Alex Cooper's Unwell accused of copying indie podcast😬 | the beauty eyepatch drama, Wendy's emo EP💀

Lauren Meisner (0:00)

Coming up today on Mini Scroll, Unwell has been accused of ripping off a popular indie history podcast, the viral beauty industry eye patch drama, and Wendy's emo EP.

Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily internet culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social media, the creator economy and the digital space every Monday through Thursday and sometimes Fridays. I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, the founder of the Australian youth digital media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Scroll everyone, and thank you so much to today's sponsor, The Commons, Australia's premium co-working space. The Commons is truly a main character in the Centennial World cinematic universe as a Chippendale location in Sydney has been our home for over five years, and it's where we record this podcast every single day. Whether you're a creative escaping the home office or a business owner looking to scale, The Commons offers beautifully designed spaces and genuine sense of community across Sydney and Melbourne. And while the spaces are stunning, it's the team that really makes a difference. Their support for growing businesses has enabled Centennial World success and sometime survival over the years. So if you're looking for a co-working space that feels considered as community-led and actually backs the people working there, head to thecommons.com.au. All right, welcome back to Mini Scroll everyone. Update, two updates. First, I'm in blue eyeshadow. I don't want to talk about it.

I can't even go there. I honestly just was like, oh, maybe I'll experiment with some color today. I was looking so tired because as we know, I'm an insomnia girlie, and I thought for whatever reason, putting dark blue sparkly eyeshadow around my eyes would actually help me look less exhausted, and I fear it's done, of course, as you can imagine the opposite. So we're just going to move on from that. Second is, there's no sign, partly because we've changed the RSS feed now to Mini Scroll. So I feel like it's very obvious what it is now. We don't need the sign to tell us that sign. We have needed a new sign for like genuinely since basically the day that we got it. I got it at Kmart. We still have Kmart in Australia for anybody that's listening and is like, what the hell, what are you talking about? Kmart has been dead for so long. No, she is very much alive and well in Australia still. So yes, I got her at Kmart for like $7, literally three years ago, basically. And you know, it was time. It was time to retire her. So she is gone for now. And also next week is our quarterly week off. So if you guys are new here, if you just found us or you don't know what I'm talking about once a quarter, we have a paid mental health week off at Centennial World. It's in addition to our regular vacation time. So the whole company shuts down and I still work like 12 hour days, but I just don't podcast. I just catch up on all of the other work that I can never do.

So it's actually really good for my mental health. No, I'm joking. So yes, we will be off the pod next week. Also, thank you guys so much for being so supportive of Fridays Off. My therapist for like the past several months has been literally trying so hard to get me to take Fridays Off the pod. And she finally got to the point at the beginning of September where I actually felt like I was gonna get in trouble if I didn't listen to her. She was like, I don't care about anything else that's going on. Like you need to take one day off the podcast. You need to take something off your plate. She was like, your mental health is never gonna get better if you're not sleeping and you're not sleeping because your mental health is not getting better. And this is like a vicious cycle and you need some stuff off your plate. Like you need to focus on yourself. And anyways, there was just like this final session after like months of her trying to convince me to do this. Cause I was like, I don't wanna let anybody down, you know? Like I loved being a daily pod and I know we can always come back to that. But you know, she really, she really was bullying me. That's how I felt in a good way.

And it has made actually a really big difference. It genuinely has. I didn't think it would, but it actually has.

All right. Let's get into the stories for today. So the first story that I have for you guys today is the Unwell Network and Alex Cooper have been accused of ripping off a popular independent history podcast. So a new podcast from Alex Cooper's Unwell Network is facing accusations that it closely resembles an existing indie history podcast called Right Answers Mostly. So Right Answers Mostly is hosted by Tess Bellamo and player Donald and it's been around since 2021 The show covers history and pop culture through a deliberately kind of gossipy like girl talk lens with its central tagline being, history is just gossip. Now, a couple of days ago, Unwell announced a slate of new shows and there is one in development that seems too similar, people say, to Right Answers Mostly. The podcast in question is called Pedicote Revolution, which also is hosted by two women covering history from just like fun pop culture girlhood lens. However, this is where it gets a bit sus, because obviously like similar podcast concepts, they exist, you know, this is like a dime a dozen, right? Because Unwell initially was describing Pedicote Revolution as a show where, quote, history meets gossip. And as I just said, Right Answers Mostly's tagline that's been going, you know, basically since their podcast started, I think, is history is just gossip, but there's more. So fans are pointing to the cover art as well as saying they're styled very similarly, where both feature the hosts in historical inspired settings, and one of the hosts is holding a teacup. And I'm going to say the whole like a host holding a teacup or like holding a mic, like that is so common for podcasts, especially in like the pop culture space. And then there's the merchandise. So Right Answers Mostly has products featuring history is just gossip branding. And then Unwell's new show also was selling merchandise using the phrase, it's not gossip, it's just history. So all of this has led listeners to confuse Unwell of essentially copying the concept and branding from this independent podcast, rather than simply arriving at a similar idea independently. And the thing is, even though Right Answers Only is independent, they're not tiny. Like they have almost 100,000 followers on TikTok, almost 60,000 followers on Instagram. They're frequently featured on Spotify's curated pop culture playlist. They've topped history charts like across the podcast industry. You know, like, they're not obscure.