There is a non-negotiable requirement for individuals fortunate enough to be invited to Alex Cooper’s podcast. Put simply, she expects her guests to lay bare their most profound and personal thoughts and emotions. This rule, as intriguing as it sounds, has brought significant success for Cooper. She has managed to get some significant figures such as Jane Goodall and Kamala Harris, to expose their innermost contemplations to her audience without holdbacks.
For those unfamiliar with Cooper, here is a brief on her. Cooper is a strikingly attractive American who hosts the phenomenal podcast, Call Her Daddy. Her fame is particularly linked to an episode of the podcast that went viral, especially for the explicit content it explored. She has been able to capture the attention of female listeners with her bold, non-conservative, advice style implemented since the podcast’s first launch in 2018. As a testament to its success, the podcast clocks nearly five million downloads per episode.
Only the Joe Rogan Experience surpasses the popularity of Alex Cooper’s podcast on Spotify. Furthermore, Cooper’s achievements in podcasting could hardly be overlooked after signing a three-year exclusivity deal with Spotify, rounding up to $60 million. Moreover, she recently replaced Spotify with SiriusXM as her advertising and distribution partner after signing a three-year agreement that gained her a staggering amount of $125 million.
Climbing the Success ladder further in October last year, Cooper uploaded a rather controversial interview with Kamala Harris captured during the final stretch of her presidential campaign. Harris refrained from discussing her personal life, yet she spoke about her upbringing and her political career. Strangely, she decided to retort to Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s notion that her lack of biological children implied she lacked humility. Harris, quite arrogantly, claimed, ‘Family comes in many forms’.
Oddly enough, Cooper’s foray into the world of media wasn’t a product of chance. Her childhood and upbringing might elucidate her present endeavors. Born and raised in Newton, Pennsylvania, Cooper was the youngest among her three siblings. Her father was a television sports producer for an ice hockey team, and her mother dealt with psychological matters professionally. Cooper spawned a knack for storytelling, fueled by her father’s profession and her childhood fascination with the camera.
Cooper fostered her fascination with editing; she learned Adobe Premier at the age of nine. She loved the power that editing gave her to determine pacing and timing. Equally intriguing for her was the Soccer field. Earning herself a full scholarship to Boston University in 2013, she played soccer, setting the stage for her future endeavors.
Moving on from Boston University, she initiated a YouTube channel. Then, a spark of an idea was suggested – to start a podcast. The theme was women, specifically, their intimate lives and experiences. Soon after the initiation of her podcast, she received recognition from Dave Portnoy, the founder of the popular culture website Barstool Sports. Impressed with Cooper’s self-reliance in editing her own shows, he intended to recruit her. Consequently, a deal worth $70,000 was signed.
However one might perceive her outspoken demeanor, Cooper’s success formula seems to partially depend on her explicit detail towards content and the guests she invites. She shows a unique level of dedication to women, evidenced by her advocacy for improved intimate experiences, empowerment, and general life wisdom. This drive is what fuels her audaciousness in asking explicit questions and providing candid advice.
She isn’t shy about sharing her life experiences either. It’s clear that the persona she embodies in her podcast is an invention of her own. From the onset, she exerted control over aspects such as cover artwork, foreseeing the difficulty of substitution for herself as the host. An apparent aspect of her strategy also involved getting more financial leverage than her counterpart, arguing that the workload she carried was heavier.
In 2020, realizing the expansive potential of the show, Cooper revisited the deal with Portnoy to have ownership of the share’s Intellectual Property, which her colleague, Franklyn, was not willing to partake in. However, this didn’t deter her; she decided to cut off Franklyn. In Cooper’s words, ‘I’d realized the Daddy Gang was bigger than both of us.
If one notion in feminism involves a woman anchoring her brand identity based on her confidence, freedom, sexual liberation, then it appears Cooper has nailed it. However, an observant eye would notice the glimpse of the timid, nervous teenager persistently emerging while watching the documentary documenting her journey. It seems Cooper has taken certain off-road paths, and she displays no indication of discontinuing.
Cooper’s place in the world of podcasting cannot be ignored with the cultural imprint she has achieved over the years. Her success story reflects more than just hosting a popular podcast, but it also depicts her evolution from a painstakingly shy teenager to a confident woman in the media industry. Though her story indicates that she has bulldozed her way through challenges, it still raises the question of her ethical execution in handling situations.
Cooper’s journey marks notable milestones, but how she acquired her fame and fortune comes under scrutiny when evaluating its moral implications. There is no questioning her influence and the impression she made in the industry. However, the continuous disregard of ethical boundaries for attaining success, as seen in her approach, raises important questions that should be addressed in the media industry globally.