Fascinating, twee, hilarious, and problematic
Introducing my new podcast
Really Good Tomatoes is a newsletter about culture, behaviour, food, art, relationships, pleasure, politics, work, environment, identity, and society. In short, it is a newsletter about life, and the things that give it meaning.
It is written by me - Franki - a freelance writer and Tired Person™️. So if you’re enjoying it, now would be a really good time to consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
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I made a thing…
If you follow me on Instagram you’ve probably seen me alluding to some “new project” I’ve been working on. The keen-eyed among you may have even spotted that it’s a podcast. I’ve been holding off announcing it because I wanted to get my ducks in a row as far as a launch date goes, and because, as ever, I am trying to do this *properly* and, amongst other things, that means getting the timing right.
Over the last week, however, I have started posting on the social media account, I have put feelers out to recruit an assistant, and as of yesterday I have had a PR strategy meeting to discuss how to get the show out into the world and, crucially, into the ears of as many people as possible. So it seems like it’s time to talk about it and, for my paid subscribers, there’s also a little sneak preview.
And so, friends, I am both delighted and excited to introduce my new podcast!
Here’s what we’re saying about it on our official channels…
Mag Hags is the culture and history podcast that every modern woman should know.
Join your hosts Lucy Douglas and Franki Cookney as they dive into the glossy archives of women’s magazines to find out what's still hot and what's definitely not.
Each episode, we take a look at a vintage issue of a mag from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, celebrating the good, and raising an eyebrow at some of the more questionable takes.
It is launching on WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 02 2024 and it will be available wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram to get the latest updates and be the first to hear it.
And here’s what I want to tell you about it…
My co-host, Lucy, and I have been kicking around the idea for this show for a couple of years now. She’s a journalist too and we met in 2016 after I posted in a freelance Facebook group that I was looking for people to have coffee and co-work with. We hit it off and soon started hanging out outside of work hours (there’s always that lovely moment with a new friend when one of you goes “D’you wanna… maybe… get a drink?”). Since then we’ve become close friends, and so in 2021 when I was going through multiple rounds of interviews for the recently-vacated Sex and Relationships Editor job at Cosmopolitan, it was Lucy I was sending anguished voice notes to. For one of the rounds, I had been set the task of suggesting features for the forthcoming 50 year anniversary edition. So I was going through vintage issues of Cosmopolitan, pulling out what I considered to be the major sex and relationships stories, because, of course, in its heyday, Cosmo was really at the vanguard of reporting on sex and gender equality. In doing this research, I encountered a lot of other interesting stories and headlines from yesteryear, by turns fascinating, twee, hilarious, and problematic, which I would photograph and text to Lucy.
At some point, as we chatted back and forth about them, she said, “You know, this would be a great idea for a podcast.”
Of course, people say things like that all the time so I didn’t give it too much thought. Plus, I was in the middle of applying for a job. Then (because as you will have deduced, I did not get the job) I was busy putting out my existing podcast. Then I was ghost-writing a book. Then I had a baby.
But Lucy kept reminding me about it and I kept agreeing it was a good idea. Finally, in the summer of 2023, we sat down and made a pilot. We sent it to a few select friends and colleagues for feedback and from there we began to develop the format you’ll be hearing in this first series.
Our aim with the show is to pay homage to the golden age of magazine publishing, while also providing something of a social history of late 20th century British womanhood. In many cases these are the magazines that made us want to become journalists in the first place and we wanted to celebrate the qualities that made them so popular and relevant and charming in their heyday, while also interrogating their more problematic elements. We examine the significance of the stories for women at the time, how they’ve led us to where we are today, and what we can learn from that.
A 1988 column about “the dangers of too much television” sounds hilarious at first glance (there were, after all, just four TV channels in the UK at the time) but dig into it a bit and you soon see that we are still having this exact conversation. Only now we’re having it about social media and smartphone use. Similarly, sex advice from 1982 comes across as twee, using phrases like “fondle”, '“proffered embrace” and “love-play,” but read on and you quickly discover that we continue to encounter the same challenges 40 years later.
“Honest talk about sex is still uncomfortable for most people,” begins one such feature from a vintage issue of Cosmopolitan. “The criticism that implies one is not a good lover strikes at the most fragile and sensitive component of self esteem. But we seldom stop to think how strange this is. No one automatically assumes that he or she without schooling and experience could become a competent artist, craftsman, scientist or chef. Likewise, no one is born with a special talent for sex.”
A few minor tweaks to the syntax, and that’s a paragraph I could have written in a sex and relationships feature this week.
Needless to say, I am really excited about this show. It feels like a natural segue. I can bring all of my sex and relationships knowledge and expertise to it, but it also goes beyond that, to other aspects of culture and lifestyle, behaviour and politics. It’s linguistically fascinating and it’s a valuable insight into the changing media landscape. It’s also fun. And hopefully funny. Lucy and I certainly making this podcast from a place of love but that doesn’t mean we’ve thrown irreverence out the window. If you’re a paid subscriber, you can listen to the trailer below to get a taste.
In addition to fortnightly episodes, we will also be producing a newsletter, Mag Hags, in which we will share the features, adverts, and design elements of the magazine that we discuss in the show. It’s also where we will publish the transcripts, and share bonus material. This will go out twice a week. Why not pop over there and sign up now?
We chose Substack (over, for example, Patreon) because it seemed like the best and most accessible way to share the source materials, but it’s also a super important part of how we plan to fund the podcast. Those of you who followed (or indeed supported) the making of my last podcast series
will know that I crowdfunded my budget up front and used that to pay for my editor and audio producer. This time, I’m doing it the other way around. I’m putting up the cash myself and then hoping to make it back through advertising, sponsorship, and listener support.Ngl it’s scary. Will it work? I believe it can, but I won’t know until we try. For such a long time now we’ve just accepted the idea that “people don’t want to pay for content” but if my experience making BAD SEX taught me anything it’s that there are people out there who understand that creative work is work (not a hobby), and who are willing to support the creators they like and respect. And for all that I remain sceptical about Substack, I do think it’s helping shift the relationship between audiences and creators.
Beyond that, what else do you need to know?
Well, I suppose now is a good time to confess that I’m nervous. I’m nervous because, due to the aforementioned budgetry constraints, I’m doing all the editing and audio production on this show. These are not skills I previously possessed! Sure, I used to edit The Second Circle back in 2016-2019 but I am not an audio producer or sound designer by any stretch of the imagination and this has been a big, big learning curve for me. And by “learning curve” I mean there were days where all I did was sit at my desk and cry. There were days where I literally thought I might throw my computer out of the attic window. There were streams of consciousness about my loathing of the process sent in both text and voicenote form to friends and family. I promise I’m not over-egging this. I hate doing audio production. But I also can’t let it go. Once I start, I get obsessive. But I lack the knowledge and skills to achieve the sound I want, so then the loathing kicks in again, and round we go.
If there was a more compelling reason for people to subscribe to the newsletter and help me gather enough funds to pay a freelance producer, I struggle to think of it. But, again, this depends a lot on the audience/creator relationship. Do people care enough about me personally to help lighten my load in this way? I guess we’ll find out. In the meantime it’s a compelling reason for me to promote the everloving fuck out of this podcast and its accompanying Substack and so you’d better believe I will be doing that. RIP your Instagram feed.
Finally, I just wanted to say a really impassioned thank you for your support here. Whether you signed up when it was The Overthinker’s Guide To Sex or you’ve joined me since I rebranded as Really Good Tomatoes, your interest and faith in my work is a huge part of how I keep going. You’ll already be aware, because I’ve written about it before, that I don’t make a lot of money from this newsletter. But I do make a bit and, at risk of quoting a major British supermarket brand, all the bits of money are good.
I’m so excited to share this new project with you. I hope you like it.
