71 episodes

Follow Friday is the podcast about who you should follow online. Every week, Eric Johnson talks to creative people about who they follow, and why.

Past guests include Tom Scott (YouTube), Alie Ward (Ologies), Franklin Leonard (The Black List), Alexandra Petri (The Washington Post), and Kara Swisher (The New York Times). On Follow Friday, you'll have fun, you'll learn more about your favorite creators, and you'll discover how to make the most of your time online by following the right folks.

New to the show? Start here: https://www.followfridaypodcast.com/start-here

Visit FollowFridayPodcast.com for full episode transcripts, links to people who have been recommended on the show, and more. For extended episodes and more, back us on Patreon starting at $1/month: https://www.patreon.com/followfriday

Follow Friday LightningPod.fm

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.8 • 17 Ratings

Follow Friday is the podcast about who you should follow online. Every week, Eric Johnson talks to creative people about who they follow, and why.

Past guests include Tom Scott (YouTube), Alie Ward (Ologies), Franklin Leonard (The Black List), Alexandra Petri (The Washington Post), and Kara Swisher (The New York Times). On Follow Friday, you'll have fun, you'll learn more about your favorite creators, and you'll discover how to make the most of your time online by following the right folks.

New to the show? Start here: https://www.followfridaypodcast.com/start-here

Visit FollowFridayPodcast.com for full episode transcripts, links to people who have been recommended on the show, and more. For extended episodes and more, back us on Patreon starting at $1/month: https://www.patreon.com/followfriday

    Patrick Willems (Night of the Coconut): Baby chefs, Baby Back Ribs, George Lucas

    Patrick Willems (Night of the Coconut): Baby chefs, Baby Back Ribs, George Lucas

    Patrick Willems spent six years on YouTube trying to attract an audience for his short films, before he pivoted to video essays about everything from baseball movies to Francis Ford Coppola's filmography to Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again. Those essays got wildly popular and today, he has more than 350,000 subscribers.
    However, he kept making shorts, embedded in his essays as narrative framing devices. In other words, he says, he "trick[ed] the audience into watching short films that I also wanna make, but that normally would not get the views on YouTube or have sponsors on them."
    Then, starting in early 2020, he began connecting those narrative shorts into a serialized story about an evil talking coconut named Charl. This so-called "Charl saga" culminated in June with the release of a feature-length film, Night of the Coconut, which is available on the streaming platform Nebula.
    Today, on the season one finale of Follow Friday, Patrick shared some of his favorite follow recommendations, while imposing some additional rules on himself: With "one asterisk," he says, he picked favorite accounts run by people he doesn't know in real life: Kobe Eats (@kobeeats on YouTube and TikTok, @kobe_yn on Instagram); Jackson Murphy (@LCJReviews on Twitter and @LightsCameraJackson on YouTube); Neil Cicierega (@neilcic on Twitter and YouTube); and the George Lucas Talk Show (@TheGeorgeLucasTalkShow on YouTube).
    Thank you to everyone who has tuned in to this season of Follow Friday. You can help make season two a reality by completing a 5-minute survey at followfridaypodcast.com/season2.
    And on Follow Friday's Patreon page, you can unlock an extended version of this interview in which Patrick shares a bonus follow recommendation! Thank you to our amazing patrons: Jon, Justin, Amy, Yoichi, Danielle, and Elizabeth.
    Also:
    Follow Patrick @patrickhwillems on YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram Watch Night of the Coconut on Nebula Follow us @FollowFridayPod on a href="https://twitter.com/followfridaypod" rel="noopener...

    • 1 hr 1 min
    Roman Mars (99% Invisible): City flags, stupid walks, shearing sheep

    Roman Mars (99% Invisible): City flags, stupid walks, shearing sheep

    "When you're a broadcaster, you don't have a conversation you can't use as content," jokes Roman Mars — well, mostly jokes. The host of 99% Invisible says he's trying to use the internet more thoughtfully than he used to, and that includes not needing to share everything with the world.
    "The past year, it's been really the focus of my time, actually not having every thought be on social media and making everything into something," he says.
    Today on Follow Friday, Roman talks about which creators he likes to follow, including: Constitutional law professor Elizabeth Joh (@elizabeth_joh on Twitter); writer and podcaster John Green (@literallyjohngreen on TikTok); competent people who calmly do things well, such as @stellarsidewalks, @texasbeeworks, and @rightchoiceshearing on TikTok; and the subreddit /r/oddlysatisfying.
    And on Follow Friday's Patreon page, you can unlock an extended version of this interview in which Roman shares a bonus follow recommendation! Thank you to our amazing patrons: Jon, Justin, Amy, Yoichi, Danielle, and Elizabeth.
    Also:
    Follow Roman @romanmars on Twitter and @theromanmars on InstagramListen to 99% Invisible and What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con Law Follow us @FollowFridayPod on Twitter and InstagramLeave a review: LoveThePodcast.com/FollowFriday Follow Eric @heyheyesj on Twitter Email us! hello@followfridaypodcast.com
    This show is a production of Lightningpod.fm, hosted and produced by Eric Johnson
    Music: Yona Marie
    Show art: Dodi Hermawan
    Social media producer: Sydney Grodin

    • 40 min
    Annie Rauwerda (Depths of Wikipedia): Living statues, #NotAllBots, the Holy Trinity Bikini

    Annie Rauwerda (Depths of Wikipedia): Living statues, #NotAllBots, the Holy Trinity Bikini

    When her college internship was canceled by the COVID-19 shutdown in spring 2020, Annie Rauwerda had a lot of unexpected time on her hands. And instead of learning to bake bread or speak Esperanto, she began curating weird and amusing things she found on Wikipedia.
    Two years later, Depths of Wikipedia has more than 1.5 million followers combined across Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. That success means walking a fine line: Annie wants to celebrate Wikipedia's oddities and encourage her followers to edit pages, but not to intentionally contribute false info or "bad writing for the sake of humor."
    "Sometimes I'll post something and then it'll start getting vandalized a bunch," she says. "Like when I posted the List of Mammals Displaying Homosexual Behavior — don't do this, by the way — people started editing it to add in their name. It's funny, I guess, for two seconds, but then you just feel bad."
    Today on Follow Friday, Annie shares some great follow recommendations: Meta-influencer Harry Hill (@veryharryhill on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok); Twitter bots such as @NYT_first_said, @ResNeXtGuesser, and @AceCourtBot; post-ironic Catholic Instagram pages such as @ineedgodineverymomentofmylife and @praying; and TikTok aggregator Leia Jospe (@favetiktoks420 on Instagram).
    And on Follow Friday's Patreon page, you can unlock an extended version of this interview in which Annie shares a bonus follow recommendation! Thank you to our amazing patrons: Jon, Justin, Amy, Yoichi, Danielle, Elizabeth, and Sylnai.
    We'll be off next week for the 4th of July weekend in the US, and will be back on Friday, July 8th.
    Also:
    Follow Annie: @anniierau on Twitter, @annierau on Instagram, and @anniierau on TikTokFollow Depths of Wikipedia: @depthsofwiki on Twitter, @depthsofwikipedia on Instagram and TikTok Follow us @FollowFridayPod on Twitter and InstagramLeave a review: a href="https://lovethepodcast.com/followfriday" rel="noopener noreferrer"...

    • 36 min
    Rusty Foster (Today in Tabs): Giving up on crypto, bear chandelier, Halloween puns

    Rusty Foster (Today in Tabs): Giving up on crypto, bear chandelier, Halloween puns

    When Rusty Foster started the email newsletter Today in Tabs, in 2013, "tabs" was trendy media slang for the articles open in your browser that you were hate-reading. That meaning has faded into obscurity, but Today in Tabs is going strong, dishing up must-reads, great tweets, and a song every Monday-Thursday.
    "I do the sort of thing that you do when you have a job where you don't have enough work to do, and you spend a lot of time procrastinating on Twitter," he says. "I do that professionally. I read stuff on Twitter. I keep track of the good tweets and I keep an eye on what people are talking about."
    Today on Follow Friday, Rusty shares four great follow recommendations: Programmer and cryptocurrency critic Molly White (@molly0xFFF on Twitter); musician and comedian Petey (@petey_usa on Instagram, @peteyusa on TikTok); writer and technologist Paul Ford (@ftrain on Twitter); and role-playing game podcaster Taylor Moore (@taylordotbiz on Twitter).
    And on Follow Friday's Patreon page, you can unlock an extended version of this interview in which Rusty shares a fifth bonus follow recommendation! Thank you to our amazing patrons: Jon, Justin, Amy, Yoichi, Danielle, Elizabeth, and Sylnai.
    Also:
    Follow Rusty @fka_tabs on Twitter Follow us @FollowFridayPod on Twitter and InstagramLeave a review: LoveThePodcast.com/FollowFriday Follow Eric @heyheyesj on Twitter Email us! hello@followfridaypodcast.com
    This show is a production of Lightningpod.fm, hosted and produced by Eric Johnson
    Music: Yona Marie
    Show art: Dodi Hermawan
    Social media producer: Sydney Grodin

    • 37 min
    UNLOCKED: Bonus follows from Traci Thomas, Josh Fruhlinger, Bridget Todd, and Jesse Thorn

    UNLOCKED: Bonus follows from Traci Thomas, Josh Fruhlinger, Bridget Todd, and Jesse Thorn

    Today we're playing four bonus follow recommendations that originally were exclusive to Follow Friday XL, our special podcast feed for supporters on Patreon. If you want to get five follow recommendations per week instead of the usual four, you can donate $1 or more at patreon.com/followfriday!
    In today's episode:
    The Stacks host Traci Thomas talks about someone super-talented who’s still under the radar, Whit McClure (@whit_hazen on Instagram)The Comics Curmudgeon writer Josh Fruhlinger talks about someone who makes the internet a better place: Rusty Foster (@fka_tabs on Twitter)There Are No Girls on the Internet host Bridget Todd talks about someone who has stopped posting, but needs to come back: Teju Cole (@tejucole on Twitter)Bullseye host and Maximum Fun founder Jesse Thorn talks about someone he's jealous of: Louis Virtel (@louisvirtel on Instagram and Twitter)
    Also:
    Follow us @FollowFridayPod on Twitter and InstagramLeave a review: LoveThePodcast.com/FollowFriday Follow Eric @heyheyesj on Twitter Email us! hello@followfridaypodcast.com
    This show is a production of Lightningpod.fm, hosted and produced by Eric Johnson
    Music: Yona Marie
    Show art: Dodi Hermawan
    Social media producer: Sydney Grodin

    • 42 min
    Bridget Todd (There Are No Girls On the Internet): 2+2 = applesauce, bringing chaos, three-way phone calls

    Bridget Todd (There Are No Girls On the Internet): 2+2 = applesauce, bringing chaos, three-way phone calls

    There Are No Girls on The Internet is an award-winning podcast about people who have always been at the forefront of technology, but whose stories are often ignored or misrepresented. That's a big and sometimes contentious field, and TANGOTI host Bridget Todd says it's important to make space for everyone to work through difficult conversations about inclusion, rather than expecting everyone to "get it" right away.
    "I've been in social change movements for a long time and I do think we have this expectation that we expect people to show up with the right ethos and the right language and the right perspective," Bridget says. "And I get that, but I also feel like it doesn't leave room to hear the messy conversations of how people become smarter, better, more nuanced, and more thoughtful."
    Today on Follow Friday, she explains how to use social media when disinformation is circulating after a tragedy, how she has evolved her thinking about politics online, why she's optimistic about a new online platform for the first time in a while, and much more.
    She also shares four great follow recommendations: Early podcaster and co-host of Uhh Yeah Dude Jonathan Larroquette (@jonathanlarroquette on Instagram); political pundit and former The View co-host Meaghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain on Twitter and Instagram); comedy writer and Showtime TV star Ziwe (@Ziwe on Twitter); and Somewhere Good CEO Naj Austin (@najaustin on Instagram and @najjmahal on Twitter).
    And on Follow Friday's Patreon page, you can unlock an extended version of this interview in which Bridget shares a fifth bonus follow recommendation! Thank you to our amazing patrons: Jon, Justin, Amy, Yoichi, Danielle, Elizabeth, and Sylnai.
    Also:
    Follow Bridget @BridgetMarie on Twitter and @BridgetMarieInDC on Instagram Follow us @FollowFridayPod on Twitter and Instagram Leave a review: LoveThePodcast.com/FollowFriday Follow Eric @heyheyesj on Twitter Email us! hello@followfridaypodcast.com
    This show is a production of Lightningpod.fm, hosted and produced by Eric Johnson
    Music: Yona Marie
    Show art: Dodi Hermawan
    Social media producer: Sydney Grodin

    • 53 min

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5
17 Ratings

17 Ratings

waltm ,

Eric knows his stuff

Eric Johnson has been in the podcast biz for a long time. And he knows his stuff - how they’re made, why they’re made, what makes them good. He’s also been a critic for a long time (albeit of pop culture) so he knows how creative work relates to mainstream people. Put those talents together and you get Follow Friday - a podcast you can trust and enjoy. (Disclosure: Eric and I were colleagues, but he had nothing to do with my own podcast, which was produced by a different department of our employer.)

tomhollandspiderman ,

Fantastic podcast

I really love podcasts that come with fresh and new ideas, especially when they’re simple and useful ones — Follow Friday is so good as a podcast first but also fills my feed with new and interesting people that I didn’t know about ahead of time. It’s a great way to learn about different voices and to diversify your inputs on the internet.

JustEmilyC ,

Who knew I needed this.

I'm addicted to email newsletters so this podcast totally enables my addiction. I've gotten the best recommendations. Aside from the recs, Eric Johnson, the host, is just a nice guy. Also for a new podcaster (I think), he's great at making the interviews conversational instead of rote question/answer sessions. I'm excited for more to come.

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