Normal Gossip host Rachelle Hampton is obsessed with I Like to Watch and splurges on good butter.
Normal Gossip host Rachelle Hampton is obsessed with I Like to Watch and splurges on good butter.
Rachelle Hampton is a writer and co-owner at Defector Media , and the host of Normal Gossip , a podcast of anonymous listener-submitted stories about everyday drama. Whether that’s lies about luxury wool in a literal knitting circle, the impeachment of a hypocritical HOA president, or a COVID outbreak at a destination wedding with an absurd 25 bridesmaids, each story is unique in its absurdity, yet weirdly relatable.
After years as one of the co-hosts of Slate’s In Case You Missed It , a podcast that required her to be chronically online, Hampton is enjoying being a little more unplugged these days. And she has perhaps the most interesting answer we’ve ever received to the question “what’s worth splurging on?”
What is your most indispensable tool (analog or digital, app or hardware)?
I think it has to be the Notes app. My entire life is in there! My relationship to the Notes app definitely changes depending on what’s going on in my life at the time. Sometimes I just use it to make my grocery lists, but there was also a period of time where I used it to house my weekly to-do list, so it was basically the only thing between me and destruction. I’ve started blog drafts in the Notes app, and I’ve used it to write out particularly fraught text messages. There are recipes I’ve developed in there, as well as passwords and also questions for my doctors. The first note in my phone is from 2018, so it also serves as a nearly decade-long journal, though there are definitely notes that I simply can’t decipher, like why do I have a note from July 2020 that just says “4th floor”?
Which is the most underappreciated?
I absolutely hate texting. (I write all day, I don’t want to do it in my free time!!) But as someone who also refuses to delete their texts, I have to acknowledge that my most significant personal archive is probably in my Messages inbox.
What is the first app you install on a new phone or computer?
It’s a tie between Spotify and whatever phone game I’m currently addicted to, which for the last two years has been Township . I’ve never played Sims or Animal Crossing , but I’m told that it’s something like that. I just like planting my little crops.
How many tabs do you have open right now?
I maintain inbox zero across my entire digital life, so I close all my tabs after I finish a task. Right now I have three tabs that I will close immediately after finishing this questionnaire: the first is the Google Doc I’m typing in, the second is the landing page for this series , and the third is a Google tab where I just searched Animal Crossing to make sure I had the name right.
Which social media platform do you use the most?
It’s a tie between Reddit and YouTube. Hosting a twice-weekly podcast about the internet for three years either gave me some sort of PTSD or cured me of my social media addiction, depending on how you want to look at it. I can’t spend more than twenty minutes max on IG or X or Bluesky without feeling claustrophobic. The exception is when I’m sick, and I let my fever brain rot on IG reels. Otherwise, it just feels like too much information from too many different sources. Reddit and YouTube are both places where I feel somewhat in control of what I’m seeing.
I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy online as I was on Tumblr between 2013 and 2016. I’m always subconsciously chasing that high.
What is your favorite gadget you’ve ever owned?
My older brother bought me a tabletop Klipsch Bluetooth speaker for Christmas a couple of years ago, and it’s still going strong. The sound quality is incredible, and the design is super sexy, so it doesn’t immediately read as a Bluetooth speaker, which I love. I hope I never have to replace it.
Which tech trend do you wish would go away?
One of the stances I’m proudest of is that I’ve never (intentionally) used ChatGPT or Midjourney or any of the other generative AI tools / large language models. It’s getting harder and harder to avoid now that Gemini is built into Google and its various products. Stop trying to write my emails, Gemini!! I’ve never been swayed away from my belief that every single AI company owes a bankrupting amount of money to the writers and artists whose work their products are built on. Until that debt is paid, there’s nothing appealing to me about talking to a chatbot or creating a shitty poster.
What creation are you most proud of?
In 2020, when I was a staff writer at Slate , I spent a [redacted amount of time] methodically charting and ranking all 349 times Stephenie Meyer used the word murmur in her iconic Twilight saga. The idea had been germinating somewhere in the recesses of my brain for over a decade, only to be released by the surprise 2020 release of Midnight Sun. Seeing this blog come to life (shout out Slate’s interactive designer Natalie Matthews-Ramo!) felt like a fever dream come true.
I’ve rewatched every episode of Netflix’s I Like to Watch with drag queens Trixie Mattel and Katya an embarrassing amount of times. There are certain episodes, like this one where Trixie and Katya react to Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery , that I can quote front to back.
What do you do when you’re feeling stuck?
I wish I could say something chill and zen like take a cold shower or something, but the truth is when I’m writing and feeling stuck, I usually smoke a little weed, preferably a sativa strain. Getting high gets me out of my own way, which is usually the problem when I’m feeling stuck. It particularly helps with scriptwriting for Normal Gossip because the tone is so conversational, so being a little bit high stops me from over-writing.
When was the last time you went somewhere without your phone?
My favorite coffee shop is less than 500 ft from my apartment, so I end up there without my phone at least once a week, either on purpose or by accident.
What do you think is worth splurging on?
Butter! With the caveat that I live by myself and don’t bake, so butter lasts a while in my household, but good butter can change a whole meal. It makes eating toast feel like a luxury instead of a chore to be completed between meetings because I’ve forgotten to eat lunch. My floor for butter is Kerrygold, but recently I’ve been loving this French brand called Isigny Sainte-Mère.
What would the tagline for your biopic be?
What’s the last GIF or meme you used?
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