Sarah Marshall

Sarah Marshall is the host of You’re Wrong About and You Are Good with Alex Steed. Follow Sarah on Twitter here. Follow You’re Wrong About on Twitter here. Follow You Are Good on Twitter here.

What makes the perfect You're Wrong About story?
A perfect You're Wrong About story is one where we have inherited an idea from a past event that we assume is at least truth-based, and has become a part of our culture. And then if we go back and look at the facts the available information obviously contradicts the cultural idea we have. I think the ideal You're Wrong About story is one where there's no digging even necessary because to me part of the point of doing these is showing how us not remembering the truth can have nothing to do with the truth not being available. I feel especially impassioned to do a story when I feel like a person inside of that story has has had their life affected or destroyed by this experience or has been made to suffer more than they would have otherwise through media attention.

Was there an episode that resonated with people in a way that totally surprised you?
I've always been surprised by how intensely people responded to the Kitty Genovese episode, primarily because they feel so attached to what they learn about her as a person. I think it's just always interesting to learn where these stories—these like pieces of modern folklore—come from and to try and understand why we might have chosen the stories that we did to keep passing around to each other. In the Genovese case I think that like, just based on the details that we have, the idea of Kitty Genovese Genovese that you end up with is of this like, like the, the myth of Kitty Genovese is that the idea of a general woman Genovese this terrible fate because of this issue of bystander apathy that we were trying to discuss as a concept, because it was one of our timely fears in 1964. And then if you get into the facts you end up with like, not this idea of a woman but a very specific actual person who was living her life in this way that I think a lot of people who heard the episode were struck to find out she was living an apparently joyful and love-filled life as a lesbian in 1964. I think people ended up connecting with the courageousness of that.

When did you realize the show was a big deal?
I went to see Les Mis with my friends family and we were coming down the stairs and I opened my phone and had a bunch of congratulations texts because the show had been featured on a top 10 list by Time Magazine. That was the thing that made it real to a lot of people I knew and therefore me. My friend's mom congratulated me about it and then said, "What's a podcast?"

How has your perspective shifted in producing the show?
I think my primary concerns have shifted. And at this point I understand that it's my job not to be the most insightful person in the room necessarily, but to show the audience that it's okay to be ignorant about things and to then decide to learn about them. And that it’s also okay to be surprised. I think that what I consider myself to be good at is creating a warm, emotional place for the listener to be inside of.

Who is your dream guest host? 
Monica Lewinsky, who has chosen to remake herself as a public figure whose fame is about things now. And I like that she's doing that. She is a real-life example of surviving the phenomena we talk about, and doing so in a way where you're like communicating to the public that abused you what they did to you.

How has your perception of the world changed in making the show?
I think that when we make outlandish accusations at a group or a person based on zero to minimal evidence, quite often that corresponds to the mainstream culture making the accusation being guilty of the thing they're accusing somebody of in some way. They project onto these groups as a means of distraction. That’s my working theory for now at least.

When was the first time you realized that you were a funny person that you were funny?
I think first grade and we were singing Raffi's "Down by the Bay" in class. And it was my turn to do a rhyme. And I said. "A giraffe drinking a decaf." And my adult teacher thought that was very funny. And so I unfortunately learned that it feels really good to make adults laugh because it gives you power over them.

Why did you start making podcasts?
I just always really liked listening to podcasts and so I wanted to be part of one. I had noticed that a lot of podcasts that I listened to and had been strongly affected by, I had been able to entertain ideas and be more emotionally vulnerable than I could necessarily by like reading something or watching something because podcasts are so intimate. It's like literally a voice in your head, like an angel. I was really attracted to the medium. And then once we started making the show, I felt like what people most enjoyed about it was the human to human dynamic of hearing somebody explain something to someone else who was very invested in learning about the thing that they were hearing about. And that just felt like it was working really well.

Thanks, Sarah!