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When Do You Quit Listening?
I was listening to a podcast during my morning workout; it was a Federalist episode with Mary Katherine Ham interviewing a guy that filmed a documentary about Elvis. It sounded interesting but maybe 10-15 minutes into the podcast the filmmaker went on a tirade about the “.0000001 percent” controlling the country and, IIRC, politicians selling out the country and I had to delete it and go on to the next podcast in line on my phone.
Maybe this guy had a lot of other good stuff to say but Howard Zinn-ish tirades just completely shut me down. I don’t want to hear anything else after that. Am I too sensitive? Should I grit my teeth and hope I can make it out of the morass? I’ve reached a point where life seems too short to spend time listening to what I regard as pompous fools.
Published in General
I would have done the same.
And they come in such large quantities you never seem to run out of them.
I ant to learn something when I listen to a podcast. I can go on a rant as good as anyone else…
I’m guilty of the epistemic closure of going out of my way to hear to my side, and sometimes turning off what I believe to be Leftist propaganda (ie: I like much of my conservative propaganda and will indulge myself …. hello Ricochet!)
For mental health purposes I’ve learned how to control my own anxiety/anger levels by not going out of my way to listen to the Left tell me things I have learned through life experience to not be the truth.
Because the news/education/arts are dominated by the Left it’s certainly not the case where I won’t get my daily earful, it’s just that I will not go out of my way to hear/read it, and when I find myself inadvertently cornered with Lefty nonsense, I’ll run the other way.
I call it checking the boxes when it comes to stories about some police shootings: Police shoot 25 year-old man.
I’ll listen to or read Leftist rants to be informed about their positions and for the entertainment value (chuckles). But when they start to repeat themselves too much or start screaming, I’m outta there.
I was reading an article in our local newspaper. It was written by a former English professor at USA-Aiken:
https://www.aikenstandard.com/entertainment/arts-and-humanities-beaufort-memorializes-african-american-hero/article_85146fd6-857e-11e8-a3c6-4b9dd6d69ec4.html
I was interested in the article, but when I got to the fifth paragraph, I put the paper down. The author just had to get a dig in at Trump and the Republicans. This ruined what was otherwise a good read . . .
What? Uh… did you say something?
Had the same reaction at about six minutes in but my hands were deep in some fermenting bok choi I had overplanted six weeks ago and couldn’t risk the bluetooths. Thought about shaking my head to knock the phones off my head.
Jarecki was being Jarecki. He tries to lard the Founding and the Founding Ideals of the country all over his basically cultural Marxist shtick. He’s pompous, arrogant and features an NPR voice hushed with existential faux gravitas.
What surprised and disappointed me was MK Ham. Not the Hammer this day. She was weak and placating. Even when she objected it was retreating and almost apologetic.
Frankly it was like freshman sociology again, listening to a smart unsure kid getting boxed around by a silly pretentious lefty.
I’ve been rereading Bonfire of the Vanities because I need to see more clearly into the deBlasio Cortez future of New York.
The chapter where Wolfe details the creation of the “honor student” victim is laugh til you cry funny until you might just flat out cry.
Imagine the prestige Wolfe had to wield to get Farrar, Straus and Giroux to publish that chapter then.
Does anyone think that chapter could be published today, as well the slang of the South Bronx political mobs?
An important point IMO. With the absolute proliferation of pods, you have to apply some standards to sort through the morass. I like people (host or interviewees) who are amusing. I like people who tell me things that I didn’t know. I don’t have much need for people (excluding the above) who just want to give me their opinions on the events of the day absent some demonstrated expertise on the topic. I have plenty of those opinions myself, and so do my friends.
I find that I tend to tune out around the 15-to-20 minute mark, even if it’s a podcast where I agree with everything being said. To sustain my interest past that point, you’ve gotta be teaching me stuff I didn’t already know, not just saying stuff I agree with.
I find the Econtalk podcast falls into this trap a lot. For the first 10-15 minutes or so, I’m learning stuff. After that point they’re just rehashing the stuff they already talked about in the first 10-15 minutes.
To avoid living in a podcast bubble, I follow a few (arguably) centre-left podcasts (e.g. Ideas, from the CBC. Also Quirks & Quarks.), and generally they follow the same pattern. If they’re telling me something new, then they can maintain my attention even if I have logical and/or ideological issues with their arguments. If they’re just rehashing age-old talking points then they get maybe five minutes of my time.
The worst are the centre-left podcasts on climate change. I have yet to hear one even try to make the case for anthropogenic climate change by providing actual scientific evidence. It’s always axiomatic, and that makes for a dull podcast.
…
Another point: The average commute in North America is about 20 minutes. That’s why 20 minutes is the optimal duration for a podcast.
Definitely. And one reason why the 10 Blocks podcast from City Journal really checks the boxes.
If I’ve heard that argument before I turn it off. Life is too short.
I seem to be deleting podcasts in the middle (or sooner) more often than in the past. Teach me something; don’t get too far into the weeds; don’t swallow your words (I can’t read your lips); give me a unique take on a subject. If not, you’re gone.
There are a few Ricochet podcasts I’ve turned off, and then subsequently un-subscribed. Among these are the “Ladybrains” and “Need To Know” podcasts. In the former, the topics of conversation tended towards subjects that held little or no interest for me (fashion, home decoration, etc.) In the latter, the participants chose to engage in commentary that became increasingly unpleasant, juvenile, and whiny. When I found myself getting angry at both what was being said AND how it was said, I decided it was time to listen to something else.
I quit listening when Steyn left.
I find it extremely distasteful when podcasters, and MKH especially seems to feel the need to do this, share what’s been going on with their personal lives as if that’s why I listen in the first place. Sure, it’s ok to mention this or that for a couple minutes, but most often it seems like they go on and on for the first 10 minutes. The Substandard is also bad about this, so I just end up skipping over the annoying parts or stop listening all together. People who say “right” and “like” in every other sentence are also extremely difficult to listen to, which is why I find myself shutting down the Remnant and Constitutionally Speaking more often than not.
I can’t abide partisan shills.
Left or right, Republican or Democrat, Pro-Trump or Anti-Trump, doesn’t matter. Once it becomes clear that you’re toeing the line, you lose me.
Life’s too short to put up with bad content, bad books, or bad whisky.
@Hoyacon: I love the City Journal podcasts also and agree that the 20-30 minutes seem like a great length. I also listened to MKH’s interview w/ the Elvis guy and just felt she did not push against him enough. Heard a young man the other day who said that all problems are because of economics/unfairness. The Elvis guy reminded me of that – and isn’t that Marxism? By the way, I did listen to the whole podcast even though I seriously thought about it turning it off. I think I kept hoping he would sound a little more sane and/or MK would push back more.
All three will make you sick.
The City Journal itself is wonderful. Maybe my favorite regular periodical (not going to diminish it by calling it a “magazine”). I’m a proselytizer.
Actually, I think a half-hour is the perfect length. But whenever I find one about that length, invariably the host will say “We’ve got a lot of requests for a longer podcast…” And despite my screaming back at them “No, no, no!” soon the podcast will stretch to an hour or so.
I’ve found that as the podcast universe both inside of and outside of Ricochet keeps expanding, deleting is becoming a more frequent choice. Long gone are the days when there were only a handful of offerings during the week and you had nothing to lose by giving a weak podcast a few extra minutes.
The question I would ask is if you can learn something from this or that leftist.
It’s almost a good thing when a podcast turn bad, as there are so many good podcast episodes out there.
When does one have time to listen to them all?
This would seem to fit in here:
Please, Please, For The Love Of God: Do Not Start a Podcast
And that was 20 months ago!
As someone who cares about speaking and has opinions about speaking I quit listening when I feel the speaker has thoroughly made his point.
One of my pet peeves about speaking is speakers who turn effective 20-minute speeches into boring hour-long speeches. Some people have no concept of quitting while they’re ahead, or of leaving their audience wanting more.
I listened to that one too. Until the guy started getting testy about criticism of Hanoi Jane Fonda. Then Mary Katherine rebutted, then he continued defending Fonda! I turned it off right there.