TOWSON, Md. — Local woman Cassandra Fedge is feeling mounting pressure from her parents to “get serious” and start a podcast with her longtime boyfriend, according to sources within her Sunday brunch group.
“My parents keep talking about how their friends’ daughters are all starting podcasts with their partners. They’re really getting up my ass about it,” said Fedge. “The straw that broke the camel’s back was my cousin Sara. She and her boyfriend are in their late thirties and have been together forever. Nobody thought they were ever going to settle down and start a podcast together. But then Sara made a Facebook post saying the two of them are launching one recapping ‘Supernatural’ from the beginning. My mom called me within minutes.”
Fedge’s boyfriend Thad Susser said that while the two of them are in love, they feel they’re still pretty young to be making that kind of commitment.
“We’re only in our mid-twenties,” said Susser. “We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us, and people are pushing us to make these big, content-based decisions. Her parents don’t understand that not everyone has to follow the same path. If and when we do start a podcast together, maybe it won’t be a traditional arrangement. Maybe it’ll be the two of us hosting, but sometimes we’ll bring on a third. It’s the 21st century for Christ’s sake.”
Relationship advice podcaster Sheila Lovelock said she sees some red flags in Fedge and Susser’s case.
“When a couple—especially a young white couple like this who share common interests in video games and movies—have been together for a few years and still express no desire to start a podcast, it could be a sign that the relationship is in trouble,” said Lovelock. “Really, they should be grateful for the way things are now. They should think of it from their parents’ point of view: when their generation was young, podcasts didn’t even exist. Couples basically had to talk to each other one-on-one all the time, with no audience or Patreon subscribers at all.”
At press time, the couple had agreed to join a Dungeons & Dragons group which streams weekly on Twitch as a compromise to appease Fedge’s parents.