[284/365] you're wrong about

[cosmolinguist]

I was glaring at my podcast app this morning, willing a new episode of my favorite podcast to turn up. Surely it's overdue, I thought.

I should have been careful what I wished for! Because when one appeared, it was telling me the podcast is over! Well, not exactly, but one of the two hosts is leaving, and the relationship between those two is one of the things I love so much about it! The parasocial relationship I have with them is one of the things I love so much about it!

You're Wrong About is I think three years old now, but I only started listening early this year, after L recommended it at work. It's about a particular kind of things we're wrong about: one of the hosts Sarah Marshall is known for writing about people like Tonya Harding and Anna Nicole Smith, women the 90s loved to vilify and which we were, often, wrong in so doing. As well as unfairly-maligned women, it has also had episodes about moral panics in my childhood like stranger danger (the risk of children getting kidnapped/killed by people they didn't know) and my adulthood like human trafficking. Some of the subjects they cover are really depressing (either on their face or in the debunking or both), but always treated with such empathy and warmth that I've learned about and even (as much as possible) enjoyed hearing about things that I never would have read a book or watched a documentary about.

I really love it, it's one I went back and listened to all the old episodes of and I have re-listened to a bunch of them. Because the format is one host researching the subject and the other having only whatever knowledge about it they've gleaned from their life, there's always that relatable Doctor-Who-assistant type character who needs everything explaining to them, so I always have company in needing it explained to me. And also adds to the sense of a parasocial relationship! Especially as they're both about my age so had similar experiences growing up, similar messages and similar vague understandings of things I also only vaguely remember.

The two hosts approach things in a similar way but are also very different; they're really good foils for each other. And they have spent a lot of time together working on this podcast now (especially in lockdown last year), and it's clearly made them terribly fond of each other. Which, again, helps make me feel fond of them both too. They've accompanied my walks to work, kept me company through terrible insomnia, and shared my other experiences with me and, especially in this year when I haven't heard so much from my actual friends, spending that amount of time with anyone to any extent feels intimate and special.

So yeah, now one of them is leaving the show and even though I love his other podcast (Maintenance Phase, which I feel like I talk about all the time and last linked to here a mere few days ago -- it also has the same format and includes a lot of you're-wrong-abouting, just in the specific subject area of health and wellness), and the other host is going to carry on with You're Wrong About, I feel like I'm losing something big and important to me because it won't be the same. And also I'm sad that something that has brought nothing but good to my life has made its creators restless and tired -- of course it's a very different experience creating something than it is passively consuming it, of course things can be hard work and still good! Still, I was sad to hear them being very clearly at the end of this era. Eeven as the episodes had gotten released less often lately and included less new material, it hadn't occurred to me that they were about to end this. (Honestly, one of my first thoughts was but Sarah has so much more of the O.J. series to get through! She hasn't even gotten to Johnnie Cochran yet! Heh.) It really snuck up on me. And so did all my feelings about it.

Comments

[barakta]

I'm sorry your lovely podcast people are stopping in their current format. It sounds like a really interesting podcast.

[cosmolinguist]

It is! There are transcripts on the page for each episode if you ever fancy having a look.

Hooray for Respectful Parasocials

[jesse_the_k]

...there's something about friends in your ears -- with two people, it's like one's head is in the middle!

I'm in a similar place with "The Anthropocene Reviewed." It's a very midwestern YA writer named John Green who's published 37 episodes where he reviews "facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale."

This one addresses "a micro-organism, staphylococcus aureus, and a rhetorical device called the non-denial denial."

He's open about his serious mental illness -- OCD -- and he's my smart parasocial uncle. He ended the series because he turned it into his first non-fiction book.

Re: Hooray for Respectful Parasocials

[cosmolinguist]

Oh I can see how that would appeal! I'm glad you've got your parasocial uncle there. :)

And you're so right about how the experience of having these voices in our ears makes us literally feel in the middle of a conversation. Even when I know that's what's happening, it still beguiles me!

[hrj]

Podcasting is full of all sorts of weird asymmetries. As a listener, it can feel like all these cool people are hanging our chatting with you. As a podcaster, it can feel like you're sitting in a box all alone talking to yourself. And that part is even worse with a solo show. I suppose there are some people who manage to get into podcasting as a paid job, but for most it comes from a deep passion for the subject and a desire to share it with others. What happens when that passion isn't enough? I've noticed with SFF podcasts the lifecycle for non-professional shows is maybe 3-5 years. (It almost feels like a truism that being a finalist for the Fancast Hugo is the death knell for a show.)

[cosmolinguist]

Yes it was interesting seeing how much time my husband had to spend alone to record his podcast, and editing it was basically alone-time for him too even if he was in the same room. It's quite a lonely pursuit if you're doing that one-guy-with-a-script type, which he was -- still is I assume, he set himself up for a ten-year project! Quite ambitious, I've never heard of a podcast lasting anything like that long but is that just because the technology to make them prevalent is still too new? He'll have just reached the end of the third year now. You make a good point, I wonder if it contributes to his (and presumably others') sense of disbelief that anyone is listening or enjoying it, when they're feeling alone in a box talking to themselves.

[hrj]

The biggest thing that contributes to feeling like you're alone in a box (and I didn't mention this in my first comment because there's no way to make it not sound self-pitying and accusatory) is that there is almost no listener feedback for most shows. I think the estimates I've heard are that less than 1% of listeners ever engage in any form other than listening. And "engagement" includes ratings and other things that don't necessarily get back to the creator. You disbelieve that anyone is listening and enjoying it because almost no one ever tells you that they are. The podcast hosting service can tell you download numbers, but that's all. Every once in a while I go on social media and beg people to tell me that they enjoy and value my podcast, because I feel like giving up. But people don't tell you that spontaneously. And least that's my experience.

And it's frustrating because one of the reasons I do the blog and podcast was in hopes of getting conversations and engagement going. I was excited about this thing and I wanted to talk with people about it. And that doesn't happen.

[sfred]

I'm sorry about your podcast. <3

[cosmolinguist]

It's okay, I felt a lot better once I got my feelings out. :)

I might finally have to treat myself to some merch, having always debated it and come down on the side of "eh, not urgent," I now feel it might help me express my affection, now that that feels more urgent.

[sfred]

That sounds like a good plan.

[tarasacon]

As someone existing in large part due to the virtual friends that are podcast hosts and TV characters, I feel your loss. *hugs!*

[cosmolinguist]

Thanks! I do feel better for having expressed it here.