John Moe joins us as we start recording and releasing new episodes in 2025 after an extended break over the winter. Maybe we are rusty, but we really take the whole "don't want to know you ahead of time" thing to an extreme with John, which he handles well. John Moe is a Twin Cities-based podcast maker, author, public speaker, and mental health advocate. He created and currently hosts the podcasts Depresh Mode with John Moe (LA Press Club Award) and Sleeping with Celebrities on the Maximum Fun network and he has created and produced podcasts for clients including the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the American Psychiatric Association, Whitman College (two higher ed marketing awards), and University of Puget Sound. Moe has hosted three national public radio programs, Wits, Marketplace Tech, and Weekend America, and he created and hosted the groundbreaking podcast, The Hilarious World of Depression (Webby Award). His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine and McSweeney’s. He is the author of four books, including the WSJ bestseller, The Hilarious World of Depression. Moe has delivered speeches on mental health all over the country. The Hilarious World of Depression was launched in late 2016 and was an instant success, quickly reaching the number two spot on the Apple Podcasts chart, garnering millions of downloads, and receiving widespread press coverage. It was based on the idea that depression is a lot more common than people realize, especially among celebrities and entertainers like comedians and musicians, and that open conversations on this often taboo topic could be a healing experience. The show won the Webby Award for Best Comedy Podcast in 2017 and led to a critically-acclaimed bestselling book of the same name in 2020. Our Whitman, My Story was conceived in collaboration with the communications staff at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. The small school had a challenge: how to attract applicants from around the world and how to get admitted students to actually enroll. The unhosted podcast series featured profiles of a diverse group of students, the kind of people who could be friends once a student arrived on campus. The podcast, which was renewed for a second season, won the CASE Circle of Excellence Award and the Educational Advertising Award. The success of the Whitman series led to another podcast at the University of Puget Sound featuring students, faculty, and alums as part of the school’s capital campaign. Depresh Mode with John Moe is a mental health interview podcast program produced in conjunction with Maximum Fun, an employee-owned co-op podcast network. Drawing on his extensive connections in the entertainment industry, John Moe has interviewed celebrities such as Jamie Lee Curtis, Patton Oswalt, and David Sedaris and won an LA Press Club award for Arts & Entertainment Journalism. Built on a public radio funding model, shows on the Max Fun network rely primarily on membership, with listeners donating to keep the shows running. Depresh Mode with John Moe has experienced consistent growth and support and after two years spawned a spinoff episode, Sleeping with Celebrities, which has shown steady growth as well. You Are Not Alone is a book by Dr. Ken Duckworth of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) based on a series of interviews with regular people sharing their earned expertise on issues of mental health. NAMI was looking for ways to promote the book and its positive message. John Moe had the resourceful idea to pull the recording of those original interviews and convert them into a podcast, You Are Not Alone: Voices of Recovery. A twenty-part interview series emerged that required no additional reporting, booking, or recording. NAMI and the American Psychiatric Association hired John to produce and co-host episodes of The Medical Mind, its interview series of psychiatric treatment. Mentioned in this episode: Dylan's Short Commercial
