When Jarod and Michelle Traxel closed their restaurant, Little, Fast and Fresh, in early 2023, they had to decide what to do next. Capitalizing on his training as a chef, Jarod became a culinary arts instructor at SAIT. Michelle decided to take a road less travelled and become a full-time podcaster.
“I’m an avid fan of podcasts,” she said, “and noticed there were none that focused on and how innocuous things have historically led to substantial changes in our society. So, I thought why not just do it myself?”
Michelle’s podcast – The Tuesday Effect – debuted online last June but it is already attracting a following. Using the internet acronym Knitty, she examines obscure stories on a variety of topics with her co-host, political scientist JB.
“I like to find stories that JB doesn’t know about,” she said.
It makes for interesting interplay. And while Michelle has editorial freedom, it’s still a lot of work to come up with comprehensive, professionally researched content that people want to hear.
JB and Knitty first connected on Tik Tok at the beginning of the year. JB had been focusing on how to make money as a Canadian content creator. Canadian content creators do not earn as much as their American counterparts, so he and Michelle are constantly figuring out how to make enough money from the podcast to pay the bills.
At this stage, they’re still doing a lot of work for free.
“JB is building a subscription-based network, where Canadian content creators will all share in the revenue. It’s called the Polaris Network,” Michelle said. “We’re also on Apple Music and Spotify so we get a little bit of ad revenue as well.”
The Tuesday Effect focuses on serious topics like how, in 1985, changing language from ‘banks’ to ‘lenders’ in Canada’s National Housing Act affected the housing situation today.
“But we’ll also focus on less serious topics, like how pop culture has had a really distinct impact on our day-to-day vernacular,” Michelle said.
YouTube, Spotify and TikTok generate data sets to which content creators have access.
“It’s never going to be 100 per cent accurate but it does tell us that The Tuesday Effect’s audience is largely made up of progressive people interested in history and pop culture and, beyond that, they are diverse in age, gender, ideology and religion. It also tells us where our audience is coming from, and whether they just stumbled upon us or were actively seeking us out.”
Each podcast lasts about 90 minutes. “It’s remarkable how many people listen to the complete podcast,” Michelle said, “and on Spotify we get people who listen to multiple episodes back-to-back.”
The Tuesday Effect can be reached on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Patreon and The Polaris Network.
“If you Google ‘Polaris Network,’ it will come up,” said Michelle. “It and Patreon are both subscription platforms that give members immediate access to the episodes. Spotify and Apple Music carry the podcast on a delayed basis for free.”