My shelf of podcast materials – microphone, notes, door sign, cords, earbuds.
Hey y’all! Welcome to Fast Facts for Gen Z. I’m your host, Callie, and I don’t know anything about anything. Come with me on my exploration of the world, and I’ll tell you everything you ever (and never) wanted to know, through the eyes of Gen Z.
Today’s episode: a study of what podcasts are, how they relate to the broader internet, and why we gravitate to sound when we consume most of the world through our eyes.
I listen to podcasts on occasion. I like the variety that’s offered – there are podcasts that make me laugh, make me cry, teach me things, put me to sleep, anything. I almost always listen at home, whereas my dad almost always listens in the car. According to PodcastInsights.com, 49% of podcast listening is done at home, so I fall neatly in the majority here. I also fall neatly in the age demographic for podcast listeners, where my dad does not. Data on Statista.com states that 49% of podcast listeners are between the ages of 12 and 34, so Gen Z and Millenials. In all fairness, this number likely includes children, but collecting data from kids under 12 is illegal, so this stat may be somewhat warped. We’ll talk more on this later.
So, why do podcasts exist, and why do people like them so much? I took my search for answers to Wikipedia’s page on the history of podcasts.
Tangent: why do teachers have such a visceral hatred for Wikipedia? It wasn’t until my junior year in high school that a teacher actually recommended Wikipedia as a source, and she was my Computer Science teacher, so that lines up. What is it they always say? “Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source.” Well, of course you shouldn’t cite it in a formal research paper, but if you want information to just get familiar with a subject, it’s unparalleled. Besides, Wikipedia hoaxes are really difficult to pull off because of their strict editing guidelines. Have you guys ever seen that Tumblr post about Wikipedia? A user posted about this same topic, and they claimed it took them years to try to plan a Wikipedia hoax, but their account got reviewed because of a really minor measurement mistake in one article. You’re probably not going to find much factually incorrect information on Wikipedia, so why do teachers swear against it? Maybe it’s because the information is so accessible and the language is easily understood. Is elitism in education that prolific? It’s bad enough that JSTOR is behind a paywall. Let me know if y’all want a whole episode on elitism in education.
Back to the history of podcasts. Podcasts sort of got their start as simple audio files passed between computers in the year 2000. The first actual podcasts – that is, quote “serial episodic audio content,” – came from an MP3 player manufacturer called i2Go. MP3 players were fairly popular when I was in elementary school, so like mid-late 2000s, even though I didn’t personally have one. So around that same time, podcasts started to enter the entertainment sphere. The New England Patriots, apparently, are credited with one of the first regular podcasts. Yeah, the football team. They had a radio show with episodes they recorded and posted on their website on demand. It’s still around, actually, and it’s called Patriots Unfiltered. I gave it a listen while I was writing this, and the episodes are around 2 hours long and it’s very football-y. I don’t know what else I expected.
The actual word “podcast” started to be used to refer to this type of audio entertainment in 2004, and Apple added podcasts to iTunes in 2005. Since then, they’ve expanded in popularity. There’s even a convention now, like VidCon but for podcasts. It’s called PodCon. Fun fact, the vlogbrothers founded and run VidCon and PodCon. That’s John Green and Hank Green, AKA the authors, AKA the Crash Course guys, AKA the SciShow guy, etc. They do a lot of impressive stuff. I have them to thank for passing my AP exams. Their company has 3 podcasts, and Hank Green has a separate 4th one that he runs by himself. They’re obviously an attractive form of content for creators. Recently, people have started filming themselves recording podcasts and posting them to other platforms, like YouTube. It’s called video podcasting. I know the Try Guys do this, and so do many others. Video podcasting seems kind of odd to me. Like, why don’t you just make a video or make a podcast? But at the same time, I kind of get it. Podcasts are a more casual dialogue, but if your audience is already on YouTube, it’s a good way to reach more people. And hey, if it’s working, more power to them.
The thing I find most bizarre about podcasts is the lack of visual input that goes with them. Maybe that’s why video podcasting makes sense. In our world of Netflix and Hulu, Twitter and Instagram, YouTube and Twitch, we crave entertainment that we can watch. Barring the experiences of the blind and visually impaired, for whom podcasts totally make sense and are a great resource, why do we turn to audio entertainment when ever-more visual entertainment is in our hands? My mom thinks that the love of podcasts comes from the desire to consume more content. Consume entertainment while we drive, consume entertainment while we work, consume entertainment while we cook, or clean, or exercise. The world is so fast-paced these days, and there seems to be a constant push to produce more, consume more, always have more. While I think this perspective has merit, what about the people who use podcasts to relax, or don’t do anything while they listen? What’s the appeal to them? I think it’s deeper than consumer culture, and it has its roots, like everything, in history.
I’m sure you’ve heard this, either from your parents or grandparents or just caricatures of older people, that before there was TV, there was radio, and before there was radio, there were books. Humans have been finding ways of storytelling since there were stories to tell. Technology widens the audience of storytelling, spreading them to literally anyone with access. But even before there were books, before there were newspapers and pamphlets and written language itself, oral history shaped culture. Native American oral history has been passed from generation to generation. Old European fables and folktales were told over and over again before Aesop and others decided to write them down. Did you know that Aesop was a slave? He was from what is now Bulgaria and was enslaved on a Greek island off the coast of modern-day Turkey. Again, thank you Wikipedia. Anyway. Many of the stories of Br’er Rabbit originated in Africa, while some had distinct parallels in Cherokee stories. The tales of Anansi that came from Ghana were spoken time and time again, which explains inconsistencies in the way Anansi is spelled across languages and cultures as the stories of the trickster god crossed continents.
Human storytelling is based on spoken word and taken to heart from our ears. A love of stories seems to be innate. Little kids who can run around for hours will sit quietly and listen to a story, their eyes shining earnestly up at the speaker. Working as a camp counselor, I tell stories daily. Sometimes they’re fables I’ve heard, or Rudyard Kipling’s Just-So stories, or modified stories from my everyday life. Even if they’ve heard a story a thousand times, they still want to hear it. Sometimes, they want to help tell it, and the ones told by kids are always gems. As kids get older, lots of them hold onto that love of stories.
The older kids at camp, particularly the older boys, love to make up Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories, to the tune of Dungeons and Dragons. I think it feeds their creativity and fuels their craving for an exciting, interesting world separate from their own. Realistically, though, I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what makes the story of how I fell off my bike more interesting than a song. I don’t know what makes a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story more interesting than fort-building. But clearly, something about storytelling feeds children, and it feeds adults as well.
Podcasting, with generally slower, more natural speech, harkens back to a time when all stories were heard and they had to be loved and remembered with just our ears. Of course, I’m sure there’s also more to that story. Everything on the internet is more complex than we think. I live in my algorithmically curated bubble of content just like everyone else. I don’t really understand how algorithms work. They collect data so quietly. While I was setting up for this, I googled “podcast microphones” once and suddenly every ad I received on every platform was for a different microphone. The terms and conditions we all agree to without reading usually gives permission to sell your information to third party advertisers. Internet privacy is basically a sham.
Which brings me back to kids. Legally, internet-based companies aren’t allowed to collect data from children. “Children” is defined as anyone under 12. But there’s plenty of content for children out there. YouTube has navigated this by removing certain functions from videos made for children. That stops advertisers and the larger algorithm from collecting data from the probable viewers of the videos. I’m pretty sure you have to be 13 or older to make a YouTube account, but we alllll know those questions don’t stop anyone, and YouTube knows that too. So, what about podcasts? There are plenty of podcasts for children, especially now that parents are cautious about screen time. There are some about science, some about kid-level news, and plenty of stories. I suppose the streaming services, like Spotify and Apple Podcasts, can operate under the assumption that parents are choosing what to listen to, so any data they collect to suggest more content is technically data about the parents. But it’s odd. How can they be sure? They don’t know, and the government doesn’t really know either. As technology advances, privacy and child-protection laws struggle to keep up.
A recent bill concerning internet privacy and security is the EARN It Act. As of the time of recording, the bill is not yet law. It was introduced by Senator Lindsey Graham, who is one of those senators that people name and then roll their eyes. Once you’re featured in a Randy Rainbow parody video, you know you’re someone notable, good or bad. Anyway, the EARN It Act claims to be targeting sexual exploitation and abuse of children, and the way it does that is via internet surveillance. Now, obviously, the internet is a terrible place for sexual exploitation of children. It sucks. People spend years fighting porn sites (cough cough Pornhub) to take down videos of their underage rape. There’s obviously a huge problem. But the authors of this bill decided that the way to solve it is to revoke legal protections from companies who fail to follow the guidelines laid by an unelected commission of people. If you, like me, don’t speak legal jargon, it basically means that the government will choose 19 people, and those 19 people will decide on some rules, and if they think someone isn’t following the rules, they’ll be able to heavily censor that company, website, or person.
Human Rights Watch holds the perspective that this is an attack on the freedom of expression and will probably be used in ways that don’t just defend children from sexual exploitation online. The Act also may attack encryption, which is the way computers make sure random people can’t just steal your messages and important information from sites like bank and healthcare websites. It also stops the government from spying on your every move. Basically, it’s important for both internet safety and privacy. I think that if a bill is opposed by Human Rights Watch, it’s probably a bad idea.
Learning about the EARN It bill made me process several things. One, making laws is complicated. Especially in our volatile two-party system, it’s really hard to get anything passed that everyone will agree on. Governing a huge country with lots of different people is hard. That’s why empires suck. Two, Internet security and privacy is still largely uncharted territory. The Internet is only like 31 years old. We’ve hardly had enough time to create it and make it work, much less govern it. It seems like there are new problems with new equally problematic solutions every day. Three, I so badly wish I was old enough to vote. My senator is in favor of the EARN It Act, so that’s…great. I hope he gets voted out.
Podcasts have planted themselves firmly in a weird, young corner of a weirder, young Internet, and for some reason, people adore them. There are thousands of podcasts out in the world right now. They appeal to a wide variety of people and are used at a wide variety of times. Whether our love for them is a feature of our constant desire for content or a reminder of a time when oral history was the only history, they sure do seem like they’re here to stay.
Thank you for listening to Fast Facts for Gen Z. You can find me @FastFactsPod on Twitter, so feel free to tweet me anything you want to hear about. This is Callie, signing off.
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