We recently connected with Michele Foss-Snowden and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Michele, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
Like many of my Generation X peers, I watched a lot of television during my “latchkey kid” afternoons, evenings, and weekends. TV was a companion, a friend, and a teacher. I watched soap operas with my grandmother, science fiction with my mom, and sitcoms with my friends. I sometimes forgot to turn off the TV before I fell asleep; television was my lullaby and my night light.
When I went to college and needed to pick a major, I was drawn to areas of study that seemed like they would lead to the fulfilling careers I’d seen on the screen. I considered Political Science and Pre-Law thanks to the influence of Law & Order’s Jack McCoy. I considered Education after being inspired by Mrs. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus. Frasier Crane from Frasier made Psychology seem like a solid choice. I took classes that allowed me to sample each area, but nothing felt like the lightning bolt moment I’d hoped to experience. I was undeclared for so long that I was putting my graduation in jeopardy.
I finally sought advice from a counselor. She looked over my transcripts, silently surveying the chaos I’d created, and then asked me, “So, why haven’t you declared Communication as your major?” I shook my head and said, “No. That’s not my major. Those are the classes I take for fun.” I’d accumulated dozens of units (not to mention my strongest grades) in classes about film and television. I took these classes as a way to add balance to my schedule each term: take a few classes that feel like play while taking others that feel like hard work. The counselor gave me a gentle smile and said, “Well, if you’d like to graduate, I’d say you should start learning to embrace the fact that you’re a Communication major. Congratulations.”
I was up half that night trying to figure out how I was going to explain to my family that I had decided to take this golden opportunity, this rare privilege–a college education at one of the finest institutions in the world–and flush it down the TV toilet. When I finally DID tell my grandmother, she cried. My mom didn’t cry, but I could tell she wanted to. I thought I’d blown my chance, all because I couldn’t properly compartmentalize my love for TV.
I had no choice at that point but to take my foot off the brake and smash the gas, full speed ahead into what the world of Communication and Media Studies had to offer. My decision (albeit forced by the academic counselor to whom I should be sending annual gift baskets, thanking her for changing my life) turned out to be perfection. I did graduate on time, and then went to graduate school. I wrote both my master’s thesis and my doctoral dissertation about…say it with me…television. I now teach classes about TV as a full professor, and I have a podcast about television that’s in its fifth season. The minute I stopped denying what so obviously belonged to me was the minute I truly set myself on the path toward REAL success.
My mission, whether I’m professing or podcasting, is to help everyone I can reach consider the internal gift they’ve been denying. We waste so much time trying to force our gifts into what we think they should be instead of just celebrating what they are. Using a creative lens for self-assessment leads to the balance we all need so desperately in the current climate. And it’s never too late to say yes to your true self.
Michele, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I started studying television from an academic perspective when I was in college. Even then, I held the philosophy that television can be used to heal what ails us. I knew I would someday create a project based on that idea, but this was before I had a Ph.D., before I was a professor, and before podcasts even existed! But when those three life events happened, they created a perfect storm for the creation of The TV Doctor podcast. One, I earned my Ph.D., giving me the right to use “Dr.” as my title. When folks would meet me as “Dr. Foss” and they’d jokingly ask me about their back pain, I’d say, “Oh, I’m not that kind of doctor, but let me know if you’d like to hear what you should be watching on TV.” Two, I became a professor and realized I could make a living by reading about, writing about, talking about, and watching television all day. It’s the kind of gig my inner child would have dreamed for me. And three, once I learned about podcasts, I knew it was the right format for my voice. I’m still very much a professor on the pod, but my classroom is worldwide.
The TV Doctor is a show where I “prescribe” what people should be watching to heal whatever is hurting them. My tagline is, “I’m not a doctor on TV, but I play one in real life.” I’m giving you my Over-the-Counter recommendations (shows that everyone should be watching, regardless of their individual symptoms…like TV multivitamins), advice from a Second Opinion (a guest on the show who has special expertise in the topic at hand), and some Urgent Care (in which I respond to letters from the audience; people send me their symptoms and I “prescribe” specific shows or episodes for them). Most episodes of the podcast follow a theme with a medical- (or medical-adjacent) name. For example, my episode about the best TV tearjerkers of all time was called “Keratoconjunctivitis Sicca,” which is a fancy way to describe dry eyes (if your eyes are dry, or you just need a good cry, watch these shows to get your tears flowing).
When I started the show five years ago, I had no idea how much WORK goes into a podcast’s creation. I didn’t realize that most podcasts have a whole team of folks tasked with production, each member of the team with years of experience and specialized training. I didn’t realize that I would be wearing ALL THE HATS, from idea generation to writing to identifying and booking guests to recording and editing and posting to sound design and then marketing and then analytics and so on. I learned everything about podcast creation along the way. I am most proud that I didn’t let the weight of being the show’s EE (Executive Everything) grind me to a halt, especially while maintaining my “day job” of being a full-time professor. I continue to love that day job, but the podcast is my heart work. It is me, unburdened and uninterrupted, brutally honest but always coming from a place of love.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
I owe The TV Doctor podcast’s existence to two books: More Than Enough by Elaine Welteroth, and Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Elaine Welteroth, known to many as the former Editor-in-Chief of Teen Vogue (and the person responsible for evolving the publication into the advocate for social justice it is today), was a student of mine in my first few years as a professor. Over the years, we went from professor and student, to mentor and mentee, to close friends. When she told me she was going to include the story of how we met in her book, I was honored. She painted a picture of me that made me sound ten feet tall and fearless. She explained (for the whole world to read!) how I’d inspired her, and I quietly wondered if I deserved the description. The version of me in her book was the version of me I wanted to be, and I decided I needed to make a few adjustments to my current operating procedures. In the Conclusion of the book, she says, “Do not wait. Do not wonder if you can. Do not ask for permission.” I had been working on the idea of the podcast for weeks, maybe even months, but when reading Elaine’s words, I realized I had been waiting. I had been wondering if I could. I had been waiting for someone to give me permission to take the plunge. Elaine’s book reminded me I was More Than Enough, and I decided to believe it.
Big Magic was the final kick in the pants I needed. In the book, Elizabeth Gilbert discusses a scenario in which she met up with an author friend and they shared what they’d each been working on. Gilbert’s friend described a book that sounded uncomfortably close to a project Gilbert had in her own projects-in-progress folder, but there was no possible way that the friend had “stolen” Gilbert’s ideas. It’s just that two separate people both had the same essential idea, and one of them accepted and embraced the idea, and one of them (Gilbert) shelved it. Gilbert recounts dozens of examples where ideas, moving through space/time like energy, occur to more than one person at a time. My blood ran cold. The idea of SOMEONE ELSE bringing my idea to life before me made me physically ill. I set the date for my podcast launch party within 24 hours of finishing that book, giving myself a hard deadline I HAD to meet. It was the best thing I could have ever done.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I love the creative community! I can’t think of many other spaces where your peers are so motivated to see you win, and so invested in helping you do well. Since owning “creative” as a part of my identity, I have been uplifted and supported (two separate yet equally important actions) in ways that I haven’t seen in my other social and/or work-related groups.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thetvdoc.com
- Instagram: @thecuriouscaseofmfoss
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teeveephd
- Twitter: @TeeVeePhD
Image Credits
C. Bourn