The Socially Distanced Podcast was created by two pop culture-obsessed dads during COVID who decided to take their Facebook messenger conversations and turn them into a podcast. In 2022 they brought their friend, a pop culture-obsessed mom to the show, and things got even better!
Join hosts Amanda Rivas and Bill Bodkin as they discuss everything in the world movies, music, sports, television and pop culture — everything keeping them sane in this time of socially distancing. This podcast is powered by ThePopBreak.com.
In this episode, authors Kase Wickman, Joanna Weiss, and Moira McAvoy join the Pop Break Podcasting Director Alex Marcus to discuss their upcoming book, Taylor Swift: Album by Album, set to release on October 7th, 2025.Â
The conversation touches on various topics including Taylor Swift’s announcement of her 12th studio album ‘The Life of a Showgirl,’ her re-recording projects, and her impact on fans and the music industry. The authors share insights from their book, discuss their personal journeys as Swifties, and explore how Swift engages with her fanbase through her music and Easter eggs.
In the pregame segment, Alex is joined by your regular hosts Bill Bodkin and Amanda Rivas in order to recap the summer movie season’s biggest surprises, check in on the results of Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ face off at the summer box office, and preview what’s to come in 2026 when Spider-Man: Brand New Day will square off against Supergirl for summer movie supremacy!
Here’s a little more info on this week’s guests:
Kase Wickman is a culture journalist, editor, and author. Her reporting, criticism, and commentary has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, and New York Magazine, among other publications. She is the culture & society reporter at Vanity Fair, and her first book, BRING IT ON: The Complete Story of the Cheerleading Movie That Changed, Like, Everything (No, Seriously), was published in 2022 by Chicago Review Press. Kase lives on the East Coast with her husband, daughter, and 12-foot-tall lawn skeleton, Terror Swift.
Joanna Weiss is the editor of Harvard Magazine and a longtime journalist based in Boston. Her work has appeared in the Boston Globe, POLITICO Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, The Economist, Boston Magazine, and WBUR’s Cognoscenti. She also writes rock songs with her unlikely band, The Lazy Susans. Her Boston Magazine article “For Those Moms About to Rock” has been optioned for film by 20th Century Studios.
Moira McAvoy lives, writes, and markets shows in Washington, D.C. A founding editor of Bad For You, McAvoy has also served on the editorial staff of NANO Fiction and The Rappahannock Review, and her work can be found in The Rumpus, The Financial Diet, wig-wag, and elsewhere. When not attending her next favorite concert–or promoting yours–Moira can be found taking long walks, making memes, and testing theories about Taylor Swift’s music. McAvoy is currently within the top 500 all-time global listeners for five different Swift tracks (and counting).
