2023 Is My Year of Podcasting

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What’s the deal with content creation? I’m creating content… but am I content creating?

Think about it, folks.

In 2023, I am going full podcaster, and this newsletter (being published roughly halfway through the year) is my official proclamation of such. In fact, the podcasting has already begun, as I have launched not one, but TWO brand new podcasts within the past few months. As a straight, white male in his 30s, I feel that I am finally performing my civic duty.

(Yes, this newsletter is a veiled advertisement for my latest projects, but presumably if you signed up for this, then you like reading about ME and my THOUGHTS, so I hope you can forgive me just this one time.)

Believe it or not, I’ve been part of a few podcasts in my life already. In one, my friend/co-worker/boxing coach Ivan Hahn and I watched and discussed 500 movies from a list of the 500 greatest movies of all time. We were very young, I was very inarticulate, and I find it all very embarrassing, which is why I have had those podcasts wiped from history.

But that’s okay, because I later podcasted yet again with my friend/co-worker/Boxing Day enthusiast Will Keeler. Together, we produced a year’s worth of high quality board game podcasts under the name Roll For Crit (maybe you’ve heard of it?). These podcasts are still online, and I’m still very proud of our output from that period.

But at the start of this year, I no longer had any pods to cast. And so, I have begun again. These are the podcasts that I am currently making:

Geeks on Trial

I’ve reunited with Ivan for another official endeavor, this one covering a much broader range of subjects. In each episode of Geeks on Trial, the two of us take on the role of mock judges as we give our verdicts on various geeky disputes. My original concept for this show came from the upsetting number of arguments I’ve witnessed between geeks online, over tabletop games in particular. I think because board games are such a social activity, they tend to result in more feather ruffling between friends than some other hobbies. Skim through some r/boardgames or the BoardGameGeek forums and you’re likely to find people asking for advice on all sorts of issues, ranging from rules disputes, to guests who smell bad and won’t take the hint. It’s not always pretty.

Ivan smartly suggested we cover more than just the world of board games, however. Every week we get to talk about something from one of my SEVERAL media passions - video games, TV, movies, etc. I’m hoping that at some point we’ll also spread out into the less familiar territory of deeper and darker nerd subcultures. Gardening? Serial killing? Stamp collecting? It’s all fair game, as long as somebody got in a fight over it.

We’re also doing something different with this podcast and producing it on YouTube simultaneously. This is mostly because audio is notoriously difficult to market online, and having something in video form makes it a lot simpler to produce content for TikTok, Instagram, and the rest. We’re still thinking of it primarily as a podcast rather than a YouTube channel, but it’s very early days right now, so it’s hard to say whether one or the other might take off in the long run.

Next up, Podcast #2…

The Yeerky Boys

This is something completely different. My friend Will (different Will this time, sorry, I know it’s confusing) and I have tossed around possible podcast concepts for years, before finally landing on this one - a chronological dissection of the Animorphs young adult book series by K.A. Applegate which launched in 1997. Will is a tremendous Animorphs fan, and I am a lapsed Animorphs fan. The dynamic therefore is that he gives expert knowledge and analysis of each book, while I react genuinely as a first time reader. Also, we screw around a lot and make stupid, tasteless jokes. (Okay, we mainly do that.)

I’ve been having a great time reading through the Animorphs books and discussing them on this show. Whether or not the books hold up for adult readers (sometimes yes, sometimes no), the act of talking through them is what makes it worth it. This really exemplifies what I love about podcasts - They give me an excuse to talk about something at length in a way I otherwise probably wouldn’t. And I LOVE to talk at length.

This one is more niche than Geeks on Trial, mostly appealing to nostalgic millennials, or very curious and bored people. There are also MANY Animorphs podcasts that already exist, so we certainly don’t have any grand notion of becoming a huge hit based on our very original idea. That’s okay though, because it’s just satisfying to go on this journey, and it’s an excuse to joke around within a goofy framework.

Oh yeah, and there’s also this podcast…?

Future Fiction Theatre 2099

This was something I put together years ago and abandoned because I got distracted by other things. The idea was that in every episode I would recreate a 20-30 minute version of some pre-existing media (movies, books, you know… media?) utilizing terrible impressions along the way. It was also completely improvised because that way I didn’t have to write anything. I produced episodes based on The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Harry Potter, The X-Files, and also, more.

This podcast was honestly super fun and rewarding to work on. It gave me an excuse to do stupid voices, sing badly, make use of my knowledge of 90s movies, and stretch my audio editing muscles a little more than usual. Since I’m the only person on the thing, it’s also really easy to schedule (although sometimes I am difficult to get ahold of). I’m not sure all of it is great, but I do think some of it is genuinely funny (and I usually hate everything I touch, so that’s gotta be worth something).

That said, I only made eight episodes and haven’t gone back to do more in years. I’m including it here because… I want to make more! I’m not sure if I will continue strictly in the podcast format or if there’s another path forward for this stupid idea, but we’ll see what the future (fiction theatre) brings.

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Podcasting is a silly, pointless hobby that is easy to make fun of, and I don’t blame anybody for doing so. It seems like everyone has one these days, and nobody wants to listen to any new ones. Knowing that, I still love making them! There’s something about the audio format that really appeals to me both as a creator and a listener, and I love that this thing still exists in our modern media culture.

If you’re at all interested, go ahead and subscribe to these stupid things for my sake! You can find links to all of it at my personal site, or through whatever podcast platform you prefer (yes, even that one).

Thank you for reading. Please let me know if you have any good podcast recommendations, I have nothing to listen to.