Intro for August 15, 2025

Dear Gossips,  

Taylor Swift has given us a great gossip week—one reason I believe she is a great gossip herself is because she knows so well how to stoke gossip cycles—but let’s not lose sight of the other gossip happening right now: Marc Maron versus every right-wing comic (with bonus Jon Stewart beef). 

Maron is a long-standing figure in comedy, active since the 1980s, popular since the 1990s, successful since the 2010s. Slight burn on Maron’s career there, which is in good humor and really about how his podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, launched him into a new realm of fame. Alongside Bill Burr—with whom Marc Maron also has beef—Maron was early to the podcasting game, starting WTF in 2009. He and Burr helped popularize podcasting as the second home of standup comedians, though Maron announced earlier this summer he will be retiring WTF this fall. Now he’s in The Hollywood Reporter, talking about his post-WTF future. Hint: he’s been acting a lot more recently, that will probably continue.

But more importantly, with a new standup special (Panicked on HBO Max), a new animated film (The Bad Guys 2), and a new TV show (Sticks) to promote, Maron is going on everyone else’s podcasts and talking about other comedians. If you’re at all familiar with Marc Maron, you know this is one of his favorite pastimes, but he’s mostly addressing a bit in Panicked in which he mocks Theo Von, and by extension right-wing comic podcasters. NSFW language if you’re in the office:

The thing about Marc Maron is that he can be a real asshole, but like…he’s not wrong. Plus, that’s a pretty good Theo Von impression. (Von, if you don’t know, is the second coming of Joe Rogan and hosted Trump on his podcast in 2024.) The other thing about Marc Maron is that Panicked ends with an incredible bit about Maron discovering the meaning of Taylor Swift’s Midnights, which if we lived in a more balanced age, would be getting way more attention, that the Gen X music snob comedian discovered his TSwift era and fully embraced it. He does a pretty great cover of “Bigger Than the Whole Sky”:

The THIRD thing about Marc Maron is that I saw him perform in 2019 and a guy I was with at the time was totally baffled by the women clamoring for Maron’s attention, but 1) don’t underrate the wide appeal of the shaggy professor look he’s got going on, and 2) he just spent 60+ minutes being vulnerable and expressing uncertainty and doubt in front of a crowd, you think that isn’t sexy? A lot of dudes have been confused about Maron’s ability to pull incredible women over the years, but he built his career on vulnerability. To quote philosopher Paris Hilton, that’s hot!  

He also built his career on sh-t talking, so if you want some primo comedy gossip, check out pretty much any comedian’s podcast over the last month and for sure Marc Maron has been on talking sh-t about other comedians. Highlights include Good One, The Endless Honeymoon Podcast with Moshe Kasher and Natasha Leggero, Howie Mandel Does Stuff, Ryan Sickler’s HoneyDew, and, because it’s always worth it to hear Conan talk to other comics, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. Seriously, Marc Maron is living his best life, talking wild sh-t on other comics, many of whom have done material harm to the socio-political fabric of the US. It’s the low-stakes summer gossip we deserve.

Live long and gossip,

Sarah