The Rich and Famous Are Dominating Podcasts And I Don't Like It One Bit!
I have always been a huge fan of Conan O’Brien. If he is not the funniest man alive he is indisputably in the top ten. Of course humor is subjective but O’Brien is objectively hilarious. If you don’t think so then you have bad taste and are a bad person with a head full of mixed-up thoughts.
You should probably see a doctor about that! I have a head full of mixed up thoughts. It makes life difficult. David Letterman might be a more important cultural figure but O’Brien has probably made me laugh more.
One of the highlights of my career at The A.V Club was when I got to see O’Brien’s show live. It was an unforgettable experience. I’ll never forget who the guest and musical guest were: some guy and a woman maybe? Or the reverse? You know who I’m talking about. He had a catchphrase and maybe wore a hat.
I was WAY too invested in the Conan O’Brien/Jay Leno beef. I saw it as nothing less than a battle between good and evil. One was brilliant and iconic. The other was just famous.
I didn’t watch Conan during the COVID days because, let’s face it, that shit was depressing. It couldn’t help but remind you of COVID and that shit was bummer city. It was like having a head full of mixed up thoughts but for the culture as a whole.
These days Conan O’Brien is a very big name in the homey little world of podcasting thanks to his hit podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend.
I love podcasting the way I love Conan O’Brien. I’ve loved it since I discovered it back in the prehistoric days when Marc Maron had a podcast that was still relatively obscure. He was not yet asking the most famous people in the country who their guys were and whether or not they had issues with him personally or whether they were, in Maron’s timeless turn of phrase, “good.”
Yet I’ve never listened to Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend for a very distinct reason. To me at least O’Brien is WAY too famous and successful to be doing a podcast.
I feel the same way about the Smartless guys. Look, I am a HUGE fan of Will Arnett. Bojack Horseman? Absolutely brilliant. Iconic. The Lego Batman Movie? Also brilliant and iconic. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies? There are only two words to describe it. Those two words are brilliant and iconic. Don’t even get me started on Arrested Development. I could go on and on about how brilliant and iconic it is but I don’t need to. You know how brilliant that show was. For me to reiterate how important and good it was would just be mindless repetition. Nobody wants that.
I’m similarly a big fan of Jason Bateman. I know a lot of people didn’t like Teen Wolf Too but I found it to be both iconic and brilliant. I also hear positive things about Arrested Development.
Yet I’m never going to listen to Smartless because Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes (who is fine, I guess, but not someone I would describe as either brilliant or iconic) are all way too rich and famous to be podcasting.
If you can get the sitting president of the United States as a guest, you’re too big for podcasting.
The three world famous multi-millionaires became even richer when, a year into the podcast’s existence, it was sold to Wondery for eighty million dollars.
Eighty million dollars! That’s a fuck ton of money. Podcasts should not be sold for that much because they should not be that popular.
To me The Flop House guys possess an ideal level of podcast fame in that they were very successful outside of the podcast in being writers for The Daily Show or bar owners but they weren’t household names or big celebrities.
You might think that I’m being bitter and resentful because I personally have been podcasting for years with Clint Worthington, first with Nathan Rabin’s Happy Cast and then with Travolta/Cage and I am literally making hundreds, rather than tens of millions, in revenue. You’d be right! I’m very bitter and very resentful.
Podcasting used to be for weirdoes, underdogs, failures and eccentrics. It was a semi-obscure medium for semi-obscure people to make a name for themselves and/or try to find meaning and purpose in a universe that frequently seems random and cruel.
Podcasts were a place for bitter failures to look back at the wreckage of their lives and careers and wonder where and how it all went dreadfully wrong, not for winners to discuss everything that went right.
It wasn’t a place where the brilliant President Obama could kibitz with his iconic friend Bruce Springsteen.
Incidentally I just learned that Bruce Springsteen is a lifelong progressive and am SHOOK. I naturally assumed that because the chorus for his one big hit was “Yeah, yeah, yeah America is great! I love the USA! Vote for Ronald Reagan!” the singer shared my far right wing political beliefs but apparently he’s been a huge lefty for something like seventy years. I’ll still be buying his albums and going to his shows, but less enthusiastically.
It annoys me that podcasting now seems to exist for two reasons, to disseminate the ideas of former Fear Factor host Joe Rogan and for people who are already rich and famous to discuss the work that led to their wealth and fame.
Super-famous celebrities have corrupted the world of podcasting and I don’t like it at all.
Leave podcasting to the oddballs and the obsessives. You already have every other medium.
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