We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Stella Cheeks a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Stella , thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
Our original podcast (Not Your Demographic) got started because my co-host (Erin Cline) and I were sick of hearing men talk about professional wrestling. So we though, f**** it, why not just start our own. Neither of us had any background in audio design outside of some extremely limited experience in our college theater program, so we really had to start from the ground up. As the person who started off doing all the editing, YouTube was definitely my best friend. I learned entirely from Youtube and free programs like Audacity, After a couple years of doing the podcast I did go to DePaul University to get my masters in Digital Communication and Media Arts, but honestly by the time I took the podcast and editing classes at Depaul, I already knew what I was doing. And now our company NYD Productions has several podcasts and another producer so I hardly have to edit at all. The Dream!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Well, like I said before, I got real sick of hearing men’s opinions about female wrestlers so we made a podcast to combat that. When we originally started Not Your Demographic in 2015 there were not a lot of women or queer voices in the wrestling podcasts community so there was a big need. Now there are a TON of podcasts that are very intersectional and boy if you never want to hear a white cis straight man talk about professional wrestling on a podcasts you never have to again! It’s fantastic.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
I’m a big believer in creating the kind of content you would personally want to consume. Whether that be podcasts, live theater, fan fiction, etc. etc. it should be something that (a) fills a need and (b) that you would actually want to read/watch/listen to. Because if you wouldn’t want to listen…why would any one else? I’m the number one fan of X-Treks (our Star Trek/X-Files podcast). I listen to every single episode and have absolutely no shame doing it.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
While Not Your Demographic was our first podcast and really launched our love of podcasting, we’ve both stopped caring about wrestling and we both stopped caring about doing our flagship podcast. I will FOREVER be grateful to all the listeners of this diy feminist wrestling podcast and all the opportunities it opened up for me (particularly my career at Cageside Seats), but as an artist it’s important to listen to your projects when they tell you they are done.
Letting Not Your Demographic go has given us the freedom to focus more on X-Treks and has giving me the time and energy to launch Spooky 30s, my horror podcast. Plus, Erin and Bobby (our other producer) have some solo pod projects up their sleeves that are really exciting! Projects that we wouldn’t have the brain space for if we didn’t let Not Your Demographic go. But it’ll always be a part of our legacy because it’s in our company name! That NYD will always stand for “Not Your Demographic.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nydproductions.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nydproductions/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/nydproductions
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-u1POFf3wVGvJKFGMurUfA
- Other: https://www.patreon.com/NYDProductions
Image Credits
Live Photos – Joe Lewis Spooky Thirties Logo – Lauren Moran X-Treks & NYD Logo – Jonathan Kurtycz