Amanda and the Nonstop Narrator

Proxy with Yowei Shaw

Yowei Shaw

Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.8 • 589 Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The case of the writer whose inner narrator will not shut up.

Amanda Montell is very good at telling stories. So good, in fact, she can’t seem to stop telling them — even to herself.

Amanda has what she calls a “Storymaker” in her head: an internal narrator constantly shaping her life into scenes, arcs, jokes, metaphors, and meaning. Most of the time, it’s fun. It makes life feel cinematic. It’s useful for her writing.

But lately, Amanda has been wondering if the Storymaker is doing too much. Is she actually living her life, or narrating it from the outside?

In this episode, Yowei connects Amanda with Jonathan Adler, a psychologist who studies narrative identity. Together, they investigate inner monologues, memory, meaning-making, theater kids, and whether Amanda can negotiate a different relationship with the voice in her head.

From the episode:

— Amanda Montell — author of The Age of Magical Overthinking, Cultish, and Wordslut, and host of the podcasts Magical Overthinkers and Sounds Like a Cult — on Instagram@amanda_montell

— Jonathan Adler — personality psychologist — more about his work: www.jonathan-adler.com

X @JonathanMAdler, Bluesky @jadler.bsky.social, and LinkedIn

New to Proxy? Try Bisexual Wife Guy for a classic case, or Caitlin Lost the Voice In Her Head for another story about trying to keep making art when the old way stops working.

For episode liner notes, show gossip, and dispatches from the emotions beat, get our free newsletter File Under Feelings at proxyhq.org.

Proxy is an independent show, supported mostly by listeners. Paid members get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, live Proxy hangs, and the satisfaction of keeping emotional investigative journalism alive 🍏

Visit — proxypodcast.com

Get in touch — proxythepod@gmail.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello?
0:06.3	Hey, babe.
0:07.6	Hey.
0:08.4	How's the recording session going?
0:10.1	Oh, it's good.
0:11.2	It's great.
0:12.0	It's, uh, studios, beautiful.
0:14.7	Sounds awesome.
0:16.1	Uh, it's a lot of work.
0:17.2	It's, you know, but it's fun.
0:19.5	Oh, that's great.
0:22.6	But actually, I'm, I'm calling you about proxy. Okay. Okay, so you know that ad that you mastered? I forgot one line and I need you to do it
0:29.9	again. I'm sorry, I know you're so busy. Okay, people need to hear about weed in just the right way. So I'm really doing just a public service for, you know, the world, really.
0:44.8	Yeah, this is my first ad, and I am learning you have to say some things verbatim.
0:51.3	Does it say, like, optional? You can can say like, I love weed.
0:55.1	Well, they welcome improvising.
0:56.9	Well, wait, I think we have an experienced voiceover guy right here who loves weed.
1:01.1	Who's that?
1:02.1	Joe, you'd say, I love weed gummies.
1:04.7	I love weed gummies.
1:07.1	All right.
1:07.5	See, we could have just done that.
	...

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