could do that. If I wanted to make 50 Instagram Reels, I could do that.

If I wanted to spend an entire month just working on Chamberlain Coffee and that's it. If I wanted to, I would like to have a period of time where I could experience that without a schedule. And I feel like that would be really inspiring for me. And I want to give myself that. So that's another thing. And last but not least, I have been podcasting for seven. years now. I think I started in 2019 with Stupid Genius and then I started Anything Goes. Stupid Genius was my first podcast. If you remember Stupid Genius, whoa, I love you that you ever listened to that. And then I think

I started Anything Goes in 2021, maybe 2020, I don't remember. But it's been like six, seven years now. And I have not taken more than, you know, maybe a month off since I started, really. I mean, I mean, maybe between stupid genius and anything goes, listen, you get the idea. I've been going pretty consistently for six or seven years. And I think psychologically, I think it would be nice to experience a little break where I just can live my life and not think about how I'm going to make an episode about it. I think that would be really beneficial for me, my mental health, the health of my mental. I think it would be really nice for me and ultimately healthy to have that. You know, the interesting thing about podcasting is that it's usually weekly with very few breaks

during the year. That's sort of the common structure. Maybe a week off here or there for some shows, maybe a month off for the holidays for other shows. But for the most part, it's pretty consistent. But if you think about TV shows or musicians, a season will be put out or an album will be put out. And then there's a bit of incubation before the next sort of era, the next season or the next album or whatever. And I feel like I need a little incubation phase. However, I don't necessarily think this is going to be an incubation phase

because I do have things that I want to just like make for fun, not on a schedule. And so I don't think I'm not like disappearing off the internet. I'm not like going full incubation phase like disappearing. there's even a chance that I might start posting more just on my other YouTube channel or on Instagram. Like I don't even know. It's kind of cringe to talk about this stuff out loud too, being like, listen, this is my strategy. Like I don't really have a strategy. This episode is kind of all over the place. But to be honest, my brain is kind of all over the place. I think that's pretty

representative of where my head's at. And I wish I had a more clear direction to explain to you. But I don't really have that. And I think that's why I put off making this episode for a few weeks, because I was like, let me just take a few weeks to gather my thoughts and figure out where I'm going. But I don't think I can even discuss it yet. I think I need a little bit more time. But I'm feeling really positive, okay? I'm feeling really inspired. I do have a lot of ideas of things that I want to try. However, because they're just things I want to try, I don't necessarily want to talk about them because it's like if it doesn't work out, I don't end up liking the types of things I want to try to make for entertainment for you all. If I don't end up liking doing those things,

if they don't work out, I don't want to feel like I made a promise I couldn't keep. But ultimately, I want to entertain you all. I want to hang out with you all. That is my number one priority. and I feel like I could be doing that even better than I'm doing now. I'm like 99.9% confident in that, but I also know that in order to do that, I have to sort of wipe the canvas clean and paint a new painting of what that looks like. Because what I've been doing,

which is mainly, you know, focusing on the podcast, is not allowing me to sort of diversify the type of entertainment that I get to make for those of you who want to consume it. And diversifying my output for you all in creating various different types of entertainment for you all is really important to me. And I need to restructure things so that I can feasibly do that.

Because it's been really hard for me to balance all the different mediums that I enjoy creating content for. It's been really hard for me to do it all because I do everything myself. It's been like very challenging for me to create a satisfying amount of content for all the different platforms that I want to create content for, in entertainment for if you will. And so that's what I need to go figure out. And then hopefully I come back to you with things that you really enjoy to watch

and listen to because that's the thing too. I love podcasting. I really, really do enjoy it. And it's something that I've been doing very consistently for so many years that I, the thought of like taking a little break from it is kind of incomprehensible to me but my ultimate love in passion is in visual entertainment that's where my heart lies but i also really love podcasting so i got kind of into this sort of routine of making two episodes a week for for three years and then this year down to one episode a week and that was so all consuming that it left me not much time to create visual video style content, and that's something that I really miss doing that I want to be able to get back to. But it's very time-consuming because I tend to like to edit things myself, et cetera. I just need to figure out how I can do everything I want to do all at once. You know what I mean? And not have to sacrifice one thing to do the other, if that makes sense. And that requires going back to the drawing board. And I just want to say to all of you who have listened to anything goes

for the last, what, five or six years, I want to deeply thank you for hanging out with me, okay? Truly, I love this podcast. I love hanging out with you all. Anything goes is not going away forever, okay? I can't give you a plan or a date. I can't give you anything because I don't even know yet, but just know that I'm here.

I'm not going anywhere, and this is ultimately a decision I'm making so that I can create more. Does that make sense? It's like, it's ultimately very positive. And it's going to result in, in there will be fruit. It will bear fruit this decision. It's not like, oh my God, she's like quitting this.

And now she's like, because she fucking is a lazy sack of shit. And she's disappearing and she's going to, because she's lazy. You know, it's not, I promise you, I promise you it's not that. I promise you it's that I've felt frustrated for years feeling like, oh, there's so many things I want to do. I want to make for entertainment for these people, and I don't have the fucking time to do all of it because I'm not structuring this properly, and I've been struggling with that for years, and I cannot do it anymore, you know? And on top of that, I'm inspired and have all these ideas

of things I want to try, but I haven't had time to try them because I've been in the minutiaa of, you know, the sort of work life that I've structured for myself. And so this is ultimately a very positive, productive, awesome thing. And I'm excited because I am very deeply passionate about creating things for you. Now, whoever you are, you know, it doesn't even matter. Whoever you are who wants to consume it, this is my ultimate passion and I want to be able to do it more. So that's where this is coming from. Seems a bit counterinduitive. Seems a bit counterinduidiv. But that's where it's coming from. And I deeply thank you all for supporting me and in this podcast throughout the years.

I'm not going anywhere. Maybe I am for a little bit, but ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, I'm not going anywhere. And I really deeply cherish what we've created here. And I do not take it for granted. And I'm not just running away or anything like that. I'm weirdly like emotional.

I'm like, what the fuck? Wait, why is this? What is happening? What? Like my eye kind of got a little watery. I was like, ooh, what's that? There's probably a trillion things that I am forgetting to say, but my brain's kind of mush, to be honest,

because I think I had a lot of anxiety going into making this episode, but I'm feeling a lot better now that we've communicated. See, look at the power of communication. What I've always said on this show, anything goes, the power of communication. It's powerful. It really is. I'm not going to lie, I'm nervous because I think

the second I stop recording this episode, the second I turn off the buttons, it's like, okay, Emma, now what the fuck are you going to do? You know what you have to do, but like, now you got to go do it. You know, it's kind of that. And that's really exciting, but also a little bit terrifying. Anyway, not to be overly parisocial, but I do love and appreciate you all. And I'm grateful that you all show up for me. To those of you who do show up for me, I'm very grateful. And I hope that you can feel my gratitude through the screen. And with all of that being said, I'll talk to you very soon. And listen, again, you're going to be like, Emma didn't even disappear. She, like, posted on

Instagram and then she, like, randomly posted a YouTube video, like, or, and then she, like, randomly posted a video. Like, I don't know. I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's happening. So you just have to just, I'll probably talk to you sooner than you think. Okay, I love you all. Mua. I love you. And I'm going to make you proud. Okay. I promise you I will.