'Help! I can't stop reading advice columns, even though I know the questions are fake!'

Very Serious with Josh Barro

This week's episode of Very Serious contains some un-bleeped profanity.

Have you noticed that advice columns are everywhere now? Have you noticed that most of the questions are fake, and yet you cannot stop reading them? Why? My friend Ben Dreyfuss has been getting into the advice business himself, taking the questions from popular advice columns and offering his own blunter, funnier, better advice. I invited Ben to talk with me about the advice column as a format, and the perverse incentives that lead publications to run questions everyone knows are fake. And Ben and I considered some letters together, just like I do in my own advice/Q&A column, which I call the Mayonnaise Clinic.

Visit joshbarro.com for episode notes, links and a transcript, and to sign up for the Very Serious newsletter.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.joshbarro.com/subscribe