Alex Cooper on ‘Call Her Daddy’ Podcast, Authenticity, and Community

Alex Cooper is every thing I loathe in a person. She’s enjoyment, blonde, self-assured, loud, effective, a podcast host, and does not promptly shower right after receiving off a plane. She’s every thing I’m not and wish I was—my inverse psychological classification—and I’m obsessed with her.

“There are two varieties of people today in the entire world: dumb sensible individuals and clever dumb people,” she claims to me as we make our way as a result of LAX airport. “Which just one are we?” I question.

“Smart dumb, clearly,” she replies. A dumb smart person, she goes on to clarify, is someone with zero instinct about individuals but “knows about, like, books, and matters.” Sensible dumb individuals, I conclude, are the reverse. We are traveling to New York Town for the weekend—a prepare we made in hopes that, if we flew across the nation, there would be no option but to depart our respective households. It was intended to be a refreshingly chilly adjust of landscapes from Los Angeles, the place we both live. Fall, I’m told by people today who dwell with seasons. It finished up currently being a terrifying 75 levels and was also, regrettably, the past weekend in October, identified to some as the dreaded “Halloweekend.” Not noticing this until we had presently strayed 3,000 miles from our residences, we resigned to however another weekend of sweatpants and staying in—there was only no other possibility.

I knew Alex was famous, but it turns out Alex is evidently really well known. Possibly the only individual who has at any time achieved this degree of fame from a podcast, rather than become a celebrity who then decides the environment would basically be amiss if they did not begin a podcast. Strolling by means of the West Village with Alex was like tailing Elvis: adoring, beautiful women of all ages throwing them selves at her left and proper, screaming “daddy!” at the major of their lungs. But what I also noticed was an uncommon type of fan partnership. Alex and her listeners interact as if they are mates from rest-away camp. Ladies who haven’t witnessed each other in years and have a ton to catch up on. It took me no less than a dozen of these interactions for me to eventually cease inquiring, “How do you men know each other?”

Contrary to some superstars who covertly try for a cultish fandom that blindly follows what ever they do, Alex has managed to create a true community—one in which she and her listeners trade stories, suggestions, and concepts. She is not offering anything at all. She will in no way ask you to commit your difficult-acquired paycheck on her new hair extension line. Her devoted listeners, a.k.a. “Daddy Gang,” (a moniker Alex coined in the early times of the display, predicting it would make individuals truly feel like they were being a section of anything) aren’t afraid to give her constructive criticism, since she can take it like a champ. In truth, she has been publicly referred to as out on a lot more than 1 event, and while this might cause others (me) to flee the state and believe a new identification, Alex has proven herself to be able of reflection, and possesses an nearly superhuman potential to snicker at herself. She’s authentic with her viewers even in conversation about moments she wasn’t becoming authentic (wow…BeReal seriously ruined the word “real”).

In September 2021, a TikTok account attempted to expose her for photoshopping the aspect of her midsection in an Instagram publish. After a few days that she describes as “mildly uncomfortable,” she responded by releasing an episode aptly titled, “I Obtained Caught Photoshopping.” She does not fake to be above the factors that we as young women living in the nightmare of modern-day world wide web lifestyle get sucked into, but also understands how crucial it is to talk about them.

According to a report from Need Sage, as of June 2022, there are in excess of 2.4 million podcasts in the media landscape. Of individuals, there are in all probability just one million podcasts titled something along the lines of Two Ladies, 1 Glass of Wine, each and every spewing the exact same given commentary on dating, like, “Girl, hear, if a guy is harmful, you want to reduce him out of your everyday living.” Even nevertheless Phone Her Daddy’s pure existence was ahead of the podcast curve by nearly a decade, Alex’s opinions have hardly ever been obvious or shallow. “As a lot as men and women say [Call Her Daddy] is polarizing, it was me trying to obtain a way for gals in the earth we are residing in, where we are not just bitching and moaning, complaining about the patriarchy,” she tells me. “Oh, you want the ability? Right here are a pair tips to acquire the energy from the within out.”

This mission statement nonetheless serves as a north star for Alex, and is partly the purpose the legion of persons attempting to emulate her ascension does not hassle her. “I am my very own competitiveness,” she states. “I never spend attention to what other people are performing and I do not consume other people’s written content so I can preserve an unique voice. When I started, I had never ever listened to a podcast in my lifestyle. I aim on who I am somewhat than developments and rapid warm requires that are not going to previous.” A high-quality you have to admire in this day and age where by rapidly-going tendencies and unlimited comparison dwell on a screen that is forever attached to us.

What differentiates Simply call Her Daddy in this kind of an oversaturated current market is how deftly Alex traverses this kind of a huge assortment of subject areas. She released year 2 with a notify-all interview with Hailey Bieber, where by she dove into salacious tabloid drama from yrs previous. This episode was adopted by a human desire piece in North Carolina, interviewing the staff and women of all ages who visited A Preferred Women’s Health and fitness Center abortion clinic in Charlotte to study the effects of Roe v. Wade getting overturned.

Phone Her Daddy has grow to be a secure house for individuals to take a look at everything from sex to mental wellbeing. Prospective visitors basically operate to the pod as their to start with close friend to phone right after big community turmoil, though Alex patiently listens to their side of the tale without the need of judgment—a talent she attributes to developing up with a specialist psychologist for a mother. “When I was younger, and still to this working day, I will walk into my property and just one of my buddies will be sitting on my sofa talking to my mom. Expanding up, I would get discouraged that she was so intuitive, mainly because she would constantly know if I was lying. But now I experience so grateful, simply because it built her there for me and my friends in a way other dad and mom couldn’t be.” Alex herself typically strategies the interviews from a psychoanalytic perspective, generating the listening experience feel like what 1 hopes to get from their individual remedy session—that is, if your therapist referred to as you a “hoe” and gave you specific recommendations on how to masturbate.

The steady by way of line that attracts listeners in 7 days by week, while, is Alex’s unabashed authenticity. She arrives to the mic ready to provide up her unfiltered impression and direct a dynamic, no-holds-barred conversation, and with that, she serves up a piece of herself. Her significant audience isn’t here for her movie star company or gossip, they are listed here for her. “One 7 days I’ll have a comedian on, and the subsequent I’ll have somebody who talks about their childhood trauma,” she says, throwing a Cheeto into her mouth and immediately wiping her fingers on the hotel bathrobe. “I have a loyal audience that sticks with me even when I change up my content material. I do not adhere with what I know.”

What Alex does feel to know is how to make people today snicker. Numerous of her tales remind me of the Nora Ephron mantra that her mom instructed her when she was younger: “When you slip on a banana peel, persons chortle at you. But when you explain to people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your chortle, so you turn out to be a hero relatively than the sufferer of the joke.” For Alex, it is sharing horrors like the time she vomited her dinner on her boyfriend’s cock, or when she went to the hospital in Las Vegas on her birthday because of to a kidney infection she contracted from again-to-entrance intercourse. You know, traditional Nora…

Cohabitating in a one hotel home for a few evenings is the kind of point that can make or break a fairly new friendship. Frustrating patterns are disclosed, and questionable moral ideas come to the area. Prior to leaving L.A., I experienced requested Alex to set her hood up on the plane if she wasn’t preparing on washing her hair just before we shared a bed that night time. Thankfully, I do not snore, as she said if I did, she’d “suffocate me with a pillow with zero regret.” Anticipating to come across out what shameful high-quality of mine or hers would guide to the untimely demise of our romance, I in its place obtained a whole grasp on how singular the culture of Connect with Her Daddy really is, and that if Alex is a intelligent dumb human being, it is achievable she’s the smartest dumb man or woman alive.

Photographer: Emilio Madrid hair: Frankie Calire makeup: Carolina Dali