Announcer: Listener supported. WNYC studios.

Brigid: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin in for Alison Stewart.

"MUSIC - Eve: Who's That Girl"

Brigid: If you're already a fan of Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber's podcast, you know what this intro music means. It is time for a new episode of Who? Weekly, a show with a tagline, "Everything you need to know about the celebrities you don't." Started in 2016 by friends and New York-based writers, Lindsey and Bobby. The podcast takes a unique spin on celebrity gossip by focusing on those celebrities that most people don't know about. Those are the whos, as opposed to the household names. Those are the thems.

For example, in the world of pop music, Lindsey and Bobby would not talk about Beyoncé, but they would talk about Rita Ora, and they do every episode. They consider her the number one who. Since 2016, the podcast has only grown in popularity spawning a fan base known as the Wholigans and providing funny but often insightful analysis of celebrity behavior, culture, and the strange nature of Parasocial relationships. Now, they are taking the show on tour. Both of their shows here at The Bell House are sold out, but you can still get tickets to their show at The Palladium in Times Square on November 16th.

Those are on sale now. Hosts Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger join me. Welcome to All Of It.

Bobby: Hi. Thanks for having us.

Lindsey: Hi.

Brigid: I have to tell you, I know a lot of people who are super, super excited that I am talking to you. In fact, I have an upcoming guest who was so sad that she was homesick because she thought she was going to be able to meet you in person. I comforted her by telling her that we were talking on Zoom. There you go. Listeners, Bobby and Lindsey take calls every week on their call-in show, but today, they are kind enough to take your calls live.

What questions do you have about celebrities, celebrity culture or just how the podcast Who? Weekly is made? Who? Weekly hosts Bobby and Lindsey are taking your calls. The number, 212-433-9692 or you can hit us up on social media @allofitwnyc. Now, I said it before, but I think it bears repeating. Bobby and Lindsey, can you please explain to us the breakdowns of a who versus a them? Bobby.

Lindsey: Wow.

Bobby: Lindsey, I feel like you've got it down. You can do it better than I can at this point.

Lindsey: We always say the same thing, which is the analogy is you're at a supermarket and you're looking at tabloids and you're like, "Who are these people?" Those are your whos. That's literally it.

Bobby: The phrases that make you.

Lindsey: We're getting less and less tabloids, so you have to go with that but sure.

Bobby: The top of the fold above the fold on people.com. If you know who they are, they're thems. If you don't and they make you say who, they're the whos. It's a pretty simple binary, yes.

Brigid: I also mentioned that you have a segment dedicated to Pop star, Rita Ora, every week. I want to play a little bit of the theme song before I ask you a question.

"MUSIC - Katie & Eric: What's Rita Ora Up To? Theme Song"

What was she wearing?

Where was she seen?

She posted what on Instagram?

She's the who queen?

Tens of people want to know

Brigid: Okay. Why is Rita Ora a good example of the ultimate who?

Lindsey: First of all, shout out to the whos, Katie and Eric for their amazing theme song that's really important to note because the segment is nothing without them. Why is Rita Ora the number one who? I mean, she's an enigma at this point. It's less about her. It's about the way that she is covered by media, which fascinates us. I mean, the Daily Mail cannot get enough of this woman. Therefore, the kind of coverage of her that we get is exactly what a podcast about celebrities could dream of.

Bobby: She is someone who has written about constantly and yet the overwhelming majority opinion seems to be like, "Who is this woman?" We made that decision. We made a pretty good bet in 2016 by saying this was the woman we were going to cover every week. We think she is someone who's going to have legs and someone who's going to get this type of coverage for a long time. So far, we've yet to have a week where it's been hard to find stuff to speak about when it comes to real of that. She's always making headlines.

Brigid: That is crazy. Let's go to our caller. Our first caller, Malia.

Lindsey: Live calls.

Brigid: From Brooklyn, a former All Of It producer, I hear. Welcome to WNYC. What is your question for Lindsey and Bobby?

Lindsey: Hi.

Malia: Hi. Long time, long time with both All Of It and Who? Weekly. My question is who is the ultimate New York who? When you're thinking of New York City, who is the number one who that comes into your mind?

Brigid: [crosstalk] You don't have to have the same one.

Lindsey: Idly, I think of Julia Fox because I think she-- this is a topical who just because the way that she just took over culture briefly. I think she is still taking over culture, but just the speed at which she became a thing is amazing.

Bobby: Julia Fox is where my mind goes. I'm trying to think if we actually talked about this fairly recently on an episode. I think we had Julia Fox was up there. Jeremy O Harris was up there because he is man about town everywhere and everything. Also, weirdly, Katie Holmes. Simply because she just seems to be on every street in Manhattan at any given moment. She's everywhere. She's constantly being photographed, but she's not necessarily doing much. I think that's a hallmark of the who.

They have to be out and about, but what they're doing can never be entirely clear. I think maybe that's why Julia Fox is a good version of that too.

Lindsey: Their New York impact has to be outsized than their rest of the world impact. You have to be bigger in New York than everywhere else.

Brigid: For the uninitiated, can you tell us where we might know Julia Fox from?

Bobby: The movie Uncut Gems and also because she was briefly dating Kanye West. I think those are her two biggest publicity moments.

Brigid: Thank you.

Lindsey: True.

Brigid: Now, I'm very red. Let's do some origin story of Who? Weekly. One of the reasons this show really works so well is because it's so clear that you guys are friends and you like talking to each other. You could just take over the segment and I think it would probably be just as entertaining. How did you two meet and become friends?

Lindsey: Wow.

Bobby: How did you meet?

Lindsey: We actually met over another platform, not podcasting. We met over a small blogging platform called Tumblr, which is still very relevant, but back in the day, it was more relevant to us in 2010. There was a very fun and small community of New York Tumblr users. Just more through just having a similar creativity when it came to pop culture and the same interests and an obsession with Us Weekly magazine, essentially.

Bobby: The podcast was fake US Weekly covers before it was anything else. Just a joke about the anonymous weird figures on the cover of every issue of Us Weekly. Then it turned into a newsletter and then it turned into a podcast and now it's a live show.

Lindsey: True

Brigid: It is amazing. Listeners, this is All Of It at WNYC. I'm joined by Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber, hosts of Who? Weekly. We're talking about the podcast. We're talking about celebrity gossip. We're talking about their live show at The Palladium on November 16th, tickets on sale now. Let's talk about the lexicon that you have built around this show. One of the special things is that you have your own set of terminology. We've talked about the whos and the thems, obviously. What does it feel like when you hear people call in and repeat your terms back at you?

Lindsey: It's overwhelming but it's very flattering. I just think it really makes me so happy because it means that we're all on the same page. I think why Bobby and I host this podcast together is because we have a similar sense of humor. When you find out that other people also have your sense of humor, it's just delightful. If anything, Who? Weekly is just a great way to collect everyone who thinks the same stuff is funny.

Bobby: It wasn't always a two-episode-a-week show, the call-ins came later, but we just realized that it's so much more fun to have that huh perspective from different people because someone who's a who to me is not a who to the person over on that side of the street and vice versa. It's always fun to get the differing perspectives of who is that? Even someone who's acknowledging that, yes, that person might be a who, but here is the thing you missed. That's one of the great things about having a call-in show, finding out all the weird stuff that we missed and we thought we got everything already, but no.

It started as an experiment, the call-ins, but now, it's such a crucial part of the show that I can't imagine not having people calling in and saying our phrases back to us or inventing phrases of their own.

Brigid: That's a good segue to our next caller who's calling in live for you to answer a question about Who? Weekly. Amy in St. Louis, thanks for listening to All Of It. Thanks for calling in. What is your question for Bobby and Lindsey?

Amy: Hi, Lindsey, Bobby. Long time, first time. I wanted to ask since the Women's World Cup is going on, one of the stars on the team is Lindsey Horan, and I wanted to ask if Niall Horan knows who Lindsey Horan is and vice versa.

Lindsey: That's really good. First of all, she spells her name like me, which means that she is a queen and I love her so much and she's a great player, but the question is, does he know her? I would guess he's Irish. He watches football. He's a feminist. He watches women's football, soccer so yes, he definitely knows who she is.

Bobby: I have the exact same thought and I have the exact same thought process. I'm like, "He's Irish. He likes football as in soccer." We may call it a different thing, but I feel like if he's going to know any American sportsperson, excuse me, athlete, there's a word for that, he's going to know a soccer player. He's going to know Lindsey Horan.

Lindsey: Just as I know a girl named Lindsey, I'm like, I love her, he would know a girl with a last name Horan like his.

Bobby: Absolutely.

Brigid: Listeners, if you're just joining us now, you are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, filling in for Alison Stewart, and we're talking with the hosts of the Who? Weekly podcast, Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber. It's a podcast about a different take on celebrity news. Bobby, I wonder when you decide who you're going to talk about each week, how do you make that choice? How do you decide who's going to be the who?

Bobby: It's so natural. It's so organic. It's the people we would have talked about anyway. I think that's the secret to the podcast's longevity. It's just these are the celebrities, these are the absurd happenings that Lindsey and I would have been texting about discussing in person with or without this podcast. If it makes us laugh when we're talking about it ourselves and texting about it ourselves, it will probably work on the show because, like Lindsey has said, we've cultivated this audience of people who are a lot like us, which is so great. If it makes us laugh, it's probably going to make the listeners laugh too.

Brigid: Absolutely. Lindsey, what is the preparation for each episode actually look like?

Lindsey: Well, shout out to our lovely assistant, Timmy, who helps us put it together. It really is just reading everything, skimming all of the tabloids, the Daily Mail, Us Weekly, People, whatever, and just looking for that funny little thing. Whether it's the way that a source spoke or where we think the source is coming from or blind items. We're just literally looking at the whole thing. I have an RSS reader, very vintage, but you can also just grab tabloids from the newsroom or wherever you get your magazines. It can be anything like that.

Brigid: Listeners, I am speaking with Bobby and Lindsey, hosts of the Who? Weekly podcast. They take calls every week, and now, you can call them live on our show. The number is 212-433-9692 or you can hit us up on social media @allofitwnyc. We have to take a short break, but we'll be back with more of your calls and more with Lindsey and Bobby right after this.

You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, in for Alison Stewart. I'm speaking with Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber, hosts of the Who? Weekly podcast. They have a show coming up at The Palladium on November 16th. Tickets are on sale now. Lindsey and Bobby, each week, as I said, you have a call-in episode and recently, you guys took a call from our producers, Jordan Lauf and Simon Close, who called in at the behest of our senior producer, Kate Hinds, who suspected that Jennifer Lopez named her children after a TV show. Let's listen to that voicemail and a bit of your response.

Jordan Lauf: Hi, Who? Weekly. Medium time. Medium time.

Simon Close: Some time. First time.

Jordan Lauf: We are two culture producers who have just now learned that Jennifer Lopez's two kids, Max and Emme, share the same name as the two kids from the show, Dragon Tales. We have two questions for you.

Simon Close: First question, did Jennifer Lopez do it on purpose?

Jordan Lauf: The second question is Dragon Tales a who, a them, or [unintelligible 00:15:03]

Simon Close: Crunch. Crunch.

Lindsey: This was like a short play. I feel like they scripted it out and read it. It's beautiful, you know what I mean?

Bobby: They even tweeted at us a photo of them on the phone.

Lindsey: I loved it. I love this performance piece. I feel like I was witness to it, which is nice that we inspired art.

Bobby: I never watched Dragon Tales. I have no connection to this, but it is a coincidence that the two main characters of the show are named Emmy and Max.

Lindsey: I feel like if she had named her kids after Emmy and Max from a show called Dragon Tales, she would have spelled the Emme the same way. I think that's a giveaway as to not be what she named them after.

Bobby: JLO's Emme is E-M-M-E.

Lindsey: Emmy is E-M-M-Y, as in the award.

Bobby: If we're going to play an I don't know her really quickly, I really don't think Jennifer Lopez knows what Dragon Tales is.

Brigid: Then the next week, someone else called in with a follow-up to this point.

Speaker 7: Emmy and Max from Dragon Tales are Hispanic. When JLO's children with Mark Anthony were born, a lot of Spanish language media made a big deal out of the fact that Mark Anthony's other children from previous relationships did watch that show and that JLO and Mark Anthony really loved that PBS had this hit show with Latinos and the media and they just adored that whole tie in. It was definitely covered in Spanish language media and I definitely remember seeing it at least once when her babies were born that she loved the show, that they were definitely an inspiration.

Yes, JLO has dragon babies, which is awesome, and crunch, crunch.

Brigid: That is just a fun example of some of the great back-and-forth exchanges you guys have with your listeners. Bobby, I saw you shaking your head at one point during that. Was that bringing anything up for you?

Bobby: Well, come on. We're on WNYC and you're playing clips from Who? Weekly. It's so absurd. It's just pointing out-

Brigid: We do it all.

Bobby: -the absurdity of the show. I do think it's a great clip. I think that that was very recent. I love stuff like that. That's why I was saying I love this call-in aspect of the show so much because we can keep these conversations going as long as we want to. These perspectives like, oh, in Spanish language media, this was a whole thing 15 years ago. This always happens with sports, too. If we talk about a famous pop star who's dating an athlete, and Lindsey and I really don't follow sports, sure enough, someone is going to call in who's a football expert or a soccer expert or something and they're going to have this detail that we never would have even thought to look for because we're not immersed in that world.

I don't know. It's an absurd show, but truly, we end up learning every week. Is it the most useful stuff in the world? No, but we're always learning things here.

Brigid: Lindsey, is there a recent celebrity story that seems to be reeling on people's minds these days? Maybe one that you've been getting a lot of calls about?

Lindsey: It's all Ariana Grande. She is a them, but she is allegedly dating a who on set, which is a mixture of two of culture's favorite types of celebrity stories, which is a person we've never heard of yet and an onset romance. Very scandalous. Also, what we love about it is it allows us to tell stories about former onset romances, Julia Roberts, all these kind of classic celebrities from the past have also met people onset and that whole story. We love when a new small story can let us tell more tabloid tales, and that's one of them.

Brigid: One of the things you guys discuss a lot on the show are celebrity apologies, the way a famous person has to address that they've messed up in some way. Bobby, based on your experience, what are some celebrity apology dos and don'ts?

Bobby: I think a do is to say what you're apologizing for. There's nothing more frustrating than seeing a celebrity write a very long screed on their Instagram story and talk about how they messed up in this way or that way, or not even explaining what kind of way, but some sort of vague acknowledgment of wrongdoing but not saying what they did wrong. I think it's really good because then that just opens it up to more questions.

I think, as a celebrity, what you want to do when you have to approach some sort of awkward element of your personal life, you should give them as much information as they can so there can't be follow-ups because you want to end the story instantly, quickly, entirely on your terms. When you apologize and say what you're sorry for, I think that you've done a great job.

Brigid: Anything to add, Lindsey?

Lindsey: No. I think actually when we talked a lot about apologies, it was the Notes App apology was new. We were figuring how do you apologize on Instagram? How do you make it visual? How do you translate that? It's just so different than we were used to. See, we're seeing a lot of the same formats, and I don't want to see a screenshot from your email because that makes me think you had a publicist write it. It's like those are little things that honestly, we were all so attuned to this that we'll notice.

Brigid: Let's take another caller. Let's go to Alice from Durham, North Carolina. Alice, is this the Alice Wilder?

Alice: Yes, or her employee.

Brigid: Well, Alice, I'm glad that you're listening to All Of It. What is your question for our Who? Weekly hosts?

Alice: We're watching a really wild news cycle around Ariana Grande's divorce, and I'm wondering if you all have a favorite celebrity divorce news cycle.

Bobby: Oh.

Lindsey: Oh my God.

Bobby: We were just talking about this. Yes. It's not really a divorce because it's the other celebrity who was getting a divorce. We were thinking about Julia Roberts and A Low Vera which was about her then-boyfriend's divorce from his ex-wife Vera. When Julia Roberts was dating the cameraman on one of her movies, Danny Moder, she's still with him.

Lindsey: Still with him.

Bobby: Danny Moder was in a relationship. He was married to someone else when they started this relationship. Julia Roberts says, "I'm going to marry Danny Moder." Danny Moder says, "I'm going to get a divorce from Vera." Vera says, "Not so fast," and Julia Roberts wears a custom-made T-shirt that says, "A Low Vera," around town just to make this woman angry. It's so rude, it's so mean, it's bully behavior, but it's also kind of like a perfect celebrity story. It's that silliness and that her asserting her power and her dominance in the industry that I think people are still shaken by.

Lindsey: Yes.

Brigid: Anything to add or you concur, Lindsey?

Lindsey: No, I mean, we love to talk about Julia Roberts because she is the A-lister tabloid celebrity of that era, but yes, I feel like there's been a lot of really sad divorces recently that we've talked about like, "What happened?" The Sofia Vergara and Joe Manganiello. They come in 3Ds like celebrity deaths too sometimes. There's been a run of them, but you more just find it interesting because then you get into this fan fiction territory we're like, "What happened?" We don't know them, we have no idea, but we're going to guess, and then you can go off a little bit.

Bobby: It's funny when you see a celebrity divorce and it's so ridiculous like this Kevin Costner, one with his wife.

Lindsey: Oh, yes.

Bobby: They just have so much money and everything involved is so expensive and it's just so A-list, but then ultimately, fundamentally, these divorces are just about petty little human stuff that everyone can relate to, so that always makes it pretty fascinating.

Brigid: I want to get some of your perspectives since you both live here in New York. What's a place in the city where you are likely to see some whos?

Lindsey: SoHo, right?

Bobby: SoHo, yes. SoHo.

Lindsey: Yes.

Bobby: That's where you're going to see a whos and hows.

Lindsey: I always see whos in SoHo.

Bobby: Yes.

Lindsey: Yes. Just because you see them sitting outside of nice restaurants, but you just see a lot of-- I think street dining has really brought the celebrity out. If you're sitting on the street and they're walking by or they're sitting and then you're walking by, you just-- I see a lot of celebrities in SoHo, usually.

Brigid: New York Magazine recently ran a piece about the "It" girls of the decade. Is there a current "It" girl of New York?

Lindsey: God, is there?

Bobby: Is there? Is it Julia Fox? Is it Princess Mako? We've been-- My number one, I'll just say my number one dream sighting is Princess Mako. The story of Princess Mako moving to New York City with her, I'm going to use the tabloid language, commoner husband is so exciting for me to have this literal princess just walking around New York City all the time, looking fashionable, looking chic, taking the bus with her, again, "commoner" husband. It's so wonderful. I think at the end of the day, it's Julia Fox still. She's still--

Lindsey: Do you really think she's still that "It" girl? I guess. I mean, there's a lot-- I think the thing is, then you've got a girl from south at Times Square, and then you have "It" girls being more under the radar now and more a part of subcultures than part of the bigger culture which is why I love-

Bobby: It still has to be broader.

Lindsey: -New York. Exactly. It's like the "It" girl has to be for everyone, but I think a lot of these "It" girls are more under the radar the way they like it.

Brigid: We couldn't resist the chance to get our producers to ask you some questions as well. This one comes from our producer, Jordan, who has a who-them question.

Jordan: Hi, Who? Weekly. Medium time, medium time. Since you are here with us on New York Public Radio, I thought I would ask you a very New York question. I was wondering if you guys can rank these subway lines from who to them. First, the ACE, then the BDFM, the 123, the NQRW, the L, and the G. [unintelligible 00:25:18] and crunch crunch.

Bobby: Oh.

Lindsey: Oh my God.

Brigid: No pressure. I'm going to repeat this for you just so you can wrap your minds around it for a second there. The question was, can you rank the subway lines, who to them? The ACE, the BDFM, the 123. Basically, talking the blue train, the orange train, the red train. We would never say that as real New Yorkers, but just for the sake of-- The NQRW, the L, and the G. For those of you who don't know, yes, who and them can also apply to non-humans. Thoughts?

Lindsey: That's when it gets a little bit spicy because then you're talking about a whole other crane. I mean, this I think is very much biased on where you live. I'm always ACE because I'm like, "That's my girl." That's what I take, but I do think that if you're going to have to go from who, G is always the biggest who.

Bobby: It's the biggest too.

Lindsey: It's like, "Where does that train even go?" No one knows.

Bobby: Is it actually running better? For as long as I've lived in New York, it's like, "No, the G is getting better," and then it kind of is getting better, but no, the G's getting worse again. Maybe it is getting worse again, but is it getting better? The G is in history.

Lindsey: Then I would say the L is the next who because a lot of people don't even ride that. They're like, "What? Brooklyn? No, I don't go there." That's like this thing where she's a who because she's always talked about by tabloids but everyone's like, "Who even is she?" That's my other one. Then who is the themiest, what?

Bobby: I think it goes, G, then L, then I think them is 123. Then, oh, this is hard. Then the NQRW because the W is relative. The W is only 20 years old. The W's sort of random. Then I think we end with BDFM and ACE. ACE has to be the themiest of that list, right?

Brigid: I would agree, it's my subway.

Bobby: Look how far it goes.

Brigid: We have to get in one more caller before we wrap up.

Lindsey: ACE, yes. I know. It goes--

Brigid: Let's go to Hannah in Norman, Oklahoma. Hannah, thanks so much for listening to All Of It. What is your question for Bobby and Lindsey?

Hannah: Hi, Bobby and Lindsey. Long time, long time. My question is, you guys have talked about Margot Robbie so much in the podcast over the years, I think as being an enigma of culture. She's a superstar, but is she? My question is, with the whole Barbie madness craziness over the past few weeks, do we think she's actually going to be a superstar, super actress rise to the levels of Julia Roberts one day or is she still going to maintain her enigma status in culture we're like, "Who is she actually?" Okay. Crunch crunch. Bye.

Bobby: I think that's a good question, right? I think that she is a them.

Lindsey: If this movie doesn't do that to her, then nothing will. It's like, if not this, it's nothing. I don't know. I think this has a lot to do with press and how you handle it and your personality off-screen because we know she was great on-screen. She was amazing, but it has more to do with what you're willing to give/how you interact with the real world, right?

Bobby: The other thing about Barbie is that part of the fun of the Barbie movie is that you have the big superstars of before like her and Ryan Gosling, but the fun of the movie is noticing all the surprising people in the background in every given scene. In a way, even though she is a them, she's overshadowed by the ensemble because they're also fun and surprising, and they may not all be as famous as she is.

Lindsey: Maybe you're distracted by being like, "Who is that? Who is that," and not really taking in the Margot of it all.

Brigid: Before I let you two go, I have to just ask very quickly, the origins of Crunch Crunch as a way of saying goodbye. What is that from? What does that mean?

Lindsey: Well, that's vintage.

Bobby: What's awful is that it's a piece of sponsored content done by the international superstar, Bebe Rexha for the brand Lay's. She did a video for the brand Lay's that was punctuated by her crunch crunching some chips and it became a way to end things. It became our version of period, just crunch crunch, this is over. We're done. We've done our part.

Brigid: Wow. You have officially now blown my mind. That is all we have time for today. I have been speaking with Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber, hosts of the podcast, Who? Weekly. Thank you for joining me on All Of It on WNYC. Crunch crunch.

Lindsey: Thanks for having us.

Bobby: Thanks.

 

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