I need some help taking my first steps into the world of podcast listening and would appreciate the community’s thoughtful input. I didn’t want to hijack former podcast threads so I’m starting this one hoping to yield some positive results. I began compiling the data below in January of 2019 and have been slowly refining it in an effort to invest my time most-effectively.
First, permit me to frame my circumstances so you can provide the appropriate contextual insight.
As many of our veteran members are aware, I’ve never owned a television, do not use any streaming services, (save for the occasional manual viewing on YouTube), and am for the most part removed from popular culture of the past 25 years outside of my niche and specialized interests. As I do not generally consume media with any frequency, I often find the act burdensome or like a chore unless the content really grabs me and is digestible in small once-weekly increments. One example of this is the original
Twilight Zone franchise which I’ve been exploring here and there and enjoying very much. Consequently, I find the sheer volume of available podcast material daunting without a carefully-considered and evaluated point of ingress.
Another curious idiosyncratic characteristic of my media habits is that I find far greater satisfaction in the archival act of researching and compiling the material than actually consuming it directly. A classic example of this would be the RetroBox server I compiled and constructed, indexing and showcasing 227 of the most popular children’s television programmes broadcast between 1965 and 2005 in their entirety wherever possible, sourcing material from DVD archives or from VHS broadcast rips wherever official consumer releases were not issued. Another project which gave me similar satisfaction was building my library of Old Time Radio broadcasts such as
The Goon Show,
The Shadow,
The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and other classics of their era.
But perhaps the most critical element of my listenership is my difficulty concentrating on spoken word content. This may be a property of my childhood ADD. As such, 90% of the audio content I consume is instrumental and, as Eno famously stated, "as ignorable as it is interesting." I find it otherwise difficult to listen to and retain spoken word content, particularly if the act is one of background listening while I’m engaged in a more consciously-focused activity.
Resultantly, the only radio show I’ve been able to engage consistently is my archive of all 1,338+ transmissions of the veteran radio programme,
Hearts of Space, which has been broadcasting for over 40 years. The programme comprises one-hour episodes of drone and world-ambient musics as is a delight to listen to either actively or passively.
There have been two exceptions to this rule which may shed some light as to what podcast content I might enjoy.
The first is
No Such Thing As a Fish, a podcast hosted by the fact-finding “elves” of BBC Two’s
Quite Interesting, formerly hosted by my beloved Stephen Fry. The podcast, the television show, and the book series which followed each explore bizarre and unexpected facts of the world. The panelists are British comedians, so their responses are often delightfully entertaining. I enjoy their humor and the obscure trivia they present.
The second exception is the YouTube series,
Best of the Worst created by Red Letter Media. It is the only thing I watch on the website but I try to take in one episode a week. The hosts watch and review films ranging from B-movies to absurd instructional videos, many sent in by fans. After viewing and riffing on the films, a rotating panel comedically discuss what they just watched. It’s a showcase of obscure and forgotten VHS culture much in the spirit of
Mystery Science Theater 3000 - a show I loved in my youth. (Their own cinematic effort,
Space Cop, is a dry humor treasure.)
I should also mention that, as 99% of the content I consume is from my own server, I am accustomed to experiencing all content commercial-free. Hopefully, whatever podcast I do decide to experience will be available in its entirety for download to host and enjoy locally.
With the fundamentals out of the way, I’ll attempt to summarize my podcast research to date. My key subjects of interest are atheism, obscure culture, dry and off-beat humor, Linux, the Free Culture movement, hacker culture, and ambient music. I gathered information by using Google and various podcast-focused search engines as well as polling my local and online social media communities for their recommendations. From these I compiled the following:
Atheist-Themed Podcasts:
- The Atheist Experience
- Freethought Radio
- Cognitive Dissonance
Note: I've gotten wind of the sexual misconduct allegations against Andrew Torrez of
Opening Arguments which was popular among my local atheist community so I'm steering clear of that one.
From Brian Eno’s Long Now Foundation:
-
Long Now: Seminars About Long-term Thinking
-
Long Now: Conversations at The Interval
On Linux and Hacker Culture:
-
Hacker Culture by J R Swab
-
Hacking Culture by Matthew Tift
and ListenNotes offers an article on
7 Podcasts a Linux User Should Follow.
Podcasts Recommended by Persons in my Social Circle:
- And That’s Why We Drink
- No Sleep
- The Weird Darkness
- Last Podcast on the Left
- Science Vs
- Podcast at Ground Zero
- StarTalk
- SModcast with Kevin Smith
- Black Tapes (Supernatural, Ghosts, Spirits, Demons dramatization)
And from my fellow INTJs:
- Philosophize This!
- Freakonomics
- Introvert Dear
- The Minimalists
- How Did This Get Made
- The Next Next Generation World Podcast
- The Hilarious World of Depression
- Academy of Ideas
- Ground Zero Media
- 99% Invisible
- Flash Forward
- Stuff you should know
- Hidden Brain
- Radiolab
- Snap Judgment
- S Town
- Tribe of Mentors
- Optimise Life Daily
- The Overwhelmed Brain
- Personality Hacker
- Sean Carroll - Mindscape
- Terrible, Thanks for Asking
I also found that The Internet Archive maintains a library of
4.6 Million Podcasts.
After a local friend recommended it, I tried tuning into the first episode of
Welcome to Nightvale and enjoyed the calming voice of the host, who is potentially mimicking Stephen Hill of
Hearts of Space. I liked the abstract mystery element of the storytelling as well. I may try episode two in the months ahead.
As I’ve stated, ambient music aside, it is difficult for me to engage media for more than about an hour a week. And I struggle to maintain my focus on spoken word content, particularly if I am engaged in a simultaneous activity. It feels like a chore - like I’m studying the material for a future test, which has prevented me from enjoying podcasts thus far.
I’d appreciate your insights. It may take me some time to explore your suggestions, but I’d welcome them and will do my best to at least give them a try.
Thank you all.
