Let’s get straight to the point here: Podcasts have exploded in popularity in recent years—and I’m mad about it. While I admit that I’m biased against audio media (I’ve fallen asleep in the middle of audiobooks and I don’t listen to music), let’s not pretend that makes me wrong. The podcast is a medium that does not deserve its cultural impact.

Problem #1: There are way too many podcasts. It seems like every vaguely famous person or piece of media with an audience of any size has a companion podcast. I love Avatar: The Last Airbender, but in no world does it ever need a podcast that is three seasons long and still running. I’m not discounting every podcast that exists, but there are just so many bad ones. Podcasts have done some good; for instance, they provide another outlet to broadcast the news, which is always needed. However, many podcasts are far less noble than that. Let’s not forget the genre of podcasts dedicated to hating on women. Even though the extremely low barrier to entry isn’t necessarily a bad thing, podcasts are hugely influential, and with the amount of random weirdos who have their own podcasts, that influence is often used irresponsibly.

Problem #2: Get off of YouTube. Podcast platforms already have a terrible baseline discoverability, and it’s only made worse by how totally oversaturated the podcast sphere is. I might have been fine with letting the podcast world do its thing on its own platforms, but now they are encroaching on sacred podcast-free spaces to compensate for the aforementioned discoverability problems. The podcasts chose war by getting on YouTube.

Problem #3: Is it even a podcast anymore? Podcasts are audio content, and I will not debate anyone on this; however, since podcasts are now invading the YouTube space, many of them have video content as well. I’m willing to concede that a podcast can have supplementary video of the people talking, but it can’t be the main attraction—if a podcast has graphics or is otherwise visually dependent, it simply isn’t a podcast. It’s just a long, minimally-edited video of people talking with microphones obscuring their faces. 

Okay, I’m done now. Maybe you don’t agree with me, but I’m not going to listen to your podcast about it.