Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Tufts Creatives: The Metaview

DSC_2970
Will Capriola and Tys Sweeney pose for a portrait outside the Tisch Library on March 26, 2018.

On Monday, I had the opportunity to talk with current first-years Tys Sweeney and Will Capriola on their podcast, the relatively new and alliteratively titled “Egg White Workshop. In the episode, they interview me about my column, specifically how I go about the interview process. To add yet another level of meta, I then decided to interview them for this week’s column — after all, one can never have too much meta. Listen to the “Metasode” on theeggwhite.com.

Julian Blatt (JB): How did you decide to start a podcast?

Tys Sweeney (TS): I enjoy listening to podcasts, and I wanted to create my own. So one day I said to Will, “Hey, what can we make a podcast about?” And we landed on one-word topics and interesting headlines in the news.

Will Capriola (WC): Just quick, light information.

TS: “The sunny side of the day” is the tagline on our website.

JB: Where did the name come from?

WC: We were using a random word generator.

TS: I think we got “egg white” first and then we found “workshop.”

WC: And we realized that they sounded great together. Especially since we were eating breakfast at the time.

JB: Did any of the podcasts you listen to inspire “Egg White Workshop?”

TS:  I’m going to answer this with a metaphor. The British Navy was once the best navy on Earth, and they were nicely organized. Whereas an NPR podcast might be a frigate, we’ve got a canoe. And we’re happy with our canoe. It’s utterly disorganized. It’s absolutely chaotic. It’s terribly edited.

WC: No, that’s not true. You do a good job.

TS: I do alright. But I use video editing software to edit an audio podcast. So what we have is something that is strictly for fun. And it is amateur by design.

WC: That’s one way to put it.

TS: Yeah, it’s amateur by design, since we have no intention of becoming professional podcasters. This is just something we do on the side to entertain our friends, and if we build a large following, that’s a bonus. We’re not looking to become professionals.

JB: Have you gotten any feedback so far?

TS: Yes, stellar feedback. We’re five-star rated.

WC: From our friends.

TS: Everybody loves us. We’ve been recommended on many different platforms as the podcast to listen to.

WC: Primarily GroupMe and our group chat. Honestly, we’ve only published three episodes so far, so we don’t have a very big audience at the moment, but we usually send the link to our friends, and we’ve received some good criticism. People are generally supportive, but they also give us technical tips, like having better audio quality, and suggest topics they want to hear us talk about.

TS: So we do get helpful advice and we are happy about that, but our current base of listeners seems to be really engaged with the show, and for now that’s all we need.

JB: What is your favorite kind of egg?

TS: I like a fried egg. A good fried egg is delicious.

WC: A scrambled egg cooked slowly, with sliced cheddar.

TS: I agree. Cheesy eggs with hot sauce.

WC: Hot sauce is a must.