You can be a radio star!
I came to a strange realization today - I am not the independent thinker I believe I am. I starting downloading podcasts onto my iPod, and ran across one that I just can't figure out if I like or not. I sorta think they (what do you call them? If we had deejays followed by veejays, are these people peejays?) are funny, yet they are offensive in a way I don't usually like, and so I am not always comfortable in finding them funny. I keep thinking I want them to say something that bothers me so I can write them off - something racist or homophobic or super-religious - but not yet. And then I actually thought, wonder what other people think of them? And it's been bothering me that I would think that way. Do I really wait to form my opinions based on the opinions of other people? Do I need approval from someone else before I can relax and enjoy some harmless juvenile humor? Or am I astute enough to sense that beneath the surface of shit and fart jokes there is something that will eventually turn me off them completely? (Did they vote for Bush?)
Yet I am finding the podcast experience really interesting. And bizarre. Imagine if you simply created your own basement radio show and then managed to convince a bunch of iPod owners to download your ramble. It's like get there first, grab the audience - we'll worry about quality content later when the market is crowded and those things matter.
When I was a kid (okay, I must have been 12-13) I had a cassette recorder and used to make up radio shows. Somewhere we still have those tapes - I really would like to find them and preserve them digitally. The one I remember most clearly was when my youngest brother was 5, and I interviewed him about what he wanted to be when he grew up. Even then, he was very verbal and liked to use big words. He told me he wanted to be a baseball player and when I asked what team he'd like to play on, he answered, "Certainly, with I can get a Reds cap, I would be on the Reds." I must have listened to that 100 times, and can mimic the exact tone of that beautifully enunciated "Certainly." He doesn't remember any of this, and now that he has a son of his own, I think he would find it funny.
A few years ago, my grandmother took a box of old reel-to-reel tapes and had them transferred to cassettes for her kids. I figure I must have been mimicking my slightly older aunts and uncles, because there are similar "shows" which they put on and recorded around the same time. Theirs were much more dramatic, usually sci-fi or mystery related, with sound effects, actual plots, etc. Mine usually just ended with giggles and one or the other of the participants growing bored and turning off the tape recorder.
Yet I am finding the podcast experience really interesting. And bizarre. Imagine if you simply created your own basement radio show and then managed to convince a bunch of iPod owners to download your ramble. It's like get there first, grab the audience - we'll worry about quality content later when the market is crowded and those things matter.
When I was a kid (okay, I must have been 12-13) I had a cassette recorder and used to make up radio shows. Somewhere we still have those tapes - I really would like to find them and preserve them digitally. The one I remember most clearly was when my youngest brother was 5, and I interviewed him about what he wanted to be when he grew up. Even then, he was very verbal and liked to use big words. He told me he wanted to be a baseball player and when I asked what team he'd like to play on, he answered, "Certainly, with I can get a Reds cap, I would be on the Reds." I must have listened to that 100 times, and can mimic the exact tone of that beautifully enunciated "Certainly." He doesn't remember any of this, and now that he has a son of his own, I think he would find it funny.
A few years ago, my grandmother took a box of old reel-to-reel tapes and had them transferred to cassettes for her kids. I figure I must have been mimicking my slightly older aunts and uncles, because there are similar "shows" which they put on and recorded around the same time. Theirs were much more dramatic, usually sci-fi or mystery related, with sound effects, actual plots, etc. Mine usually just ended with giggles and one or the other of the participants growing bored and turning off the tape recorder.
posted by medusa at 10:12 PM
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