Bubble Lounge Host Martha Jackson reports on the Varsity football team's game against J.J. Pearce in the final home game. The podcast's weekly show caters to women living in Highland Park and University Park, covering topics in the "bubble and beyond." “I really enjoy highlighting the kids in the community just because they're our next generation,” Jackson said. Photo by Elise Laharia
By August Lazzaro
Martha Jackson enjoys chatting with people, hearing their stories and learning what makes them unique.
Maybe that’s why she started the local podcast “The Bubble Lounge,” which unveils captivating stories that make our community one of a kind.
“It's all about the Park Cities and all the people that make it unique and different,” podcast host Martha Jackson said. “[It covers] all the local businesses and people in the community that are doing interesting things,”
Jackson began the podcast because she was unsure what to do next in her life, and how to make an impact on her surrounding environment.
“So it started because I had been a stay-at-home mom for quite a while and my kids were getting older, and it was just kind of time for me to do the next thing,” Jackson said.
She and her husband are the initial starters of the podcast. They started the podcast with the intention of showcasing what the community has to offer.
“My husband and I brainstormed for quite a while and we just decided with all the people in this community doing so many interesting things, that it would be really fun to highlight those people and feature them,” Jackson said.
There were many reasons as to why the Jackson’s wanted to create their podcast the way they did, one of them being that an audio podcast can create a more intimate environment for the listeners and the hosts.
“When we started the concept for the show, we wanted to keep it audio only, for a couple of reasons,” producer of the podcast and Martha Jackson’s husband, Sean Jackson said. “It makes guests feel a little bit more comfortable, you can just sit there and show up and talk to people. Plus it also is a little bit more intimate.”
“[Bubble Lounge] all about the Park Cities and all the people that make it unique and different.”
Jackson emphasizes the difficulty of producing a clean podcast. He has familiarized himself with several different methods in the process.
“I've experimented with a lot of different tools, but the easiest one is GarageBand,” Jackson said. “I think the key with having a good podcast in general is good microphones and a quiet environment. So we put in bass traps in the studio, [and we add] sound filtering just to deaden it down.”
Although the Bubble Lounge started as an audio-only podcast, it has now turned into a multimedia project involving Instagram, with the intention of reaching a younger demographic.
“So we started figuring out that parents and kids really like to see themselves on social media and to get featured,” Martha Jackson said.
Running the Instagram for the podcast can be a very complex and time consuming job, especially when it comes to recording footage and capturing photos at the busy football games.
“The podcast is audio-only and published weekly on the Instagram account, which is what we've been focusing a lot on lately,” Sean Jackson said. “It is extremely complex to put together a good video feed on Instagram, especially at [events] like football games, pep rallies or where it's really noisy.”
Martha Jackson enjoys featuring well known members of the community such as football players. Yet she also prioritizes shining a spotlight on less known groups.
“We started at the football games, just finding different groups to highlight like the Spirited Scots, the band and different fans out in the audience,” Jackson said. “[We are] not only highlighting the football players, Belles and the cheerleaders that usually get a lot of hype, but [are also] finding those that don't always get recognition they deserve.”
Kids who have been interviewed by the Bubble Lounge have enjoyed the recognition they have received. This includes freshman Ian Gibbons who was interviewed in the stands at a high school football game.
“ I have never been interviewed for something like that before, that's going to be a video on a social platform,” Gibbons said. “I think it is cool that a lot of people listen to a podcast about the place that I live and it is cool that it is showing people what is happening in Highland Park. I like the aspect about the high school, and how the hosts come out to different school occasions.
“I really love doing something to shine a light on all of our local businesses here and give them some support."
Outside of the Park Cities, The Bubble Lounge also attends charity functions, and helps support and grow small businesses.
“We work with a lot of charities right now. A lot are starting to reach out to us,” Martha Jackson said. “We'll typically do a podcast episode about their upcoming event then attend the event and do a video while we're out there just [recapping] what happened at the event.”
The last function they went to was the Cattle Baron’s Ball. They videoed the event and gave the viewers in-depth coverage of what happened there. It gives the listener an opportunity to catch up on the events they missed, as well as an opportunity to learn about new events in the community.
“I really love doing something to shine a light on all of our local businesses here and give them some support,” Jackson said.
The Bubble Lounge is a unique podcast with the ability to shine a light onto the Park Cities community. It allows people to get a deeper understanding of what is going on in the community and it gives people an opportunity to become more involved.
it makes guests feel a little bit more comfortable,”
The Bubble Lounge covers many different groups, but at the end of the day, Jackson believes the focus is to engage and support the youth of the community.
“ I really enjoy highlighting the kids in the community because they're our next generation and the people that will move [our community] forward,” Jackson said. “We have so many varieties of intelligent kids in the community and it's really fun to hear their perspectives.”