Our discussion on podcasts found me reliving both sides of the fence. It was only in the recent years that I had started to explore the value of podcasts and the place they’d eventually have in my life. Radio seemed on its way out the door because there were just newer and shinier things to occupy our attention. Add to the fact that rapid advances in technology seemed to drive an effect of splitting our attention and being too big to contain, my generation just wasn’t occupied by the radio. The radio was only ever relevant in my early years when we’d get into the car and nothing else was available to play. We had our moments but when YouTube has cats puking rainbows and whatever other junk we filled our imaginations with, radio just never entered the conversation. I just didn’t grow up in the age of radio so podcasts weren’t a form of entertainment that I was looking for.

It wasn’t until my brother, a tech expert from Silicon Valley, revealed in his usual fashion the secrets of why he was doing better in life than me: Podcasts made it easy for him to pursue very specific interests. Now that there’s almost faultless arrays of connectivity and portable computers, radio’s son had updated itself to be compatible with the 21st Century.

As we know technology is a compounding phenomenon ongoing what is close to a synthetic evolution of machinery. When the town crier turned from his swelling lungs to the megaphone and his great great great grandchild adopted the new radio phenomenon to get the word out; there emerges a trend of both pragmatism and popularity of ‘the modern’ creations. This is true up and especially to our once beloved staple of the household and choice of sounds in the car over the sounds of awkward car conversation. With the complementary developments in extensive and fast network connectivity, pocket sized computers and unprecedented dispersion of media: traditional radio is fizzling out of style and function. It’s attention started to drain when the advent of TVs for the household gained speed. Here in the United States the first presidential TV debate is a famous marker of a gut punch to radio. Thus, out of the newest wave of modern progress the radio evolved like a boring metapod that could only harden our disinterest now that new media was blaring; into a more beautiful (and definitely more useful) Butterfree or app on our phones that democratized the space for broadcasting. However, not everyone has Butterfree in their starting lineup, let alone the starting pokemon.

It’s no wonder that the radio seems to feel more and more like an ancient source of any information or entertainment in technologically developed parts of the world; especially here in the United States down to our English 302 class in Goodell @ UMass. I wasn’t too surprised by the general minority of podcast subscribers because of the precedent its father
left. Radio got hit hard when TV came around and left Podcast not a lot to inherit in terms of auditory subscribers. With the music market being cornered by music streaming apps like spotify and news eloping with TV to pursue voyeurism; podcasts had a tight spot to start honoring thy father. Radio certainly wasn’t one of the cool things to pay attention to for my generation over the mad growth of screening technology. In the 24 hours of each day where 8 hours (hopefully) are taken up by sleep, 10 – 12 hours of work and just a fraction of the hours for free time, we’re all gonna get together at dinner to watch this week’s episode of 24 (ironic) instead of crowding around the radio. Why shouldn’t we? The radio doesn’t and has never offered a customizable and curated playlist of media, it offered scheduled mass appeal that pandered for money.  We didn’t have streaming capabilities like we did today either, so the podcast existed in some corner of an emerging space called the Internet that opened to the tune of screechy dial-up connection. Almost a couple of decades later, podcasts were thrown a liferaft in the form of WiFi for an iPhone in every pair of skinny jeans, and the mobile network oligopoly’s competition for best network coverage.

Podcast’s response was to let it all go and have a round robin of things people are interested in. From the most niche hobbies to the most relevant cultural phenomenons, podcasts have piggy backed on the exponential growth of mobile networking devices. If it’s in your headphones at the gym, coffee shop, hammock in your backyard or on speaker in your car via the bluetooth on your phone; podcasts try to wiggle their way into the free minutes in our lives we devote to our too long a list of interests. Take an app like Pocket Casts that gives me access to thousands of podcast shows on so many different topics, hosted by even more personalities. It works like the Spotify system in that it streams the media you select to save and allows you to listen to it on the go through your phone. Although it functions the same way in which radio does podcasts have the advantage of the Internet and all the freedoms of creation that it has helped sparked. Thus, apps like Pocket Casts are filled with eclectic selections from the deep sea of the interwebs. I myself am subscribed to a weird range of podcasts:

• Freakonomics Radio: For nerdy but fun economic discussions and breakdowns
• Completely Optional Knowledge: For things to bring up when the awkward silence rears its ugly head
• Modern Love: For my curiosity about what ‘love’ looks like when described from random people around the world
• TED Talk’s Radio Hour: For innovative solutions and discussions about major issues
• SourceFed Podcasts: Where a bunch of funny people talk about anything and nothing, it’s like friends without actually having any! (And couldn’t we all use some of that?)

I could name a few more but the point is, I was actually never an early subscriber to podcasts. In fact I threw it in there with Radio as being irrelevant and possibly outdated. But when I dipped my toes I realised, media fluidity is real and entertainment can be derived in a lot of different forms for a lot of different reasons. I can’t watch a certain YouTube channel while I’m driving but I can listen to their podcasts and still keep my chances of crashing at 50-50 (on a good day).

Podcasts work. Like Golum, our precious phones dare not leave our side and through smart UI design, podcast apps offer customizable selections of podcast feeds to cater to most interests. The podcasting community has built a diverse library of simple media that survives based on the quality of content and engagement with the listeners. Maybe I’ve been converted…yeah actually I’ve definitely been converted, pick up a podcast already!!!