If you go on TikTok and look at videos tagged #MainCharacterEnergy, you’ll find people doing the most to camera, grabbing your attention by dancing or hyperbolizing or gushing, maybe all at the same time. You start to get the sense that Main Character energy is about taking up as much space as possible, unapologetically putting yourself at the center of it all.
Continuing to scroll, however, you’ll soon find yourself in the backlash-to-Main-Character-Energy videos. One of them, a clip from comedian Hannah Berner’s podcast, starts with an emphatic command: “Let’s stop normalizing main character energy.” Her guest, the comedian Cat Cohen, interjects immediately: “It has to stop, people are deranged…You can love yourself and still be empathetic and listen to other people.” Many seem to agree; the video has a quarter of a million likes.
Somewhat paradoxically, Berner and Cohen embody every bit of the Main Character Energy they denounce. But what can they do? They’re comedians on a podcast and that’s the gig, twice over. When we listen to podcasts, we expect the hosts to be the Main Characters. We, the listeners, come for the topic and the dynamic and the point of view argued by someone else. While we do the dishes or walk home from work or take the train to a friend’s house, someone else babbles on in our ears. Can you even be a podcast host if you’re anything else?
Enter Monica Padman, the co-host of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard and my antidote to Main Character energy: the Main Character who can listen.
Each episode of Armchair Expert guarantees an hours-long, sprawling mix of conversation and interview that gracefully bobs between intense vulnerability and peals of laughter. Dax Shepard is the face of the podcast, but over the years his co-host, Monica Padman, has settled into her role as not only the behind-the-scenes puppet master who edits each episode, but also on-air talent in her own right.
Dax controls the flow of the interview, coming prepared with research. Monica is almost a proxy audience member. She purposefully remains mostly in the dark about the guest, only bringing to the table what a layman might know (tabloid rumors, preconceptions, and all). She understands when to pull back and when to push in. She interjects when she needs more clarification, when a particular point resonates deeply with her, or when Dax says something she feels compelled to call out.
I was recently talking about the pod with a friend when she flippantly asked, “Who even is Monica?” I was taken aback. Although I knew it was a question that came up in online discourse about the show, I didn’t quite recognize it as a diss until I heard it out loud. It seemed to imply that Monica wasn’t worthy of co-hosting if she didn’t talk as much as Dax did. But what in the world would that do?
About an hour into a recent episode with Jada Pinkett Smith, I realized Monica hadn’t spoken in a while. The episode was one of the show’s more revealing ones, with Jada diving into the trauma of her childhood, her relationship with Tupac, the Oscars slap, and her unusual marriage to Will Smith, to name just a few moments. Instead of thinking, How odd that Monica is just sitting there silently, I admired her. This was Jada’s story to tell, and there was a lot of it (a whole book’s worth, actually). Monica had the self-awareness to know that there was no need for a quippy aside or interruption just to prove herself as a co-host. A sense of assuredness was clearly in evidence, even if her actual voice was not.
There’s a lesson in Monica s thoughtful silence. She reminds us that sometimes, all we have to do is listen—and not just when a pre-recorded podcast is funneling into our ears. It’s a sign of confidence and a way to build trust, allowing others in the room, from guests to friends and loves ones, to open up. It fosters gratitude.
Monica Padman is a main character not because she has made a TikTok with the hashtag: a real main character doesn’t need to prove anything to you. If I were Monica I would ask: And who are you?