Before you start reading: put on “Everybody Talks” by Neon Trees. (Pun intended.)
We’ve truly lost the plot.
I honestly couldn’t even tell you what a podcast is anymore.
What was once a form of audio entertainment has somehow evolved into just about anything involving two people, a microphone, and a camera. Every time I open TikTok, there’s another influencer sitting on a beige couch, offering unsolicited relationship advice, discussing a breakup from five years ago that they’ve supposedly “healed from,” or genuinely just talking to talk.
When did everyone decide they needed a podcast?
Don’t get me wrong一to me, podcasts are a must. They are part of my day-to-day life, providing a soundtrack while I do house chores or eat.Â
It honestly just helps time pass sometimes because there’s something comforting to listening to people who have these natural conversations. But recently, it seems podcasts have lost their original meaning and aren’t really about what’s being said.
Somewhere along the way, we confused being entertaining on the internet with being entertaining for an hour straight.
Maybe what intrigues me most is how quickly fifteen minutes of fame can turn into a full-blown media career. It seems like the natural progression of becoming an internet sensation is no longer securing a brand deal or launching a merchandise line but announcing a podcast that nobody knew was in the works.
Take Haliey Welch, better known as the “Hawk Tuah girl.” After going viral for a street interview in June 2024, Welch launched her own podcast, Talk Tuah, just a few months later. What started as a spontaneous joke became an entire show featuring celebrity guests and a spot among Spotify’s top-charting podcasts.
And listen, I respect the hustle. If someone offered me a paycheck to sit in a studio and talk about my life, you could not catch me turning it down either. As Queen Coco Jones said, “You would do it too for a check.” But I can’t help wondering how we went from laughing at a fifteen-second clip to expecting the person behind it to entertain us for an entire hour.
Even the “67 Kid,” who became an internet sensation after his viral basketball-game moment, is now one of three hosts of Last Laugh Podcast. Apparently, going viral for shouting two numbers can land you a podcasting career.
I don’t necessarily blame the people taking these opportunities. Logically, podcasts offer influencers with established audiences another way to build their personal brands and generate content across multiple platforms. An hour-long conversation can become an entire week’s worth of content on TikToks, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts.
To me, it seems like the goal for these influencers isn’t to have good conversations but to get clipped and go viral on people’s For You Pages.
I swear I’ve watched a year’s worth of podcast clips on Insta Reels and Tiktok, yet most of these clips I see aren’t podcasts I necessarily tune into every week. Most of the time, I have no idea what show they even come from.
Sometimes, I don’t even know who’s talking.
It’s strange to think that a format originally built around listening for long periods has become something we’re increasingly encouraged to watch, scroll past, and consume in thirty-second increments.
Of course, there’s one particular genre of podcast clips that I wish would stop appearing on my feed altogether.
You know exactly which ones I’m talking about. A group of men sitting around a table, debating women’s appearances, dating histories, and what supposedly makes someone worthy of a relationship. Usually, there’s at least one woman in the room being interrupted every time she tries to defend herself.
Podcasts like Fresh & Fit have faced criticism for promoting misogynistic attitudes under the guise of relationship advice and self-improvement. And while I understand that these controversial opinions can sometimes be rage-bait engagement, I find it concerning how easily degrading conversations about women can be packaged as entertainment.
I’m sorry, but when did publicly degrading women and their appearances become a personality trait?
The irony is that some of these conversations are presented as advice on building successful relationships, yet they seem to spend considerably more time criticizing women than discussing what actually makes a relationship work.
But before I start sounding like someone who wants podcasts banned from the internet, I want to clarify something.
I actually love podcasts.
Brittany Broski’s The Broski Report, Jake Shane’s Therapuss, and Owen Thiele’s In Your Dreams are some of my favorite examples of what makes the format so entertaining.
What I enjoy about these shows is that their hosts have personalities that extend beyond their internet followings. Brittany Broski can spend an entire episode discussing the most random topic imaginable and somehow make it interesting. Jake Shane’s humor and interactions with his guests make Therapuss entertaining, while Owen Thiele brings a similarly distinctive personality to his interviews.
And none of them need to convince me that they’re sharing groundbreaking information.
Sometimes I just want to listen to someone funny talk about something ridiculous while I’m folding my laundry. Is that really too much to ask?
After all, a podcast doesn’t have to be educational or particularly profound to be worth listening to. Entertainment is valuable on its own, and I appreciate that podcasting has made it easier for people to share their stories and express their creativity without needing a television network or radio station.
But just because something is accessible doesn’t mean everyone needs to turn it into a career.
My frustration comes from how quickly we’ve started treating every internet personality as someone whose opinions deserve their own show.
And perhaps we, as the audience, are partly responsible. After all, these podcasts wouldn’t keep appearing if people weren’t watching them.
I don’t think everyone needs to stop making podcasts. I just miss when having one meant there was something worth tuning in for, rather than another familiar face with a microphone and an hour to fill.
At this point, I think we’ve heard enough unsolicited relationship advice, controversial opinions, and conversations that could’ve been over in five minutes.
Because sometimes, a conversation can just be a conversation.
And some things really can stay in the group chat.