Draft:Alex Schmidt

Alex Schmidt is an American podcaster, writer, humorist, and emoji creator. He created and co-hosts the podcast "Secretly Incredibly Fascinating" on the Maximum Fun podcast network. He also co-hosts the independent "Kurt Vonneguys" podcast. Schmidt writes humor pieces for The New Yorker and for 1-900-HOTDOG, and wrote for The Onion, as well as making comedy videos and podcasts as a staff member of Cracked.com. Schmidt also proposed the creation of the bison emoji on the emoji keyboard.

Early life
Schmidt grew up in the Chicago region, and watched Jeopardy! each day after school. He attended Glenbard South High School and was active in its music program. He is a fan of Portillo's Hot Dogs and the Kane County Cougars baseball team. Schmidt attended Syracuse University, and spent summers working as a tram tour guide at Brookfield Zoo.

Career
During college, Schmidt interned at the website CollegeHumor.com. He also participated in the Syracuse University improv group "Zamboni Revolution". After graduation, Schmidt continued writing for CollegeHumor, and worked for its sister website Jest.com. Schmidt's script writing won the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater's LA Pilot Discovery Competition. He also contributed writing to The Onion, BBC America, Funny Or Die, Cracked.com, and The American Bystander.

In 2016, Schmidt and collaborator Michael Swaim created the "Kurt Vonneguys" podcast, covering each book by the author Kurt Vonnegut. The show went on hiatus before returning in 2021 with new episodes about new Vonnegut media.

In 2014, Schmidt joined the staff of Cracked.com, after freelancing for years. He hosted numerous YouTube series for Cracked.com, including "New Guy Weekly" and "Hilarious Helmet History". In July 2017, Jack O'Brien departed Cracked.com and named Schmidt the new host of "The Cracked Podcast". Schmidt remained host for almost 150 episodes, and toured the show in Los Angeles, Chicago, Saint Paul, Minnesota, and London. Schmidt was fired by new corporate owner Literally Media in June 2020, making him the second and final host of "The Cracked Podcast" on the Earwolf podcast network. Schmidt currently writes humor pieces for 1-900-HOTDOG, a website featuring former Cracked.com writers such as Robert Brockway and Sean "Seanbaby" Reiley. He has also written for "Some More News" , collaborating again with other former Cracked employees.

In 2020, Schmidt created "Secretly Incredibly Fascinating", a nonfiction comedy podcast about seemingly ordinary things. Episodes air weekly on Mondays, with a range of guests from comedy and podcasting. Schmidt also hosted a live episode of the podcast at Caveat in New York City on July 9, 2022. The show's theme song is "Unbroken Unshaven" by The Budos Band. "Secretly Incredibly Fascinating" garnered critical praise from Podcast Brunch Club, The A.V. Club, Upworthy, the editors of Apple Podcasts, and critics at The New York Times. In 2023, "Secretly Incredibly Fascinating" joined the Maximum Fun podcast network and made Katie Goldin its weekly co-host. Schmidt and Goldin also created a podcast miniseries recapping the television show The Inspectors for Maximum Fun's listener fundraising drives.

Jeopardy! Contestant
Schmidt appeared as a contestant on Season 35 of Jeopardy!. He won four games, and a total $94,880 in prize money. Schmidt is a lifelong Jeopardy! fan, and in middle school he carried a book about the show around with him in his backpack.

Bison Emoji
In 2019, Schmidt submitted a proposal to Unicode to add a bison emoji to its keyboard. Unicode accepted the proposal in 2020. Schmidt documented the experience in a podcast miniseries called "1 Way To Make An Emoji".

Personal life
Schmidt lives in Beacon, New York with his wife and their cats. Schmidt often wears a Hudson Valley Renegades baseball hat in his videos on Tiktok.

In "1 Way To Make An Emoji", Schmidt said the bison emoji project was partly motivated by the loss of his father and a wish to honor his memory.