Meet Meredith Haggerty, the new host of the TLDR podcast

TLDR, the podcast from WNYC’s On the Media about the internet and its particular peculiarities, has a new host: Meredith Haggerty. Haggerty lives in Park Slope and used to work on the blogs owned by dating site How About We.

She just released her third podcast for the show, founded by PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman, who recently moved on to podcast network Gimlet Media to produce Reply All.

I'm a woman on the internet, which is just a different perspective.

When we spoke to Haggerty last week at Park Slope’s new donut spot at the intersection of Flatbush and Bergen, she was in no rush to lock down her vision for the show — though she did say the TLDR team is playing with the format a little.

“What we’re trying to do differently,” she told us, “is I’m a woman on the internet, which is just a different perspective.”

So far, the show has covered the Australian game reviewer who is telling moms about the rape threats little boys are making against her, weird opening emails crowdsourced for Tinder and the internet astrology leader, Astrology Zone.

Haggerty says what she liked about Vogt and Goldman’s show was that it had a great breadth of topics, a sense of curiosity and, “a great attitude about the internet.” It can be a scary place at times, she told us, especially for a woman, but she still loves it.

We asked her what her favorite aspects of the internet’s weirdness are, and she said there are a few things she gravitates toward:

• The way the internet understands celebrity. So, for example, she likes to look at that celebrity news that US Weekly finds so banal and pointless that it won’t print but will post on its website. “Someone you’ve never heard of doing something you don’t care about is weirdly comforting,” Haggerty said.
• Microgenres. Recently she’s enjoyed lists of how Etsy understands different concepts. For example, wander deep enough into Best Friends on the site and you’ll wind up here, here or here.
• Wacky theories. Personally, she really enjoys rampant speculation, or, as she put it, “That long idea that no one wants to talk to you about.” Such as Kevin McCallister from Home Alone growing up to be Jigsaw in the Saw movies. Apparently this is a thing.
• Hoaxes. Big fan. For example, we might never have otherwise known of the story of Mary Toft if not for her wanderings through Wikipedia in college.

Haggerty has written for The Daily Dot, The Hairpin, The Gloss and other sites that don’t have the definite article in their title. See them all here. She continues to write about the topics she likes as her work. “I am technically a professional adult human,” she told us.

While she’s the only person at WNYC solely devoted to TLDR, she says the show has three people who also help produce it.