Alex Steed

Alex Steed is the co-host of You Are Good (formerly Why Are Dads?) Follow him on Twitter here. Follow You Are Good on Twitter here and Instagram here.

How do you describe the show to people?
Friends, and often a guest, talk about feelings by way of discussing movies.

Do you consider yourself a film podcast? A friendship podcast? A relationships podcast? If you could pick any category in Apple Podcasts to put it under, what would it be?
This is such a great question, Lauren, because I don’t think we even know. I think Sarah is less bothered by the not-knowing than I am, but I am in marketing by trade so I sometimes freak out a little bit because it is not immediately clear what we are. And a lot of people see “dads” and they’re like, yeah, no thanks for a number of different reasons from the personal and cultural. We wanted to have an excuse to have a podcast and we both used to talk about our dads to each other all the time. It is this thing we had in common, and we realized it was a lens through which we looked at a lot of things and we thought that might work as a lens for a podcast and somehow it did. But of course we talk about movies, and that gives us an excuse to talk about all sorts of stuff broadly, but it really works because we are naturally friends. Sarah and I have been friends for a decade. We communicate all day every day. I am always genuinely interested in sharing shit with Sarah, sharing in stuff we’re stoked about. It’s always been that way. We’ve just been in each others’ lives — we genuinely love each other and we are genuinely family — and I think the mix of all of those things just works. And when we bring people in as “guests”, we see it as more than that. For us it’s about bringing somebody into the fold so we can all be excited about something together.

Another thing that strikes me is I don’t really think of us as a “film” podcast because that concept has such specific baggage, right? You just imagine a couple of guys in their mid 20s yelling over each other. You imagine if being critical or heavy in theory or whatever. We use movies to consider how we feel and what we’ve experienced, and for whatever reason—and I aim imagining that reason is likely related to the patriarchy—I didn’t consider what we do a film podcast for a while. But honestly, I think that what we do and are interested in is much closer to the way most people watch movies. People watch movies and they feel feelings. We examine and navigate the feelings that are associated with the movies. There is no reason, beyond cultural baggage, that we are not. 

But really, we’re friends who talk about feelings and we hope we give listeners a safe space to feel those feeling with us. 

How are you and Sarah different? What do you each bring to the show as hosts?
Both Sarah and I are not only Taurus birthdays—we were both born on April 22, and we do share a lot in common. We have a similar outlook and sensibility. We have a similar intensity, though it goes in different directions. We are both extremely engaged in whatever we’re fascinated by. We both have severe forms of ADHD and it often shows in our day-to-day lives. I write all the time but Sarah is very much a writer and it shows in the way she talks. Sarah speaks in fully articulated paragraphs. She rarely needs editing, at least as far as the show goes. She brings that. Sarah brings brilliance. We both bring an open heart. That’s this other thing we share. We are eager to make space and share in stuff we love, and share that with other people. I bring that and in our conversations I am there to help facilitate that. I am much more of an “everyman” in our conversations, and I try to imagine what the listener is going to be looking for and I try to shape the conversations accordingly. 

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention Carolyn Kendrick, who is our producer and our music director. When there’s time in the week she records songs to accompany the episodes and we’ve been so lucky to have her overseeing how the show sounds because if we did not there would be no show. But it’s not just that. Carolyn knows Sarah and me really well, and she does an incredible job of shaping the conversations in the edit and helping things pop more than they did in the original conversation. It is important to me that the show sounds great and that’s something we never have to worry about while it’s in Carolyn’s hands. She is a hell of a producer. 

Have you changed your mind about any of the movies after recording the episode with Sarah?
I’ve joked before that Sarah is just like… she’s Sarah. She’s such a specific and brilliant person and personality and she always has something incredibly thoughtful to say at the drop of a hat and that’s her role, and I am her bewildered friend and that’s my role. And so I am always learning something new or seeing from some new perspective that I hadn’t seen before. For example we recently watched Guardians of the Galaxy and our wonderful guest Fangirl Jeanne brought a beautiful and thoughtful critical lens and she caught a hundred things I had not originally caught. I can safely say that I look at all the movies we watch differently after we watch them together. And this is a thing that I love. Each movie provides this point of reference for some new way of looking at a bunch of feelings and ideas, and so that transforms each of the movies we watch. 

We recently watched The Silence of the Lambs with Harmony Coangelo, who I just adore so much. I love her and her wife BJ to bits. And Harmony talked about how Silence of the Lambs, a movie I like so much, made her life hell as a young trans person because it shaped folks’ images of trans people for the negative. I look at that movie differently now in a way that I love. The show helps me to see through other folks’ eyes and feel through other folks’ hearts. I am made better for that. 

Does social media help your podcast? What is your strategy there?
Social media is a really big part of our community and we are actively in touch with folks via Twitter especially. We are also on Instagram but most of our interaction happens on Twitter. I run our accounts, but we both engage about Why Are Dads stuff at our respective personal accounts. I got on TikTok sometime last year and only recently did I begin to take it somewhat seriously and that has also driven a great deal of recent traffic to the site at least. We recently had somebody leave a review that was like, “I found the show via Alex’s TikTok,” which is so funny considering I am ancient by TikTok standards.

Who is the Dad on Why Are Dads?
When we started the show, we had this half-joking segment where we ask “We know who the father is—who is the daddy?” And it’s carried on throughout the whole series. I am the father of the show and Sarah is very much the daddy.

Do you have any funny stories about fan interactions that you'd like to share? (Who is your #1 fan?)
I don’t have any specific interactions but I really do love the folks who listen to this show and who share in their enthusiasm for it. I genuinely like all of the people who reach out. I mean, think about this group. It’s people who want to hear friends talk about feelings. It is the exact antithesis of, say, the Ben Shapiro show or any show that’s about fascists yelling about their own imagined downfall and as a result it brings about the opposite kind of fans. Not opposite in ideology, though it is—but opposite in disposition. The folks who listen to our show are fans of empathy and radical acceptance. I really love that about them, and they make us feel safe, secure and encouraged in our pursuit. And my god, they’re all brilliant and funny and great. I can’t say enough good stuff about them. I recently tweeted this and it’s partially a joke but it’s also wholly true: 

Different advertisers have been in touch here and there to "connect with the dads who listen to your show" and each time I patiently explain that like 90% of our crowd is witchy queers and like maybe 4 or 5 actual dads.

Those are our people. Witchy queers and empathy stans.

Why the change in name? How did that conversation start?
We announced and discussed the rationale at length in this week's Beauty and the Beast episode, and I was surprised by how cathartic and clarifying the conversation was. You Are Good is, by the way, a reference to one of our favorite moments from the show and at the end of the day it’s a Young Frankenstein quote. 

You Are Good is, as Why Are Dads has been, a feelings podcast about movies and that's what we're going to do here. As Sarah noted in our most recent episode, "the dads theme is where we planted our starts and they're ready to be transplanted to the garden." And as I noted, folks often ask "Well, what is the answer to the Why Are Dads question?" and in a way the answer is "You Are Good." We're all, in one way or another, navigating a relationship with yearning to be told as much (and/or hoping that it's true).

Basically, we came to the conclusion at the same time. On my end I see almost all of the interaction on social because I run those channels and we’d heard from so, so many people who we know would be into the show who just couldn’t get beyond thinking this show was strictly about dad stuff, or getting into really heavy baggage. And it is, you know, but it’s not entirely what we do and we really wanted those folks at the table because we also hear from folks who put it off for a long, long time thinking the same and when they finally gave it a shot they were like, Oh, this is very much for me. That’s where it started, but then we tried on about 50 or 60 new names before landing on You Are Good. I’m glad it’s where we landed. 

Does the change in name impact the content and direction of the show?
We'll still be here talking about our dads, your dads, and movie days, but we're also going to start leaning more confidently into this feelings garden we've been working on for the past 9 months. We hope you'll hang in the garden with us.

We have this part in the show where we say, “We know who the father is, but who is the daddy?” And it is kind of this section where we can talk about the movie MVP in whatever way makes sense in context of our chat. Many have asked if that’s going to stay and yes, absolutely it will. It’s a really great way to summarize the episode and to get some final thoughts, and it’s a great way to nod to where we’ve been. 

Since the announcement so, so many people have been just profoundly supportive and we appreciate that so, so much. It’s beautiful to have audience trust in this way. Some folks worry that we’re going to lose our format as a result, but I think stuff will be more or less exactly the same in a lot of ways. It’s going to be about unpacking baggage and sorting out feelings by way of talking about movies. It’s still going to have a sleepover vibe. We’ll inevitably talk about all of the same stuff, and maybe even broaden the lens a bit. We are so excited for this shift. 

Thanks, Alex!