Like, I see all these other shows making podcast empires (Chapo has one, Rev left has one, etc.) while the podcast of the website continues to only be featured in Intercepted once. You'd think there would be more crossover between them and other left shows considering how popular Gramscian critiques are.
:citations-needed: is drab, essentially educational content with a laser-focus on media criticism. no-one's there for the entertainment stylings of Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi
e: don't get me wrong they're extremely good, by all rights the most essential media-product you could engage with, but they take lengths to not cede ground to entertainment the way most their peers do. they're the closest thing to a public radio program you'll get (thats far too radical for a capitalist public radio)
no-one’s there for the entertainment stylings of Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi
:I-was-saying:
Also yeah I get what you're saying that's actually exactly how I sell :citations-needed: when I recommend it: It's NPR but better.
Citations Needed, especially if you donate to their patreon to get the patron only news briefs, is an excellent slow burn because you can tell during the normal episodes that they're really trying to maintain their professional decorum, having it occasionally slip, and then Biden announces that he is personally going to punch every black person because the Republicans told him to and then Nima and Adam just get to go off, and it's those moments where the professionalism breaks down is when I remember why I listen to them
Adam definitely passes the test of “is your hate pure”, together with breht
together with breht
I didn't like RevLeft at first but Breht is so fucking cool
https://youtu.be/9R_IJLR4F5U
I still remember the first time I heard him talk about having to be institutionalized when he was a teenager because capitalism gave him an existential crisis and it felt so just....validating to know there was ONE other person who was literally driven to the point of insanity by the implications of this society because man highschool was ROUGH for me
Living vicariously through Adam's rage is the only thing keeping me sane in this hell world.
100 upbears means you have successfully united the left with this take.
Because they do work not entertainment, also they done some cross episodes with delete your account and trillbillies?
Revleft is more theory/history, chapo is entertainment, not a lot of cross section with contemporary journalism/culture
I forgot about the Trillbillies episode. Not sure if I remember the Delete your Account episode.
I just find it hard to conceptualize CN as anything more than the spectacle than we normally see, even if they do routinely make the correct left take.
Pointing out curtains and stage lights continuously on variety of issues is in itself valuable, kinda like reading manufacturing consent/inventing reality on some random topic each week.
Course it’s not praxis, it’s radicalization tool of “I didn’t see it this way”, but it’s not like podcast of “john collecting signatures for strike” would be particularly advisable podcast
Agitprop. The word yall looking is agitprop. It did nothing on its own but that doesn't matter because the point is to inspire/agitate people to potentially carries out action in real life.
I'm gonna be that guy and say work and entertainment are not necessarily mutually-exclusive.
Nick Mullen on Citations Needed: "Okay, so like I have this theory about WaPo..."
Adam Johnson: "This was a bad idea."
Guests on the show is not really the critique I'm making. They don't really expand like podcasts of their size normally did many years ago. I'm not saying it's bad, it's just strange.
They're a lot less "fun" than most other left podcasts. Like one of the things that always keeps me coming back to chapo and chapo-adjacent content is that it's entertainment first. It makes it very easy to consume even if I'm feeling down about the future, which really can't be said of citations needed (as much as I love the pod).
Also being much more normie than dirtbag leftists or MLs, while also being far too radical for the npr crowd probably shrinks their reach by a bit.
To go along with that. I want to actually pay attention to Citations Needed. With Chapo or other entertainment focused things I can space out and not feel like I missed a huge chunk of information
The Citations Needed guys are definitely communists who are hiding their power level though.
I think it's more of a side gig from their regular work with FAIR etc.
I think it's actually their main gig at this point. I mean they have 2 employees and make a decent income from it.
I think that the folks behind Chapo, Rev left, et. al hang out/network more with other podcasters, while Nima and Adam seem to mostly invite academics and folks from the more traditional media criticism space (like FAIR).
If you spend more time with podcasters, it only stands to reason that you have a higher chance of starting another podcast.
I think that the folks behind Chapo, Rev left, et. al hang out/network more with other podcasters, while Nima and Adam seem to mostly invite academics and folks from the more traditional media criticism space (like FAIR).
A bunch of these guys circulate through the Atlantic Coast comedy circuit. That's the straight line from the Street Fight/Chapo to WTYP/Trash Future subsects, anyway.
The Street Fight Radio guys Brett Payne and Bryan Quinby got Will Menaker into it. Then he roped in a few weirdo comedian internet friends and they roped in their friends and now you've got this long loose network of '00s-era college leftists doing mass media. Something similar must have happened in the UK, because Riley's at his own nexus of history and news on that side of the pond.
If you spend more time with podcasters, it only stands to reason that you have a higher chance of starting another podcast.
COVID really drove up both the listener and creator sides of podcasting. But there's definitely a cascade effect.
I agree, but honestly? I prefer it that way.
I often find myself feeling kind of icky about listening to Chapo, Trashfuture and all the podcasts from this big Brooklyn buddies network. It's not that they're bad, I enjoy them and I listen to them regularly, but the recurrence of hosts and guests makes me feel like I'm the weird kid trying to listen in and pretend I'm cool too when all the popular kids get together to chat. It kind of makes my skin crawl when I hear them casually namedropping each other like they're friends. I'm parassocially jealous, I suppose.
That's why I vastly prefer the other odd kids, like Citations Needed, Rev Left and Red Menace for more serious listening and Your Kickstarter Sucks when I want to have a few laughs.
for too long Brooklyn has had an outsized influence on podcasting. thats why we stan the philly-glasgow gang over at :wtyp:
"She doesn't care whether or not he's an island.
She doesn't care just as long as his ship's coming in."
