'We’re disgusting, weirdness-obsessed weirdos ourselves': Cork Podcast Festival preview
Creep Dive podcast hosts: Cassie Delaney, Jen O'Dwyer and Sophie White. They present a live show as part of Cork Podcast Festival.
The Creep Dive does what it says on the tin. Since starting in 2018, it has explored shameful, mind-bending stories, ones that make the front pages of the National Enquirer, the notorious American tabloid newspaper, look tame. Here’s a flavour: the woman who went on a Tinder date with a cannibal; Catherine the Great’s sex chair; a twentieth century serial-killing Greek nun, who might be the most evil woman in history; Randy Mr Hands, “the equestrian who came to an untimely end after horsing around in bestiality”.
“The bedrock of it is that we’re disgusting, weirdness-obsessed weirdos ourselves,” says Sophie White, who co-hosts the podcast with Jen O’Dwyer and Cassie Delaney. “The three of us are creeps when we get together. Our WhatsApp chat was always links to weird stories we were reading. Back before we started it, murder and true crime podcasts were huge. I said, ‘Why don’t we do a weird podcast that's everything but murder.’ We agreed: ‘let's do the weirdest shit we can find on the Internet – hoaxers, scam artists, death fakers, everything like that.’
"The creep addicts slackened the rule about murder, but bypass paedophile stories if possible. [White and O’Dwyer, friends since five years of age, also host a parenting podcast.] Everything else is up for grabs, and it’s not all gloom and gore. They also dive into intriguing stories like, say, the Nigerian grifter who sold a fake airport to a bank for $242 million.
The show’s key ingredient is the humour and rapport between White and her co-hosts. It’s a true crime comedy podcast with a capital “C” for comedy. Their wry, scabrous banter would leave you snorting with laughter, and accounts for their cult-like following. The pandemic in 2020 was a pivotal moment for the podcast. They started doing weekly live shows on Zoom, attracting, to their amazement, audiences of 300, isolated and lonely people eager for interaction.
“The thing that came out of that was that people who listened got to know us, but also got to know each other,” says White. “It’s a podcast where the stuff we discuss is deplorable, the stories we cover are horrible, but there's a heartwarming element, which has been that we've gotten to make friends with people who listen. It feels like a real gang.
“We’ve had relationships. We've had people get in touch with us to say, ‘Me and my boyfriend got together because of The Creep Dive.’ Somebody was on one of the apps and recognised another person from their Patreon profile. So they sent a DM (direct message) on the app and said, ‘Are you a creep?’ The other person said, ‘I am.’ Now they’re going strong. It’s so nice.”
The Creep Dive has posted about a thousand episodes, half of which are freely available online. According to Patreon, it has monthly membership earnings of close to €5,000. It’s riding a wave in which several Irish podcasts – including Blindboy’s; Second Captains; and My Therapist Ghosted Me – have attracted listeners from around the world. White has seen changes in the industry over the last decade.
“The main one is big celebrities having a podcast; now Conan O’Brien has a podcast. It's legitimised podcasting. That’s fascinating. Popular science podcasts are really big. It’s problematic, adding to misinformation everywhere on the internet. You know, you're listening to some guy who claims he has a lab in Harvard and he's teaching about, say, optimum nutrition, which can seem on the face of it benign. Then suddenly you've been radicalised and you're listening to Jordan Peterson entirely without irony.”
White is a novelist and essayist as well as a podcaster. She has spoken publicly and written about her struggles with mental illness, including two acclaimed non-fiction books, Recipes for a Nervous Breakdown and Corpsing: My Body & Other Horror Shows. She singles out Larry Walters, an American who followed his dream when everyone said he was crazy, as a personal favourite story from The Creep Dive.
“The odd time we drift and we go into the nice territory. ‘Lawnchair Larry’ wanted to fly his lawn chair using weather balloons. He worked on this dream. He crash-landed many times. He eventually did it. There is a sad end to his story. Years later, he walked into the wilderness. He died by suicide.
“The journey of that story – having this passion, probably not one most people understand, realising it, potentially not finding your place in the world still, even after all that – stuck with me. I have bipolar. I've written about it. I talk about it on the podcast, when relevant. I first felt suicidal when I was 22. I have a connection to his story, but I would say that’s not an uncommon experience. Many other people felt that connection. We've had people show up to shows dressed as Lawnchair Larry.
“Creep Dive listeners and us feel like a community. In 2020, I was hospitalised after a bad episode of mental illness. I missed a few recordings. At the beginning of the next episode, I talked about what happened. That sparked so many messages from people, reassuring me – they'd been there too, they were doing better, and I’d do better. I can't overstate how fucked-up The Creep Dive can be, but some of the best people in the world are interested in fucked-up stuff. People are probably like, ‘Oh, it's just a podcast.’ But it's gotten me – and all of us – through difficult times, like losing people through Covid, all the stuff life throws at you. That’s special.”
- The Creep Dive will perform a live show at the Cork Podcast Festival, Live at St Lukes, Saturday, March 22
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