Meet Drew Mackie | Podcaster and video game historian

We had the good fortune of connecting with Drew Mackie and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Drew, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
Honestly, any success I’ve found I can credit to ignoring what I think other people will be interested in and instead just going deep on what interests me. This has rendered me rather niche, but I just think it’s a better strategy overall to specialize rather than generalize. If you concentrate on a specific thing and do it well, you will find an audience. It may take a while, and it’s going to burn when you see someone else get further quicker doing something that’s catering to the moment, but I honestly feel like those people aren’t telling anyone who they really are — and maybe aren’t figuring that out themselves. But yeah, I quit a job at a very mainstream magazine where I didn’t care about anything I was being asked to write about to instead make a podcast about gay episodes of old sitcoms. Guess which job gave me a bigger audience? Guess which job gave me an audience I actually care about?

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I wouldn’t call what I do art, exactly. It’s creative, but it’s also a lot of research into other people’s creativity. Basically, I started a podcast called Gayest Episode Ever because I wanted to go really granular on episodes of old sitcoms that feature LGBTQ themes. I wanted to research who wrote these episodes and what they were trying to achieve, the idea being that sitcoms are often ways for creatives to work social commentary into entertainment that can be quite subtle. We think of hour-long dramas being the type of TV that deals with hard-hitting topics, but sitcoms do it too, and sometimes the people watching won’t even realize that they’re being taught about an experience outside their own if they think they’re just tuning in for something funny. My guess is that we could track how the half-hour comedy taught Americans about their LGBTQ neighbors and helped make people less homophobic. And now 250 episodes in, we’ve done that in a really big way. I think my podcast demonstrates how the sitcom has proven to be a handy vehicle for social commentary.

A few years ago, I also launched a website, Thrilling Tales of Old Video Games. It’s more of a blog, for now, but it works similarly in that I’m looking into video game history and showing how this sort of media reflects the world that created it in ways people might not expect. It’s similar to Gayest Episode Ever in that way, in that I’m looking at something most people probably don’t consider to be culturally valuable and finding reasons why it is.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Again, this is going to sound weird, but the stuff I like isn’t for everyone, and to be honest, the people I know IRL don’t actually interact with the stuff I make. Which is fine. But that means for a question like this, I’d probably cater to their tastes and not give them my experience. But I guess… the Vista now that it’s reopened? The Gelsons on Hyperion in hopes that we see some rando 90s celebrity buying produce? Casita del Campo in general but all the more so if they would start doing shows in the basement again? The Elysian to see something weird and funny?

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
This is going to sound weird, I guess, but I want to shout out to all the people who have been working their asses off in their respective field and have been doing it without a real mentor. There are some people who are trying to become something that doesn’t exist yet and there’s not anyone who’s doing exactly what you do in a way that inspires you. That’s cool. That doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. That means you’re blazing your own trail. Eventually, you’re going to inspire someone else to be like you. Maybe you can become that person’s mentor, but don’t let a lack of heroes slow you down.

Website: https://www.gayestepisodeever.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kidicarus222/?hl=en

Other: Twitter sucks and is owned by a Nazi. Please make a space for Bluesky.

https://bsky.app/profile/drewgmackie.bsky.social

Also here is the URL for my side project: https://www.thrillingtalesofoldvideogames.com/

Image Credits
Drew Mackie