The London Review of Podcasts

version

Well-known member
Third, there is something weird going on at the affective level. Moreso than most podcasts part of the effect of listening to it is that it feels a bit like talking to your mates. It kind of replicates part of that feeling (obviously only one side of it). I think in general there is a kind of interesting strand to podcasts in general where it replaces some aspect of social interaction. I feel like the existence of podcasts, the transmission of ideas like through that form, has had a big effect on some of the more serious conversations that I've had with people over recent years. Actually sometimes it feels a bit more like people are reciting podcasts to one another on occasion.
Some people are very aware of having fallen into that sort of thing. You get the odd thread on the Red Scare sub and elsewhere lamenting the rise of "parasocial relationships" and how they spend more time with podcast hosts than their actual mates.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
Listened to a fair bit more. A few other things I've noticed:

I think they throw out some interesting thoughts here and there. They never seem to say anything about the form their podcast takes, or why they're doing it, which is the kind of interesting gap that you only notice after listening to hours and hours of it (which is the necessary standard for submission to the London Review of Podcasts). I wonder what they think they're doing? It's not that odd for a podcast, but it is one that is in so many ways so off the cuff, and which deals with media, the online, and so on to not turn that gaze back onto itself.

Part of the interest is in how improvisatory it feels. There's a bit of a sense that they are trying out ideas and that a lot of what they say has just popped into their heads on the fly. Which is pretty different to the podcast genre as a whole, which tends to deal in fully formed ideas and experts spooling out the ideas from their book or whatever. But it also over time leaves me with the feeling that it's not sincere, and that they don't mean half the things they say. One of the quirks of the podcast, which is almost a technique, I mean I think if we were talking about books where the critical vocabulary is so advanced we'd call it a technique or a device or whatever, is that it's mostly not that clear whether they're being ironic or if they really believe in what they're saying at any given time.

I've started to find the worldview a bit depressing, overall. The same themes come up again and again, in particular the failure of the democratic party, criticizing the woke, characterising more or less everything as a mental illness, social media damage. It's not a problem or a surprise that a podcast returns to the same themes. But overall it's hard to get over the negativity of it. I'm all for negativity in general coz it's generally accurate, and that's the only thing I want from analysis or cultural commentary really. I think the podcast almost indulges in it though, to the point where while it's a nice counterpoint to the mainstream world, I find it a bit exaggerated. And obviously on an affective level, if we're going to treat it as we would music, it's not exactly an elating thing to listen to, at least not after a while.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
At the same time, it really does remind me of some of the blogs from back in the day, that some of the people on here probably wrote. it's not a million miles away from k punk, all things considered. and although the form is very different, there is a bit of a parallel in that it's all a DIY thing, it deals with similarly brainy subjects but expressed through a very non-academic form, it focuses on real-time cultural analysis, there's an interconnected scene where people more or less know each other even if only online.
 

forclosure

Well-known member
honestly @shakahislop i think you'd be getting more stimulation from something like this https://soundcloud.com/utopianhorizons no cartridge or the Relentless Picnic

especially the latter i feel they're very unique even amongst the sea of podcasts out there https://relentlesspicnic.com/

i get what you're saying about developing ideas in real time but if anything because of the complexities of the language in writing imo its better doing that way cause you have more of a space to figure it out and work on it and change, in a podcast ones its been recorded to the file its out there maybe you've only just heard the really professional end of podcasts but the ones i've heard especially say pre-Serial when it was still mostly a hobbiest thing were exactly this, you would get moments of insight and a real epiphany from one of the hosts but the rest of the time it'd just be chat for chats sake, it's not like there aren't umpteen substacks who do the exact thing that you're saying Red Scare do as far as reflecting academia in the language of "working people" but you get to attach that to a voice and the one irony of podcasting that's never lost on me is so many of the people hosting them have TERRIBLE voices for it i suppose you could say oh the quirks of it is part of the charm but especially those kind of dullard NY white women (Julia Fox included) use vocal fry as a crutch the same way certain rappers use Autotune and it's UNLISTENABLE.

if anything the real exception to podcasts isn't Red Scare its more something like Tom Scharplings the best show BECAUSE it was a radio show and still partially is before it got off the air and became a podcast.

The other issue with podcasts is with some big exceptions its still mostly an entertainment medium and from what i gather with Red Scare for as much as their talked about as being a "cultural commentary" podcast "culture" and more specifically politics is just a tertiary layer on top of the socialite bullshit they usually chat bout because as things have gone on politics has a greater place in our lives compared to years prior, i mean you get wrestling and video games people making jokes about defunding the police and how NFTs are bad which are places before you wouldn't expect from or you'd got to them to AVOID stuff like that.

they're interconnected sure but it's an interconnectedness that's honestly no different to all the LA stand up comics who were there are the beginning when this whole "medium" started the difference is now people can't stand any of them because it's all self satisfying and cliquey and ontop of that the "candor" they put on display is often bullshit when stories of their behaviour off the mic gets into focus that Louis CK is an obvious one but i know ALOT of people stopped fuckin with Hannibal Buress when it came out that he was a landlord. people groan when you bring up parasocial relationship talk with this from Red Scare to Cum Town to Marc Maron's thing and even this podcast on Nomeansno that i listen to its the idea that they're the friends/ personalities you wish you had
 
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forclosure

Well-known member
also @shakahislop lets be honest the real reason you come to these pencil thin nihilistic white girls isn't so much "accuracy" as it is comfort, the feeling that there's these people who live in the same city as you but in a totally different bubble (all even with gentrification from what i know the social segregation in NY is still the same) and their just as disenfranchised and upset about the failings of social media, the constant backbiting and bickering within the left, Bernie Sanders not getting the nod, "the world is ending and we are so fucked" as you are right now working a job that you don't like to pay for a flat that's too small and far more expensive than it ought to be. Mainstream sources are dissapointing you cause they're not reflecting how you see the world so you've had to look elsewhere There's an often repeated fact with Cults about how a major way they develop devotees is less to do with bringing in new members and further entrenching the ones they already have and you can apply this to not just to podcasts but the ENTIRE internet in as far as people trying to sell you things.

Its comfort in the same way i know a couple trans women think of Twin Peaks:Fire walk with me,Possession, End of Evangelion and..i dunno Martys as "comfort films" rather than comedies, the normalcy is that there is no normalcy and they're direct and immediate reminders of the fact that men hate women on a bone deep level.

Somebody i know a while back made the great point that with them and Trueanon? i think it's called how in response to Bernie Sanders not getting the presidential nomination twice and the failure to move the democrats to the left they've resorted to making the elites of the world these magicak satanic sex trafficing monsters for comfort i don't say this to deny sex trafficing being real but alot of it comes off no different than the satantic panic shit that was RIFE in the 80s(the fact this has opened up post-Epstein isn't lost on me) and its especially interesting to look at it when actual legislation has been passed that targets trans minors and these same people are completly silent on the issue
 
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forclosure

Well-known member
as much as people talk about podcasts nowthey forget that the name ITSELF is a form of marketing because it ties itself back to the product and format that these things started on, the ipod so whether they know it or not it still vicariously maintains Apple's firm grip on the idea as a whole
 

version

Well-known member
The Red Scare hosts got really into Liam Gallagher the way Web was talking about people getting into The Sopranos.
 

forclosure

Well-known member
The Red Scare hosts got really into Liam Gallagher the way Web was talking about people getting into The Sopranos.
oh yeah they're not the only ones he's ammased this following on twitter that has little to do with his music. Alot of it is because of his fashion sense (honestly he looks like any other 40+ year old man on the way to an Aston Villa away game his gear is just more expensive) but there's also an element where they're into him because of his space rasta ting some people think he's self aware some of them think he's just a total moron

that and the fact that his brother is anti mask has something to do with it
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
Reading through interviews with mullahs (/ulema) for work. Struck by how similar podcasts like red scare or j petes etc are to the Friday sermon, the similarity of the roles of mullahs and these kinds of personalities are. We lean on them for interpretations of the world and confidence about what to do
 

forclosure

Well-known member
Reading through interviews with mullahs (/ulema) for work. Struck by how similar podcasts like red scare or j petes etc are to the Friday sermon, the similarity of the roles of mullahs and these kinds of personalities are. We lean on them for interpretations of the world and confidence about what to do
and the word mullah means "protector", i don't think any of the hosts of these shows would want to be deemed protectors as that's too much responsibility
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
listened to some alex jones today, that guy is a fucking nutcase. did make me think though how podcasts, as an emergent and popular cultural form, have an affective power. i mean surely the thing that people are getting out of listening to alex jones is the way he makes them feel. it's not a million miles away from listening to music i think.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
are any of the lads listening to Love Is The Message? it's incredibly detailed and politically situated analysis of music in the 70s, they're going on and on about austerity in new york at the moment, for hours, popping off on adam curtis, it's great, they just talk for a million hours, on and on and on and on, forever. and then they talk about some tune or another as being absolutely incredible, the best thing you've ever heard and you think oh, cool, i'll listen to that then, and because it's 70s funk or whatever it sounds like total cheese to my ears. one of my favourite podcasts.
 
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