Gobbledygook is a weekly bite-sized podcast from Ragan Fox exploring horror, queer culture, media, rhetoric, and the strange ways popular culture helps us understand ourselves. Equal parts cultural criticism, comedy, memoir, and academic mischief, each episode asks what happens when we take "gobbledygook" seriously.
Ragan has become a volleyball bottom.
What begins as an investigation into the outrageous price of professional volleyballs spirals into addiction metaphors, gay sports leagues, compression sleeves, Natalie Harp, NXIVM, Strangers with Candy, and the uncomfortable realization that being fifty sometimes feels like playing a high-school freshman while everyone around you is actually young. At volleyball, Ragan is Jerry Blank trying desperately to infiltrate the cool girls; at kickball, he's somehow Cool Jerry. Either way, he's a "junkie whore."
Then Pearl enters the chat. Watching younger players socialize, flirt, and move through the world prompts Ragan to confront the gap between the life he once imagined at fifty and the one he's actually living—but somewhere inside Old Pearl is still the younger version insisting, "I will not accept a life I do not deserve."
The episode closes on a markedly different note as Ragan remembers his late stepbrother Michael: his teasing, his life in Houston's Montrose neighborhood, the Thanksgiving when he announced that he'd spotted Ragan in gay porn, and the bizarrely unforgettable jingle Michael wrote for their father's business. Episode 8 is dedicated to Michael and to being unapologetically yourself.
9 Aug 2026
Episode 7: The Final Bottom
What happens when an AI-generated daddy has 20,000 followers and your actual human podcast has twelve listeners?
Ragan confronts the possibility that Gobbledygook may not have much of an audience—and discovers that the competition isn't necessarily other podcasters. It's computer-generated men with older faces pasted onto impossibly muscular bodies.
From there, he considers a strange paradox of aging: you may become more thoughtful and interesting while simultaneously becoming less visible in a culture that increasingly confuses attractiveness with value. With detours through Aristotle, gay pornography, Anthony Fauci, ancient Greek sculpture, horror movies, and the linguistic complexities of bottoming, Ragan asks what happens when we stop wanting other people and start wanting their simulations.
Returning to Obsession, he connects AI fantasy to the desire to strip another person of agency: perhaps the perfect object of desire is becoming something that looks human but doesn't possess inconvenient things like thoughts, feelings, or needs.
But this is Gobbledygook, so we're not surrendering to the robots yet. With a little help from Dynasty, Ragan ends with a defense of messy, thinking, aging, imperfect humanity—and a commitment to claw his way out of the metaphorical wine cellar for at least three more episodes.
1 Aug 2026
Episode 6: Full-Blown AGE
Ragan begins with a deceptively simple question that turns into a meditation on aging, friendship, and the strange feeling of becoming invisible in queer spaces. From volleyball leagues full of twenty-somethings to Janet Jackson songs that seem audible only to the middle-aged, he imagines fifty as a kind of Bermuda Triangle where gay men mysteriously disappear.
The conversation then shifts to media, politics, and culture as Ragan skewers Barry Weiss, the University of Austin, and reality television's habit of rewarding anti-LGBTQ+ contestants. Along the way, he explores why institutions so often reward reactionary voices while marginalizing queer ones—and why absurdity may be the only sane response.
Equal parts stand-up comedy, cultural criticism, and queer commentary, this episode asks what happens when aging itself starts to feel like a horror movie.
25 Jul 2026
Episode 5: The One-Wish Willow
What if the real purpose of a wish isn't to change someone else—but to change yourself?
This week, Ragan begins with aging, kickball, Madonna, and an unforgettable encounter with an opinionated neighbor before diving into a discussion of agency, consent, and horror. Using the hit horror film Obsession as a springboard, he explores why the film has resonated so deeply with audiences and argues that its true subject isn't romance—it's control.
Along the way, he reflects on queer identity, the manosphere, AI, Donald Trump, bodybuilder influencers, Dynasty, and why the healthiest wish isn't making someone love you—it's becoming someone brave enough to face rejection.
18 Jul 2026
Episode 4: The Donald J. Trump Diarrhea Parasite
Can artificial intelligence replace professors? According to one provocative article, the future of higher education may look a lot more like OnlyFans than the traditional classroom. Ragan isn't buying it.
In this episode, he reflects on why genuine teaching, storytelling, and artistic expression depend on something algorithms can't reproduce: human experience. From Madonna's newest music and practical effects in horror films to A Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist, and Strangers with Candy, Ragan argues that authenticity—not optimization—is what audiences actually crave.
Then things take a distinctly Gobbledygook turn as Donald Trump's refusal to accept the 2020 election becomes an extended metaphor involving Freddy Krueger, psychological projection, and one unforgettable set of soiled bedsheets.
11 Jul 2026
Episode 3: A Bottom Phenomenon
Ragan wakes up to an unexpectedly attractive Australian vent cleaner at his front door and spirals into an existential crisis about aging, attraction, and why everyone seems younger than he is. From there, the episode veers—as Gobbledygookhappily does—into the politics of housing, the strange intimacy of smart devices, the terrifying efficiency of kickball bottoms, the state of network television, and the fantasy of what the United States might look like if queer people actually ran the White House.
Along the way, Ragan reflects on turning fifty, mourns the loss of Stephen Colbert's show, skewers the Trump administration, explains why "vers" isn't part of his fantasy life, and celebrates the publication of his memoir, Touched.
Equal parts stand-up comedy, queer cultural criticism, and political satire, this episode argues that if America is going to survive, it might need less toxic masculinity—and a lot more bottom energy.
4 Jul 2026
Episode 2: The Sissyosphere
Ragan spends an unexpectedly quiet Fourth of July weekend at home after realizing he may have accidentally doubled his dose of Lexapro. Rather than risk cocktails and serotonin syndrome, he stays in and does what he does best: spirals into a hilarious meditation on surveillance capitalism, smart devices, aging as a gay man, the manosphere, and why queer perspectives deserve a louder place in public discourse.
Along the way, he imagines Alexa as an invasive billboard, argues that our household appliances have become undercover informants, skewers Joe Rogan's version of "asking questions," and proposes a new cryptocurrency designed specifically for bottoms.
Equal parts stand-up comedy, cultural criticism, and queer theory, this episode asks what happens when the internet's loudest voices are challenged by something smarter, stranger, and a lot more fabulous.
1 Jul 2026
Episode 1: Welcome to the Gobbledygook
20 years after he started his first podcast, Fox and the City, Ragan Fox is back with his unique brand of gobbledygook.
Welcome to the first episode of Gobbledygook, a short-form podcast where queer culture, horror, media criticism, and academic theory collide—with plenty of profanity and pop culture detours along the way.
Ragan introduces the premise behind the show, explains why he's reclaiming the word gobbledygook, and reflects on turning 50, surviving a colonoscopy soundtracked by Chappell Roan's "Pink Pony Club," and why West Hollywood eventually became a place he had to leave behind.
Along the way, he skewers Trumpian rhetoric, confesses his dependence on Benadryl-assisted sleep, imagines a socialist Fallon Carrington on Dynasty, and argues that everything—from horror films to luxury flannel shirts—is worthy of critical interpretation.
If you've ever wondered what happens when queer theory meets stand-up comedy, you've found your podcast.
Reach and audience
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Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
2 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
2 ratings
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