The Daily Show: Ears Edition - ICYMI - Kate Fagan on Uncovering Madison Holleran's Private Struggle in "What Made Maddy Run"

Episode Date: April 18, 2019

"What Made Maddy Run" author Kate Fagan discusses the suicide of UPenn athlete Madison Holleran and the impact that social media and college sports can have on mental health. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. John Stewart here. Unbelievably exciting news. My new podcast, The Weekly Show. We're going to be talking about the election, economics, ingredient to bread ratio, on sandwiches. Listen to the weekly show with John Stewart, wherever you get your podcast. Please welcome, Kate Fagan. Thank you very much for being here.

Welcome to the show. It's good to be here. Thank you very much for being here. And thank you for sharing your story. I mean, this is a book that was based off an article that you wrote. And just to give it some context, you were yourself a college athlete. And you realized that college life is not as fun as, I guess, it seems like in American Pie movies.

Right. And you wrote stories about that. Like, what was it from your story that made you want to do more research and write about these? Yeah, well, when I played Hoops at the University of Colorado, I tried to quit my freshman year and I had a ton of anxiety around it. It wasn't really something I'd processed until I read the headlines about Maddie's story and I dug deeper into her story and I was like, there's a lot I can relate to here and that's what made me want to even pursue it further.

Right, you read Maddie's story and I mean it's honestly one of the most heartbreaking tales I've ever read because on the surface, Maddie had it made. She was in college, she was doing well, she was a star on the track team, and then it seems like it was going wrong, there was no one incident. Like when you dug through the story, what did you find was the catalyst for how Maddy felt? Well, what I found was that there was never going to be a one catalyst or a why. It was more a lot of nuanced, layered things that took place. I mean, certainly the trigger was going to college. I mean, it was the first big transition in her life. And for a lot of young kids, that transition, that first big transition, can be the trigger

for anxiety or depression if it's something that they might suffer from. And certainly that was it was it was the the the th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, the th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thr, thr-a, thr-a, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, the the the the the the the the the thi, thi, thi, thi, thr. thr. thri, thri, togu. togu. togu. togu. togu. togu. t when she got to UPenn. All of a sudden, everything that had come so easily to her started to be really hard for her. Do you think people could do a better job of preparing kids for college and preparing them for the idea that maybe they will hate the next four years? Yeah, I mean, in talking to Madi's friends and all of their parents and their community group, one thing that they didn't talk enough about in retrospect was like, hey, I know we all say, like this is gonna be the best four years of your life, but parents need to do a little bit better job of saying,

you might struggle. Like, this is a big transition for you. You're not gonna be at home anymore, you're gonna have new challenges. This is something that you might find you think it's going to be awesome, but if you're struggling, please talk to us, know that that's okay that you're struggling. When you look at Maddie's story, I mean, we speak about her in the past tense because unfortunately she's no longer here. Maddie committed suicide, and it came as a shock to many people, mostly because the veneer on the outside of her life was so perfect. Do you find that there would have been a sign?

Is there a way that anyone could have known just by looking at the world and the life she was living? Most of her friends were surprised. I mean, those closest to her knew that she was trying to get help. You know, her parents and her sister and her brother knew. Something's not right at college and we need to try and fix it. But social media certainly when you look at Madison's Instagram feed, I mean it's still live, you see that her projection of her college experience was actually the perfect college experience. But she

would talk about with her friends and with her parents, like I think my friends are having an amazing time at college. Even though she knew what she was projecting wasn't real, she still absorbed other people's Instagram feeds and social media feeds as if it was a pure reflection of what they were going through. That's something I found gripping and universal. It's a sad story. Maddie's story was unique in that she's a track star.

And you know, many people may not be able to relate to being on a, being on a top team in college. Some people may not even relate to the story of college, but the aspect of social media and living your life on the outside is one that I think all of us can relate to. Instagram lifestyle, are you having a good time, or are you appearing to have a good time? Do you think thap th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th, th, or are th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th-in, th-in, th-in, the, the, the, the, the, the the, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their, their, their, their, their, their, their, thi, thi, thr-in, thr-a, thr-s, thr-a. tooi.a. too. too. too. too, too, too, thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thithink that in some ways that adds to the stress that young people feel having to put up or keep up with the, I guess now it's the Kardashians, used to be the Joneses? Yeah, oh, I mean absolutely that like that's a huge part of it. And it's not just how much our young people, high school age kids are absorbing of other people's social media. It's also the communication style now.

Maddie, when I went through her eye messages, because her family, they were grace enough to pass her eye messages along, she was populating all of those eye messages with like emoes. Even if she was trying to convey something like I don't like it here, there would be an emoji. Like a monkey covering eyes or something. So even if what she said was serious, the emoji kind of softened everything. And so it was tough via text, not just social media, to be able to say from that far away, like, oh, something's wrong. If there's one piece of hope, you would want people to take away from this book because it is a sad story in many ways but there are glimmers of hope in the story. What would be the one thing you'd hope people would take away

from it? I mean like there's so many places doing awesome work like the Madison Holleran Foundation. There's an organization to write love on her arms. There are a lot of places that want to have this conversation and the ending to Maddie's story is avoidable. Like you you can get you can. the, you. the, you can, you can, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you can th. thrown, thrown, thrown, thr, thr, thr, thin, thr, thr, thr, thr-like, like, thin, the, thin, thin, tho, tho, tho, tho, th. th. th, th, th, th, th, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, I, I, I, I, I, the, I, I, I, the, the, I, the, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, and, thin, thin, and thin, thin, thr-a, thooooooooooooooooooo, and, thii, the thi, the thi, reatment, you can get help and you can live. And I think if we talk enough about the catalyst and the nuance and a layer of this and why this happened and the reasons, I think we can avoid more of the outcomes like Maddie's. Well then we'll keep talking. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you. Thank you. Thank's a fascinating story. Kate Fagin' everybody. The Daily Show with Covernoa, Ears Edition. Watch the Daily Show Weekn, watch the Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and the Comedy Central

app. Watch full episodes and videos at the Daily Show. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to the Daily Show on YouTube for exclusive content and more. This has been a Comedy Central podcast. Hey everybody, John Stewart here. I am here to tell you about my new podcast, The Weekly Show, it's going to be coming out every Thursday. So exciting, you'll be saying to yourself, TGID, thank God it's Thursday, we're going to be talking about all the things that hopefully obsess you in the same way that they obsess me. The election, economics, earnings calls.

What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. And I know that I listed that fourth, but in importance it's probably second? I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? I mean, talk about innovative. Listen to the weekly show with John Stewart, wherever you get your podcast.