Essay: Finding Matthew Anderson, Founder Of The Podcast 'Unknown Words'

By Christine Sloan Stoddard

More than five years later, his voice still haunts my head as he drawls out the words to my short story. The speaker was Matthew Anderson, founder of the now-defunct podcast, Unknown Words, and my short story was “Breakfast Inside the Beltway.” Anderson summarized the story with the tagline, “A young woman meets an eccentric Southern man whose eccentricities hide a life of real tragedy.” I wrote the tale out of necessity following a series of real-life events I’m still struggling to understand. But I couldn’t stop at the truth; I had to bend it, squish it, tear it up, and transform it. I wrote the story during downtime at a day job that left little mental space for imagination. I figured that I had earned the escape.

​I submitted my story to Unknown Words because my friend Ben Nardolilli had had his story featured there, too. I fell under the spell of Matthew’s narration, careful attention to words, and his handling of the interview that came afterwards. My episode remained online for a couple of years. And then one day in 2017, the podcast ceased to exist, like so many digital projects and dabblings. I had no MP3 download. I just had digital data: information about the podcast and about me online, scattered across various sound-based websites and archives. You could find text, but you could not listen to any of the audio. So, there was only a dusty footprint. None of my words or Matthew’s interpretation of them.

During the early days of quarantine, I updated my online portfolios because it seemed wise. It made me less anxious to think that I had control over something as my gigs in the visual and performing arts quickly dried up in an overwhelmed New York City. I wanted to include that podcast episode on my main website, but I couldn’t. I searched everywhere for it and I kept stumbling across the footprints. 

One evening, in a manic panic, I reached out to a few Matthew Andersons online. LinkedIn and Twitter became my hunting grounds. Mostly I was ignored, though I did receive two direct responses. Almost immediately, I discovered that these Matthew Andersons were not the Matthew Andersons that I needed. Or maybe they were. And they just lied. I can’t really know. I barely knew anything about the podcast host at the time I talked to him in 2015. I certainly wasn’t the same person now that I was then. Maybe he didn’t wanna be associated with the person he was five years ago or something he created back then. That’s his right and in the Internet age, to create personas, outgrow them, and move on is anyone’s right. All of us have the power to sculpt avatars and then abandon them. Trolls and conspiracy theories aside, it’s a harmless act and for many, a habit, especially for the creative and restless.

I asked my friend Ben for help, too. Maybe he remembered something about the host that I didn’t. But he actually didn’t remember the podcast at all. He didn’t remember being on it. He didn’t recall its name, let alone the host’s name.

The whole episode reminded me of just how ephemeral the Internet is and how our shortened attention spans affect the lifespans of creative works, too. During quarantine, so many of us spent more time online than ever and consumed more content because of it. I had to actively create ways to avoid the Internet because I didn’t want to live most of my days online. Of course, this choice proves difficult for an artist or writer or content creator of any kind. The Internet is our main platform, no matter how established we become. So many Millennials and Gen Z have cut the cord or never had a cord to start with. And print subscriptions? Despite working at print publications and earning my earliest bylines in print, I do not currently subscribe to any print magazines or newspapers. Most of my peers—almost all college-educated, many with graduate degrees—have never had a print subscription. And even with subscriptions or books at their disposal, many people report finding it difficult to read during the pandemic because of the constant brain fog. (I recommend reading this Vox interview with a neuroscientist about the matter—and, yes, I get the irony of my recommendation.) Bring on the next IG TV or TikTok, right? Who cares about wanting to find it and re-watch it next week. Digital works don’t have that sort of lifespan, especially now.

But that’s not my mentality. I get nostalgic, even for pixels. I am too aware of how passively consuming content online can happen. Of how listening to podcasts like that of Matthew Anderson could be done and just barely registered as an experience at all, and not for lack of quality. Not by the creator but the audience. We’re zombies hungry not for brains but rather digital content.

Are you Matthew Anderson of Unknown Words fame? Or do you know him? Contact me.