Ned Fulmer, the former Try Guy who made a big splash yesterday with a People exclusive announcing his new podcast Rock Bottom, managed to figure out a way to leverage his wife Ariel one more time.
Spoiler alert: the podcast feed for Rock Bottom is built on top of a podcast he made with his wife.
You see, Rock Bottom, a podcast that “explores people’s lowest, most embarrassing, and challenging moments” isn’t a new podcast. It technically is, given there’s one trailer and the first episode is due to come out later today. Except… mechanically it isn’t.
Back in 2020 Ned and Ariel Fulmer launched a podcast called Baby Steps, charting their journey through pregnancy and raising their child. This was natural lockdown content for the Fulmers given Ned’s branding as one of the three Try Guys was “wife guy.” A lot of what made this cheating controversy so potent for online discussion is that wifeguy energy. If you tried to make a cheating scandal in a lab, you’d get something close to Ned Fulmer as the perfect target to shock the world. (Ironically, he seems pissed in retrospect he wasn’t that shocking as the podcast description for Rock Bottom mentions the incident was TIME magazine’s sixth most viral moment of 2022).
Baby Steps was an audio-first Acast-hosted RSS feed distributed to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and video episodes uploaded to YouTube. Probably.
Why do I say probably?
Fulmer Media, Ned’s production company, wiped it. The RSS feed for Rock Bottom with Ned Fulmer is actually the Baby Steps feed. YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, all of the links if you search Baby Steps now lead to pages that have been wiped of Baby Steps branding.
It should be noted, rebranding a feed is not unheard of in podcasting. The lightest examples include podcasts designed around changing their artwork every series, such as Blank Check with Griffin and David whipping out new episode artwork based on the movies of whatever director their current miniseries is focused on. The overall name of the podcast and show art remains the same, but the episode art changes.
A little further down the line in intensity you get podcasts like Headlong: Finding Richard Simmons that rebrand every season. Instead of making net-new documentary podcasts that might flop, Headlong posts new episodes to the Finding Richard Simmons feed (retroactively branded Headlong to make the new seasons make sense) and changes the show art to match the current season. Whenever they’re between seasons, they swap the show art back to Finding Richard Simmons so it can passively make cash off the critical acclaim the first “season” still receives.
Outright wiping a feed and starting over with its built-in subscriber base and positive reviews is also not a new tactic and is somewhat common in the podcasting industry. It tends to happen at companies where it’s not uncommon for a podcast host to not own the IP of their show and hosts aren’t permenant employees. Journalists, for instance, will find their podcasts out on the streets with a new coat of paint and someone else’s name on the pink slip. The first few episodes generally cause confusion as people open Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts wondering where the hell this thing they didn’t subscribe to came from, but clicks are clicks.
Mechanically, from a business perspective, Fulmer had a podcast feed that has been sitting making fuck-all money for years at this point with no chance of new episode being produced. He also has a new podcast coming that’s basically destined to make money in the short term.
By wiping Baby Steps branding and starting the feeds “fresh” he gets a leg up. The thousands of people still subscribed to Baby Steps on Apple Podcasts will auto-download the trailer and possibly the first episode before catching on. Some will stick around, some will unsubscribe, but there is a mechanical advantage to physically getting your show art in the library of thousands of people. Quite a few will morbidly listen even if they’ve made up their minds that Fulmer’s cheating scandal was a bridge too far.
If you were a fan of Ariel Fulmer back in 2020 it’s highly likely Ned is gonna pop up in your podcast consumption device of choice this afternoon interviewing Ariel on Rock Bottom. Or it might even pop up on YouTube recommendations as the 62,0000 Baby Steps subscribers get a notification of a new upload.
Is it a good look? No. Will it work? Probably. Hell, knowing what we know about how YouTube’s recommendation algorithms sometimes dislike larger channels uploading regularly. Ironically as we speak the existing Try Guys are doing their store-brand Good Mythical Morning daily channel work because, these days, you don’t upload regularly to a popular channel. You let it sit for occasional uploads and use a second, newer channel to crank out daily/weekly content to appease The Algorithm.
THE FOLLOWING IS ADDED AFTER THE RELEASE OF THE FIRST EPISODE
Now, this is the part where I get boring and realistic about all this: Ariel Fulmer’s likely both aware of and supported wiping Baby Steps. In the now-released first episode she indicates she’s not going back to her existing podcast(s) and that period of her life is “behind” her. But she’s likely also a part of Fulmer Media, the company that originally launched Baby Steps and likely has a vested interest in whatever Ned makes next.
Leaving aside the whole logistics of a technically married-but-separated couple, the fact of the matter is Ned Fulmer is an influencer/content creator. Rock Bottom is a way for him to start making money again, and I’d be surprised if Ariel Fulmer doesn’t also get paid out of Fulmer Media.
The first episode of Rock Bottom got a free boost from Baby Steps, and it’s got the dynamically-inserted ads in the audio version to take full advantage of that. Even if it’s a little disjointing to hear Ned’s “I just cried” deep raggedy sad voice say he’s going to interview his wife and then in cuts the O’Reilly’s Auto Parts jingle. Whether the podcast will be a success long term remains to be seen, but as far as a launch, I’m guessing it worked. Drama subreddits are live-blogging responses to the episode, it’s racking up thousands of views slowly but steadily on YouTube.
It’s not an honorable tactic, pulling a bait-and-switch on your audience. Sorry to anyone who expected a “but” qualifier there. I genuinely don’t have anything else to add to that. Even if she’s in on it and making cash off what looks to be a podcast built to rehabilitate cancelled celebrities… pretty sleazy way to start it.
It feels like an admission the idea can’t survive on its own merits. It had to “cheat” to boost the first episode, even with a People magazine feature and TMZ drama post. Podcasting has never been a meritocracy, but even “sincere” ones like Rock Bottom feel the need to take sketchy shortcuts.
Creative Writing, Podcasting, and Love of Media 