''Reply All'' is an American

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

from

Gimlet Media Gimlet Media LLC is a digital media company and podcast network, focused on producing narrative podcasts and headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. The company was founded in 2014 by Alex Blumberg and Matthew Lieber, who serve as the company's ...

that ran from 2014 to 2022, featuring stories about how people shape the internet, and how the internet shapes people. It was created by P. J. Vogt and Alex Goldman, who were the show's original hosts; they had previously hosted the technology and culture podcast ''TLDR'' for

WNYC WNYC is the trademark and a set of call letters shared by WNYC (AM) and WNYC-FM, a pair of nonprofit, noncommercial, public radio stations located in New York City. WNYC is owned by New York Public Radio (NYPR), a nonprofit organization th ...

. Emmanuel Dzotsi became a third cohost in 2020. The podcast received critical acclaim, winning several awards. In 2021, Vogt and a producer left the show following backlash critical of the work environment. Both Goldman and Dzotsi left the show in 2022; the final episode was released on June 23.

History

''Reply All'' was an American

from

, hosted by Alex Goldman and Emmanuel Dzotsi in its final year. Producer P. J. Vogt was Goldman’s original cohost. Before joining Gimlet, Vogt and Goldman hosted a technology and culture podcast called ''TLDR'' for

. ''Reply All'' premiered November 24, 2014, the second podcast to be developed by Gimlet Media. The Atlantic included the episode "Shine on, You Crazy Goldman" on their list of "The 50 Best Podcast Episodes of 2015". Producers of ''Reply All'' included Phia Bennin, Tim Howard, Damiano Marchetti, Anna Foley, Jessica Yung, Lisa Wang, and formerly Sruthi Pinnamaneni. The music is by

Breakmaster Cylinder Breakmaster Cylinder, also known as The Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder or by the initials BmC, is a musical composer and producer who has provided title themes and background music for a number of radio shows and podcasts, principally with Gimle ...

. In 2020, Dzotsi became a third cohost. In early 2021, the podcast began releasing a series of episodes called "The Test Kitchen", which covered allegations of a racist and toxic work environment at the food magazine ''

Bon Appétit ''Bon Appétit'' is a monthly American food and entertaining magazine, that typically contains recipes, entertaining ideas, restaurant recommendations, and wine reviews. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered at the One World Trade Center ...

''. After the second episode aired, accusations from former employees of a "near identical" environment at Gimlet were reported online. On February 17, 2021, both Vogt and Pinnamaneni announced they were leaving the show. The show was then placed on a hiatus until June 10, 2021. On May 18, 2022, it was announced that hosts Dzotsi and Goldman were leaving the show and the current iteration of ''Reply All'' would end on June 23, 2022.

Format

Each episode varies in format, with some recurring segments, including "Yes, Yes, No" which debuted in episode 10, in which Vogt and Goldman explain internet trivia to Alex Blumberg, co-founder of

, with occasional help from outside guests. In a variation on this segment called "Sports, Sports, Sports", Blumberg instead explains sports-related tweets to Vogt and Goldman. The segment debuted in episode 106, "Is that You, KD?". In another recurring segment, called "Super Tech Support" which debuted in episode 33, the ''Reply All'' team—particularly Goldman, who previously worked as a

network administrator A network administrator is a person designated in an organization whose responsibility includes maintaining computer infrastructures with emphasis on local area networks (LANs) up to wide area networks (WANs). Responsibilities may vary between org ...

—takes on odd or especially complex tech support issues that the listeners or friends of the hosts have encountered. An annual segment, Email Debt Foregiveness Day, created an annual holiday on April 30 inviting listeners to send responses to old emails no matter how overdue.

Episodes

''Reply All'' released 189 episodes from 2014 to 2022.

Reception

The podcast was nominated in 2015 and 2016 for a Shorty Award. The nomination cited its unusual social media presence, including an event where the hosts accepted phone calls from listeners for 48 hours straight. In 2016, the

Mixcloud Mixcloud is a popular British online music streaming service that allows for the listening and distribution of radio shows, DJ mixes and podcasts, which are crowdsourced by its registered users. In April 2018, Mixcloud announced that it raised ...

Online Radio Awards (MORA) nominated it as "Best Online Talk Show" in education. The show was also nominated for a Webby Award for Best Podcast. The podcast won the 2015 Academy of Podcasters Awards in the category "Technology." In 2017, it was announced that director

Richard Linklater Richard Stuart Linklater (; born July 30, 1960) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for films that revolve mainly around suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies '' ...

would direct a movie about American quack physician

John R. Brinkley John Romulus Brinkley (later John Richard Brinkley; July 8, 1885 – May 26, 1942) was an American quack. He had no properly accredited education as a physician and bought his medical degree from a "diploma mill". Brinkley became known as the ...

, to star Robert Downey Jr., based on the 2017 ''Reply All'' episode "Man of the People". In 2017, ''

Quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...

'' awarded episode 102, "Long Distance", as "Best Tech Episode" of the year. In 2019, the podcast was named the best podcast of the year by Dutch newspaper ''

De Volkskrant ''de Volkskrant'' (; ''The People's Paper'') is a Dutch daily morning newspaper. Founded in 1919, it has a nationwide circulation of about 250,000. Formerly a leading centre-left Catholic broadsheet, ''de Volkskrant'' today is a medium-sized ...

'' and the sixth best podcast of the year by ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...

''. In March 2020, the podcast released episode 158, "The Case of the Missing Hit" to wide acclaim. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' reported that the number of overall listeners to the show increased 35 percent across platforms in the days after its release. Hannah J. Davies of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'' called it "perhaps the best-ever episode of any podcast" and "an incredibly emotive piece of storytelling."

References

External links