There's no real purpose to this post. As I start the beginning of this I'm currently at the back of an Uber headed for an interview, and after starting my book review spam I figured I'd write a bit about other media I consume.
I actually started out as a hater of public radio. Elementary school me despised it whenever my parents switched to the news for even a second. After all, that was just people talking. How could that beat whatever was playing on the pop stations?
My mom was the one who introduced me to podcasts. I was in middle school, and we were going on a very long road trip to I forget where- perhaps LA or Vegas? Regardless, all the Shawn Mendes and Taylor Swift in the world wouldn't have been enough to keep me alive. Knowing this, my mom pulled out the Podcasts app and convinced me to give whatever "Wow in the World" was supposed to be a tentative listen.
I had my doubts, but kiddie me was hooked by the first episode. Every episode, the two hosts, Mindy and Guy Raz, go on some weird auditory adventure where they talk about some new scientific development. It was heavily targeted towards kids, and I guess it worked for me. That was the first podcast I subscribed to, and I listend to their weekly episodes for about a year or two before I couldn't bear to listen to it anymore. The info was cool, don't get me wrong, it was just presented in a way that was so over the top I couldn't bear to go through the episodes anymore.
My mom also introduced me another podcast: Planet Money, which is a subclass of what I will call NPR slop.
This is not to denigrate it or place it in the same categories of other content such as AI slop (spits in trash). NPR has kept me up to date with the news for many years, and I find their stories very well put together and entertaining. It's just that my stemcel self can't find any other word to describe it. "NPR stuff" is too vague, and "NPR podcasts" is too boring.
These two podcasts were my starting set, and they were what sparked the start of my year's still-continuing subscription to NPR slop.
When COVID hit, my mom brought home a tiny black box that was an antenna radio. Its stations reset every time you unplugged the power, and the antenna had to be placed in just the right spot to not get a tidal wave of static noise every time you turned it on.
My NEET self loved it to death, though. I kept that stupid thing on 24/7, even when I was sleeping. It was nice when I couldn't even open my eyes but still hear whatever events of the day Steve Inskeep was yapping about before I hauled my butt down to the family room for online class.
It got to the point where I could keep track of the broadcasting schedule for the station I listend to. I think it went something like this:
You get the idea. Who knows how many blasted hours I wasted on my bed in front, just rotting away listening to whatever reporters around the world deemed interesting.
News about China, positive or negative, was always my favorite. I'd say it's because I'm Chinese, but I don't think any of my friends demonstrated a similar interest in whatever the hell the CCP was doing at the time. I'm not anymore; I suppose it was just a rare fixation that died off with time.
All this, I guess, is to say that I'm highkey heartbroken that the federal government's decided to cut public radio funding. Many of America's public services and infrastructure are already in the gutter, and the radio is one of the few things that I feel is run pretty damn well.
On the most recent couple of episodes I listend to, the hosts spent a full 2 minutes panhandling for money in the form of subscriptions. I think one even said they needed listeners to pay for a whopping 50% of their budget. That's insane.
Public radio is the only form of podcast that I can put myself through at this point. A lot of the other stuff is mostly just hour-long interviews with some well-known person with only a few clip-worthy moments. There was a week where I tried to listen to Trash Taste, but it got too boring for me to sit through.
I have no clue where that COVID era radio is now. Maybe it's in some closet, or maybe my neat freak mom threw it away. Some other person might've wrote a paragraph about its sentimental value and how they miss it, but I don't. lmao.
But while I'm here, I may as well go over some of the ones I currently listen to.
This is the best podcast out of my current lineup. How it works is for each episode they choose a theme and then tell different stories around that theme. I'm not sure if they choose the stories or theme first, but it's great entertainment regardless. The stories are the classic NPR blend of interviews and phone calls mixed with narration, and it never fails to liven up a long drive or bike ride home.
This isn't to say it's 100% peak. Some of its episodes are misses, like, uh, the one I listend to a couple weeks ago. It was about a guy who tried to use AI to replace him in phone calls or Zoom meeting or whatever the hell it was. IDK, something about it just rubbed me the wrong way.
there's a ton of reruns but it is what it is
I realize now that there's another show that my local radio station also broadcasted called the Moth Radio Hour, which is the same thing but people tell their stories live on stage. Never could get into that one.
Yeah, this one's still good.
Every week they cover an economic story in 20-30 minutes. The concepts are lowkey kinda dumbed down, but the storytelling's still nice. Very rarely I get the feel that the hosts fake their enthusiasm for some things, but it doesn't get in the way.
Just this week they covered a man who lost his plane over bootlegging and is trying to get it back using the 8th Amendment.
Who doesn't love a game show? The format of this one is too long for me to cover, so I'll just ask y'all to give it a listen yourselves. The jokes aren't always top quality, but it sure as hell is amusing.
One day I'm gonna see their show live. One day.
I think this show also tries to follow the same theme-story format of This American Life, but ever sinced I moved exclusively to podcasts on Spotify each of their episodes is always a single story.
They're a bit more science-oriented, and their reporting is often punctuated by fantasitcal sound effects and musical composition. This is as opposed to This American Life, where they use the same 10 tracks over and over again.
I remember one review that said the show was much better with the old hosts, but I never listend to that many of their episodes. So, ignorance is bliss, I s'pose.
This used to be good. They had daily headlines with The Intelligence, US analysis with Checks and Balances, and China analysis (mostly negative, of course) with Drum Tower. It was good stuff, and I'd still listen to 'em.
That is, if they didn't PAYWALL 90% OF THEIR GODDAMN EPISODES!!!!! WHAT THE HELL!!!! 0/10 corporation. Bagehot can go burn in hell.
I don't listen to this anymore, but it's still notable. Regardless, I have no clue how to summarize this podcast. You'd think it's about economics, but I think there was one episode that was about returning lost artifacts.
Most of the episodes have interesting premises, but the host is just so goddamned dry. Something about the way he talks just screws my ears in all the wrong ways. He's never really interesting with his interviewees either. Also their theme song sucks.
I'm sure many people out there like this, and I mean no offense to them. It's just, it's really not for me.