Patrick Willems spent six years on YouTube trying to attract an audience for his short films, before he pivoted to video essays about everything from baseball movies to Francis Ford Coppola's filmography to Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again. Those essays got wildly popular and today, he has more than 350,000 subscribers.

However, he kept making shorts, embedded in his essays as narrative framing devices. In other words, he says, he "trick[ed] the audience into watching short films that I also wanna make, but that normally would not get the views on YouTube or have sponsors on them."

Then, starting in early 2020, he began connecting those narrative shorts into a serialized story about an evil talking coconut named Charl. This so-called "Charl saga" culminated in June with the release of a feature-length film, Night of the Coconut, which is available on the streaming platform Nebula.

Today, on the season one finale of Follow Friday, Patrick shared some of his favorite follow recommendations, while imposing some additional rules on himself: With "one asterisk," he says, he picked favorite accounts run by people he doesn't know in real life: Kobe Eats (@kobeeats on YouTube and TikTok, @kobe_yn on Instagram); Jackson Murphy (@LCJReviews on Twitter and @LightsCameraJackson on YouTube); Neil Cicierega (@neilcic on Twitter and YouTube); and the George Lucas Talk Show (@TheGeorgeLucasTalkShow on YouTube).

Thank you to everyone who has tuned in to this season of Follow Friday. You can help make season two a reality by completing a 5-minute survey at followfridaypodcast.com/season2.

And on Follow Friday's Patreon page, you can unlock an extended version of this interview in which Patrick shares a bonus follow recommendation! Thank you to our amazing patrons: Jon, Justin, Amy, Yoichi, Danielle, and Elizabeth.

Also:

• Follow Patrick @patrickhwillems on YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram
• Watch Night of the Coconut on Nebula
• Follow us @FollowFridayPod on Twitter and Instagram
• Leave a review: LoveThePodcast.com/FollowFriday
• Follow Eric @heyheyesj on Twitter
• Email us! hello@followfridaypodcast.com

This show is a production of Lightningpod.fm, hosted and produced by Eric Johnson

Music: Yona Marie

Show art: Dodi Hermawan

"When you're a broadcaster, you don't have a conversation you can't use as content," jokes Roman Mars — well, mostly jokes. The host of 99% Invisible says he's trying to use the internet more thoughtfully than he used to, and that includes not needing to share everything with the world.

"The past year, it's been really the focus of my time, actually not having every thought be on social media and making everything into something," he says.

Today on Follow Friday, Roman talks about which creators he likes to follow, including: Constitutional law professor Elizabeth Joh (@elizabeth_joh on Twitter); writer and podcaster John Green (@literallyjohngreen on TikTok); competent people who calmly do things well, such as @stellarsidewalks, @texasbeeworks, and @rightchoiceshearing on TikTok; and the subreddit /r/oddlysatisfying.

And on Follow Friday's Patreon page, you can unlock an extended version of this interview in which Roman shares a bonus follow recommendation! Thank you to our amazing patrons: Jon, Justin, Amy, Yoichi, Danielle, and Elizabeth.

Also:

• Follow Roman @romanmars on Twitter and @theromanmars on Instagram
• Listen to 99% Invisible and What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con Law
• Follow us @FollowFridayPod on Twitter and Instagram
• Leave a review: LoveThePodcast.com/FollowFriday
• Follow Eric @heyheyesj on Twitter
• Email us! hello@followfridaypodcast.com

This show is a production of Lightningpod.fm, hosted and produced by Eric Johnson

Music: Yona Marie

Show art: Dodi Hermawan

Social media producer: Sydney Grodin

When her college internship was canceled by the COVID-19 shutdown in spring 2020, Annie Rauwerda had a lot of unexpected time on her hands. And instead of learning to bake bread or speak Esperanto, she began curating weird and amusing things she found on Wikipedia.

Two years later, Depths of Wikipedia has more than 1.5 million followers combined across Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. That success means walking a fine line: Annie wants to celebrate Wikipedia's oddities and encourage her followers to edit pages, but not to intentionally contribute false info or "bad writing for the sake of humor."

"Sometimes I'll post something and then it'll start getting vandalized a bunch," she says. "Like when I posted the List of Mammals Displaying Homosexual Behavior — don't do this, by the way — people started editing it to add in their name. It's funny, I guess, for two seconds, but then you just feel bad."

Today on Follow Friday, Annie shares some great follow recommendations: Meta-influencer Harry Hill (@veryharryhill on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok); Twitter bots such as @NYT_first_said, @ResNeXtGuesser, and @AceCourtBot; post-ironic Catholic Instagram pages such as @ineedgodineverymomentofmylife and @praying; and TikTok aggregator Leia Jospe (@favetiktoks420 on Instagram).

And on Follow Friday's Patreon page, you can unlock an extended version of this interview in which Annie shares a bonus follow recommendation! Thank you to our amazing patrons: Jon, Justin, Amy, Yoichi, Danielle, Elizabeth, and Sylnai.

We'll be off next week for the 4th of July weekend in the US, and will be back on Friday, July 8th.

Also:

• Follow Annie: @anniierau on Twitter, @annierau on Instagram, and @anniierau on TikTok
• Follow Depths of Wikipedia: @depthsofwiki on Twitter, @depthsofwikipedia on Instagram and TikTok
• Follow us @FollowFridayPod on Twitter and Instagram
• Leave a review: LoveThePodcast.com/FollowFriday
• Follow Eric @heyheyesj on Twitter
• Email us! hello@followfridaypodcast.com

This show is a production of Lightningpod.fm, hosted and produced by Eric Johnson

Music: Yona Marie

Show art: Dodi Hermawan

Social media producer: Sydney Grodin

When Rusty Foster started the email newsletter Today in Tabs, in 2013, "tabs" was trendy media slang for the articles open in your browser that you were hate-reading. That meaning has faded into obscurity, but Today in Tabs is going strong, dishing up must-reads, great tweets, and a song every Monday-Thursday.

"I do the sort of thing that you do when you have a job where you don't have enough work to do, and you spend a lot of time procrastinating on Twitter," he says. "I do that professionally. I read stuff on Twitter. I keep track of the good tweets and I keep an eye on what people are talking about."

Today on Follow Friday, Rusty shares four great follow recommendations: Programmer and cryptocurrency critic Molly White (@molly0xFFF on Twitter); musician and comedian Petey (@petey_usa on Instagram, @peteyusa on TikTok); writer and technologist Paul Ford (@ftrain on Twitter); and role-playing game podcaster Taylor Moore (@taylordotbiz on Twitter).

And on Follow Friday's Patreon page, you can unlock an extended version of this interview in which Rusty shares a fifth bonus follow recommendation! Thank you to our amazing patrons: Jon, Justin, Amy, Yoichi, Danielle, Elizabeth, and Sylnai.

Also:

• Follow Rusty @fka_tabs on Twitter
• Follow us @FollowFridayPod on Twitter and Instagram
• Leave a review: LoveThePodcast.com/FollowFriday
• Follow Eric @heyheyesj on Twitter
• Email us! hello@followfridaypodcast.com

This show is a production of Lightningpod.fm, hosted and produced by Eric Johnson

Music: Yona Marie

Show art: Dodi Hermawan

Social media producer: Sydney Grodin

Today we're playing four bonus follow recommendations that originally were exclusive to Follow Friday XL, our special podcast feed for supporters on Patreon. If you want to get five follow recommendations per week instead of the usual four, you can donate $1 or more at patreon.com/followfriday!

In today's episode:

• The Stacks host Traci Thomas talks about someone super-talented who’s still under the radar, Whit McClure (@whit_hazen on Instagram)
• The Comics Curmudgeon writer Josh Fruhlinger talks about someone who makes the internet a better place: Rusty Foster (@fka_tabs on Twitter)
• There Are No Girls on the Internet host Bridget Todd talks about someone who has stopped posting, but needs to come back: Teju Cole (@tejucole on Twitter)
• Bullseye host and Maximum Fun founder Jesse Thorn talks about someone he's jealous of: Louis Virtel (@louisvirtel on Instagram and Twitter)

Also:

• Follow us @FollowFridayPod on Twitter and Instagram
• Leave a review: LoveThePodcast.com/FollowFriday
• Follow Eric @heyheyesj on Twitter
• Email us! hello@followfridaypodcast.com

This show is a production of Lightningpod.fm, hosted and produced by Eric Johnson

Music: Yona Marie

Show art: Dodi Hermawan

Social media producer: Sydney Grodin

There Are No Girls on The Internet is an award-winning podcast about people who have always been at the forefront of technology, but whose stories are often ignored or misrepresented. That's a big and sometimes contentious field, and TANGOTI host Bridget Todd says it's important to make space for everyone to work through difficult conversations about inclusion, rather than expecting everyone to "get it" right away.

"I've been in social change movements for a long time and I do think we have this expectation that we expect people to show up with the right ethos and the right language and the right perspective," Bridget says. "And I get that, but I also feel like it doesn't leave room to hear the messy conversations of how people become smarter, better, more nuanced, and more thoughtful."

Today on Follow Friday, she explains how to use social media when disinformation is circulating after a tragedy, how she has evolved her thinking about politics online, why she's optimistic about a new online platform for the first time in a while, and much more.

She also shares four great follow recommendations: Early podcaster and co-host of Uhh Yeah Dude Jonathan Larroquette (@jonathanlarroquette on Instagram); political pundit and former The View co-host Meaghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain on Twitter and Instagram); comedy writer and Showtime TV star Ziwe (@Ziwe on Twitter); and Somewhere Good CEO Naj Austin (@najaustin on Instagram and @najjmahal on Twitter).

And on Follow Friday's Patreon page, you can unlock an extended version of this interview in which Bridget shares a fifth bonus follow recommendation! Thank you to our amazing patrons: Jon, Justin, Amy, Yoichi, Danielle, Elizabeth, and Sylnai.

Also:

• Follow Bridget @BridgetMarie on Twitter and @BridgetMarieInDC on Instagram
• Follow us @FollowFridayPod on Twitter and Instagram
• Leave a review: LoveThePodcast.com/FollowFriday
• Follow Eric @heyheyesj on Twitter
• Email us! hello@followfridaypodcast.com

This show is a production of Lightningpod.fm, hosted and produced by Eric Johnson

Music: Yona Marie

Show art: Dodi Hermawan

Social media producer: Sydney Grodin

A preview of next week's episode, featuring There Are No Girls on the Internet host Bridget Todd

Please consider donating to the Texas Elementary School Shooting Victims Fund. 100 percent of the money raised will go to the survivors and the families of the victims from the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. And here is a longer list of Uvalde fundraisers that have been vetted & verified by GoFundMe.

For more than five years, Lindsay Ellis produced video essays on YouTube, analyzing everything from the Transformers movies to Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals to popular tropes in film and TV.

And in 2020, after more than a decade of wanting to be an author, she published her first book — the bestselling sci-fi novel Axiom's End, which was informed by that same attentiveness to pop culture. After 9/11, she noticed, popular alien invasion stories had shifted from "goofy" stories to "dead serious" ones, like Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds.

"It's an alternate history that takes place in the late 2000s," she says of the first book, which is getting a sequel in October called Truth of the Divine. "Basically, it's what if first contact happened during the Bush administration? ... It's a thought experiment of how would we react if civilization has to keep on trucking the way we have, but now we have this great existential quandary that, at least in the universe of the book, is heavily politicized."

On today's podcast, Lindsay talks about four people she loves to follow on YouTube: A pop music analyst who breaks down one-hit wonders, band-breaking records, and more; a prolific video essayist who wears her enthusiasm on her sleeve; an aviation expert who explains the history of air disasters; and a former Vine star who cooks up brilliant video ideas like it's nothing.

You can get bonus follow recommendations every week — including an extra follow from Lindsay — when you back Follow Friday on Patreon, starting at just $1 a month. Thank you to our amazing patrons: Jon, Justin, Amy, Yoichi, Danielle, Elizabeth, and Sylnai.

Follow us:

- Follow us @followfridaypod on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok and find clips from the show on our YouTube channel

- Follow Eric on Twitter @heyheyesj

- Check out Modem Mischief to hear the true stories of the outlaws of cyberspace

This show is a production of Lightningpod.fm, hosted and produced by Eric Johnson

Music: Yona Marie

Show art: Dodi Hermawan

Social media producer: Sydney Grodin

Jesse Thorn has been podcasting since 2005, when he put his college radio show The Sound of Young America on the internet. He was a little early to the party: Six million Americans had listened to a podcast back then, versus 177 million today.

But Jesse stuck with it, and then some. The Sound of Young America became the hit NPR series Bullseye, and he founded the comedy & culture podcast network Maximum Fun, which powers dozens of other podcasts, including Jesse's other shows — Judge John Hodgman and Jordan, Jesse, Go!

Today on Follow Friday, he explains why he got into podcasting, his passion for dad movies, feeling like an outsider inside NPR, and much more. He also shares four great follow recommendations: An adorable "scruffy dog" named Archie (@archie.was.here on Instagram); New York Times opinion columnist and podcaster and cereal critic Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie on Twitter and Instagram); comedian and roller derby commentator Blaine Capatch (@blainecapatch on Twitter); and Pop Culture Happy Hour host & author Linda Holmes (@lindaholmes on Twitter and @lindaholmes97 on Instagram).

And on Follow Friday's Patreon page, you can unlock an extended version of this interview in which Jesse shares a fifth bonus follow recommendation! Thank you to our amazing patrons: Jon, Justin, Amy, Yoichi, Danielle, Elizabeth, and Sylnai.

Also:

• Follow Jesse @JesseThorn on Twitter and @put.this.on on Instagram
• Follow us @FollowFridayPod on Twitter and Instagram
• Follow Eric @heyheyesj on Twitter
• Email us! hello@followfridaypodcast.com

P.S. Here's Blaine Capatch's list of the 500 Worst Albums of the 20th Century.

This show is a production of Lightningpod.fm, hosted and produced by Eric Johnson

Music: Yona Marie

Show art: Dodi Hermawan

Social media producer: Sydney Grodin

Former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé first became an internet meme before most people knew what memes were: At Nintendo's presentation at the gaming expo E3 2004, he turned heads by announcing, "My name is Reggie. I'm about kickin' ass, I'm about takin' names, and we're about makin' games."

"I received a message from my teenage son who told me, 'Dad, you're famous,'" Reggie says. "They weren't called memes at the time — these were Photoshopped images. He sent me these images of me blowing up a competitive console; me dressed up like Sylvester Stallone from one of his movies; me looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger from TheTerminator."

Today on Follow Friday, Reggie shares the backstory of another press conference that made him even more internet-famous, and talks about his new book Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo.

And he explains why we should follow "Originals" and "Think Again" author Adam Grant (@Adamgrant on Instagram, @AdamMGrant on Twitter and LinkedIn); Pivot co-host and New York Times writer Kara Swisher (@karaswisher on Twitter and Instagram); The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon (@jimmyfallon on Instagram and Twitter); and the founder of The Game Awards, Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley on Twitter).

Thank you to our amazing patrons: Jon, Justin, Amy, Yoichi, Danielle, Elizabeth, and Sylnai. On our Patreon page, you can pledge any amount of money to get access to Follow Friday XL — our members-only podcast feed with exclusive bonus follows.

That feed has an extended-length version of this interview in which Reggie talks about what he has learned from following author and executive advisor Roger L. Martin.

Also:

• Follow Reggie @Reggie on Twitter and buy Disrupting the Game
• Follow us @FollowFridayPod on Twitter and Instagram
• Follow Eric @heyheyesj on Twitter
• Email us! hello@followfridaypodcast.com

This show is a production of Lightningpod.fm, hosted and produced by Eric Johnson

Music: Yona Marie

Show art: Dodi Hermawan

Social media producer: Sydney Grodin