Jesse Thorn
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| Jesse Thorn | |
| Born | April 24, 1981 San Francisco, California, United States |
| Show | The Sound of Young America |
| Network(s) | Public Radio International |
| Style | Interview |
| Country | United States |
| Website | Official website |
Jesse Thorn (born April 24, 1981) is an American public radio personality and comedian. He is the host and producer of the radio show and podcast The Sound of Young America which is distributed by Public Radio International.
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[edit] Early Life
Thorn was born in San Francisco, California native. He attended UC Santa Cruz where he co-founded The Sound of Young America and was the news editor for the campus radio station KZSC. At first, The Sound of Young America was a variety college radio show featuring Thorn and two other co-hosts, Jordan Morris and Gene O'Neill. He is also a part of sketch comedy group Prank The Dean, along with Morris, Lauren Pasternak and Jim Real.
[edit] Career
The show grew in popularity due to Thorn making it available as a podcast. As the years progressed, The Sound of Young America slowly transformed into an interview based show. Since then, Thorn has interviewed many prominent personalities of arts and culture on his show including Chuck D, Art Spiegelman, Shelley Berman, David Cross, James Fry, Ira Glass and Patton Oswalt. On June 18, 2007, Thorn announced that The Sound of Young America had been picked up for national distribution by Public Radio International. Thorn also interviewed Stephen Colbert as a part of iTune's Meet the Author series.
Thorn has also produced several other podcasts for MaximumFun.org, including Jordan, Jesse GO!, Coyle & Sharpe: The Imposters, and The Kasper Hauser Podcast. Jordan, Jesse Go is hosted by Thorn and Fuel TV correspondent Jordan Morris, JJGo is a podcast similar to free-form style of the early episodes of The Sound of Young America.
[edit] New Sincerity
Since 2002, Thorn has espoused his personal ethos, "The New Sincerity". This ethos promotes the outsized celebration of joy, and rejects irony, and particularly ironic appreciation of cultural products.
He has previously explained his view of the New Sincerity as follows:
"My position is irony is dead (...) but at the same time, just to return to old-fashioned sincerity, and particularly the kind of sentimentality that that draws in with it...we don't need it. So that's why we've created the New Sincerity. A perfect example of the New Sincerity is Evel Knievel. There's no way to take Evel Knievel literally. It's impossible. The man has a leather jumpsuit and he drives a rocket car. The leather jumpsuit has red, white, and blue stars and stripes on it. It's absolutely preposterous. On the other hand, there's no way to appreciate Evel Knievel ironically. He's too awesome. He has--I don't know if we've mentioned this--a leather jumpsuit with the Stars and Stripes on it and a rocket-powered car. That's why we appreciate Evel Knievel with the New Sincerity."
[edit] External links
- An interview with Thorn
- Maximumfun.org - website for The Sound of Young America and related projects
- Website for Thorn's sketch comedy group, Prank The Dean
- Website for Jordan, Jesse, Go!
- WNYC's website for The Sound of Young America
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