As charismatic as the interviewer can be, the most important figure involved in an interview is, of course, the one being interviewed. This presents a difficult, but integral task for the content creator: finding someone to interview. However, this task is not as hard as it first seems.

The most important piece of advice I was ever given about interviews was: “Everyone has a story.” When you begin trying to write news articles, you can sometimes start to doubt if you or your story are interesting enough to matter. This leads to you believing you must go bigger and flashier and move away from the things that you see as normal. This is a big mistake, however, as the people in your everyday life and the “mundane” world around you make an amazing base for great stories. In a traditional news format, such as a newspaper, you are discouraged from interviewing people you know too intimately, such as a best friend, spouse, or family member. However, in a less objective setting, such as a podcast or interview stream, this objectivity and distance is less important, if still done professionally.

In my time writing for IUP’s “The Penn,” I wrote about many topics, including a pile of pretty boring ones. However, I was almost never bored by interview pieces. I quickly learned that, even if the pitch sounded sleep-inducing, with the right enthusiasm, everyone you interview has something fascinating to tell you. I was once asked to interview an employee at IUP’s Subway who was giving a seminar through some religious studies extracurricular. I accepted because it was my job to do that, but I wasn’t very excited by the sound of a religious seminar from a guy working on campus. However, my expectations were blown away when I realized this was a seminar on his second job outside of campus – Exorcism. He talked about his alleged firsthand accounts and battles with demons, strange experiences in haunted houses, and the entities that still haunted him. As a guy who adores horror media, I was immediately entranced by the lecture and wrote down every word he said. Additionally, I asked him for a one-on-one interview, which he happily obliged, and he offered even to take me on an exorcism on a future outing (unfortunately, still waiting on that exorcism ride-along!) This anecdote shows that you never know what story someone could tell you. A survivor, a war hero, an activist, a prodigy, or yes, even an exorcist, can be anyone in this world, even someone you talk to every day.

Starting small is a good idea for most things in life and content creation. This adage works in spades for interviews. Even if you find your mother boring and average, because you’ve spent all your being nagged or babied by her, someone who has never met her may be fascinated to find out about her harrowing experiences as a firefighter or the drama of a COVID-era nurse. Throw out everything you think you know about a person. Your conversations can still flow naturally if you have a casual setting, but you cannot let your pre-existing image of the person stop you from realizing just how interesting, cool, exciting, or mysterious your own brother, mother, best friend, neighbor, coworker, or mail-carrier could be!

Yes, eventually, as your content matures, you should branch out from just the people you know in your immediate circles for interviews. However, the critical mistake newbies make is discrediting the exciting things around them as “too normal” for content. The number of streamers and YouTubers and bloggers whose popularity skyrockets the moment they reveal their goofy old dad or cute kitten is staggering. When you advance enough as a content creator and you want to branch out past your ma, pa, and college classmates, however, the same principle applies. Much like a person desperate for a job, you must take every opportunity you can and elaborate every seemingly small detail into a fascinating area of expertise. Oftentimes I see big content creators hanging out with their peers, only to be caught off-guard later by them discussing movie deals or something, forgetting that their very (potentially recent) friends are superstars to someone else. So, in short, the secret to finding a good interview subject is to have three things: Open ears to hear every potential story, an open mind to give a chance to any person or topic, and an open heart to invest yourself in the lives of others. Once you have these three things, a good notepad or computer, and at least as much charisma as a mediocre late-night talk show host, you’ll be ready to start sharing some amazing stories from some even more amazing people! If you learned anything today or enjoyed what you read, please share this with your friends so we can all be a little bit smarter and nerdier together! If this inspired you to get working on your next interview, comment below on who you’re thinking of interviewing and why!