Having an Opinion Isn't Enough
Catching up with Claire Parker and Ashley Hamilton, Hosts of Good Noticings
This week, we caught up with Claire and Ashley to talk about what makes a podcast worth listening to, building an audience, and why obsession beats good taste.
Good Noticings is the pop culture podcast that makes you smarter. Every week, comedians Claire Parker and Ashley Hamilton dive beyond the biggest headlines with thoughtful analysis, weekly recommendations, and a steady flow of banter. Formerly known as Celebrity Memoir Book Club, over the last five years, Claire and Ashley have been the favorite podcasters of Vogue, Esquire, The Guardian, and more.
Thought Enthusiast is an editorial project from AdHoc, a New York experiential agency exploring the people, ideas, and cultural currents shaping what’s next.
Nobody Asked for This Podcast
C: Every time we’ve been in podcasting, people have said there are already too many podcasts. When we started in 2017, everyone was saying the same thing. It’s important for people to remember that because you’re always going to be told the market is too saturated. You have to have a value add. What is the thing you’re offering? Someone recently said something to us about YouTube that really stuck with me: YouTube is a search engine. What question are people asking that you’re answering? If you’re not already a known entity, why are people listening to you? You have to do that second layer of work.
A: You also have to figure out what you can be consistent with and stick to it. A lot of people get discouraged really quickly and assume that if something doesn’t hit right away, it’s never going to. It also just takes time for people to find you. You have to cast your net as wide as possible and give people the opportunity to discover what you’re making. But if you really want to do it, you have to keep going because the idea that people are going to find it immediately and become obsessed is incredibly rare. No one has ever been able to listen to every podcast, read every Substack, or keep up with everything that’s out there. It’s really about becoming the thing that breaks through, no matter how crowded the field is.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know
C: I think the biggest thing we realized after making three podcasts—Celebrity Memoir Book Club is our third—is that you have to have a value add. Unless you come out of Bachelor Nation, you can’t just be a personality people listen to. We did the Britney Spears podcast because people liked hearing us talk about pop culture, and we liked talking about it. But we didn’t want to do endless research because it felt infinite. Stan culture just wasn’t something we were part of. We’re not stans, so we couldn’t honestly make a stan podcast.
People want to feel like they’re learning something. You have to do some work for them. You can’t just show up with opinions. Even some of the great Twitter minds or Substack writers—I watch them get into podcasting, and unless you’re doing something for someone else, people don’t want to listen. I think we figured out that this was our value add, and we kept honing it.
A: We’ve definitely adjusted our content based on who we want paying attention to it. I don’t know if it was ever a conscious choice, but you can aim toward a certain audience, and we’ve always aimed toward people who are interested in pop culture analysis more than pop culture itself—like Claire said, not stan culture.Even with Celebrity Memoir Book Club, there was a version of the show where people just wanted to hear you say how great a book was and how brave someone was. Over the years, we naturally weeded out the people who were like, “You gave your opinions, and I hated that.” Which always made me laugh because audiobooks already exist. If all you wanted was someone to tell you what happened in the book, why listen to a podcast?
17 Smart People on Twitter
C: I’m actually still on Twitter, which makes me feel like the last person there. I feel like it’s just you and me. But there are maybe 17 really smart people I’m following, and I’m always curious what they’re talking about. I also follow journalists from some of the more non-mainstream publications, like The Baffler, n+1, and a newer one called The Equator. Twitter is still where I see what they’re discussing.
A: We took that even further with Good Noticing. It was another step toward having conversations about culture instead of just fanning out over the existence of celebrities. It’s really about perspective. With comedy, you’re always looking for a misdirect or a way to lead people in an unexpected direction. What we do is pretty similar. We’re looking at what everyone is consuming, and while we’re not necessarily searching for the joke, we are looking for an alternative perspective or a way to broaden the conversation. That’s actually very similar to trying to crack a joke.
Enough About Taste!
A: One of the biggest trends right now is having taste, and I think it’s pretty lame. A lot of what I see on social media is people posting roundups of ways to show you have good taste, and it’s always the same seven brands. A lot of the conversation around taste just comes down to hyper-consumption. People aren’t recommending things because they genuinely love them. They’re saying, “If you want people to think you have good taste, here are seven things you should buy and wear to signal that you do.” That’s very different from being genuinely passionate about something.
C: Being obsessed with your personal style is one of the most boring things I’ve ever heard. It’s really funny to me when people equate whatever’s trending at the moment with having taste. A lot of people think having a maximalist kitchen instead of a white kitchen means they have taste. I’m like, no—that’s just the new trend.
I’m sick of people’s idea of taste because it usually just means a curated list of elite things. I’d much rather hear from someone who’s genuinely passionate about something. I want people with hobbies and interests who can show me why they care so much. I always joke about this, but I don’t know if you’ve watched The Real Housewives of Rhode Island. There’s this kooky woman who’s obsessed with her dolls. I wasn’t even into dolls when I was five, but I love that she’s into dolls. That’s so much more interesting to me than someone with “taste.” I want to hear what people love, why they love it, and all the research they’ve done. I want a collector.
Slow Obsessions
C: A niche thing that’s inspiring me right now is gardening. I’ve been looking into climbing flowering plants that will survive in Zone 7, which is what Brooklyn is. I’ve been watching all these YouTube videos—not from content creators, but from people who are just really knowledgeable. One rose I’m considering is the Thomas à Becket yellow rose because it’s so hardy. It’s one of England’s most famous roses. I’m also thinking about planting a purple clematis. What I find really inspiring is knowing it’s going to take years to build it into what I want and just being okay with that.
A: I started knitting this year, and I love being able to make something with my hands. It’s changed the way I look at everything. I think a lot more about what it took to make something, who made it, and whether it’s even worth buying if I could learn to make it myself. There are also so many knitters online that I’m fascinated by. I love listening to people talk about what they love. Hearing someone go deep on a particular type of yarn is incredibly soothing to me.
There’s one designer who creates knitting patterns inspired by different parts of San Francisco. She made a sweater inspired by Dolores Park and another called the Marina Sweater. The way she looks at a city she loves and translates it into a garment is really interesting to me.
Catch Good Noticings’ live shows at Clash Talk on 7/26 and 8/6 at Union Hall, Edinburgh Fringe Festival on 8/24-8/30, and at the 312 Festival in Chicago on 11/11.
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