let's gang up on podcasts

(hope this helps.)

sometimes i feel like i'm the only person on earth who doesn't understand the appeal of podcasts

my only real impetus as a "podcaster" (and i'm new at this) is to make a fake radio show that is something i ostensibly would want to listen to myself. it's definitely a self-serving ego trip, but i've gotten a positive response from the handful of nutjobs that like the music i play. also, podomatic has a couple of decent freeform/experimental music shows from like-minded people, but mostly i don't even listen to podcasts -- e.g., the high-profile comedy-themed ones i've heard have tended to be pretty bad. what's the appeal? i dunno. it's just an hour or so of shit you may be interested in that you can put on your ipod and listen to when NPR is just too insufferable. some podcasts are good, some not so much. it's like anything in life.

and i'm not so heavily invested in this corner of the world that i can't laugh about the overwhelming corniness of it.

sometimes i feel like i'm the only person on earth who doesn't understand the appeal of podcasts

― vagina the escape G.O.A.T. (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, January 26, 2013 5:11 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

u are not alone

podcasts are tough to do!

they're pretty easy to make, tbh. any idiot with a copy of audacity and a microphone can put one together. but they're tough to do well.

sometimes i feel like i'm the only person on earth who doesn't understand the appeal of podcasts

whiney do you understand the appeal of any of the following:
- radio
- theatre
- television
- cinema
- storytelling
- history
- lectures

They're easy to make. I just find it v hard to talk coherently while being recorded for some reason. Xp

i mean, radio and theater have like professional voice people and podcasts are like former college radio DJs licking their lips and breathing heavy + the fact that i couldnt possibly listen to someone talking at me while i'm trying to do work or whatver + like if i have the choice to play anything in the world, I'm going to play MUSIC which is almost always better than listening to someone talk.

like i understand "IM BORED I DRIVE MY CAR" or w/e but in New York City, home of the "live podcast taping" *barrrrffffffffff* when would you have time to listen to some Comedy Store dingleberry smacking his tongue around in your ear and doing unfinessed, unpracticed material, especially when there's music on this earth, idk

some of them are p finessed, it's not all open mike sticky carpet garbage

but I'm questioning all of them now that i have to think of them in terms of a tongue being smacked around my ear

ffs

i mean, radio and theater have like professional voice people

yeah good point, I've never encountered shitty radio or theatre

like i understand "IM BORED I DRIVE MY CAR" or w/e but in New York City,

uh wth I live in New York City and I drive everywhere

I would much rather just read about the topic

I own a tv

Podcasts should be something I enjoy but they just aren't, by and large.

I'm overwhelmed by the size and scope of them. I don't get that with prose or videos/film docs, where I instead find it encouraging.

Also, many podcasts where it's at least two people conversing I often find near-unlistenable and I realise there are people whose writing I enjoy who I can't really stand to hear. I think I made it about an hour into an episode of Chart Music before deciding I couldn't ever tolerate listening to it again.

I think part of it is a natural instinct to join in any conversation I'm hearing regarding topics I know about, especially if I think the participants are really RONG. Another part of it is that a lot of great observations that get made are lost at the 87th minute of episode 65 of such and such and I just find that puts me off bothering to begin with.

All quite petty I guess!

My auditory processing problems means that I don't retain the information from them, so they're pretty useless to me other as a source of diversion.

oh god it's not just me, yeah, if i can't focus 100% on a podcast it's just background noise. there are some podcasts that i want to focus 100% on, though...

17 years later

What's up with all these podcasts?

xps Yeah that's yet another reason I can't get into them. I have a Wiki-concise bookmarky type mind and podcasts are unfriendly to that. I work better at remembering things with any sort of visual element included. Podcasts are like my first college tutor giving out task instructions for two-three minutes and me not remembering anything but the most interesting bit in the middle.

I would much rather just read about the topic

greatest otm in the history of otm

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51J3-ClWlSL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg

ppl seem to dislike podcasts as a medium in a way almost no one vocalizes with books, movies, music, not even tv...it's pretty weird imo considering unlike all those others podcasts are the easiest thing in the world to avoid

I do think it is weird that so many of the big music podcasts are in the “two people (blokes) chatting” vein. There’s rarely a lot of information density - you just “and you’ve gotta remember at the time…” and “people forget,…” over and over. Is that *that* good?

(and then there’s Word in Your Ear where two posh blokes from the 70s who remember the names of pubs and PR men but little else confidently say things like “no one complained about misogyny back in the day” and “no singles were released from Revolver”)

xp Easy to avoid but potentially very alluring when there's all this stuff I love on topics where useful prose/other media is thin on the ground.

Not a lot of books that cover every episode of Saved By the Bell in detail.

Yeah I was thinking of the One Foot in the Grave podcast as I wrote that. There's one or two books authored about it and then there's just this podcast with, I don't know, about 200 hours of commentary. Not for me, I'm afraid.

At least one! https://www.amazon.co.uk/So-Excited-Scared-Saved-Retrospective-ebook/dp/B00SYWOLTC

xp

Ok but do you really need more than two One Foot In The Grave books?

yeah unlike music i can't listen to them productively while i work, so they're instead competing for my free time with games/movies/books/sports all of which they lose out to

podcasts generally make me feel anxious about how much better I could be spending my time

Ironically I like watching some game streams but I guess because they're more hypnotizing for my lizard brain

hate how "podcast" has come to mean "an unedited recording of a two or more guys having a meandering chat about something" as generally I have zero interest in that, especially as this describes basically every lazy celeb podcast.

but podcasts are just downloadable radio, lots of my favourites early on were music mixes, copyright worries seem to have done for those on the whole (except mine lol) but there's still sound art, drama, documentaries - I always prefer all-sound-no-visuals, find that much more immersive, but appreciate there are people who just need visuals, and hey, if those people could realise not everything is for them then that's great.

also think there is a us/uk split at work here, as having grown up with radio 4, I don't expect radio to be either music only or angry phone-in shows.

oh yeah i don't watch livestreams either unless it's a friend, just feels like a heavily diluted form of entertainment compared to scripted stuff

Ok but do you really need more than two One Foot In The Grave books?

Well, if something's interesting - interesting enough, apparently, for endless acres of podcast chat - then I will be happy to read about it. So yeah, maybe!

Like others here, I don't have a way of easily listening to podcasts "logistically," and so it kind of stresses me out when I hear about potentially good ones. (Occasionally I'll listen to one in the car, but it's a lot of short trips and hard to keep track of the thread.)

Also they tend to be like 2 hrs long, and I don't how ppl find time for that. I can't generally even watch a whole movie in one setting!

(*sitting)

Podcasts + gaming is a good combo, partic if you're into Civilization and the like.

There are so many of these things that I often have no idea what other people are listening to. I tend to stumble onto these niche ones that probably don't have a ton of listeners and can sometimes just stop updating.

My kid listens to science podcasts, which seem a bit better than what's available on tv/Youtube.

The great thing about podcasts is that you can listen to them while cooking and doing chores around the house, or while on a walk or running errands. (This morning I listened to part of a Bandsplain episode while playing with my cat.) I rarely listen to a podcast without doing something else, and I can't generally read while doing those things. So I don't feel like they're a waste of time. If podcasts didn't exist, I'd just listen to music in those circumstances.

oh yeah my daily walk is potential podcast time but thats only 45 mins usually and i rarely get recommended a podcast that's under an hour episodes

also yeah online or session games where you dont need the game audio but i've moved away from those as well

Daniel, are there Civilization podcasts? just a playthrough thing?

i think they mean you can play a strategy game you're familiar with like civ while listening to podcasts, the game doesnt require 100% concentration

oh right! completely misread that.

I installed The Sims 4 on my new laptop and it iust stole a week from me. Games, now there's something I don't have time for in my life.

another thing is that the sound quality from my phone speaker isn't acceptable for music, but it is for podcasts, so if I'm cooking or gardening or sth then they're an easier choice

never heard a phone speaker that didn’t sound like nails on a chalkboard, I would probably be less of a podcast “I don’t even”-er if I could easily hear them with mellow AM radio audio quality, can’t handle hearing peoples tongues move

Yeah, I listen to podcasts while gaming, and also to give myself background noise to sleep to. The former is usually spooky audio dramas, the latter usually non-fiction.

I almost never like conversational podcasts, tbh. Particularly when at least one of the presenters knows nothing about the topic and their contributions are either read off wikipedia or "whoa man that's wild, wowwwww" style comments. I don't need my information filtered through a layman or a comedy sidekick! I want to learn about a thing, FFS!

The recycled off Wikipedia (or other easily available sources) factor is also one of my main reasons for having not liked almost any popular "essay" YouTuber. Now they are not easy to avoid when I have friends who inexplicably swear by, idk, Trash Theory or Todd in the Shadows.

In the last 10 years, podcasts have reduced my time spent listening to music by one third. I have mixed feelings about that. On the other hand, unlike music, I need to constantly pay attention when listening to podcasts.

I also have mixed feelings about The Next Track podcast (https://www.thenexttrack.com/) where they talk about music, listening, gear etc. but don't actually play any music during the podcast.

live podcasts that sell out big venues !?
live podcasts stages at festivals !?

fuck me.
this makes me feel massively out of touch/old.

there's a podcast for that

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/out-of-touch/id1727262685

haha.
touche.