Middle school can be a nightmare if you’re not one of the cool girls. Girls Like Us is the Chicago-produced podcast that explores just that, taking on Lisi Harrison’s monumental YA series The Clique. The series follows a group of popular middle-school girls, led by the mean and judgmental Massie Block. Maybe you recognize the plaid book covers, with images of middle school socialites glaring back at you. The series, which arrived at the dawn of the reality television era, was marketed as the younger sister to Gossip Girl. If you haven’t read the books, that’s fine—hosts Sophie Krueger and Frannie Comstock, two cool girls with a genuinely hilarious friendship, synthesize the dreams, dramas, and cruelties in this “morally bereft” and “terribly written” middle school universe.
Sophie Krueger: I read the first book at sixth grade camp, which is where they put all the kids from your school on a bus and you go to a campground for three days. While other kids were out doing things, I was inside reading this book. I think I read it in one sitting. Obviously I did not have a lot of friends in the sixth grade.
It was the same thing like with Mean Girls, for example. That’s obviously supposed to be satirical, you’re not supposed to want to be Regina George, but I came out of it like, “Well I should make a burn book.”
Krueger: I think too, queerness with women is categorically different than queerness with men, and letting that be a sliding scale, and letting female desire look different. Something we talk about on the show a lot is that female desire can be very aesthetic, can be “Oh, I want to be that girl.” It goes back to aspirationalism, these books are about girls competing to be more pretty or more popular or get more attention from boys—that aspirationalism to us is queer coded because it’s all about consistently changing and proctoring one’s relationship with other women, and that being the goal.
Krueger: It’s weird having a podcast about books that people have nostalgia for. Some people get upset when they come to our podcast because they’re looking for a literal recapitulation of the books, they want to relive the books, and they don’t like that we inject in this adult commentary of being like, these are—
What have been some highlights of the pod finding success/an audience?
