I’m a podcast guy. I don’t know if that’s a generally accepted category like “IPA guy” or “board game guy” but if it isn’t, it should be. I love podcasts. A big reason, I suspect for my love of podcasts is that I work by myself as a window cleaner. When I’m working, I usually have two options, music or podcasts. Over time, I’ve discovered that podcasts tend to make the work go by quicker, and so I’ve been a Podcast Guy for coming up on 5 years.
What I love about podcasts are that no two episodes are the same. When I listen to two comedians talk to each other about their lives, or their careers, or whatever weird yet funny thing they’ve started riffing on, I can’t help but imagine myself there with them. I think that’s a shared experience amongst most podcast listeners. The para-social relationship one develops with their favourite podcast, while weird, is great when it comes to taking one’s mind off of something else.
I also love history, and so I listen to a lot of history podcasts. Dan Carlin is to the history genre what Joe Rogan is to the comedy genre. And the conspiracy theory genre. And the move-to-Texas-and-start-parroting-far-right-propaganda genre. Listening to Dan Carlin is like being transported to a vantage point in the sky above the Battle of Thermopylae, or the conquering of Persia by Alexander the Great. I can almost see myself as the co-pilot in a B-52 flying over Munich in 1941 as Carlin weaves a magnificent rendition of the infinitely complex battlegrounds of the Second World War.
Podcasts are brilliant because they have no boundaries. One can say whatever they want about whatever they want. And in certain cases, when one says such controversial things that gets one kicked off major platforms (cough cough Tim Dillon cough cough), one can then upload on one’s own website, or on Patreon. There is a creator for every audience, and the number of creators grows every day.
Podcasts can launch and end careers, start trends, create millionaires, and shed light into dark corners of the world. The never ending combination of host and guest across 1000s of podcasts creates a space of media that is infinitely vast, with more content than any one individual could consume in their lifetime.
I like podcasts. So I made a podcast about it!
EXSM 3989 - Digital Storytelling Class Blog 