Hey! It's me, Jesse Thorn. Been a quite while since I've posted here, but somebody sent me the link.
.....
Friends?
Hi Jesse,
This comment is less about comedy nerds and the cliques of different fan bases, who likes whom more, and more about how the podcast audience at large feel - at least the way I feel.
As far as I'm concerned we can all be friends and think we always have been. I think the reason podcast listeners (or addicts in my case) feel that they have some sort of free for all license to judge, mock or celebrate different podcasters is that it is such an intimate, personal medium.
As devout listeners we feel (correctly or not) like an important part of the podcast "process." Podcasts, of both the good and bad varieties is a very private form of media. I've yet to really turn anyone on to any podcast ever, by just sitting someone down and saying "here, you gotta listen to this, erm... 40 minute podcast, you're really gonna enjoy it."
It just doesn't work that way. Either one makes the discovery and continues listening or it just doesn't happen.
Regardless of what podcast we're listening to, they're inside our ear canals and deep in our minds as we do the dishes, walk the dog and sit on the bus. Sometimes podcasts lull us to sleep, chat to us while we are in the shower -- and I've been known to listen whilst sitting on what Archie Bunker called the "throne." You're with us "through it all," so to speak.
What I'm saying is that the podcast format is so very intimate, listeners quickly (and erroneously) begin to think we are getting to know you somehow. Because it seems sometimes you are speaking directly to us. This is a different medium than radio, because we can start and stop you as we wish, we can skip through the parts that don't interest us and we can go back in time and listen to earlier "episodes."
And, I imagine, as listeners we think our ideas are as important as the ones who are "speaking into microphones." Of course they are slightly important, but whether you're interested in them is another story.
That being said, I thought WTF interview with you was great, and I totally understood where you were coming from. I do not consider myself a comedy nerd at all. Anything I've learned about modern comedy is merely through osmosis from the magical (and coincidental, in my case) trifecta of WTF, TBSWMU and TSOYA...
Keep up the good (no, great) work -- all of you -- and stop worrying.
If you all stopped podcasting, I wouldn't know what to do with my own thoughts!