Three million of something is a substantial number of anything: people, books, missing assignments, etc. As of September 2023, there are over three million active podcasts in existence worldwide.
To put that into perspective, there are almost three million people living in the country of Jamaica. I may be a pessimist on this topic, but I don’t think there are three million things to talk about. It is has been absurd to watch podcasts evolve from a niche alternative into an excess amount of unnecessary chatter.
Don’t get me wrong, it is amazing to see people who may not have an outlet other than making a podcast to share their opinion on certain topics. However, the existence of three million podcasts shows that many people should not have their opinions known by the public.
Nowadays there seem to be subgenres of people who listen to podcasts, most of whom are harmless. First, there are the true crime listeners who live for the one-hour-long, mysterious podcast episodes about cases that could be summed up in a five-minute article. Unfortunately, it can feel like there are at least three million true crime podcasts out there, so the pickings are not slim for these particular listeners.
Podcasts wouldn’t be as popular today without the old D-list stand-up comedians talking about their life stories with another old D-list stand-up comedian. The only reason those podcasts have any sort of relevance in the eyes of many is through the occasional 10-second-long TikTok video that makes you think, “Oh yeah, I remember when this person used to be relevant.”
One final type of podcast that needs to be discussed is the alpha male podcast. Those podcasts mainly include shirtless men who lift, smoke cigars and wear sunglasses indoors. If you’re not sure if you are listening to an alpha male podcast, one classic signifier is if and how they are talking about women. More specifically, alpha male podcast hosts touch on subjects such as how easy it is to “bag” women, and how to wear pants in your relationship and generally speak about women as if they are objects. The outdated way of thinking is unacceptable and podcasts seem to be the place where you can find many of these lunatics spout their nonsense.
As you may have gathered, podcasts are not for me and probably never will be. However, I have no problems with some podcasts. Many great creators out there can make podcasts slightly tolerable, and to be fair some big podcasts make a lot of money. I can respect the money flow obtained by people like Joe Rogan with “The Joe Rogan Experience,” who locked down a $200 million exclusivity podcast contract with Spotify. Another notable podcast that has a mind-boggling net worth is “My Favorite Murder” with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. The co-hosts are estimated to have earned $15 million from their podcast in 2019.
Even though I may not ever understand the draw of podcasting, any chance for regular people to create content is something that should never be scoffed at. However, this line is crossed when a podcast is only made to belittle other people (I am looking at you, alpha male podcasters). Those types of podcasts leave an icky feeling in my stomach and should do the same to you. But, as long as there comes a day when bigoted podcasts no longer thrive, my qualm will just be that there are too many podcasts.
Quinn Elfers is a freshman studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to share your thoughts about the column? Let Quinn know by emailing him at me989022@ohio.edu.
