We’re reaching out to some popular creators to get their best tips and tricks for success and better understand the ups and downs of life as a trailblazer on the internet.
This week, we caught up with the folks behind The Judgies Podcast via email. On their podcast, Christian, Erika, and Josh react to funny internet posts, often from the “Am I the Asshole?” subreddit. The Judgies has over 671,000 followers and subscribers across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. You can find listening options for it on Anchor.
The interview below has been condensed and edited.
What’s the first thing you do to start your day online?
The first thing we like to do is check any interactions we may have received over night from fans of our content. This includes Patreon messages, Tweets, Instagram and YouTube comments, TikTok mentions or duets, and emails. We really want a good pulse on our fans in order to deliver the best content we can!
What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out as a creator?
Just how much work it takes to actually become successful and maintain that success. Most of the successful creators we’ve met are absurdly hard-working, often spending as much as 16 hours a day creating content.
When did you realize you’d broken through and become a successful creator?
We’d say the first realization we had broken through to being “successful” creators was seeing our weekly views from a few hundred to thousands over the course of a few weeks. Building our community and fan base has been great and we are very grateful that they decided we are worth listening to.
If you hadn’t become a creator, what would you be doing right now?
We all currently have full time careers in different fields, so we would probably just be doing that with a little more free time. The content we create has been an amazing outlet to express our artistic sides, but realistically we would be sitting around a table shooting the wind with or without the mics and cameras.
What’s one thing you do to manage your relationship with your fans?
We always incorporate listener created content into every single episode. These come in the form of funny or sincere reviews at the top of each show, listener submitted questions on the podcast and TikTok, and listener submitted sound transitions between segments. We also love to interact with fans on social media whenever we get a chance.
What do you think of the idea of cancel culture?
It’s important to be held accountable by your fans while at the same time understanding intent and that people can grow over time. Ultimately, we want to create content that is safe for everyone (not at work) and try to listen to all feedback we get!
How much of your true self do you show online?
We’re all pretty open books so what you see is effectively us. We talk in our content as we do off the mic so sometimes maybe a little too much comes out, but that’s something we’re okay with as long as our listeners don’t mind.
What’s one of the best interactions you’ve ever had with someone who follows you?
We love, love, love seeing reviews and comments that are deep cuts to our content. Erika in particular loves Josh getting roasted for lacking in the height department (5’9”) and his bad puns (Josh likes these as well).
What is your most treasured tool?
Our phones house almost the entire show, so it would probably be that. Though, we aren’t very tool dependent for the most part.
What holds you accountable?
Our fans, our parents (who listen to the show), and each other. We all strive to be better with every episode and like to push each other to grow. We would hate to put out content that would disappoint.
Thank you, Christian, Erika, and Josh, for talking with us!
We’ll be featuring a new Q&A with a creator every week, so shoot an email to grace.stanley@clarion1822.com for a chance to be included.
