On with Kara Swisher - Audie Cornish and Ari Shapiro on Friendship, Feeds and Their New Podcast

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

Longtime NPR co-hosts Audie Cornish and Ari Shapiro are reuniting for a new CNN podcast, “Engagement Party.” Each week, they unpack all the culture stories they’re obsessed with and that are generating buzz, from who’s still watching “Euphoria” to viral trends like “friction-maxing.” Their conversations are grounded in their decades-long friendship, even when they disagree. Kara, Audie and Ari talk about the stories they’re obsessed with right now, the challenges of making a culture podcast when social media is eroding our sense of shared identity, and their transition from live radio to podcasting. They also talk about how they’re navigating the news business in an era of major corporate acquisitions and mergers.   Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My theory about Kara is Kara treats men the way men treat women. So occasionally, she has to remind him, I am not your actual workwife. Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. Today, I'm talking to two people who you probably know very well if you're a news obsessive like me, Adi Cornish and Ari Shapiro. Both of them hosted and PR's flagship evening news show. all things considered for a decade. Audie left in 2022 to join CNN, where she's now a senior

analyst and host of CNN this morning. Ari is now joined Audi at the network. They've teamed up again for a new culture podcast that just launched late last month called Engagement Party. They're not engaged. They're happily married to other people, but they are very close friends. Every week, they talk about the stories they're most engaged with online, and the ones that manage to break through are algorithmic silos. I think this is great. I love people entering this space. I love talking about culture issues. And of course, I love a nice work couple like Scott and I that are much nicer than Scott and I. I think it's really important to talk about culture because I think it does lead into news now in a way. And, of course,

politics is downstream from culture, as the famous saying by Andrew Breitbart goes. And they're two really wonderful and interesting people. So it should work out. And it's really important for smart people to be talking about culture when so many dumb people are talking about it. All right, let's get to my interview with Audi and Ari. Our expert question comes from their former NPR colleague, Steve Inskeep. This is a fun conversation, but we also touch on some serious topics like the state of the news business right now. So don't go anywhere. Support for this show comes from Norwegian Cruise Line.

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Norwegian Cruise Line ships registry, the Bahamas and USA. Support for this show comes from The Guardian and their new show, Stateside, where journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman use the entire independent reporting resources of the Guardian to slow down the news and reference. with the questions we all have about what is actually happening in the world. Join Kai and Carter three times a week as they utilize all the reporting resources the Guardian has across news, international coverage, climate, culture, wellness, and more.

And the Guardians, not owned by a billionaire, they fearlessly report the facts without interference. Go to the Guardian.com slash stateside to learn more. And listen wherever you get your podcast or watch on YouTube. That's the Guardian.com slash stateside. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu, it's the only business software you'll ever need.

It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have, made the switch. So why not you? Try Odu for free at Odu.com. That's ODOO.O.com. Audio and Ari, thanks for coming on on and congratulations on the launch of your new podcast. Thank you. So good to be here. Thank you. So both of you hosted all things considered for a decade and overlapped for seven of those years and you've been friends for over 20 years. Talk about what brought

you together to do this CNN show. Well, it's funny hearing like your story, into a narrative, right, which is what we do to other people all the time, and now we're finally old enough for it to happen to us. Because it's not like we were friends. It was almost just, it's like being in a school class. It's like we were hired in a same kind of batch of reporters, I think. Were you hired the year before or the year after as a reporter? It was like the early 2000s. We were both definitely learning the ropes at the same time. There's a world of people, Frank Langford and David Green and David Fulkenflik. It was a moment where NPR like had a little bit of cash and they were hiring a lot of people.

people. And we were like, I think, the only really radio people in our classes. Like, everyone was a newspaper person. Yeah, we'd like come up through, we met in Boston at WBUR. Yeah. And then a few years later, we were in New Orleans together in the house that NPR rented for a year after Katrina, like living in two bedrooms in the same house, making dinner together and going out and covering the story. Yeah. So it's like we were always there in close quarters. Weirdly. Right. You were always doing things. Yeah. But then in the process of leaving NPR, I should say, all of the hosts talked to each other a lot. We were in group texts, we were in listeners,

we were, like, during the pandemic, kind of really staying in touch. Right. And that's probably when Ari and I really, like, came together on issues that maybe coworkers typically wouldn't talk about, like when it comes to salary and contracts and all that sort of stuff.

So fast forward to him leaving, we were, like, kind of in a good position to have a frank conversation about, like, hey, do you want to collaborate? Hey, do you want to work together? But I remember those, conversations even way earlier, like before the pandemic, we would be sitting in the All Things Considered Studio together. And your mics are off for the duration of an eight-minute story.

And the two of us would just like cackle or we would say, are you seeing this in your social media feed? I'm seeing this. I can't make sense of this. What are you getting from this? And then we would like share, compare notes because we don't have the same social circle, but we have enough of an overlap to share a common language. So you would tackle. Okay. And we started to say, like, why can't we make a show like this, where we talk to each other the way we talk to each other when our mics are off? So why couldn't you there? I knew she was going to ask this question.

Ari, this is just going to be me watching Kara, Kara, you? Some of it is the FCC. Some of it is, I mean, like, look, you look at the first pilot that we did back in January before this show was a real thing. And in that pilot, we talk about ketamine and bottom jokes, which is not necessarily the stuff that public radio shows are made up. Yeah, yeah. Also, we doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

Right. We is doing. I know this. What we mean. But also when you've got a two-hour daily show, there's just not the bandwidth to make something like this. That was really it. The news.

The news. So you, listen, I have Scott Galloway, so none of you were going to have me be like penis jokes coming out of my ears. And they're not for me. Exactly. So how did you get the impetus to do this, though? Because you could talk about, a lot of people talk about, we should open a restaurant.

Finally, we should get that boat we said we'd get. Yeah, I mean, Kara, you and I, as I've, you know, sort of wormed my way into your, like, mentorship, you've always asked me what I want to be doing. And whenever I'm complaining, whenever I'm like, I don't like this, I don't like that, you're the first person to just cut through the BS. I'm like, okay, but what do you want to do? And I think I couldn't answer that. And I was afraid of the thing I wanted to do, which is something like this, which is to, like, take the superpower or skill or lens I have on the news and apply. it to this cultural stuff that people are obsessed with. Why were you afraid, may I? Because, you know, it feels like it's going to undermine your career. You've been raised that you don't want to be infotainment. That's like the worst thing you could be, you know, to the NPR host that sort of raised me. And when infotainment became the news, it was like, well, wait a second, I know how to do

this, but I'm sort of busy being over here occupying this lane that is like narrowing and narrowing and narrowing, and there are ways to have smart, interesting ideas in a conversation about culture. Right, right. It can be interesting. It can be. Like, it's allowed to be interesting. Ari, what about you?

I relate so strongly to what you're saying, Audie, because I think about, you know, like 18 years ago, I started singing with this band called Pink Martini, and I still often go on tour with them. I'm going to be at the Montreal Jazz Festival with them next month. And when I started doing that, you know, they're like this 12-piece little orchestra and we wear suits, ties, ball gowns, whatever. And I was afraid that it would detract from my credibility as a journalist. When I started, I was covering the White House. And I thought, are people going to think less of me as an authoritative news person because I'm now singing with a band? I got over that over the 15 years of doing it. And I think there is a similar feeling about pivoting away from politics war and hard news towards talking about talking about about a show like euphoria. But that's a part of our culture, too. And at this point in my life and in my career, I no longer worry that people are not going to think of me as a credible newsperson, because I've got 25 years at NPR under my belt. And at this point, I really enjoy digging into

something I'm obsessed with, with my friend who is smart and funny and thoughtful and always has things to say that I would not have thought of. And if people want to get news about Trump and war, there are lots and lots of places they can do that. And so this is something different. There are a lot of culture-based shows, and this is called Engagement Party. You know, you are facing, you know, there's a ton of them. I think, you know, when I was like in the piloting process, I've always done stuff. I was always like, hey, CNN, there should be a show that does X. Hey, there should be a show. And I'm never trying to be in the lane with comedians. You know, I'm not going to do a bigger, better tech podcast than you and Scott. Do you know what I mean? So it was also like really looking yourself in the mirror and be like, well, what do I bring to the table? And I knew that I loved analyzing things and taking the politics and the economics with me. Like, I never put that down. So when I look at Summerhouse, I have like a bunch of other questions going on in my brain than a pop culture commentator who has lots of great funny quips about Summer House or who is an amazing Bravo, you know, archaeologist. Right, right.

It's like, I think our training to create stuff for the rest of us, air quotes, that, like, everybody can listen to that if you've never even glanced at a reality show is going to be fun. Yeah, like, that actually is not that easy to do. And most pop culture podcasts and most culture, TV, whatever, it's very insidery. It's like, unless you're locked into that topic, it's not really for you. Eventually, you can get caught up. but it's all like old-fashioned radio in a way and that it's like little inside communities. Yeah, yeah, which is why they thrive in a lot of ways.

Exactly. There are lots of culture shows, there are lots of chat shows, there are lots of hangout shows. I'm not sure that any of them has the specific dynamic that Audi and I bring to it. A lot of them have two people who are similar to each other, which is a great opportunity to sort of get into

how that fraction of the world sees everything that we're also looking at. But there's something unique about having two people like Audie and myself who, I mean, straight black woman, queer white man, been friends forever, have the credibility in news, are obsessed with culture, and can have honest conversations with each other coming from different perspectives. I don't see that very much. And I think there is a certain spark there that is hard to find. Or when I do, it works, right? Like what makes you and Scott work is the same thing that makes this work, which is like there is overlap, but that overreact.

is not a circle. And even the jokes about, like, when you were talking about bottoming or whatever, it's like, I'm coming at that as like, oh, the strengths, and he's coming at it, like, oh, here we go. Or even, like, in our first episode where we were talking about AI-generated animated videos of Michael Jackson stories, I had not encountered that at all. And so there was a moment of Audie kind of explaining to me what this is and me having a genuine reaction, which is different from Audie's reaction. Yeah. Right, right. And you can also swear now on my... Fuck yeah. Which Ari has taken way more advantage of them than me. I am so unleashed, it's dangerous. Let me tell you, Audie is never going to unleash. She doesn't unleash in person.

You know, that's not true, Kara. You've heard me go on some riffs. No, yeah, but it's always real polite and well said. Well said, Audie. No, no, here's where I want to talk about this, Ari. Because I think when you mentioned earlier about what we were doing in the past, It was always a game of comparison. You weren't just yourself.

You were sitting next to the person that helped found the company's sound. Right. You know, it was like you were never just you. Yeah, you exist in the context of what Robert Siegel did or what Susan Stamberg did. Yeah, were you the next so-and-so, or were you not as good as so-and-so? And so you actually weren't really rewarded for being yourself. And that's why I think you saw so many personalities. Let's just take a really early one, Ira Glass.

leave, right? Because it's like you can be the next Noah Adams or you can go off and be yourself. And I think that all of a sudden we looked around and we saw a marketplace where people were incentivized to be themselves without having to be like a shock jock. You know what I mean? Right, right. There had to be a place for us to go. To be fair, I had a dinner with Noah Adams and he told the best dirty jokes I've ever heard in my life. See, wouldn't you like to hear that side of voice in Noah Adam's voice. And so it's even like, what? And then he would do the voice just to bother you.

So talk about how hard is it to shake off that NPR host identity? We all know what it is, right? I personally don't find it very difficult at all. No, Ari is just like, goodbye. Shaking it off. He's shaking tail feathers. He's shaking, yeah, it's all over the place. I'm having a good time.

But how hard is it for you, Audie? It's a good question. Because I thought about someone like Kamala Harris who, like, could never shake off her professionalism. Nope, it's that pussy bow, she continues to wear it in the situation. Well, part of it is the contract of upward mobility for black Americans is explicitly shaving off and shaving down some of yourself. Very true. So that everybody, meaning white people, feel safe. And I think I was raised, I went to a busing program. I was raised in Massachusetts. So, you know, I was sort of uniquely positioned to navigate some of these newsrooms, right? And then the flip side of that is then you're

like, well, wait a second, is this really me? What am I really trying to accomplish here? What, like, who am I? Or has it become you? Has it become me, right? Have you calcified into this thing that you put on? And I would argue, you may not believe this, Kara, but I am more myself in these moments on camera than I ever was, ironically, off camera. Yeah, yeah. It's just really, between meeting you, between doing the job, between really just being like, well, wait a second, who are you hiding from. I am more myself. Now, will I ever get to F-bomb territory? Well, that isn't really you. It's not really me. And yet in my personal life, I curse up a storm. You know what I mean? There's still a little bit of a curtain there where I'm like, there's a version of me I still want for myself.

Right, right. But the more you get to your genuine vision, the better in these things, which I think people, even if they don't like you. Do you see what she's doing here, Ari? She's like. What is it about video that found freeing? I can see how Ari freeing. I can see how Ari free right away. I actually think, you know, I do think that for me, writing a book was liberating because in the book, I talked about going to the radical fairy gatherings for 15 years. I talked about making a show with Alan Cumming and with that experience. So like I kind of put out in the world things that had never crossed the private to public barrier. And for me, that was a moment of kind of breakthrough of being able to be myself, talk about myself, and integrate

those different versions of myself in public and private spaces both. Because a lot of what happens in NPR or even at CNN is airless. I always use that term. Yes, we've talked about that. Yeah, it's airless. It's like, is there any air in here or do the people exist? And they're much more interesting in that way. But talk about Ari, in the subsection post, you referred to Audi as your workwife. We all know that particular genre of person. And you wrote that for podcast listeners, there's something, quote, audibly different about spending time with people you've been friends with for ages.

Talk a little bit about that because you're talking about chemistry. you're talking about an ability to work. And obviously, Scott always refers to me as that. And people are comfortable with that, that idea. I mean, it ties into your question about video, which is totally new for me. It is a sense that if I jump, I know this person will catch me.

If the train is going off the tracks, I know that she will get it back on the tracks. And we have each other's back in that way. And so even as we challenge and push each other and rib each other and crack jokes about each other, we know that we have that kind of like substrate of years of looking out for and standing up for each other, which allows you to take the risks and do the new things and go out on a limb that you wouldn't otherwise feel comfortable going out on. Right. What about conflict, Audie? Because

one of the important parts of our Scotts is conflict, like that we disagree quite a bit on a lot of things. Often he's wrong and I'm right, but that's a different. We got. We definitely disagree on things. I think the difference is, because we sort of came up together, we professionally, part of our work, was to come up and workshop conflicting ideas. So it's this odd thing where having been reporters, you're constantly looking at each other and being like, is this a thing? Is this a thing? And then someone says, no, it's not. And you're not like, oh, man, I hate you. You know what I mean? You're not like, screw you. I can't believe you said that. You're like, okay, I guess let me figure it out. So I think in a way we're almost like workshopping the ideas in real time. And, you're

I think we feel very comfortable being like, no, that's not it. Because we've actually had to do that, like, in front of a room of producers. Although it often degenerates into anger yells on cable, particularly. As you know, I have a thing about that, like the idea that conflict has to be idiotic conflict. Yes. Right. And to your point, you and I have talked about this as well, that sometimes there's, let's just say, there's some people performing in those spaces.

You have noted that. They don't exactly have real conflict with it. each other. They are actually friends, and they perform this wrestling-like thing. We're not doing any of that. This is like a pretense-free situation. So you're not going to the White House next week. I mean, the MMA fight, like I'm into it, but it's more like, you know, Ari and I, like, we just, it's not worth it. It's like we're both covered bigger things. And all we want to do now is you can even see our postures, like, sort of more relaxed and we're kind of like, hey, like, we're going to break character for a bit and just talk.

And we do disagree vigorously about things, but it's not personal and it's not existential. And the things we're talking about are not make a break. You know, I'm thinking about, like, in our latest episode, we were getting into protein maxing and the idea that I think MAGA is very gender-coded. I think the MAGA movement emphasizes not only gender conformity, but gender extremes. and Audie was pushing back saying, okay, but the Kardashians? And I was like, wait a minute, are you claiming that politics and entertainment have bled into each other? What a shocking concept.

You know, like, those are the kinds of disagreements that we're having with each other. We'll be back in a minute. How can working at your local Tims take you further? Sure, you can level up your teamwork skills. You also get a chance to receive a Tim Horan scholarship award. Ready for what's next? Apply today at careers.timhorans.ca.ca. Support for this show comes from Delete Me.

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The only way to get 20% off is to go to join delete me.com slash Kara and enter the code Kara at checkout. That's join delete me.com slash Kara code Kera. Hi, I'm Maria Sharpova, host of the Pretty Tough podcast. Each episode, I sit down with high achieving women to discuss the pursuit of excellence without apology. This week on the show, clinical psychologist and founder, Dr. Becky Kennedy, and I unpack what it really means to raise kids today.

I think parenting is the most important job in the world and the one that has the most impact on your world and the world. It is nonstop. Check out pretty tough. New episodes on Wednesdays. You can watch it on YouTube or listen in your favorite podcast app. The idea behind engagement party is that each week the two of you talk about pop culture stories you're obsessed with or generating a lot of buzz.

So talk a little bit about what are some of the pop culture stories that have your that they won't make it into this week's episode. R. You start and then Audie. I mean, one of the things that we've been talking about is horror movies, and like right now, the movie obsession is huge and getting bigger, which is unusual because horror movies tend to kind of go off a cliff after their first weekend. And this is coming after the summer of weapons and sinners. And when we were discussing this in our pitch meeting, Audie was like, are you a horror

fan? And my answer is, I'm a fan of good movies, whether they are horror or rom-com or action or superhero movies. So I'm really interested in this horror moment. That might make it onto a future episode, but that's one of the things that I'm thinking about a lot. And also, horror as allegory. If you think about all of Jordan Peel's movies from Get Out to Nope to us, like horror is such a good way of talking about how we live now. I would even put zombie movies in that category, the 28 days, 28 years later. Anyway, this is how my brain functions when I get off on it. Right. And you can see the transit among people. But the difference is I watch horror movies.

Right. Right. I watch them too. You're naming the big ones. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I watched the good ones. Oh, you're saying you're like a deep die. I mean, you can. It's not the same. Yeah. All right. So, Audie, what about you? What is some of the ones that won't make it, for example? Oh, that won't make it easy. We actually, like a great example is the time that someone got put in the signal chat with the White House, right? The Atlantic and Jeffrey Goldberg. That's like a great story that I think in a typical newsroom is kind of all. already doing, and, like, are there jokes to be made about, like, texting and all that stuff? Maybe. But there's no greater story there, you know what I mean, that we can say to people,

and here's how this intersects with your life? No, it's just a bunch of dumbasses. It's kind of silly season, right? And even little kids know how to text and how to add someone to the group chat. So, no lessons learned. Whereas something like the horror movie story is also a story of, like, independent creation. Are we going to see a 90-style era indie boom just because they can do it on YouTube? Okay, we're about to find out, and horror is the right vehicle for that. It's over and over again, we're mostly reverse engineering. We're mostly being like, why is this a thing? Like, why? We know that it is a thing. Protein is a thing. But untangling the MAGA masculinity, diet culture, GLP-1s, podcast, health ecosystem.

Right, R-FK Jr. Like, untaggingly, that Gordian knot of things that made it viral. Although, I have to say, I did like catching snakes. I did. Yeah, great. You're in luck. I know. You're in luck.

He's always providing capital C content, you know? One of the things that we ask ourselves in every pitch meeting is, is there somewhere we can go with this beyond L-O-L? It's happening. What does this say about our life? What does it say about our culture? What are the levels that we can dig into and ways that we can explore this? that'll be meaningful and value added to people beyond this is on your radar.

Right. Or is it meaningless. Is it mean? Like, yeah, this makes is meaningless. It was just entertaining. So, all right, the main goal that shows to transcend the cultural silos that social media algorithm put us in and our feeds look so different because they're tailored to us. Talk a little bit about this because one of the things, as you said, you're a white, queer man, I can see that. Audie is a black, straight woman. I can see that. But you're also both, quote, unquote, media leads who are around the same age in live in D.C., There's overlap, too. So talk about that idea of trying to transcend cultural silos.

Yeah, I really used to enjoy in the All Things Considered editorial meeting when you had like 20, 30 people of different backgrounds sitting around the table talking about what they thought was interesting. And going into those meetings, I would graze widely to try to find stories that weren't breaking through my algorithm. And one of the things that I really enjoyed about making this show is going back to that idea of actually going out and looking for stories and not just waiting for things. to cross my path in my social media feed,

but looking at local and regional newspapers and magazines and industry websites and trying to figure out what's going out there that might not be on my radar. But also, we deliberately structure the show so that there's an opportunity for people to join in and tell us what they are seeing and give us a pitch of something that they are trying to unpack and understand because we wanted to be a dialogue,

and we know that we're not seeing the same things that our audience is seeing. Now, there was a great piece in New York Magazine recently how a lot of hype on social media is manufactured companies are paying people to generate clips to generate the impression that everyone is engaging with someone. This is someone I've known for a long time. So talk about, Audie, you're thinking about genuine enthusiasm versus Astor-Turfed hype. Yeah, I'm obsessed with this, because I'm doing this kind of show to jailbreak the algorithm. I hate the for you page, my kingdom for an actual search that works. I don't like the word feed. Like everything about

the way they have structured social media in the last 10 to 15 years bothers me deeply. You know, the only word that they say user, what's the other industry that uses the word user? Drugs. Drugs. Exactly. Like all those, I do the same thing. I'm like, yeah, feed, user,

like just everything about it, content, it's just they hate us. Like, I really just think tech companies hate us, they think we're suckers. And I don't like that if your eyes flick towards like a parakeet puking, now you're going to get 5,000 perekeeds puking.

I despise this. You said in a recent address at Tufts that you didn't think we were benefiting from the algorithmic information distribution system. Did I say all that? You did. It was very smart. Steeply nerdy. Again, I was trying to be professional.

Who are you? Trying not to be like, I hate these dudes. That's my job. Me and the Pope. That's the Pope and Peres-Wisher's job. I just want to say, the Pope is lifting a lot of my lines. I don't mind that. But it's like we're not geese with, you know, whose livers need fattening.

Like, they just pump all this stuff out and it can be manipulated. Even now, the whole conversation around clips and that, to me, I'm like, okay, I've seen this movie before. And guess what? We are one dude with a shake conversation from someone being like, actually, that's not the thing anymore. You know, it's a little bit like if anyone out there is old enough to remember the Wiz when the Wizard is like the color of the day is X, this is how they treat us as consumers and as people who make the content. And part of this show is being like, let's really mind this and figure out if this is a thing, why it's a thing, and then if it's a thing.

Or making a pop culture show, talking about the challenges when it feels like our sense of shared culture has evaporated, right? Because there was a shared, well, not really. It was kind of white guys on the upper east side of New York telling us what was interesting. Look, it's a challenge, but it's also an opportunity. You know, like, if there's a show that everybody is talking about, there's a little bit less to say than if culture is fragmented and you're able to illuminate something for a person who might not be in that conversation. Right. All Things Considered was a show that in its name, it had to appeal to everyone and it had to cover the waterfront. And we're making something now that is, I don't want to say, curated, but it's okay if it's not for everyone. And it's okay if we're talking about something. that is not your culture, that is not in your viewfinder. And so, yeah, the monoculture may be dead,

but maybe there's an opportunity in that that a show like ours can take advantage of. Do you think the monoculture is dead? Or was there one in the first place? I do think there was one at one point for sure. I do think it's dead now, but I think the pursuit of it is so strong because people still have a desire to connect to each other.

So there is still the sense of, like, I'm not just going to watch this reality show reunion. I'm going to film myself reacting to it, uploaded, and it's going to join these stream of other sort of pop culture salmon. And we're all going to force a watercolour moment, even if that's not how this thing is built anymore. So I do feel people still wanting that.

And also, I respect people's time. Like, I don't have time to be read in and all this truly random stuff. And it's really nice. I want to make something for someone like me who's like, you're busy, you care about culture, you generally know stuff. But like, do I have to know every little thing about every little thing? I'm not trying to be in hot take culture.

Right. And so I think we're still, we're choosing a lane for people who, like, don't want to know every single thing, but definitely don't want to be left out of the conversation. It might be a small thing, but I really like that our show is an edited 30 minutes. Because there are a lot of shows out there that are really sprawling. and there may be an amazing 30 minutes in that 90-minute episode. Yeah. Who has the time? Yeah. Yeah. Like, who has the time?

A lot of big boss. I know. But it's just like every, there's a million podcasts to listen to. I only listen to Keroswisher podcast. There's not a lot of time. Because we do a tight-thirty. Because we're doing a tight-thirty. No, it's just like, listen. And then be like, we're good.

I wash the dishes. Okay, we're good. I walk the dog. Amazing. Never a tight-30 for Scott Galloway. I'm sorry. It's a long 60. at least, if not 72.

It's a vibe. Yeah. I do, you know what I do. I don't know if you guys will start doing this, but I measure how much percentage he talks versus me. I send them to them. I send him word count. And you send it to him?

Of course I do. Of course. Why would you invoke that level of sort of competition comparison in society? No, I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. My theory about Kara is Kara treats men the way men treat women. So occasionally, she has to remind him. Yeah. I am not your actual work wife.

Yes, exactly. I'm a person with ideas and stop talking. Audie, I am going to make you a promise that I will never measure how much you and I talk relative to each other in our show. Well, that's how I know that you're gay. Yeah, exactly. That's correct. Because you have a regard for women and their voices. So every episode we get a question from an outside expert. Yours comes from your former colleague and host in NPR's Steve Inskeep. Let's listen. Hi there, Aude. Hi there, Ari. Congratulations on engagement party. I have a question for you that grows out of the idea of engaging people and also relates to the work that I try to do.

And it's this question, how are you going to deal with what I think of as the destruction of coherent thought? And I don't just mean short attention spans, although that's part of it. What I mean is the device on which you'll be reaching people. The device in which I try to reach people also has a tendency to make it impossible to think things through. It's hard to have the right perspective. It's hard to understand what's important and what's not. It's hard to have a line of logic. That is the world in which we live.

That's something I struggle with all the time in the way that I try to present stories. And so that's my question for you. How do you mean to deal with that? What are your thoughts about it? Thanks. Ari and then Audie. Steve is just such a great guy. Extremely NPR question.

Extremely NPR question. But also, just so nice to see Steve again. I know. I mean, I miss him. I think the answer is that you can't change the ecosystem that we're living in. You have to try to work within it. And so in our 30-minute show, we are going to have deep analytical conversations about important topics, even if those topics are related to pop culture.

But we're also going to have TikToks and Instagrams. and we are going to have clips, and we're going to be in the chat, and we're going to be in the comments, and we are going to engage with the fragmented attention economy, because that's what the attention economy is right now. And if you're not working with it, you're out of the conversation. And so I think you have to kind of straddle these two worlds,

I mean, as Steve and others on NPR do every day, where you're creating a space for the kind of discourse that you want to have, the kind of deep, fact-based, analytical, thoughtful, content. And also, you're recognizing that some people just won't find you there and you need to go find them where they are as well. Right. So it is the oxygen, essentially, what you're saying. Audie? I'm in a different place because I've spent the last couple years instead of fighting this trend, just simply, literally going with the flow. So like, I've done hits on TV. I now have a morning show. I've done social stuff. I've done YouTube-only stuff. I mean, Carrie, you and I have

piloted stuff. It's like I'm constantly just going to where the audience is and just being like, hi, have you thought of this? Hi, have you thought of that? Instead of being like, how can I figure out like them coming to me and taking the time? Like, I'm just done trying that. I'm just trying to be in as many places at once. And I always make sure everything on the plate is edible. So even in the jockey thing, there's, we've smuggled in an idea, you know what I mean, even under the joke. And I think that's how I'm approaching it. Whereas what Steve's describing is, of course, far more relevant to my life as a morning show anchor doing political news. Like literally this morning, I had one of those conversations where I said to the guest after, I don't want people

to hate you for your worst take. I want them to hate you for your best take. So when I present the question to you this way, it's not a gotcha. I'm trying to figure out like what's the through line, what's the logic? And so all that work I'm doing, It's like I'm kind of doing it elsewhere. This is not the show for that, you know, and I don't feel the pressure to do that here. Can I follow up on something Audie said, which is everything on the plate has to be edible? I think on all things considered, the enjoyment of the experience was almost an afterthought. And on engagement party, it is the point.

If we're not having fun, if we're not enjoying ourselves, the audience won't be there, we shouldn't be there, we're missing the boat. And that is so essential to what we're doing now. So what you're saying is you're putting spices on the vegetables. Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, that's the thing. I don't think that's right. I mean, there's no vegetables here. You know what I mean?

Like this, it's protein. I don't like the metaphor. Well, I mean, let's think about it this way. Carrie, you and I did do a pilot of something. Yeah. Where we and someone else, who is also very smart, hashed out a bunch of fun ideas and made jokes. And I never once looked at Karen and thought, wow, she's really given us vegetables here.

Right, right. Even though you completely brought all of your knowledge of the tech industry, I think one of the things I used to tell people that used to work for me when I ran All Things D and Recode was, look, there's a lot of hot dogs out there. And hot dogs are delicious. I like a hot dog. But you're not going to win by having a better hot dog. You have to have something else because it's just not, it's just a fucking hot dog. Stop making fucking hot dogs, essentially. And at the same time, you have to also be very promiscuous as I think something I've told you many times is. going where the people are and stop being so fancy about it. But there is a line between going with the flow and playing the lowest common denominator or playing into what social media platforms want, which is, I don't know if you'd agree with me, but this is hard to resist. I do, I do.

I'm just not sure I'll get there since, as we talked about, I don't even know how to swear in public yet. Right. It's just sort of like. I got your back. I'm sure. Yeah, exactly. I'll get there.

But it's taking a minute. If anything, just, yeah, being like, is it okay to make a hot time? or is it okay to make something else? Is it okay to make something other than vegetables? It's like I'm still giving myself permission to do that. Right, but I mean, Ari, you're talking about this idea of lowest common in honor is not what you're going for, right? It's not who we are.

Like, if we're talking about being our most authentic selves, if Audi wants to talk about love is blind, it's because she actually has really meaningful insights into what Love is Blind says about the moment we're living in, and I want to hear those insights. It's not because we know that love is blind is trending, and that's going to get us hits. Right, get your hits.

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Wayfair, every style, every home. In the span of a decade, Ben Shapiro built the Daily Wire into a conservative media empire. He produced hit podcasts that bit at liberal excesses and documentaries and lectures about the founders, the genders, the gospels. He peddled polos, hats, candles, provided a home for de-platformed conservative stars like Matt Walsh, and minted stars like Candice Owens. Let's put a pin in that. The Daily Wire even has kids programming, a judgmental puppet named Zoodles.

Zoodles. Zoodoo! Who shares Shepiro's load-bearing eyebrows. This year, though, the Empire showed signs of collapse. The Daily Wire's YouTube videos are down from millions of views to the low-fi figures. Web traffic is plummeting, and recently Shapiro laid off 13% of his employees. Asked by the Washington Post, what had happened, Shapiro accused other conservatives of click-horring by embracing radical Islam, theorizing about the evils of Winston Churchill and mocking the widow of Charlie Kirk. The kids still got it. On today, explained, the fall of Ben Shapiro. Today Explain drops every weekday afternoon.

Let's talk about podcasting and what sets it apart from traditional media. At NPR, Ari, and also you audio, most stories in interviews you're cut down to about three to four minutes. Maybe you get a little more time. for a big name interview. Podcasting is very different. It's a very different media. It kind of rolls out. You can talk for hours and people tend to stick with it. Talk about how you look at the difference between podcasting and what you both were doing. You know, obviously social media is degrading our attention spans, but podcasts are bucking that trend. People do tune in. They like the narrative. And I'm firmly believe the reason they tune into our show is because it's about a relationship. It's not about what we talk about. It's our relationship and it's the constant. narrative of that relationship with using news as the vehicle.

Kara, you basically could run a pledge drive. I mean, it's pretty much the same conversation, you know, and I think that in radio, that is literally how we approach things. I know people are talking about, you know, NPR, like, it's dry or something, but, like, it was a cultural phenomenon for a reason. It spoke to people's cultural interest. But it almost, that conversation, what you're saying, doesn't feel relative to the, where we are now.

You know what I mean? We've been in this so long that. we've now seen the thing we grow up with become the new thing, you know, like all of a sudden you do want things long again? Great, you know what I mean? But now we can make the choice instead of something being imposed on us because this is just what it is, we can decide what we're offering people. And to your point, yeah, maybe people will be like, I don't want 30 minutes, I want three hours. And it's like, great. But for now, I think it's okay in a world where you can do anything to actually make a decision about what it is you want to do and what it is you can do well.

So, Ari, how do you look at sort of why people are attracted to podcasting? Is it every, as Audie's noting, everything old is new again? I think there's just something so intimate about listening. And I realize that most podcasts are now viewed rather than listened to including this one. Are they? I don't know. I still have some mix. I don't know. Everyone tells me YouTube is the biggest podcasting platform. Yeah. But I know from my years at NPR that people feel like they have a relationship with the voices that are in their car or their kitchen every day. That was something that I didn't take lightly at NPR. And if our podcast engagement party has a future and an audience, I think it will

be because people want to spend time with us. And as you said about your show with Scott, like, the ideas are important, but the ideas are almost secondary to people just wanting to spend time with you and hang out. And what was more parisocial than NPR nerddom? You know what I mean? Totally. Totally. Yeah. It's not like being a fan of the New York Times or, you know, Time magazine or something. People knew the person on a beat. People would come up to you and be like, have you met Sylvia Pajoli? It's like, how do you know that? Sylvia Pajolini from Nicassia Cyprus. Susan Stamberg used to say that if she sounded sick on the air, people wouldn't just send her a get-well-sune note. They would actually deliver chicken soup to NPR headquarters. Like, that was the kind of

relationship that they had with her voice, this person they had never met. And Susan Stamberg and her cranberries, there's all. The fact that you even know that. Exactly. This pretty much says it all. We're not foreign to the idea of the relationship. In fact, we're here because we want the relationship to be closer. And there were things that we did in recent years that didn't put us closer. And now that we have the choice, we're doing that.

Right, absolutely. The parissocial nature of it. But I collect my hate mail. I save it. I think it's a sign that people are paying attention. You've always been so weird about this hate mail. I love the hate mail. I call them.

I call people who hate me. I'm like, hi. Wow, that's a prize. Y'all can flex. I'm not. I'm not really trying to do it. Hi. And then they're really nice.

They're always... I don't know. Maybe you guys have less racialized hate mail. You know, there's some people I don't want to call. I got some... You're a giant kind of thing. I mean, I'm not trying to be special. There's no oppression to all right.

I'm just saying, I don't want to know them. There's some anti-gay stuff, too. Right now, if you want to write me and say something mean... Oh, I love when someone makes a lesbian insult. I'm like, hi. I will not be reading. Well, again, you're the person who's like ready to fight. Ready to fight.

Ready to fight. Ready to. Which I learned from reading your book. Yeah, that's true. One of the things that someone did come up to me that was very sweet. It's usually nice, by the way. It's never hostile, which is interesting, is when someone, an old lady, you know, crouched up to me and it's like, I just want you to know, you're my friend, but I'm not yours. And I was like, that is correct.

Thank you. And that was the whole encounter. No, that's amazing. And I was like, I'm good with that. So, Audie, last time. Wait, can we just, can we have a moment of silence for this? amazing person who said this to you. Yeah. And let's just spread that message throughout the land. Like with your keyboard at the warrior ring, just no. Right. Just no. Chill out, okay?

It's fine. Let's listen to the elders on this one. Right, exactly. So when you had a podcast three years ago, Audie, when you launched the assignment, you said you worried whether anyone would listen because, quote, and is what you said to me, the world does not need another person with an interview podcast. How do you stand out? Is it the relationship? Is it what do you think are the key facts? I am very proud of what I accomplished on the assignment, because we ended up being nominated for Webby's, like, literally with you. You know what I mean? And, like, you had an audience and do have an audience that was orders of magnitude larger. But we had a, to me, a hard-won audience of, like, real people. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like we could go out and buy a bunch of bots or something like that. It was like, these people really listened, and they listened all the way to the end. But in that case, it's because it was service-oriented. They like spending time with me. They like spending time with me. They like the way I delivered news stories, but I also was bringing them someone that they never had heard from before. They had never heard from the doctors who provide gender affirming care. They had not heard from people who had actually survived a police brutality stop. They hadn't heard

from the paparazzi out of it, like reporters out of L.A. who understood why Harry and Megan were a thing. Like, it was a service. I'm very nervous, right? Like, now I'm suddenly just being judged on like whether or not I'm a good hang, right? Like, that is a different schematic. The most perfectly named podcast of all time. Yeah, and I get, I'm certainly nervous about it, but I'm nervous about everything, you know, and I think that at a certain point you have to take a leap. But we're not two celebrities interviewing each other, which is a genre.

Sometimes I'm like, it's a club, we're not in it. And yes, there are people who want to be a fly on the wall for that. But I don't want to listen to a celebrity interview where the celebrity has final cut. that's for someone, not me. Yeah. I don't want to be trying to catch every joke and reference between two people who genuinely don't know we're there, like, are conducting the conversation as though nobody else can hear it. And we're not there to just randomly bring people on.

There's not going to be interviewing for interviewing sake. You're not having guests. We will occasionally have guests, but... We will, but we won't be on the guest treadmill, you know? And I think that's different. We got rid of guests on Pivot. We talked to listeners, and they're like, we don't want your guests. This show is also going to evolve.

Like, we're figuring out what it is as we go. And I like where we're starting from, but it may not be where we are six months from now. Yeah, you might have a ritual sacrifice. Maybe a ritual sacrifice. That was going to be a surprise. Oh, now Audie knows. Everybody, the monthly slap Scott Jennings, I mean, figuratively, not literally. Do you see how this woman tries to get me into trouble?

Okay. Bringing a people I've never even heard of. Like, what does she even say? You slapped him so hard. I did not take that bad on that show. Not really. No hand in his face, but that encounter was so fantastic. Well, here's the thing here.

Think about that. That was a trillion clips ago. Like, there's no... I remember it like it was yesterday. I felt that was the finest. Audie has a, just so you know, she has an ability to slap the dickens out of white guys usually. All I request is that if I'm on the receiving end,

to take off your rings first. No, no, she won't slap you. No, it's a certain kind of guy. And I've seen her do it in private. I've seen her do it in public. And it's so beautiful. Every person has their limits. You are so good at it.

I'm very polite. We were in a meeting and she did it in this thing. And I was like, yes. Like, it was so enjoyable and so perfect. And they didn't know what to do. I won't say who it was, but it was exactly who you want her to slap. Anyway, let's end by talking about the state of media and the news business. This is where we, this is the hard question part.

Kara, this is the stuff you know. Why are you asking us? No, no, no, no. You can answer these questions about, it's about where the state of media, you all work for media, and you also have worked in public radio. Yeah.

Two big areas, right? We all work for CNN. I'm a contributor. I don't know if you are interested. As of now. And Arias. So right now, you don't have to talk about the middle of the Paramount

and David Ellison's takeover. And James Murdoch is also buying parts of Vox Media, including the podcast. Podcast.com and New York Magazine, I was very inter, I was in the middle of that, which is just I know a lot about that. And I have said, I'll leave CNN if the merger of Paramount goes through, because I don't want to work for certain people. I am not going to put you on the spot in that regard. But how do you navigate this major media acquisition and consolidation time? How do you look at it as a bigger topic? Because it is

part of culture at this moment. Very much so. So, Ari, why don't you start and then Audie? Well, to me, it's part of the larger story about the decline of news and journalism. in this country. I think having more journalists and more news outlets is better. Full stop. I think every major and minor city in the country should have a newspaper. It's even better if there are two newspapers. In too many places in the country, that is not the case. I think competition is good for democracy and good for media. And so, you know, whether you're talking about a corporation owning most of the local TV stations across the country or whether you're talking about a newspaper laying off hundreds of journalists. I think the trend lines are moving in the same direction, and it's not great for journalism

and it's not great for democracy. Go ahead, Audie. I come at this having survived a merger. Like my introduction to corporate media. From believing NPR, right? Yeah, it was quite literally, you know, the sale and the purchase of CNN by Discovery. Oh, so you missed the AT&T one. I missed the 18th one. And before that, AOL. Exactly. There's so many. So I hopped on the train with a lot of warriors who have been through it. And it has made, I took that one really hard because I just was like, what am I doing? Why did I come here? Is this industry dying? Like what a mistake I made. But like NPR is struggling. This is struggling. Like MS now went through a transition. Like everybody is struggling. And what gives me hope is that the audience sees it, recognizes it, is pissed. And as well, it's willing to talk about it publicly, whereas it's not some, like, backpage business thing, where people are kind of like, who cares who owns what? It's like, oh, wow, actually, a lot of people seem to hear who owns what, and they're talking about it.

So that's actually a good thing. It is actually. People are quite aware. And they seem willing, even people who wouldn't talk before are willing to say something publicly. Yes. I mean, I saw this go around in circles around Oscar time in the Hollywood press, where it was complaining about who owned all of the trades, and how did that affect the campaigning? That's like TikTokers were talking about that, you know, just being like, oh, don't believe this campaign because the papers are owned by this and blah, blah, blah, in this studio.

And so I'm not here like weeping and wailing, basically. It's like full speed ahead, doing the work and connecting with the people who you want. Right. And you feel like you'll be able to do that within that. I don't even know, Kara, but I do know you've given me some hope about that. You can.

Like, I'm not the person I was three years ago where I was literally like, how can I do anything? How am I going to pay a mortgage? The landscape, it has changed. The world is littered with little cable news hosts who have created other lives for themselves. They're actually doing rather well, a lot of them, you know. Yeah, exactly. So I'm not Chicken Little, you know.

It's pretty much like, okay, well, let's do this. Whatever's coming next? Great. That said, Chicken Little. Yeah, you're right. Chicken Little didn't end well for chicken little. Anyway. Were you trying to remember?

You were like, actually, Chicken Little was Cassandra. Like, now it was still bad. Right, it was so bad. So both of you, I'd love you to comment on public media because NPR just announced buyouts. I've talked to a lot of people there

after President Trump and Republicans rolled back more than a billion dollars in federal funding. They are getting some funding from very wealthy people like the bombers and et cetera. But even before that, listener numbers and sponsorships were dipping. What's it need to do to become self-sustaining?

Because part of me is like, well, good. Now they'll have to figure it out, right? And then not rely on the fucking government or whoever. Like, it's long past time, because this is a war that's been going on since I started covering media a lot, like, dozens of decades ago, essentially it feels like. So talk a little bit about how you look at the public media system. Yeah. Ari, you have to take this because for me, it's been a couple years now, and I wasn't there for the real rock of the boat. Yeah, I was there when the government funding was

cut. That had nothing I should reiterate to do with my decision to leave NPR. That had been a long time coming. But I think it's going to be a rough couple years. And after that, I think the future could be really bright for NPR because it's one of the few news organizations in the country that is only answerable to journalists. The challenge, listenership to the radio is going down, sponsorships, as you mentioned, going down. I think NPR has to evolve in ways that have nothing to do with government funding and everything to do with where and how you reach your audiences. I really think Catherine Marr, the CEO, is incredible. I'm very impressed by her. And I think she's a the right leader for this moment. But I think NPR is going to have to evolve a lot in the next

couple of years, not only to envision a financial future without government money, but also to envision a future where they're able to reach people in ways that are not turning the dial to 88.5 As much as I love listening to the radio dial, that I think, is the big existential challenge. I'll only add to that. If there's one thing where public media people are well positioned to do, it's ask you to subscribe, which is pretty much the environment right now. So it's really more everyone else has moved to our model. And I think, yeah, NPR is like it's working it out like everyone else. Right.

Is there one thing you would do each of you if you could, if you were running it, if you were Catherine? I'll just say that the seeds of what to do are already there. We saw something like the Tiny Desk concert that hit at the right time in the right medium in the right way. Right. They have the building blocks for doing things. That's a really good point. I think the secret, and this is not a secret, everybody at NPR knows it, is that, that we have this network, I'm still saying we, of hundreds of local stations. And there is a

bureaucratic bottleneck between the thousands of talented local reporters all across the country and the national network that takes some of their really outstanding work and shares it with the nation. Figuring out how to get rid of that bottleneck, I think would be a huge liberating public service opportunity that someone should figure out how to take advantage of. I like it. I like it. I just think you're going to have to find a billionaire. That's what I think. Well, that too. Unfortunately, a nice billionaire. And then if he goes crazy, you've got to cut him loose.

Anyway, as they are a want to do, I'm always on the lookout for good billionaires. And then they always go crazy in the end. Except for McKenzie. Kara, please tell me McKenzie's nice. The wives of the bad billionaires tend to be great. They are. I love Lorraine Jobs. Or the ex-wives.

I love, or widows. I love Lorraine Jobs. I think she's amazing. I recently was talking to her. I love Gates, Melinda Gates. French. I'll be on Team Billionaires X. I love Anne Wigiski. Let's make a first Wives Club follow-up that is the first wives of the tech billionaires.

There are a lot of them. I would really watch that movie. And McKenzie, when I knew her, she's very shy, was wonderful, always wonderful. Yeah, there we go. His changes have to do a lot with a lot of things. A lot of things. He was never nice, though. Let's be clear. It's no lady's fault that he's such a jerk, Jeff Bezos. Anyway, let me, two more questions.

Audie, during your address at Tufts, you also talked about AI and journalism, the inevitable AI question. Could you find this article? I find everything. We're stalking you, Audie. Are we all, my producer stalking people? No, there's a student newspaper very happy right now. I know. Okay, you said as journalist, quote, our job at this point is not to be the voice of God, but to listen and analyze and interpret and share AIA is not going to be good at that. How do you see the role of journalist or reporter evolving as newsrooms start to rely on it? I mean, you can't talk about culture without talking about AI, obviously. especially AI-generated content.

Yeah, of course. But I watched your show, and I watched you talking to an AI version of yourself. Yes, I did. Didn't do it well. Not yet. And I don't even think in two or three years it's going to do it well, because you are fundamentally an unpredictable person. Yes.

And I think human beings do have the capacity still to be unpredictable. And I feel like AI is unpredictable in predictable ways. Again, maybe that'll change. It'll be so amazing. but I just don't think it's an accident that no matter how many new media come along, we all find a way to talk to each other directly. Right. I think you're absolutely right.

Ari? I have stopped trying to predict what AI is going to do for the future because I think it's a bigger transformation than any of us has ever lived through in our lives, and we were both alive before the Internet came along. And so anything that AI can't do today, I assume that it's going to do tomorrow. And I think we have to pay attention and evolve with it.

And I'm every day finding new ways, that AI is changing my life and opening doors that were not open before. And that's going to touch everything, including newsrooms. I can't say how, but I'm not naive. I'm not Pollyanna-ish. I'm also not Chicken Little about it. I just think as journalists, we're uniquely suited to track and report and narrate and question and convey what we learn. Yep, that's a fair point. I was also speaking to students in fairness. So these were people who were their freshmen, their sophomore, and they are still going into journalism. And so they're really, like, looking at me being not like, why, you know what I mean?

Because they still want to do it. Right. But they're kind of like, will there be a place for me? Right. You wanted to be the speaker who didn't celebrate AI and they went, yay, Audie. Oh, yeah, I didn't know that was a thing. It was a thing. I was like, no, this is coming for you.

And there are bosses that are going to have you training it to take your job. Like, yeah, it's grim right now. That's why they liked you. You were on the right side of that. Students have having none of it. Yeah, but you're not stupid for wanting to do this work. That's how I was. approaching it, you know?

So I have a last question. You end the show with what you call touchgrass segment where you talk about something important in your life happening offline. Let's end on that. I will start. I just bought a paint-by-number set. Oh, wow. Okay.

Tell me more. Well, then. We were in Manhattan. We were in a weekend in New York this weekend. And we went to a blix to get some my daughter draws and she loves to draw. And so we got her some really good paper because she's actually getting quite good. and my youngest son and I were looking at all the toys, because that's where we got to bring him to, something he can hit something with or throw or a car, some sort of thing, which is not in blix, by the way.

And I saw a paint-by-numbers thing that was beautiful. And I used to do it as a kid. And I bought it. I was like, I'm going to paint. I used to like it. Have you started doing it? No, I have it as a little paintbrush inside. And instead of the old days where you have the paints, they're on the paper itself. They've embedded the paint on the, picture. And then you send it as a postcard, and each of you are now going to get a postcard, obviously, from me Paint by Numbers. And then the second thing I did is I was in the rest stop on the way home. And do you remember where they would have pictures where there were hidden things like a spoon? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Hidden Pictures. There's a whole box of hidden pictures. I bought a book of

hidden pictures because I used to love that. And so. I'm curious how the Paint by Number experience rewires your brain. Right. Very much so. I think very much so. So I bought those two things. I don't know why I just had this moment. I'm trying to picture you having the patience. I know. Well, I think that's why you do it is to build the patience, right? I know. I used to do it all the time.

I used to do all those things. So I'm like actually trying to picture it. I'm trying to come back to a time when I was patient enough. I used to love paint by numbers. Well, it's like I'm not in shape enough to exercise. No, the reason you exercise is to get in shape. I'm not patient enough to paint by numbers. That's the reason you do it.

You're going to be the first postcard that I'm going to make. It's going to be beautiful because, you know, because I'm not artistic, but I enjoy. it. All right, what is each of yours now? You start Audi. For me, it's funny you guys brought up paint by numbers because I often make these little kits, activity kits for my kids, so that if we go to a restaurant or if we're in the car, that's what they get handed. They don't get handed in iPad. We also, I never pay for the cellular or anyway, so it wouldn't work. But one of the recent things I found for the kit was a little game called tangos, which is a little geometry game that has a bunch of like squares and triangles. Oh, I remember this from when I was a kid.

Exactly. You're supposed to form them into various shapes to solve the puzzle. And it's a kind of thing where you put it in front of a kid and they're like, oh, what is this? And then next thing you turn around. Yeah. Magnetiles are huge in our house. But all of a sudden there's silence, right? And you look over and they're there like trying to figure this thing out. And it is like travel size. So shout out to tangos. I don't know who still even makes it, but that was my touchgrass moment. All right. All right. Yeah, for me, it's the garden. You know, I started gardening in the pandemic. I have a vegetable garden. And especially when, you know, it was rainy all Memorial Day weekend. And it's nice to be able to say, like, well, this is good for the garden. And you actually see the garden respond to it.

And we're in this moment of transition now from kind of the spring crops to the summer crops. So we're taking out the, like, hawk-orite turnips and the carrots and the beets and the peas and putting in the cucumbers and the tomatoes and the zucchini and the peppers. And so for me, just like getting outside, hands in the dirt, touching and feeling and smelling and tasting, like it's a very sensory experience. That's very grounding for me. So you do watch all those Instagram videos and gardeners, hot gardeners. Yes, hello. You have a literal touchgrass. But that's on-screen. We're talking about off-screen. That is the finest thing to come out of online is all these hot gardeners that do hot gardening. Even I like it.

I'm just saying, I'm like, you're a hot gardener, and I appreciate that. If engagement party doesn't work out, I'll start a hot gardening TikTok. I know. Anyway, I appreciate it. You guys, I hope everyone listens to engagement party. It seems like a happier version of Scott Nye, which I appreciate all. It is a happy marriage. Listen, but the model works.

The model works. So you give me your review. You always tell me the truth. Well, you know what I say? You've got to be useful, interesting, and you can't replace it. And it's hopeful. That's one of the great things I think that I found out. And I think that would be my advice is be a little more hopeful than you think because I think people are tired of people not getting along, even when they disagree. I think that's true. So anyway, good luck. I'm so excited. I'm excited for you to beat us at the Webby's next year. You won't. But I appreciate your efforts to do so. I'm excited for Audi to slap someone down. Oh, my God. It's the finest thing in the land. Oh, it's so good. It's so good.

Today's show is produced by Christian Castor Roussel, Michelle Loi, Catherine Millsop, Madeline LaPlante Duby, and Kalyn Lynch. The Shot Kerwit is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Catherine Barner and Ruella Roof. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Tracademics. If you're already following the show, you're touching grass or maybe painting grass. If not, your feet is clogged with puking parakeets.

Go wherever you listen to podcast, search for On with Carous Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On With Caroushisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.