Mansplaining Podcasts

Is there anyone besides me who does not have their own podcast?

There are podcasts on politics, sports, fitness, gossip … the list is endless.

Yes, there are even podcasts about podcasting. Lots of them!

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of a podcast is “a program (as of music or talk) made available in digital format for automatic download over the Internet,” an outdated term derived from a combination of iPod and broadcast back in the Jurassic Age.

I am not sure why, but I have never truly gotten on the podcast bandwagon.

I may not follow but appreciate the goofier versions, such as “My Dad Wrote a Porno” (where a son and his friends read a chapter each episode of Dad’s porno epic), “Trashy Divorces” (where the hosts do a deep dive on the failed romances of celebrities and historical figures), “No Such Thing as a Fish” (where the hosts riff on a useless factoid such as there being no such thing as a fish, apparently based on all life having evolved from the water), and “Screw You, Fishes Rock” (where fishes riff on useless mammals who cannot even breathe in the water).

I occasionally listen to podcasts with classic old school interviewers, such as the Axe Files (David Axelrod interviewing political figures) and the New Yorker Radio Hour (David Remnick diving into New Yorker topics). What can be bad when I can have David Remnick spoon feed me an interesting New Yorker topic when alternatively I would need a cross-country plane ride with a six hour delay to get through the typical well-written but exceedingly loooooong New Yorker article!

The only podcast I regularly hit on my own is Literature and History, in which literature Ph.D. Doug Metzger creates one to two hour episodes on Anglophone literature and its roots, from ancient times to the present, all the while rejoicing in his (and my?) unquenchable nerdiness. Last I looked, he was up to episode number 102, and had only reached Saint Augustine! Again, relatively nice and easy spoon feeding compared to my having to pick up, open and read actual books.

So what’s my issue with podcasting?

As with everything else it touches, the internet has opened the world of podcasting to everyone. That means that there are many good ones and, of course, many mediocre (or worse) ones.

I am not saying that we need a cabinet level department to improve the world of podcasting (maybe just a federal commission), but too often podcasts revolve around the same formula of someone claiming to have the inside scoop interviewing someone else who also claims to have the inside scoop about something that does not necessarily deserve any kind of scoop.

Some podcasters are looking to make money from podcasting, although most do not make much money at all.

The king of money making podcasters is Joe Rogan, host of “the Joe Rogan experience podcast”, who is self-described on his website as a “stand-up comic, mixed martial arts fanatic and psychedelic adventurer” (psychedelic adventurer???) and who recently landed a monster deal with Spotify.

In fairness, I have never seen Joe Rogan’s show, but once you give Alex Jones a forum or push COVID hoax scenarios it is only a matter of time before you run for political office and, sorry, I have to go.

Most sane people do not think they can pitch in the Major Leagues (well, except maybe for my NY Mets) or believe that they can build a rocket ship in their backyard.

Yet, while not entirely rational, I expect that some people hear Joe Rogan’s show and think “I can do that.”

Of course, everything may not work out exactly as planned.

For example, a New York Times article this year entitled “Would You Date a Podcast Bro?” gives a clue (spoiler alert: the answer is a strong “no”).

One woman said “My biggest mistake in life so far was dating a man with a podcast.”

Since the guy’s overriding goal in life was to become a social influencer, I could have saved her a lot of time at the beginning.

She noted it was not the content of the podcast necessarily that was the problem, but that she associated a podcaster with someone “who is endlessly fascinated by his own opinions, loves the sound of his own voice and isn’t the least bit shy about offering unsolicited opinions.”

In other words, a “mansplainer” with a megaphone (and, I am just guessing here, wearing a sleeveless shirt and his baseball cap backwards).

Mansplaining is where a guy explains something to a woman in a condescending way that assumes she has no knowledge … oh, never mind.

Many people have taken to social media mocking podcast bros with hashtags like #menwithpodcasts but mansplaining is not limited to podcast bros.

We all have something (too much?) to say. I know some ladies who womansplain. Some people politicsplain. Some techsplain.

We all ‘splain too much in one form or another when maybe we should spend more time listening.

I do not want to take it all out on podcasts. In many ways, podcasts are nothing more than a 21st Century internet version of the radio.

Radio is a communications technology using electromagnetic signals or radio waves … oh, never mind.

There was a time when much of our music and talk came out of a little radio box with the help of people with strange sounding names like Cousin Brucie or the Wolfman.

Some people still use the radio when their wifi signal is too weak to find Spotify or after a nuclear disaster when only roaches and AM radio signals survive.

I was a huge fan of “Car Talk”, the most successful NPR weekly radio show for nearly 30 years, which if it were around today would no doubt be a podcast.

Ray and Tom Magliozzi hosted the show which was ostensibly about cars and car repair, but was mostly a platform for their wacky banter. I have very little interest in cars, but Tom and Ray’s infectious laughter and regular admission that they provided answers “unencumbered by the thought process” was naturally an inspiration for this newsletter.

Episodes included one caller who requested advice on winterizing a kit car, and who turned out to be from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory calling about the Mars Rover and another, “John from Houston”, who called about repairing the Hubble Space Telescope.

And they were no slouches; each was an M.I.T. graduate, and they had been around long enough in their words to know that in life you sometimes had “to stop and smell the antifreeze.”

Good advice for us all.

One needs a radio station to let you broadcast your radio show providing somewhat of a built-in filter, but there are plenty of good radio shows and plenty of not so good radio shows and you can pick what you like and ignore the rest. The same holds true with tax bills and podcasts.

Most podcasters do not fit the bro label - - Doug Metzger, for example, is way too nerdy for the word “bro” to even possibly be applied and there is a lot of work involved on his part. I understand it takes him roughly 200 hours to create each episode and he has a full time non-academic job and a family - - how does he mansplain that to his family?

It may just be that in our social posting selfie world, the one thing that we never tire of is ourselves, and podcast bros seem emblematic of our endless self-involvement.

Well, do not fret too much for humankind. As a species, we are not even unique.

Just ask Augustin Lignier, a professional photographer with clearly too much time on his hands who went all out B.F. Skinner and trained some rats to take photographs of themselves.

B.F. Skinner was an American psychologist best known for his experiments with rats showing positive reinforcement … oh, never mind.

Lignier created a transparent tower with a camera set up so that when the rats pressed a lever, they got a sugar treat, the camera snapped their photo and the picture was visible on a screen where the rats could see them.

Even when the sugar treats ran out, the rats could not stop taking selfies.

The rats then posted their favs on Instagram and one started his own podcast sponsored by Kraft Velveeta; hashtag #rockinrodents.

But wait a minute.

Isn’t there some other platform that allows just about anyone to prattle on about just about anything while darkening the email boxes of total strangers?

What am I thinking of?

Hold on!

Only the more cynical, jaded and well, downright meanspirited, among you would point out my hypocrisy in that if I took this newsletter and read it out loud it might kinda, sorta, for all intents and purposes, look and sound a lot like a podcast.

And, yes, Substack does provide a feature where one could do just that and create a podcast instead of a newsletter.

So, am I as vacant and self-involved as anyone?

Pass me that sugar pill while I mull it over, but most podcasts are fairly long, without tight, electric prose like you find here, and I know that none of you Philistines have the attention span for anything that involved, so I will insist that I am merely adding to the canon of fine literature that so excites Doug Metzger.

Philistines were an ancient people who lived in Canaan and today the term is used to describe people who are indifferent to, or ignorant of, culture and … oh, never mind.