For two women who built a brand on humor and hustle, Claudia and Jackie Oshry are doing more than just fine. In fact, their media enterprise has been steadily growing since Claudia, 30, launched her Instagram account “Girl with No Job” in 2013 while still a student at New York University (NYU), amassing a following of 3.1 million. Claudia started the account and created the name as a wink to the job market, which, at the time, was considered bleak for millennial students. “The idea of graduating and not getting a job was very much present,” she says. “I started the account freshman year and by the time I graduated, it was lucrative enough to pay my bills.” The novelty was a large part of it, she adds. “Content creating and influencing were new at the time — it wasn’t a thing yet — but I figured if this ended up being a flash in the pan, I could try to get a regular job.”
She was also early to the podcast game, teaming up with sister Jackie on “The Morning Breath” (later rebranded as “The Morning Toast” and then “The Toast”), a daily social media show featuring the sisters’ hot takes on celebrity news. It live-streamed on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube before pivoting into a video podcast.
“We loved the idea of a social media morning show. We thought it was something the world needed desperately. But after a while, people started telling us this would be great as a podcast. We learned quickly that podcasting has very low overhead and it’s easy to get into,” Claudia explains. “So we started sharing the show as a podcast and our audience grew and grew and grew.”
The podcasting landscape has since exploded. Yet among the millions of podcasts today, “The Toast” remains one of the most popular millennial and pop culture shows, welcoming guests including Keke Palmer, self-help guru Jay Shetty, Chelsea Handler and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary.
“Growing up, we idolized E! News and Giuliana Rancic,” Jackie explains. “To have our version of that has been a dream career.”
There’s no shortage of shows that dive into celebrity dish, but it’s fair to say that “The Toast” stands out thanks to the sisters’ banter and natural chemistry. “It really does feel like we’re just sitting and talking to each other,” says Claudia. “We’re still audio and video first, but we eventually started pre-recording shows, because we can get better camera quality that way.”
They’re also committed to keeping their content authentic, even though some of the stars they’re chatting about might be listening. “What will happen is we’ll talk about a subject or a story and we don’t think about the person we’re talking about or we won’t say our true thoughts,” adds Jackie. “But then we find out that person has heard it, or they reach out, and it’s so crazy. It’s a funny, surreal feeling.”
They’ve since taken their act on the road, putting on a live show filled with their signature whip-smart humor and singalongs. “Going on tour and walking on stage, it’s very rewarding and kind of shocking, too. With the podcast and social media, we just see numbers and it’s like, ‘Oh she has a million followers.’ But when you see it in real life with the crowds as opposed to on a screen, it’s very, very humbling,” Claudia says.
Photos by Love Photography by Cara Inc.
In recent years, Claudia has branched off into stand-up comedy, “I love making people laugh — it’s why I do what I do,” she told Bustle.
Their two other sisters, Margo and Olivia, also occasionally pop up on the podcast. “We involve them as much as they want to be involved,” says Jackie, 32, who’s now a mother of two. “There are times when I’ve been on maternity leave and Margot will sub in, or if Claudia is out, Olivia will do the show with me. They love doing it whenever we need them. They’re always down for it.”
Jackie and Claudia are also published authors. Claudia’s cheeky memoir “Girl with No Job: The Crazy Beautiful Life of an Instagram Thirst Monster” was a New York Times bestseller, while Jackie penned “The Camper and the Counselor,” a children’s book about the bonds forged at summer camp. “Once I became a mom, I was really motivated to write the story because I just felt so strongly that the story was so sweet,” Jackie told Fox News.
Even Claudia’s husband, Ben Soffer, has gotten into the game. The two married in 2017 and announced in December that they will be welcoming their first child, a boy. At his wife’s urging, he created the Instagram handle @boywithnojob. To date, he has more than 1.4 million followers. Soffer, Claudia and Jackie also launched Spritz Society, a line of fruit-flavored sparkling cocktails in a can.
“I met Ben and started ‘Girl with No Job’ around the same time, before it had really taken off,” says Claudia. “When I started to gain more and more followers, Ben lit up and was down for the ride. It took about two more years for him to get really involved.”
Soffer, however, draws the line at a reality show. “It’s too much,” he has said. “I love my life, and Claudia, too, loves her life. And I think that reality TV brings in a level of drama on a person that one doesn’t need.”
Still, comparisons to the original family of media moguls, the Kardashians, are inescapable. “We used to see ourselves in them so much,” says Claudia. “They’ve definitely inspired us, and for a long time they were our blueprint. They’re always changing their role as sisters and so are we. And it also showed us just how much people love family content because it’s authentic.”
But these days, they say there’s room for everyone when it comes to monetizing a personal brand. Their biggest advice? “If that’s what you want to do, start now,” advises Jackie. “It’s okay if you don’t have an exact plan; you learn on the job. Your content is going to evolve. Record 10 podcasts, even if they’re not great, because people want to go on the journey with you, so it doesn’t need to be perfect. And you’ll keep on getting better. But you’ll never start if you try to wait until it’s the best.”
Though their careers are far from traditional, they now stick to a firmer schedule to accommodate a growing family life. “We mimic a 9-to-5 workweek, Monday through Friday. We keep regular business hours. It’s been really good for Jackie as a mom and for our mental health to have boundaries for your job. It’s been such a blessing because it’s not something you can always do in a creative line of work,” Claudia says.
For Jackie, those boundaries extend beyond work — she and her husband now happily reside in South Florida.
“We spent a lot of time here growing up because we had family in Florida,” Jackie explains. “We love it.”
As for the future, the “Girls With No Job” duo aren’t sweating it. “Jackie and I always say, if nothing comes next and we’re doing this at this level for the rest of our lives, we will consider ourselves really lucky,” says Claudia. “We love what we do and we’re able to support our families and be present for both work and in our personal lives. We want to keep on doing it forever. It’s the dream that allows us to flourish personally and professionally and it keeps us really close as sisters. So more of that, please.”
Love Photography by Cara Inc.