Jesse Thorn

American radio personality (born 1981)

Theresa Hossfeld

(m. 2008)

Children3CareerShowBullseye with Jesse ThornStationMaximum FunNetwork

National Public Radio
Public Radio International (former)

StyleInterviewCountryUnited States Websitewww.maximumfun.org

Jesse Michael Gabriel Thorn ^[2] (born April 24, 1981) is an American media entrepreneur and public radio and podcast host/creator. He is the founder of the Maximum Fun podcast network, and the host and producer of the podcasts Judge John Hodgman and Jordan, Jesse, Go!^[3] and the radio show and podcast Bullseye. Bullseye (formerly The Sound of Young America), is distributed by National Public Radio^[4] to several hundred public terrestrial radio stations.^[5] In addition to his work in radio and podcasts, Jesse Thorn also hosted the television program The Grid, which formerly aired on IFC, and The Sound of Young America, which aired on Current, and runs a blog and web video series devoted to men's fashion called Put This On.^[6] As an actor, he has appeared on stage with the sketch comedy group Prank the Dean and on IFC's Comedy Bang Bang.^[7]

Early life

Thorn grew up in San Francisco, where he attended Discovery Center School, The Nueva School^[8] and Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts.^[9] He graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he cofounded The Sound of Young America and worked as news director of the campus radio station KZSC.^[10] The Sound of Young America began as a college radio variety show featuring Thorn and two other cohosts, Jordan Morris and Gene O'Neill.^[11]

Career

Near the end of 2004, Thorn began to make his show, The Sound of Young America, available as a podcast. A few months later, Thorn received a call from the director of programming at PRI, who had heard one of the podcasts and expressed interest in distributing the show.^[10] In 2006 WNYC-FM, a public radio station in New York City, picked up the show, and PRI decided to distribute it.^[9] By September 2008 the show was carried on 18 public radio stations, in addition to the podcast.^[5]^[9] This was the beginning of Maximum Fun, which Thorn still owns, although he now has an administrative team. ^[12]

Thorn and the show were mentioned in The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and Salon.com,^[10]^[13]^[14] with Salon describing Thorn's interviewing style as combining "the civility and preparedness of [Terry] Gross leavened with the good humor of [Conan] O'Brien."^[15]

In 2006, Thorn and former Sound of Young America co-host Jordan Morris launched another podcast, Jordan, Jesse, Go!^[9] Thorn has also produced several other podcasts for MaximumFun.org, including Elizabeth Gilbert's Magic Lessons, the scripted comedy series Bubble, Coyle & Sharpe: The Imposters^{[citation needed]} and The Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast.^[16] He was also a part of sketch comedy group Prank the Dean,^[17] along with Morris, Lauren Pasternak and Jim Real.

Over time, The Sound of Young America (now Bullseye), which had had a variety talk show, became more focused on interviews. Thorn has interviewed many notable personalities on his show, including Dolly Parton, Greta Gerwig, Jay Leno, Antonio Banderas, Jeff Goldblum and E-40. Thorn also interviewed Stephen Colbert as a part of iTunes's Meet the Author series.^[10]

Thorn has become notably identified with a philosophy he calls "New Sincerity." A USA Weekend article cited the "New Sincerity" segment of the show as a listeners' favorite, and quoted Thorn's explanation of the concept as "a rejection of irony."^[18] Thorn has promoted New Sincerity on his program, in his blog^[19] and in interviews,^[17]^[20]^[21] ^[22]^[23] and was named as a popularizer of New Sincerity in a scholarly work discussing the similar novaia iskrennost' concept in Russian post-Soviet aesthetic theory.^[24]

Thorn has been an important leader in the podcast business. Fast Company called him "the most important person in entertainment you've never heard of" and "the Zelig of modern culture."^[25] In 2011, the magazine chose him as one of the 100 most creative people in business.^[26] In 2009, Jesse helped comedian and podcaster Marc Maron to set up the microphones and software necessary to produce his WTF with Marc Maron podcast from his garage. Maron thanked Jesse again for this on the podcast's 300th episode.^[27] Jesse is also the coproducer of the public radio broadcast version of Maron's podcast.

In 2012, The Sound of Young America was renamed Bullseye while continuing to have much of the same format as before.

In 2017 and 2018, Thorn released a podcast series on the art of interviewing, entitled The Turnaround. It featured interviews with interviewers on interviewing, including guests such as Dick Cavett, Katie Couric, Werner Herzog, Larry King and Terry Gross.^[28]

Personal life

In 2008, Thorn married Theresa Hossfeld.^[9] They have three children.^[29]^[30]^[31]^[32]

From 2013 until the pandemic finally prompted her to step down in spring of 2022, Theresa Thorn co-hosted the Maximum Fun podcast One Bad Mother with Biz Ellis.^[33]

References

^ Thorn, Jesse; Morris, Jordan (March 8, 2011). "Jordan, Jesse, Go! Episode 166: Dress Mess with Maria Bamford | Maximum Fun". www.maximumfun.org. Maximum Fun. Event occurs at 1:16:00. Retrieved September 8, 2014.
^ Thorn, Jesse; Hodgman, John (April 26, 2023). "Episode 615: This Is The Name Of Your Mullet | Maximum Fun". www.maximumfun.org. Maximum Fun. Event occurs at 4:05. Retrieved May 5, 2023.
^ "Jesse Thorn | Maximum Fun". www.maximumfun.org. Retrieved May 10, 2017.
^ Ellis, Justin (February 11, 2013). "Jesse Thorn hits a Bullseye, moves his show to NPR » Nieman Journalism Lab". Niemanlab.org. Retrieved November 2, 2013.
^ ^a ^b List of stations, at Maximum Fun website.
^ "Put This On • Put This On: Season One". Putthison.com. September 16, 2011. Retrieved November 2, 2013.
^ "Jesse Thorn". Maximum Fun. April 25, 2019. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
^ "The Nueva School - Thorn '95 Featured in Fast Company". www.nuevaschool.org. Retrieved October 5, 2016.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Vows: Theresa Hossfeld and Jesse Thorn". New York Times. September 6, 2008.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Rappaport, Scott (April 2, 2008). "Maximum Fun: Alum Jesse Thorn woos young listeners with a new brand of radio show". UC Santa Cruz Review. Santa Cruz, California. Archived from the original on February 22, 2010. Retrieved October 23, 2009.
^ Thorn, Jesse (August 23–30, 2006). "My Life As America's Radio Sweetheart". Metro Santa Cruz. Archived from the original on July 3, 2008.
^ "Where we come from, and what we do". June 24, 2019.
^ Huang, Keith (July 24, 2006). "Blog Watch: "The Sound of Young America"". Wall Street Journal.
^ "The Pick of the Podcasts". TIME. May 2, 2006. Archived from the original on June 20, 2006.
^ Boudway, Ira (November 14, 2005). "Longer listens: Peter Guralnick, Art Spiegelman and some lost Van Morrison tracks on the 'Sound of Young America'". Salon. Archived from the original on July 5, 2009.
^ "Jesse Thorn Bio" Archived May 17, 2009, at the Wayback Machine at PRI website.
^ ^a ^b Ben Kharakh, "Jesse Thorn, America's Radio Sweetheart" Archived September 29, 2008, at the Wayback Machine in Gothamist, posted November 2, 2006.
^ Dennis McCafferty, "Top podcast picks: Favorites from experts in their category,"^{[permanent dead link]} USA Weekend, January 14, 2007. (Thorn's program was the in-print "podcast pick" of comedian Patton Oswalt.)
^ Jesse Thorn, "A Manifesto for The New Sincerity," February 17, 2006.
^ Mann, Merlin (June 4, 2007). "Interview: Jesse Thorn, Part 1". The Merlin Show (Podcast). No. 19. Archived from the original on September 13, 2017. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
^ Dan Brodnitz, "An Interview with The Sound of Young America's Jesse Thorn," Archived October 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine O'Reilly Digital Media, posted September 15, 2008.
^ But see Bill Forman, "Müz: The New Ambiguity," Metro Santa Cruz, March 8–15, 2006 (opining that New Sincerity is "just another ironic hoax").
^ Tycho (Jerry Holkins), "The Valley Of The Shadow of Death" at Penny Arcade, March 1, 2010 (accessed March 2, 2010) ("The New Sincerity is simply The Old Irony, with better PR.")
^ Alexei Yurchak, "Post-Post-Communist Sincerity: Pioneers, Cosmonauts, and Other Soviet Heroes Born Today," in Thomas Lahusen and Peter H. Solomon, What Is Soviet Now?: Identities, Legacies, Memories (LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster, 2008), ISBN 978-3-8258-0640-8, p.258 n.3, excerpt available at Google Books. Andrew W.K.(Noting that "the turn to post-postmodern sincerity . . .is associated with the events of 9/11" and "'new sincerity' has been popularized since 9/11 by some youth media (for example, by Jesse Thorn, the host of a popular music program Sound of Young America, on New York's National Public Radio station WNYC).
^ Rabin, Nathan (August 6, 2015). "Meet The Most Important Person In Entertainment You've Never Heard Of". Fast Company. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
^ "Meet Jesse Thorn, one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People 2011". Fast Company. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
^ WTF with Marc Maron - Episode 300 http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_300
^ "The Turnaround with Jesse Thorn". Maximum Fun. June 9, 2017. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
^ Thorn, Jesse (August 6, 2011). "[Grace] Thorn, Born August 5th, 2011". Retrieved February 11, 2012.
^ "Jesse Thorn on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
^ Thorn, Jesse (October 25, 2013). "JesseThorn: Oscar Thorn was born this morning..." Retrieved December 16, 2013.
^ Thorn, Jesse (February 13, 2007). "Jordan, Jesse Go! episode". Retrieved February 19, 2017.
^ Thorn, Theresa (March 6, 2013). "One Bad Mother". Retrieved August 26, 2014.