The Intern
[I’m listening to 100 different podcasts and writing what I learn. This is No. 27 in my 100 podcast series.]
There’s a scene in Episode 3 of The Intern where Allison Behringer visits Ikea to get a mattress for her New York City apartment.
Allison is creating a documentary podcast about life inside betaworks, and as she gets settled she starts to create a home for herself, both at the tech start-up incubator (investor in Medium, GIPHY, Anchor, Gimlet Media, Kickstarter and many more) and in New York.
This task quickly becomes more difficult and pricey than she thought. It reminds me of the episode of 30 Rock where Liz Lemon and her boyfriend take a trip to Ikea, which spirals into a full blown existential crisis.
Allison’s adventure includes finding a mattress in her budget, picking it up, transporting it home herself on the subway, and then navigating the stares of strangers as she carries it the final 10 blocks to her apartment.
In this single act, we see Allison’s need for independence, her fear of judgement, her ambivalence about privilege and capitalism, and finally her endurance and determination. These are themes that will show up throughout the four episodes (so far).
The furniture we buy is an investment that symbolizes a milepost in our lives. New furniture can signify starting over, moving up in the world or accomodating a new person, place or thing in our life. And that’s what’s happening here. It’s about transition.
In this context, Allison’s simple trip to Ikea symbolizes her documentary podcast, which is as much about finding your place in your mid-20s today as it is about the tech start-up world today.
OK, so I read a lot into that single episode and did a lot of armchair psychoanalyzing. Sorry. But the rich storytelling and attention to detail makes that possible. It’s clear that Allision pours a great deal of time, emotion, narrative structure and editing work to produce tight stories that illuminate larger themes — from imposter syndrome to the need for diversity.
The more I listened, the more it reminded me of another autobiographical podcast about taking a risk in the start-up world — Gimlet Media’s Start Up. In many ways, this is a lot like Start Up, except told from an intern’s point of view rather than the CEO/founder’s viewpoint.
In fact, Start Up may have paved the way for The Intern. As Allison notes, one of the reasons she has this opportunity is because “everyone wants a podcast” these days. The time is right.
Which may mean many more trips to Ikea are in her future.
