Show notes
Mads Mitch knows a thing or two about going viral on the internet. Her "How hard can it be boys do it" gained a life of its own during the 2024 election season catching the attention of the Harris campaign and spinning off a successful merch line. But there is SO much more that happens behind the scenes of content creation and together we break down what inspires Mads to create, how she navigates the misogyny, and what makes us both true oldest daughters/oldest sisters. Follow Mads Mitch Subscribe to the Patreon!! Buy tix to Friends Only with Molly McAleer and Rob Shulte for LA Buy tix to Friends Only with Molly McAleer and Rob Shulte in Boston Transcript Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of oddly specific. It's the podcast that covers everything from private equity to Pete Davidson. I'm your host, Meredith Lynch, and I'm thrilled you're here for the intro because I have so many exciting things to tell you. Firstly, I have three live show dates. We are doing a live pod recording, I'm doing it with my friends, Molly Maclear and Rob Schultz, and they're great friends, but so are all of you. And that's why we're calling this show Friends Only, an IRL night with your chronically online besties. We have special guests, we have hot takes, we have so many things that we can only say friends only. So Los Angeles, on May 8th, we are at West Side Comedy doing the show, and Boston, we are in your city on June 25th and June 26th. That's two nights of fun at Little Chuck in the theater district. Ticket link will be in the show notes. The ticket link is in my Instagram bio. We have a few meet and greet tickets available. We would love to see you there and stay tuned because we are working on adding more cities to this little tour. Also. If you want to kick your social media up a notch, I have a few fun workshops and opportunities coming up. This Saturday, March 15th, my friend Stephanie Wilder Taylor and I are doing a workshop specifically for writers who want to grow their social media presence. That's the Saturday, March 15th from 1pm to 3pm PST. I will link that in the show notes. It's also on my Instagram profile linked in the bio. And still there are a few hot seat social media strategy sessions. If you want to grab a 45 minute session with my partner in content crime, Vienna and me, we would love to see you over there. Today's guest is an absolute legend on the apps. Mads Match created the viral phrase, how hard can it be boys do it? The phrase went global, catching the attention of the Harris campaign, launching Mads successful collection of merch and has been a springboard to bringing her empowering message to the world. She is the host of a pod that I love, Parked Car Combos. I loved having her on my pod and I know you will too. Without further ado, let's get Oddly Specific. Hey y'all. Welcome back to another episode of Oddly Specific. I'm your host, Meredith Lynch, and I have a very special guest today. Maddie Madds. I'm calling you Maddie Madds because she signed on and I was like, wait. It says Maddie, not Mads. Yeah, I just love to keep people on their toes. I just am constantly, it's constantly evolving. It's also, on some things, it's Mad, not Mads. Yes! Yeah, it's just a trifecta. It's the holy trinity. Mad, Mads, and Maddie. And you never know which one you're gonna get. But, today, I can be Maddie Mads. That's fine. I like it. Mad Dog. Well, welcome to the podcast. Yeah, I wear a lot of hats. Yeah. I'm really excited that you're here. I've been following your social media journey for so long now and I am so excited to get into what you have done, what you're up to, what's in the future. But first and foremost, You, like me, are not only an East Coast girl, because, listen, you guys, I'm just gonna talk, I want to talk about this for a second. Here in LA, Maddie, when I tell people that I moved here from the East Coast, Mm hmm. Their immediate thought is that I came here from New York. And so, like, it will be like, I'll be like, Oh, well, I moved here from the East Coast, like, four years ago. And they'll be like, Oh, New York. And I'm like, Uh, actually, no, Massachusetts. The light just, it just dims in their eyes. Like, I have fucking disappointed them. Like, like, like, I swear to God, people, people are like, Oh, you're, you, you're from there? I thought that's just a place that people went on field trips to. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. People, people actually live there. Um. They do live there. And it's actually a great state all around. Look at the statistics, people. It's an honor. So you, did you grow up in Massachusetts? Mm hmm. Born and raised. Okay. What do you think makes being from Massachusetts? Or like Boston area because your Boston area so different than being from New York And like I know you're not gonna say like just sports teams, which is why I love you Yeah, which is it is part of it It I think growing up in like the tom brady era of new england instilled like a massive superiority complex That like I wasn't prepared to part ways with do you know what I mean? Like it's just like oh and now we're bad. I don't know how to cope with that. No, but it is I don't know. New England itself, I just feel like is so elite. Like it has everything a little bit of everything. And from Cape Cod in the summer, which is like how I envisioned summer is like Cape Cod. And then I, every fall I go up to Vermont for a little bit and I spend time in the mountains and the foliage. It just like has everything that you could ever, ever need. And It's, it's such a great place. I can't say enough good things about it. Okay, if you had to pick like your favorite summer getaway in the New England area, what would you pick and why? That's tricky because there's some really cute places in Maine that I've gone for like day trips and stuff that are so cute and I would love to spend more time up there, but I think I'm going Chatham every single time. Even though it's busy in the summer and chaotic and like overwhelming, it's, it's for a reason. It's because people love it there because it's amazing. And so I would have to go chat him slash Cape Cod every time. Okay. Yeah. And I think like if you're someone who's, if you're new England curious, I think the Cape is a good place to start, too. Totally. Totally. Yeah, you go in like the middle of summer when we can guarantee warmth and not snow, that's good. And then, yeah, it's, it's such a, it's like I think what people think when they think of like New England is like picturesque, quaint towns, and like that's what that is, every time. Have you ever been to Kennebunkport? I have, yes. That's my jam. A long time ago though. Yeah. So cute up there. I went to Igunquit a couple summers ago too. So pretty. Yeah. Super similar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So cute. Yeah. We should do a, um, creator trip and all the followers, right? It would be so fun. There's a hotel where I got married in, in Maine. I got married in Kennebunkport and there's a hotel, it's called the Colony Hotel. And it's like, Kind of got a dirty dancing vibe because everybody who works there lives there for the summer. Oh fun I know so it's not just so much to write a rom com about that. That's You know what? Like yes wrong. Are you writing one? No, but like there's the wild thing The only like tea that I know about people like living there in the summer actually, this is like a really bad endorsement of this hotel, but when I was When I was a kid, this happened, um, because I would go up there in the summer, my, my My aunt had a house there. Somebody, like two people who were living there for the summer, working there, got into a fight. Oh no. And over like, oh you're playing your drums too loud, and one per, one guy killed the other guy. Oh my god. Nothing could have prepared me for that. That is so not what I thought you were going to say. I know. Wow. That's, so someone could actually write like a murder mystery novel. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. We shifted gears, but. Here's the wildest part. Like, five years ago. I don't know why, but like, because I, I don't know, should probably be like, doing something productive. I remembered that. Like, I remembered the story, so I looked it up. And I found the newspaper article on it, and the lawyer who defended the guy who shot the other guy was Christine Gutierrez, I think that's the name. Does that name sound familiar to you? No, but I feel like it should based on your face. Yeah. It was the lawyer from the Adnan Syed trial. Oh my God. Right? Remember the, the serial one? It was the same lawyer who like was unhinged. Right? That's crazy. Yeah. I know. Such a small world. What a ringing endorsement to go to Kennebunkport, my friend. Come to New England. It's great. Very safe. We love it. So take me through a little bit of like how you got into content creation because you first came up on my radar during the, the Barbie movie stuff and, but were you making content before that? Yeah, I had been, I think I started posting on TikTok probably during the pandemic when everyone else was just like funny little like trends, you know, hopping on trends and just, just for fun. And then in 2020, oh my God, like what year is it? And what year 2023? Question mark. I lost my job. I had worked in brand social, so I had always been in social media, but I'd been on the brand side of things, which I loved, and then I got laid off. My whole, our whole team got laid off. They just cut social media in general. They said, we don't need this. And they laid all of us off. And then I started, I spiraled for a little bit. Cause I had just, it's funny, the timing of things is. Hilarious always in hindsight, but I had just bought a car and then I had also just booked because I worked remotely. So I wanted to like travel while I was working. And I had booked two month long Airbnb stays, one in Charleston, South Carolina, and one in the Outer Banks in North Carolina. I had literally just done that. And then like two days later, I lost my job. So I went on this very like eat, pray, love, like, what am I doing with my life? Cause I already paid for this trip. So I'm still going to go on it while I was unemployed, which was, uh, very enlightening. And then, um, I really leaned into posting on social media for myself because I needed that creative outlet. Like I was, I really got to flex the creativity in my corporate job, which is like rare. I feel like a lot of people don't get to say that about their corporate job, but I really got to lean into it. And I was missing that. And I, as you know, from following me have like a lot of opinions and I just love. to chat. So I was just constantly finding myself reaching for my phone just to share literally whatever was coming to mind. And a few months later, I started making list videos and that's what really catapulted and kind of like snowballs over the course of that whole summer really. And now we're here. And that was also the, the summer of the Barbie, Barbie movie. So it's all kind of interconnected there. How do you feel about the fact that you coined the term in the summer of the Barbie movie a bigger meaning to it than just those words. So could you just walk people through like what that meant at the time? Yeah, I think, oh god, to be so young and naive like we were that, that summer, that fateful summer. But it was, I, I think it's funny because when I think about my content, it's kind of like dual faceted. It's half the time it's just me being silly and goofy and talking about things that everyone can relate to, like buying spinach and letting it rot in the back of your fridge. But then on the other hand, It's because, like I said, I have a lot of opinions and I'm not afraid of voicing them most of the time. It's a lot about feminism and female empowerment. And that's like a huge, huge pillar of my content as well. And so everyone was so excited that summer about the Barbie movie. And I, I think there was just like this sense of like girlhood. I think that's kind of where that all like the trend of girlhood kind of started and just. Women leading into like, wait, this is fun to like be girls together and to be there for each other and to support each other. And there was just so much community and like camaraderie in that. And then I, you know, as per always men have audacity and they always have, and they always will. And so I was like, this is kind of funny to say like, really, you're going to say that to me in the year of the Barbie movie. And it just kind of took off and it was really cool. It was, it was just like a really, I think it was. My little tiny like corner of being a part of that moment, which was really, really fun. And then it's, it's always fun when people kind of associate those things with you. It's like, Oh, like what an actual honor that like someone thinks, Oh, in the year of the Barbie movie and they associate that with me, like, that's just insane. And like, so cool. It was just, I think such a fun moment in time on social media because of the way that. You know, pop culture was at that moment and, and that was just my little piece of it. I love that. And I, I want to hold space for all of that. But I also want to say, what year of a movie are we in now? The Titanic. I would say in the year of Paddington three. And that's where he packs his bags and flees to Peru. Yeah, that totally tracks. That feels like, yeah, yeah, it's, it was. A time of hope that I look back on fondly and now, now it's a different, it's a different, I look back at it differently now, but Where do you stand with hope right now? That's a good question. I think a lot of people after the election were because because of the how hard can it be boys do it of it all is I just have a feminist mantra for every year i'm so excited to see what this year's will be but a lot of people I felt a lot of people kind of turn to me and be like what like what now do I do? Yeah, and that was so I'm, like babe, your guess is as good as mine, but I think I got to Have a front row seat Because of these, these moments that I've been a part of on social media, I'm able to see how many good people there are in the world. And that's such a blessing. And that wouldn't exist if I didn't have this job, if I didn't post the content that I had, if, you know, there's so many factors that go into it. But I remember. That was something that brought me so much peace back in November and I've kind of held on to that ever since is it's easy to feel like the bad outweighs the good in so many ways, you know, especially in something like an election where it's like the yep it and it did but there's still so much good and I don't want to diminish that I don't want to reduce that at all. And that's something that I just am continuously holding on to. Yeah, I I feel like I got some of that similar feedback after the election, people messaging me and being like, Meredith, what do we do? And you know, it's, first of all, it's two things. I feel like I'm really grateful for the platform that I have and what I've built in the community I've created. And at the same time, I also feel like I'm in a position where like, I am a straight, white, cisgendered woman, and so like, I, it is, and I'm not saying that everybo…
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