The year 2020 may will be remembered as the high water mark for podcasts. With millions of people at home most of the time, feeling bored and isolated, what's better than listening to other human voices talking about your mutual passions. For myself it was movie podcasts. I learned a lot about movies, corners of cinema I had no idea existed. All the better for it. The personalities almost start to feel like you're friends. You might start to feel you are part of a . . . . drumroll . . . . Community!
Yet at some point it all starts to feel like an illusion. The digital world is really not all that different than its analog counterpart. Social hierarchies come into play. Not all podcasts are equal to others, nor in terms of their communities. The pros have corporate sponsorship and mainstream appeal. Those in the minor leagues cultivate a niche audience. Everybody wants to rule the digital world, infinite content to fill many lifetimes.
Even within podcasting networks a dynamic begins to develop. Members of the audience may compete for attention from the hosts. Everybody wants attention and some want it more than others (see discussion boards or twitter feeds). In the early days listening to podcasts was like being invited to a party with an eccentric group of friends and acquaintances, then it gets bigger and suddenly what used to be novel starts to feel like the lunch room in High School. Who has fond memories of that?
There's a difference between being bombarded with ideas and being bombarded with opinions, the former is slightly more worthwhile. Ideas are processed; opinions are simply given. The web allows anyone with an opinion to have a platform beyond their front porch, some have nicer porches than others. Some live on mountain tops. A digital provocateur at the end of the day becomes a nothing more than a blowhard, armed with a gift for repetition and skewed outrage. Exchange of ideas has its Orwellian undertones as well I suppose. Maybe someday the AI will create holograms of all the top thinkers of history or whatever their algorithm will produce will be the ultimate podcast. I imagine it would be somewhere between Bill and Ted's history report and a Ted Talk (which already have an AI vibe).
We all want to be a part of "the conversation" of the things we care about. And a podcast simply cannot make that happen for all involved, which in the end frustrates. While anyone can start a podcast - anyone can make a film or write a book as well, it's the idea of it more than actual doing of it that's more attractive. All the conversations and all the talking, analyzing, and interviewing in the end turns us into mere antiquarians of knowledge.
Burnt out on podcasts. Burnt out on social isolation. Burnt out on everything Where does one go? We have to find some way to fill our time. I suppose there's far worse things than consuming podcasts. But what can provide a respite from alienation is just that . . . a respite. And to paraphrase Estragon from Waiting For Godot, we're all just looking for the impression we exist. Sometimes, that's enough.
