Dear 99% Invisible, 

Thanks to your curious reporters, quarantine was a lot less boring for this road warrior (yep, that’s me) who could not go anywhere for more than a year due to travel restrictions. As I whipped up yet another lockdown dinner, I listened to your episode on bridge building gone wrong and could imagine the bats flying above Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, TX. As your reporters chatted about the design of skyway systems, I joined them in traipsing along the elevated paths in the Minnesota Skyway System. I love your podcast for teaching me how design can lead to anything from unexpected visual feasts, to race and class tension. No more excuses for poor visibility (okay, that was a lame pun) once anyone listens to your podcast. 
‍
Gracias!
Yasmin

Dear Morbid, 

I was driving from Durango, CO to Laguna Beach, CA while listening to “The Smiley Face Killings Part 2,” an episode on your show about a series of drownings happening across the country. Someone was running all over the US drowning young men, and then tagging the drowning sites with a spray-painted smiley face. Strangely, I was unfazed as I listened to the episode on my long drive through the parched desert. After sunset, I was alone on the road and alone in my car, but I didn’t think about how alone I was at all. I used to listen to an episode of your show every day before work, making your grisly, cruel retellings a part of my morning routine. At the time, I didn’t understand the ways that I had become desensitized to my own mortality. Or maybe, it was less about desensitization, and more about oversaturation. Hearing stories about all sorts of crime—murder, torture, serial killers—paradoxically, kept me from thinking about my own mortality, and from dwelling on the overwhelming feeling of being alone and vulnerable. A few months later, as I walked along the East River in New York City enjoying my solitude, I looked back to those times when I had loved your podcast and realized how numb I had become. Now, when I’m driving or walking alone, I listen to cheesy murder mysteries, and think about how horrible it would be to drown. I hope the Smiley Face Killer was caught. I haven’t listened to an episode since. 

From,
Quinn Luthy

Dear Elvis Duran and the Morning Show,

When I think about podcasting, I invariably think of the transition from radio to podcasts. I fondly look back on the days when I would listen to Radio Disney and other stations, remembering the popularity of radio with a bittersweet nostalgia. Calling in and requesting songs or hearing winners get free tickets made music and culture a community experience that I loved to be a part of. Many things have changed, grown, and adapted to this new way of living online; however, your show should have died long before it had the chance to become a podcast. Nothing makes my blood boil more than the thought of having to sit down and listen to one more “Phone Taps” segment wherein the hosts call someone, pretending to be someone else, to make that person angry/hurt/scared/upset, then broadcast it on one of the largest radio stations in the country. It’s like watching Impractical Jokers, but worse because the jokes aren’t even remotely funny, they’re just cringey and mean. Your show had its place years ago, and yeah, it was (and is) incredibly popular. But now, the conversations feel dated, the chemistry between hosts feels forced (there has been a lot of staff turnover), and dare I say it, the commentary is cheugy. Even with the flexibility of the podcast format, you choose to include all the awkward silences, flat jokes, and uncomfortable comments. They say that video killed the radio star but the Morning Show is stubbornly alive. All we can hope is that you will eventually be so drunk off the power you once had, that you’ll finally fall. 

Reluctantly (for I never wanted to give the Morning Show this much time and energy),
Michaela