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Why do we desire who we desire? That is the question the Slate-produced podcast, Thirst Aid Kit, attempts to answer through a common form of desire most people experience at least once in their lifetime: celebrity crushes.
Co-creators and hosts, Bim Adewunmi and Nichole Perkins, have created a space for women to examine their celebrity “thirst objects” without shame or judgement, using lighthearted banter between friends–and occasionally a special guest or two–to take a critical lens to celebrity culture and its effects on our development as people. As pop culture has come to a relative halt, Thirst Aid Kit is a perfect podcast to sate one’s thirst for content and, perhaps, create some thirst for a celebrity or two.
A Tasting Menu
Thirst Aid Kit (TAK) originally aired in November 2017 via Buzzfeed. In a simple format, Adewunmi and Perkins dedicate each hour-long episode to a celebrity thirst object of choice. Each episode starts off with a segment called “[REDACTED],” a twenty to thirty-second excerpt from a drabble either host wrote where various words are bleeped out to let listeners fill in the blanks. It is so reminiscent of middle school Mad Libs that you can’t help but laugh with them and the ridiculousness of it.
After a brief introduction, the two get rolling on the thirst object of the week. More often than not it is a singular celebrity, such as Michael B. Jordan, Joshua Jackson, or Sterling K. Brown. However, every once in a while they will do a group like an episode, “Finally: The Chrises” or “Hot Men In Bad Movies.”
Whether they are discussing their lifelong love of Keanu Reeves, their obsession with Jeff Goldblum’s prominent nose, or the thick brows of Dan Levy, there is always a careful consideration taken in their topic; even while they may laugh at each other and poke fun at their interest in certain physical characteristics (Bim loves that good Goldblum nose) it is always done with love and never judgment. While most of the thirst objects are male, women also get a few shout-outs as well; I specifically remember Tessa Thompson getting a lot of attention in one episode.
The podcast isn’t just two friends rambling about celebrities they find hot, however. It mixes in a good dose of critical analysis too. It investigates how celebrity crushes help us develop what we end up looking for in our real romantic lives and the possibilities of why we like certain things (skin color, physical features, tones of voice, etc.) as much as we do. In fact, just recently they released two episodes, each one dedicated to how Bim or Nichole’s celebrity thirst objects of their youth inspired their thirst objects of today, both celebrity and unknown.
At the end of every episode, Bim and Nicole face off in a “Fanfic War.” Each of them writes a drabble — no more than five hundred words or so — about themselves and the thirst object of the week (picking one if it’s a group episode). After the episode airs, they give the audience twenty-four hours to ruminate before posting a poll on Twitter to see which drabble the people liked more.
After two successful seasons, Thirst Aid Kit was a victim of the January 2019 Buzzfeed layoffs, and were told that their podcast no longer had a home. It wasn’t until August of 2019 that they found a new home at Slate, where they have produced thirty-four more episodes and have no plans on stopping.
The Thirst Connoisseurs
The masterminds behind Thirst Aid Kit are successful not just as a team, but as individuals as well. Bim Adewunmi is a British writer, raised by Nigerian immigrant parents in East London. She began her writing career with an opinion and culture column with the English newspaper, The Guardian, and in 2015 joined Buzzfeed as a culture editor. She is also a playwright; her debut play, Hoard, premiered in May 2019 and followed the life of a British-Nigerian family living in East London.
Nichole Perkins is also a writer, but she originally hails from Nashville, Tennessee. She writes mostly, “about the intersections of pop culture, race, sex, gender, and relationships.” (( Perkins, Nichole. “Bio.” Nichole Perkins, 2020, www.nicholeperkins.com/bio. )) She joined Buzzfeed in 2017 as an Emerging Writers Fellow, and this is where she and Bim met. Their personalities and the rapport they have with each other is a large part of why their audience keeps coming back to Thirst Aid Kit. Not only is it reminiscent of banter with your own friends, but you feel like you are friends with Bim and Nichole too. We’re all in on the jokes.
Drink It While It’s Hot
Thirst Aid Kit has made quite a name for itself in the three years it has been around and has the accolades to prove it. In 2018, it was named one of the “Best Podcasts of 2018 by Entertainment Weekly” (( Staff, EW. “The Best Podcasts of 2018.” EW.com, 6 Dec. 2018, ew.com/podcasts/the-best-podcasts-of-2018/. )), one of “The 50 Best Podcasts to Listen to Right Now” by Time Magazine (( Dockterman, Eliana. “Best Podcasts of 2018: New and Returning Shows to Listen To.” Time, Time, 30 Mar. 2018, time.com/5178078/best-podcasts-2018/. )), and were awarded “The Best Fan Community” by The A.V. Club. (( Club, The A.V. “The A.V. Club’s 2018 Podcast Superlatives.” AUX, 17 Dec. 2018, aux.avclub.com/the-a-v-clubs-2018-podcast-superlatives-1831091924. )).
They have also been given opportunities to record live shows, most notably at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020 where they interviewed Daniel Dae Kim and Kendrick Sampson. Their popularity really shows in the interviews they have been able to snag. For their season one finale, they conducted a phone interview with the one and only Chris Evans of Captain America fame. In a Twitter video he posted for the podcast’s one year anniversary, he called it, “…still one of my favorite interviews.” Since then, they’ve been able to interview other thirst objects such as Charlie Cox, Blair Underwood, Rahul Kohli, Wilson Bethel, and, most recently, Jason Mantzoukas.
Drinking With Friends Is Better Than Drinking Alone
Perhaps the greatest thing about TAK is the fandom it has created. While Bim and Nichole continuously remind their fans that they do not take suggestions for future episodes, it is clear that they love audience participation. There have been several episodes dedicated to drabbles fans have submitted, expressing their own desires toward their thirst object of choice (all SFW, of course). They also have active social media profiles on both Twitter and Tumblr. On Twitter, like mentioned previously, there is a weekly poll to vote on Nichole and Bim’s drabbles, but they also regularly reply and retweet fan’s tweets to them; I even got a retweet from them once!
On Tumblr, it is more of the same: along with endless gifsets of all their favorite thirst objects, Bim and Nichole are great at keeping up with their ever-filling asking box. They even offer thirst object suggestions for some who are in the mood for a new celebrity crush but don’t know where to go, a segment that has now been dubbed, “Thirst Sommelier.”
Keep The Tab Open
Through years of episodes, cancellations, and a resurgence, Thirst Aid Kit has remained continuously fabulous and surprisingly illuminating. Two friends who enjoy thirsting after celebrities have created a podcast where other thirsty women can come together and talk about who and what they enjoy without shame or judgment. I think pop culture could use some more unabashed joy, and Thirst Aid Kit provides just that. If you want to take a listen, you can find Thirst Aid Kit on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
