Podcasting Done Right
My year through the best podcasts I listened to
This blog, apart from exploring the immediate topics we covered in class and focusing on the projects we did for that module, should also be about the different media we consume and engage with in our everyday life (or so I understood it 😁). For a while now, and especially in the last one year, I have been listening to a lot of podcasts and it was only fair to make a post about that as well. Once quite a niche industry, podcasting has turned into a force in the streaming world in the last, let’s say 10 years. What I like about it is that I have a say in what I listen to. It is my choice, based on things that I am interested in. If I don’t care about celebrity gossip, I don’t have to scroll endlessly or turn pages in vain in order to escape that, which is often my reality with other media outlets. I have to admit that I don’t have the patience to browse for podcasts, read descriptions and start listening, only to find out, after wasting an hour of my life, that it is no good or it is exploring its topic in a way I find not even remotely interesting or relevant to me. My approach has been regularly checking what is supposedly good at the moment, in terms of podcasts, on few places :
To be honest, The New Yorker is usually my first choice, but I regularly check the others as well. In order not to make this post too long I am going to make a review of the few podcasts of 2020 that impressed me the most, I couldn’t leave until I am done and actually made a difference. It is not a competition and I am not giving away prizes so I will be listing them in no particular order. Also keep in mind that I am a bit of a novice when it comes to how a podcast is created and I don’t really have an opinion on the production itself. I can say if it sounds good or better than others, if the music selected for it was good for that episode or if it seems to be mixed properly but at this point, I am more about the content itself.
Nice White Parents
I know I said I am not giving away prizes but…well, this has to be the one for me. 2020 was the year of Covid-19, but also the year of the Black Lives Matter movement. The year when we talked a lot about ‘white privilege’ and what it means for societies and for each of us personally. The year of social movements coming out of slumber because ...well, I guess it was time. In this five-part series brought by Serial, a New York Times company, the host Chana-Joffe Walt choses to look at all this from a bit of a different perspective. The podcast is about the lack of equal education and opportunities in the public school system of America that is failing predominantly students of color and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. It centres around a dual language French programme pushed by the PTA in a Brooklyn public school and pitched as something that will be valuable for every single student. As most of us know this is not exactly how the real world works. At the end it is the nice white parents - the well-meaning, considering themselves liberal but failing to recognise their own white privilege, who are actually holding back the integration within the public school system and sometimes are unwillingly creating even wider division. The host looks into possible ways out of this - we all need a reality check and white parents, especially the ‘nice’ ones should acknowledge they hold the power of change. The last episode offers some glimmer of hope with a group of said parents taking the first steps in order to achieve actual change. It was a big eye opener for me personally. I come from a background of fighting for human and social rights going back a few generations. But I have to admit that there were situations in my life when my good intentions were coming from a place of misunderstanding that as a white person, who has never experienced injustice just because of the color of my skin, it is not up to me to decide for other people in the name of some greater good (which unconsciously is good for some people but not for all). Writing about it I think I will listen to this one again one of these days…
Rabbit hole
This is also a very special one for me. I have a particular opinion about people trying to duplicate their real lives online and sometimes getting sucked in the world of social media, online influences and the distorted version of themselves they have created. This can often result in a total identity loss and them going down the dangerous path of populism, ideological brainwashing and even radicalisation. The host of this podcast - Kevin Roose is a New York Times tech reporter and columnist and I have been following him since he did “The Making of a YouTube Radical '' in 2019, that resonated quite strongly with me. It was about a young college dropout who turned to far-right conspiracy theories on YouTube, with the accents falling on the recommendations algorithm the platform is using to keep you there as much as possible, or ‘the rabbit hole’ effect. The story can be accessed here: The Making of a YouTube Radical
Roose used the story he wrote as the starting point for this podcast which is all about what happens when we move our lives online. How the digital world, the Internet are changing. How subsequently, whether we realise it or not, this is changing us as well, depending on our involvement with them, on how deep in the’ rabbit hole’ we are. If nothing else, I can assure you, that if you decide to listen to it you will emerge a bit more aware of the online world we all live in to some extent.
Wind of change
This one! I honestly thought this is going to be a funny one. I remember when ‘Wind of change’ by the Scorpions was a big hit. It was everywhere, I was sick of hearing it. To this day I hate that song with a passion. As I grew up in a former communist country that has just emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, ready to rejoin the rest of the world, we were not used to this kind of music. This song resonated with probably people in the West but for us it was just what we were told - it is a big hit, and it is about how everything is changing now with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Good for them - we spoke Bulgarian and we spoke Russian in my country. With the same success they could have told us it is about how great Lenin was and it would have been all the same for us. When I saw the podcast coming in few listings with what is good right now, I thought it is going to be a parody of some kind and will make fun of this ridiculous song (don’t judge me, I really do hate it). I was so wrong! It is an eight-part series hosted by Patrick Radden Keefe and it centres around the idea that the song was nothing, but a propaganda pushed by the CIA. He interviews musicians, historians, fans and former CIA operatives. The podcast gives you a really profound perspective on how the United States have been exporting cultural influences, quite often initiated by the CIA. While he was concerned that he may come off as a conspiracy theorist, in reality it is quite an interesting approach to the Cold War and how clandestine powers were in a battle few of us actually comprehended. I couldn’t stop listening. Even the song itself couldn’t ruin this one for me.
Motive Season 3
This was of particular interest for me. With everything happening in the world right now I don’t know how it is not more popular. I haven’t listened to season 1 and 2 but the concept of Season 3 was something I have been paying close attention to for a while now. It examines the origins of the youth white supremacists’ movement in America and how in the 80’s the Neo-Nazi skinheads came up with the ‘playbook’, as they call it, for recruiting young people. It is hosted by Odette Yousef, but a big part of the series is also Christian Piccolini, a former Neo-Nazi skinhead who gives unprecedented insight on how he connected with white supremacists and was recruited for their cause. Currently he Is involved in helping people disengage from hate groups. Not going into details, but for me it was really interesting, especially in the context of the state America has found itself in in the last few years - with the rise of the far-right and Antifa once again present, after being predominantly dormant as a movement in America for a while.
The Booker prizes
Joe Haddow and a podcast about one of the best prizes for literature, or at least in my books. There are interviews with judges, authors, and special guests. Segments about the long list and the short list of nominees and then special ones with the winners. Reviews of new books and a look back at past winners and where they are now. If you like reading and always on the lookout for something good - this is your place. The Booker prizes have been my guiding light for years now and I am yet to be disappointed with their picks.
David Tenant does a podcast with…
No surprises here. It is what the title says it is. I am a big fan of David Tenant and while there is some rambling here and there, mostly at the beginnings, to be honest I came to enjoy his podcast a lot. His guests are interesting for me - Ian McKellen, Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth Moss, George Takei and many more. It is casual, light-hearted and a good distraction from reality. No more and no less.
Your undivided attention
This one is from The Centre of Human Technology and is co-hosted by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin. It is about social media mostly and how its aim is to keep us constantly occupied within platforms and online space, thus affecting our choices, distorting our truths and affecting our real-world communities and societies. However, their approach is more to offer alternatives, as pointing the negatives, by interviews with experts in all and every sphere that is concerned with human nature, social media, online spaces and life in general. It is not something to listen to in between running errands, at least not for me. The things you can learn from their guests are so much and important enough for you to sit down for a while and give them ‘your undivided attention’.
Photo Credit: All photos used are taken by the author
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