episodes tend to reach around 200k plays now, but getting over 300k was pretty normal during the primary. I don't have any conclusions or guesses yet, just noticed this looking over the soundcloud page.
I've been thinking about this lately. I didn't start listening to Chapo until the end of last year. And I just started Cumtown this week just out of curiosity and their connection to Chapo.
It all feels very 2014 to me. I know the pods started later than that. But their moment feels like that year. Listening to early eps, it's almost like the pods were a year or two too late when they started. I'm not sure when Streetfight began, I know Will cited that as his inspiration for Chapo.
Really the idea of the boys sitting around and riffing off of movies and current events is older. There was just the feeling that these riff sessions were so good it must be recorded and uploaded. It's a very 00s concept. I've been thinking about how actually bad that concept is. To listen and take political direction from this very small group of Brooklynites. Of course everyone says nobody takes it seriously but obviously they do. But we may have made a mistake by making their little niche buddy culture so much of the identity of the online left. I don't know, just thinking a lot.
Now everyone has to make a podcast because there's nothing else to do. And that reinforces my view a little because the normies always jump on a bandwagon when it's dying. Bill Clinton and Pete and Hillary all are going to have podcasts the same way that they all jumped on Facebook 10 years after everyone else. There's already a moral panic over these leftist podcasts influencing politics the same way people are scared of Facebook. So what does that mean for 2024? Articles about how Russia funded a podcast so the election is being rigged? Maybe.
I feel like we're about to jump to the next thing, or there's an opportunity for the next thing. Maybe we can make protests and real activism the next thing. The next platform for this niche culture. And maybe a few years after that the normies will follow.
More specifically than just dissing the parasocial aspect, I mean listening to such a small section of the left and the population as a whole. The 2010s dirtbag comedian/leftist scene is very specific and narrow. I mean we have Trillbillies, which is good. But even as someone in the rural south, I still find their experiences to be different than mine.
I think it would be better of more people had stepped up 5 years ago to bring more than just the NYC perspective. I'm not trying to shit on the idea of friends hanging out and riffing together.
Seems Virgil read the tea leaves on it and jumped out onto BadFaith.