Hi all,
I had quite a few loose ends from the podcast awards we started a few weeks ago. Over the next few weeks, I’ll tie some of these together in a series of leftover posts. Below are the first two of those loose ends.
ASAP vs Storage
I skirted around a very simple question in my previous few posts – is every podcast on my ASAP list automatically better than those I leave in Storage Bin? The answer is a semi-obvious no and I’m sure my thinking is relatable to most who store anything – the precious family photos are in storage while your shitty plastic coffee maker is something you use every day. The balance of storage is a question of urgency, and as it is for my stuff, it also is for my podcasts. I listen to helmet football shows right away not because those shows are always better than discussions about economic policy but because helmet football shows become irrelevant far sooner than an episode about the minimum wage.
So, this leads to a natural follow-up question – what podcast is the cutoff point where the best Storage Bin show is better than an ASAP program? I studied my two lists and realized that since I had a hard time choosing between #7 ASAP The Tim Ferris Show and #1 Storage Bin EconTalk, the most appropriate place to draw the line was somewhere between those two programs.
Drink Diet Coke
My comment about Call Your Girlfriend being about a certain lifestyle came because of the episode when they defended their decision to bring on Diet Coke as a sponsor. The short version of this story is that the decision seemed to upset some of the show’s hardcore fans (aka, those on social media).
I wasn’t sure what to make of all this at first and I looked forward to learning more in this episode. As the show progressed, I realized that certain fans were upset because they felt the decision was inconsistent with the show's regularly discussed ideas. To put it another way, I came away from the show with the impression that some fans were very upset about the podcast accepting advertisement money from a large for-profit corporation that walks a very thin line between providing a valued product and exploiting an addicted customer. I understood what these fans were feeling but also thought it was a little naive of them in a certain respect – I seem to remember another episode where one of the hosts mentioned her six figure income. People don't make six figures because of their values, they make six figures by maximizing their worth to a capitalist system, and all I think any fans of the show can do in this situation is hope that CYG fleeced Diet Coke for every spare nickel in their marketing budget.
The larger idea this show led me to think about was how at some point people become rich enough to have more in common with other rich people than they do with people who once shared their values. In a sense, it seems like wealth is always won in exchange for certain values. I thought the Diet Coke sponsorship was a classic example of the strain wealth disparities place on existing relationships (in this case, the relationship between the show and its fans). I’m interested to see how this show evolves in 2019 as Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman meet the challenge of remaining connected to their fans and their day-to-day experiences while their own world continues to be transformed by their much deserved success.
