Countless popular podcasts offer fan clubs, Patreon communities, or premium membership networks to provide listeners with ad-free episodes, bonus content, and direct interaction with the hosts.
Some of the most prominent podcasts and networks with dedicated fan clubs include:
- True Crime: Crime Junkie (offers the Crime Junkie Fan Club with ad-free episodes and exclusive series) and My Favorite Murder (hosts the Fan Cult).
- Comedy & Entertainment: Comedy Bang! Bang! (via CBB World), Doughboys, and Kevin Smith’s podcast lineup (via That Kevin Smith Club).
- Pop Culture & Storytelling: Fantasy Fangirls, Old Gods of Appalachia (The Hatchery), and SmartLess (SmartLess+).
- Sports: The Locked On Podcast Network (Everydayer Club) and The Club.
- Educational/Niche: But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids and Forever35.
Many of these communities operate through subscription services like Supercast, Supporting Cast, or Podbean Fan Club, giving fans private audio feeds in their favorite podcast player. Typically, these “fan clubs” are conceived and managed by the podcaster.
No money is charged. No membership cards are printed. Even the cast of the podcast was not intially involved. In fact, the fan club calls itself “The Nobodys!”
The Nobodys Fan Club has as its object of enternal admiration the comedy podcast Nobody Listens To Paula Poundstone.
In case you’re not familiar with the show, here is the show’s synopsis: “Join Paula Poundstone, co-host Adam Felber and a long list of characters, real and imaginary, on Nobody Listens To Paula Poundstone (the comedy podcast), a podcast taking the fun of a late-night show, the wit of a public radio show, and the knowledge of a guest experts while setting the volume to the max. Acerbic yet infectiously funny, Nobody Listens To Paula Poundstone (the comedy podcast) invites listeners into the audience of this absolutely ludicrous variety show, if they can follow along…or not.”
This comedy podcast mirrors the quirky stream of consciousness mindset of its eponymous host, Paula Poundstone. Known for her smart, observational humor and spontaneous wit, Poundstone is well known for her appearances years ago on A Prairie Home Companion, her current guest spots on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and her stand-up act, which gears up for more than 85 shows a year. Poundstone’s enduring strength as a comedian does not really depend on a tightly scripted routine, but on her magical ability to improvise and begin talking to an audience to uncover comedic nuggets from the mouths of admiring fans.
I’ve seen her live several times, and she often comes on stage and begins to talk to the audience. From those interactions, her improvisational comedy flows. Unlike a tightly scripted routine like Sebastian Maniscalco or Kevin James, Poundstone lives on the comedic edge. Her podcast reflects that spontaneous tone.
When you listen to Nobody Listens To Paula Poundstone, you are assaulted with a hail storm of sharp-witted jokes, zany characters, idiosyncratic contests, lunatic projects, cranky animals, imaginary celebrity guests and a carousel of talented musicians.
That part of the podcast has remained stable over the life of the show, yet the craziness changes constantly. The show has the weirdest book club imaginable — now reading the Valley Of The Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. There are odd gardening tips, the ongoing search for a survivalist gone missing, and new musicians every episode that become the “house band.”
Co-host Adam Felber has been there since the beginning, clearly behind the wheel in the podcast episodes, trying – sometimes in vain – to keep the show on the pavement while Poundstone continues to try to veer off into comedy potholes. His ability to play off Poundstone for comedic effect is a virtuoso effort, and his apparent exasperation at Poundstone’s detours makes for comedic sparks.
Poundstone’s manager, Bonnie Burns, is affectionately and derisively known as “Captain Crinkle” on the show, and her frenetic, haphazard and logic-destroying manner gives Felber and Poundstone comedy ammunition. Even the podcast’s producer — Toni Anita Hull — gets in on the comedy action with her hilarious tale of a cruise gone horribly wrong with her brother, who left the cruise at the halfway point so she was forced to hang with a niece she doesn’t get along with.
The Nobodys Fan Club
The primary community hub for fans is the Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone Podcast Fan Club on Facebook. Members refer to themselves as “Nobodys” in an homage to the podcast’s unique title and comedic style. Sheldon Helms started the Facebook Podcast Fan Club, which is up to 4.4 thousand members.
The Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone podcast and its accompanying fan-run Facebook group started in 2018, coinciding with the launch of the podcast’s debut in July of that year.
One of its long-time and most active members is Terrianne Falcone, who says of the fan club, “Sheldon has set up rules such as no bashing of anyone on the podcast nor other members and he is on the ball enforcing them. I think it has contributed to the sense of safety and community that exists in the group. When I see a comment that seems inflammatory or seems to bash someone, I often tag Sheldon. He was the first to organize dinners and meet ups when many Nobodys were going to a live show. It has now become quite typical for a member to announce that they’re going to a show in say, Billings, Montana and post a comment asking if anyone else is going and wants to meet up.”
Comedian and podcast creator/host Paula Poundstone says of the fan club: “I’m blown away when one of our listeners, a ‘Nobody,’
comes up to me to tell me how much they love our podcast. The thing about podcasting is that you have no idea what works, and what doesn’t.”
Terianne told me a story about seeing Paula Poundstone in Maine. “I have seen her over a dozen times. I have lost count. I just came back from Bar Harbor – six hours away – to see her. I figured what better excuse to go to Acadia National Park than to see Paula Poundstone on a Friday night then go hiking the rest of the weekend. She always speaks to her fans after the show and I always stay to say hello, maybe have her sign a book or tee shirt. In Bar Harbor, she insisted we make a video because I told her I was holding a Zoom call for the Nobodys the next day and she wanted to express her thanks to them.”
In an article about podcast fan clubs by Liz Krieger, the author wrote, “People start fan clubs for podcasts to find a sense of community and deepen their connection with hosts and other listeners. Because podcasting is a highly intimate, one-to-one medium usually consumed alone, listeners crave shared spaces to discuss episodes, share similar interests, and build meaningful relationships.”
Liz explained about Adela Mizrahi, a communications specialist in Chicago, who started the Podcast Brunch Club in 2015, after she’d spent several lonely months recovering from surgery and listening to podcasts to pass the time. Initially, it was just her and a few local friends; when she posted a note on Facebook about a year later asking if anyone in other cities would be interested in starting chapters of their own, the response was immediate. Today, the Podcast Brunch Club has 66 chapters worldwide, each meeting monthly to discuss a podcast playlist Mizrahi curates around a certain theme, from artificial intelligence to heartache to wanderlust.
When I asked, through Terianne, what fan club members liked about the podcast, they answered like this.
” It’s super fun to see how long the show goes before going off the rails and has to get reined in by Adam! He is the unsung hero on the show. There’s all this insanity and inanity going on and he keeps the thing going.
“I love all the ridiculous characters like Mike Boom Boom Bonafit, a slacker who thinks himself quite macho and Cher Eva the fraudulent psychic,
“I love Mrs Culpeper, the hand puppet that wears a red velveteen dress and reveals that her husband, Captain Culpepper was not killed in war but from eating bad cheese – “it was the Gouda that got him.”
Terianne adds, “What I love most about the show is the love that Paula, Adam, Bonnie and Toni have for one another and their listeners. Many Nobodys have commented that it’s like hanging out with friends or hanging out with a family very few of us go to have.”
When Nobody can be Anybody
Nobody listens To Paul Poundstone co-host Adam Felber says of the fan club: “Social media was SUPPOSED to be a tool to create community, but it rarely is. Our amazing fan club is a fantastic exception. Not only have our beloved ‘Nobodies’ created a place where they can talk, joke, arrange meet-ups, and make friends, they’ve also done something wonderful for us.
“Recording from our homes, sending our pod out into the void… it can feel kind of isolating. Like, is anybody actually hearing this? But when we drop by the fan page (often covertly!) and read their thoughts on the show, all of that changes, and it all feels completely worthwhile.”
There is a constant and close interaction between fan club members and the cast of the podcast.
Terianne recalls: “There was a show in Glendale, in LA, in February 2025 that I flew out for because many ‘Nobodys’ were going as well the whole cast plus their significant others. I got to meet everybody and Nobodys! In fact, Bonnie Burns, Paula’s manager, came up to me and said, ‘your’re Terianne Falcone, aren’t you?’ She reads the posts in our group and will sometimes make comments.”
Paula Poundstone expands her thoughts on the fan club: “I have considered giving my two weeks notice a number of times. But, then another Tuesday shows up, we start to record, and within seconds something brilliant, something stupid, something totally unexpected, or something so familiar it calls us home, has my partners and I laughing
ourselves silly, and I think, ‘You can’t buy this.’
When it turns out our listeners have the same reaction? That, my friend, is the fluffy not stuffy filling, AND the chocolate outer coating. That’s why we put up a new episode every week.”
Paula adds: “We don’t want to let the ‘Nobodies’ down.
In a Medium article from 2025, podcast coach Heidy De La Cruz noted that, “Podcasting isn’t just about creating great content — it’s about building a loyal community that engages with your show, spreads the word, and grows with you. A supportive community can amplify your podcast’s impact, increase listener retention, and even open doors for monetization and sponsorships.”
For the thousands of niche podcasts who can’t compete with the network-supported celebrity shows in audience downloads, listens, and views, transforming your audience into a tight-knit community is the great equalizer.
For example, fans of the The Art of Kindness podcast, hosted by Robert Peterpaul, affectionately call themselves “friends.” The host and the community frequently use phrases like “Hear you there, friend” and “sweet friends” to build a welcoming atmosphere. Listeners can tune into the series via the Broadway Podcast Network to join the growing kindness movement.
When engaging the enemy, the objective is to find their weakness and play to your strengths. Fan clubs, like the Nobodys from Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone, energize podcasts that may not be hosted by a major celebrity or have the financial resources of a corporate owned podcast network. These fan clubs and other events to create a community from a podcast audience. They have the EP factor – enthusiasm and passion – that podcasts on the top of the rankings every week often lack.
“Being a fan is all about bringing the enthusiasm. It’s being a champion of possibility. It’s believing in someone,” says designer Tina Roth Eisenberg.
