A Sad Podcast Update
I went to lunch with The Wife the other day. We're both (kinda) still on vacation, and decided to burn a gift card to one of those national eatery chains. Food was good, but one thing nearly ruined the experience: the menu. It was a large spiral-bound number with laminated pages, but only two-thirds or so of those pages described the eating options and prices; the other third were full-page color ads.
I can't tell you how much this bugged me. I had to fold the offending pages over as I read the menu to just slightly overcome the feeling that someone had managed to sneak taking piss in my face.
The next day I heard a podcast that reinforced the feeling that people have completely surrendered a societal definition of common decency.
Back in January, I unveiled my plan to posit an alternative revenue/funding stream for audio entertainment. Since then I have been on-and-off typing letters to various podcasts suggesting they push for scheme adoption. My first letter went out to Kevin Smith. Did he listen?
Apparently not. On May 9 he launched his own internet radio station using his many podcasts and those of his friends for content. Since this launch he has super-saturated his regular SModcast with an amazing amount of commercial advertising. Though to date this has been only for limited product mention and for cross-promotion of his other podcast ventures, the volume of these ads when compared minute-by-minute to what I would consider "content" dwarfs any other podcast to which I currently subscribe. For example, on SModcast #166, one hour and forty-four minutes of podcast sausage contains 10:16 of advertising broken glass and cross-promo sawdust with an additional two-minute cross promo broom shaking jammed in the middle.
(I realize that a less than 8% filler-to-meat ratio would be considered manna from heaven to most who consume media today, with radio stations that blast 15 minutes of commercial crap every hour and telly that tries to match that along with the product placement stuffed directly into the shows. Remember, though, that I am a proud outlier. I don't tolerate such bullshit intrusion into my life, so what intrusions manage to penetrate my anti-ad filter seem more jarring, as the menu story above illustrates.)
What got me, though, was Smith describing the upcoming content. In his intro (which starts about 9 minutes in), he noted the Jay and Silent Bob middle promo broom shake with an admonition to people (like me) who are bothered by and fighting the creeping encroachment of commercialization. To those of us who don't like ads, he simply declared, "Fuck you. I have to make a living."
I went out to eat Thursday and had a quite delicious meal in an attractive setting, but will never set foot in that place again simply because of the ads in the menu. You, sir, have confused successful entertainment with whoredom. (Seriously, go to SModcast's home page and see how prominently advertising is blasted. Naked streetwalkers are less blatant.) So, no, Kevin Smith, fuck you. Despite the hours of hilarity the show has provided, SModcast is off my podcast list as of today. You may have to make a living, but I need a life.
I'll put those sentiments into a letter today.
I can't tell you how much this bugged me. I had to fold the offending pages over as I read the menu to just slightly overcome the feeling that someone had managed to sneak taking piss in my face.
The next day I heard a podcast that reinforced the feeling that people have completely surrendered a societal definition of common decency.
Back in January, I unveiled my plan to posit an alternative revenue/funding stream for audio entertainment. Since then I have been on-and-off typing letters to various podcasts suggesting they push for scheme adoption. My first letter went out to Kevin Smith. Did he listen?
Apparently not. On May 9 he launched his own internet radio station using his many podcasts and those of his friends for content. Since this launch he has super-saturated his regular SModcast with an amazing amount of commercial advertising. Though to date this has been only for limited product mention and for cross-promotion of his other podcast ventures, the volume of these ads when compared minute-by-minute to what I would consider "content" dwarfs any other podcast to which I currently subscribe. For example, on SModcast #166, one hour and forty-four minutes of podcast sausage contains 10:16 of advertising broken glass and cross-promo sawdust with an additional two-minute cross promo broom shaking jammed in the middle.
(I realize that a less than 8% filler-to-meat ratio would be considered manna from heaven to most who consume media today, with radio stations that blast 15 minutes of commercial crap every hour and telly that tries to match that along with the product placement stuffed directly into the shows. Remember, though, that I am a proud outlier. I don't tolerate such bullshit intrusion into my life, so what intrusions manage to penetrate my anti-ad filter seem more jarring, as the menu story above illustrates.)
What got me, though, was Smith describing the upcoming content. In his intro (which starts about 9 minutes in), he noted the Jay and Silent Bob middle promo broom shake with an admonition to people (like me) who are bothered by and fighting the creeping encroachment of commercialization. To those of us who don't like ads, he simply declared, "Fuck you. I have to make a living."
I went out to eat Thursday and had a quite delicious meal in an attractive setting, but will never set foot in that place again simply because of the ads in the menu. You, sir, have confused successful entertainment with whoredom. (Seriously, go to SModcast's home page and see how prominently advertising is blasted. Naked streetwalkers are less blatant.) So, no, Kevin Smith, fuck you. Despite the hours of hilarity the show has provided, SModcast is off my podcast list as of today. You may have to make a living, but I need a life.
I'll put those sentiments into a letter today.