INTERNET HISTORY: The Demise of "Call Her Daddy"

Call Her Daddy seemed to clothe itself in sex positivity, yet it always felt like it was for the male gaze.

Call Her Daddy always rubbed me wrong content wise, it always seemed veiled in misogyny and they always talked from a place of the superior “hot girl”. Just was cringe to listen to as a woman.

I used to listen to CHD for a stint until I realized how bad it made me feel about myself. There was such a heavy focus on separating the conventionally “hot” woman and the “soft 5/hard 4” (average/conventionally unattractive woman). There was so much focus on the male gaze that it killed all aspects of empowerment for me, and sent me on a spiral of self-esteem issues.

Putting aside all of the petty drama, it’s absolutely wild that anyone would see two women working their a$$es off making millions of dollars for a company only to be paid literal PENNIES for their labor. And I’m not saying $400K is nothing. That’s life changing money. But making $400K while your boss and his company takes in $5Mil is so off the wall. This whole narrative was purely based on sexism because I know for a damn fact if Spotify didn’t pay Joe Rogan millions for his podcast, people would say Joe and his work was being taken advantage of. But women just have to be grateful for whatever they get.

every time someone says that Sophia and Alex are greedy for asking for more money it comes across as kinda sexist and slightly delusional tbh. male celebrities will get paid way more than any of these women combined and people won’t think twice, but when a female celebrity asks to be paid a reasonable amount, using their male co celebrities payment as a reference, people start getting upset. if you think that Alex and Sophia where getting paid too much money, you’re probably correct, but you also have to be just as upset about it when a male celebrity does it as you are at them. all I’m saying is most of these people don’t get mad at men when they ask for a reasonable raise. it’s an unrealistic and hypocritical standard to set.

Hannah you keep coming out with videos about content I have never consumed or cared about and I sit through the whole thing absolutely fascinated because you have a way of just completely capturing my attention with your analysis. I love it.

My ex LOVED Call Her Daddy. He said they were “really interesting, really understood men AND women, and I could probably learn some things from it!” I never really listened to it, but his reasons for liking it felt like red flags anyway lol

I love this series. Would be interesting to make one on Bon Apetit too, since they went from absolutely loved to totally tarnished within a matter of weeks.

I used to listen to call her daddy until I realized it made me feel like I was in highschool being bullied by “the hot girls” all over again. Like the way they talk about some things just reminds me of Regina from Mean Girls saying something sweet and nice but really actually judging you.

The only thing I ever saw about this podcast was a Twitter clip of the podcasters being absolutely HORRIBLE describing sleeping with a Black man. It was the most blatant and vile fetishization that honestly no one else would get away with. I don’t think they (or at least Alex) were unreasonable in negotiating their contracts but that left such a bad taste in my mouth I have very little sympathy.

I just out loud exclaimed “I needed this!!!” I never listened to call her daddy and when everything was going on it was so hard to keep up with. I know you’re going to cover this so well, so I’m pumped!

As someone who listens to Sofia's podcast, I think you really missed a significant point that Alex had a ghost writer while Sofia wrote her own stuff! That's why they could never do live shows. Sofia brought a lot to the show and Alex never credited her for it and made it seem like she deserved more for the editing, but Sofia was lazy.

So I've never found them relatable in any way and was shocked (but also not at all yknow) that they became so huge. Like another commenter said, it was like listening to the superior "hot girl." They were carbon copies of the cliquey and ignorant popular girls in highschool. And just how generic and dull those popular girls were in highschool, CHD's views were incredibly boring and bland and not to mention laced in privilege with very heteronormative and misogynist expectations. There are far, far better AND funnier sex focused or even "girl talk"-esque podcasts out there. I feel like their popularity came from the fact they were bought up by Barstool's network so much of their audience was also men who wanted to watch them to see hot girls talk about dating & sex on a predominantly male/college bro network. They're women who are traditional in almost every conventional sense except gasp they talk about sex so Republican college bros eat that shit up, it's hilarious

but you never mentioned sofia’s side at allllll. she hasn’t talked about it a lot but she has talked about it in two episodes of her podcast. i think her points were valid tbh, she WROTE the show and they literally read from scripts because alex isn’t super witty or funny - which is apparent in the new episodes of chd. they didn’t do live shows or tour because alex refused and needed a script before going to the studio to film the podcast. also the sofia smear merch that barstool sports sold and alex promoted was pretty gross too. profiting from a friendship breakup and bullying the other person is just gross to me. both girls kinda rub me the wrong way but i think to be fair alex and barstool sports really drove down this narrative of sofia being lazy and ruthless and under the control of her bf when that really isn’t the full story. in the new chd you can tell alex is no comedian and is more of a guys-girl. while sofia in her podcast is funny but it definitely drags without alex’s editing. they were a super entertaining duo but i neither work perfectly on their own. also i don’t think sofia is a great person, but i think her side deserves to be heard too when she has mentioned it in more than and ig story and objectively both girls were being exploited by dave portnoy scum of the earth.

I'd be interested in an overall examination of barstool sports, because the whole company is shady AF. There be shenanigans.

I havent listened to Sofia's podcast and her explaining her side, but I distinctly remember seeing Alex's video and thinking how completely blameless she made herself out to be. She never once said she did anything wrong or slighted Sofia in any way. I couldn't buy that lol

You’re an ANGEL I just submitted a 7 page paper that I was supposed to write over the entire semester in about 6 hours and I feel dead as shit

Everything CHD taglined to sell (in exception to the “Gluck Gluck”) was Sophia’s content. Sophia was the funny one, the writer, whereas Alex was any replaceable girl. Sophia’s content was always capitalized on. Also just personally, I feel Alex continued to show her sketchy side with letting Jamie Lynn on.

I think a piece you're missing is that there was a brief period where Alex started to come under fire during the early releases of her solo CHD career - not just because it was awkward, but because she began to say relatively tone deaf borderline problematic things. It wasn't a huge hit to her career, but she did lose a lot of OG CHD fans (myself included). People began voicing, primarily on the CHD subreddit and Instagram, that while Alex did heavy lifting with the editing, Sofia was likely responsible for many of the signature jokes and humor (which she has since hinted at on Sofia With An F). Sofia also likely acted as a sounding board that kept the show relatable, as she was more down to earth / had worked a normal 9-5 before, and Alex had always wanted to be famous (which isn't bad, but she'd never had a 'real world' job). And post-drama CHD was very tone deaf and influencer-based - Alex deserved more money for editing, yes, but Sofia definitely had her merits as well, which became glaringly obvious in her absence. This was a great and neutral take on the topic, but I do think you could easily leave this video and villainize Sofia. End of the day, they just did what's best for them and Alex had a quicker reaction time online. I don't think from a PR perspective it was smart of Sofia to ghost the internet, but she has since said on her podcast that she was in an extremely poor mental health state. She flew back home to Utah, was simultaneously likely dealing with her break up with Peter Nelson AND her friendship with Alex blowing up, and I personally think it was really smart of her to take that step back.

I honestly feel kind of bad for Sofia. It’s obvious that her boyfriend was really persuading and influencing her thoughts about the matter and the fact that she was so new to the industry definitely made her believe his words at face value. If she’s not with him anymore, or even if she is, I think she’s probably realized how her boyfriend screwed her.