Phoebe Bridgers on the 10 Things That Influenced Her New Album, Punisher

A bunch of people had been like, “Watch Fleabag, watch Fleabag, watch Fleabag. It’s so funny, you have the same name.” When I finally got around to it, it destroyed me. It’s so fucking humanizing in a way that I didn’t even know was allowed. I think Fleabag is my favorite character, but Martin might be my deep favorite character. He’s so good at being hateable. The show affected me very deeply. I haven’t gotten around to watching it a second time. It was psychologically taxing for me, like a really hard therapy session.

Dirtbag dudes have Larry David and I have Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She strikes a fucking chord in me. I read an interview with her where she was like, “Every time I’m like, ‘Should I tell the truth?’, the answer is yes.” The best writing is just telling the truth. I feel the same way about Twitter as I do about songs, the only interesting thing you have to share is your own experience.

I have been watching ASMR videos since I was a teenager, before they were all that. They were called “whisper” videos back then. I was doing a school paper on the lymphatic system and I stumbled upon all these weird massage videos that were specifically for people to fall asleep to. I would watch them for hours at the school library. Maybe a year or so ago I was trying to fall asleep and stumbled upon this hipster wellness witch. She’s a vlogger who also does ASMR videos, which is a very weird thing to be into, but I watch all of her shit. She apparently lives very close to me, and we have a ton of mutual friends. She’s very sincere, which is a quality that I usually find very cringey. But I love that she’s just someone I would consider cool and is also a vlogger; I thought that was mutually exclusive.

I also really like Billie Eilish, and she incorporates a lot of very weird ASMR sounds into her music, like lighting a match for a snare sound and then all the whispering. Sometimes when I’m writing and I want something in the background, I’ll put an ASMR video on really low. It gives you a brain fog and makes you fall asleep and you can get sucked into it, but also it stops you from listening to your life. I live in a wooden house and it “settles” all the time and scares the shit out of me.

I love podcasts and I love true crime. Podcasts are predominantly done by men. But My Favorite Murder feels like you’re listening to two friends talk about something they’re morbidly fascinated with. It reminds me of a lot of conversations I’ve had. They get infuriated about things like the justice system or race and equality and implicit bias and too little jail time for white people and way too much jail time for Black people. But they’re also two middle-age white women. They get shit wrong all the time, like they were saying prostitute at the beginning and began using “sex worker” after they got called out. But they do a lot of survivor advocacy and donate a lot to charity. Ultimately, I think it’s a force for good. True crime can be almost desensitizing because you are trying to get inside it and get ahead of your fears. Finding a community through My Favorite Murder and people like Michelle McNamara [the late true crime author] made me feel so much better about my fascination with it.

Synanon cult

I think I first heard about Synanon from My Favorite Murder. Syanon was a cult based in Santa Monica that began as a rehabilitation program in response to Alcoholics Anonymous. In some ways it’s like every other cult, followers had to shave their heads and wear crazy clothes. But then of course you find out there was tons of sexual abuse. Actually, I’m not a huge Synanon nerd because it scares me. I’m more into cults in general, but it’s the one I’m most interested in right now.