Writer and comedian Sophia Benoit joins Dani Loftus to discuss the art of complaining as a form of connection. They touch on texture-based food aversions, surveillance culture, and people who take jokes too literally online. Also, we learn what a "rat room" is.

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Sophia's podcast

Sophia's website

Dani's newsletter

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00:00 — What is this podcast

00:54 — How Sophia doesn't like talking about herself (despite writing a memoir)

02:20 — Sophia's approach to complaining and how it got her all her jobs

04:11 — European-style complaining as connection, not misery

05:29 — Biggest industry ick: pretending writing is hard work

07:41 — When your dentist wants to discuss your sex writing career

08:00 — How writing about relationships affects personal expectations

12:27 — Is messiness a personality trait or a diagnosis?

14:15 — Being seen as negative online when you're actually positive

15:00 — The wealthy patron system vs. needing hundreds of thousands of followers

17:42 — The guy in Ohio who thinks you're the worst person alive

18:16 — "Can they eat you?" Sophia's grandfather's motto for anxiety

18:41 — Good morning texts...ick

19:47 — Cottage cheese and other aversions

21:11 — American individualism and pretending cities are that different

22:39 — Surveillance culture

24:38 — People taking jokes too literally online and explaining things back

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Our music, Stamford Brook Style, is by Adrian Michna.