Jesse Thorn: ‘Walking into the media world is like walking into a thrift store’

The brains behind ‘Bullseye’ and ‘Put This On’ talks web culture, thrifting, and what’s best about bossa nova.

At Maximum Fun, Jesse Thorn has built the world’s most unassuming media empire. He’s best known for his style blog Put This On and his radio show Bullseye, which was picked up by NPR earlier this month. But behind the scenes he’s founded a bicoastal festival of whimsy called MaxFunCon and taken over distribution for nine other podcasts (including, full disclosure, one with Polygon’s Justin & Griffin McElroy). We caught up with Thorn to talk about bossa nova and trying to promote a better world