Why bother making a podcast?

Hello there. You should definitely make a podcast. You've always known it, and your hour is drawing nigh. Or maybe it has just been a nagging thought at the back of your mind, easily dismissed. The desire to speak your truth into a microphone, and thence to the world, is one you should scrutinize.

There are plenty of articles on how to make a podcast, but today we're looking at the whys and wherefores. (‘Wherefore’ is just a fancier ‘why’, if you're curious). A more existential discussion. Why bother?

The Left Hand of Podcasts

Do you have something interesting or important to say, and/or an engaging way of saying it? Sounds like you should make a podcast. That's all you need to know.

But wait, there's more! Because the easiest thing in the world is almost making a podcast and then not making it. (I have a side-hustle composing theme tunes for podcasts, and see plenty of this – but I appreciate how it leads to repeat clients who almost make several podcasts over a series of years. I wish them well!). Before you set out on the journey of podcast-makery, you need to be more than confident, because you will find there is a lot to push through on your journey.

Consider this: a lot of the biggest podcasts in the world are run by passionate right-wingers (or proud centrists, who also happen to be passionate right-wingers). They speak with zeal and audacity (even if they edit with something fancy). It would be difficult to rise to the same success and notoriety as libertarian heavyweight Joe Rogan, but a lot of people try, and a lot of them rake in audience and sponsorship money by saying what they wish, by daring to offend, and angling for (surprisingly often) manlier men and a more American America. They go boldly and they go hard.

Left-wing podcasts don't really work like that, and don't succeed like that. For whatever reason – and I've an armful of theories why – folk on the left don't go in for that blazingly intense confidence, that devil-may-care swagger. We obsess over getting our politics precisely right, we divide against ourselves, and we end up doing very little, running around like ninnies, or deciding we (or our co-hosts) aren't good enough to be carrying on. I was an editor on a left-wing podcast for over a year and fretted myself into burnout over whether we were leaving ourselves open to criticism. (We probably weren't.) The left has an interest in ideological purity which the right could never match, and this is a large part of why we end up with so many left-wing organisations doing covering similar ground, while glaring at each other.

Of course, the above two paragraphs assume you're coming from at least a slightly left-wing angle on this. If you're a dyed-in-the-wool Magaphone, I've probably said all I need to convince you utterly – not just to make a podcast, but that your rivals are a flock of tremulous bottoms who can never prosper. It's not quite that simple!

A podcast doesn't need to be a politics podcast to be a political podcast, and it doesn't need to be a political podcast to do something which is fundamentally good (and also really quite political), but if you're striding forward to make a podcast you need to make it worth listening to without succoming to an ideological perfectionism or you may find nervous self-censorship rattles within your brain until the whole podcast collapses, seeming impure, untenable and wretched. By all means self-censor, be discerning and prudent, but you've got to be able to make this with gusto and a thick skin or your dream will come to nothing.

Five reasons why you should definitely start a podcast

So far, we've not delved far into why you should make a podcast, so let's hear some compelling reasons:

1. It's good to talk

This was the slogan of a telephone advert in the 90s, and I was never sure what it meant back then, but it stayed with me as a catchy piece of advice which is surely a solid basis for society. We can change things by talking to people and listening to people, and podcasts are all about precisely that. If you have good things to say, and say them well, it's a great boon! If your podcast listens as much as it talks, it will probably be even better.

2. Mouths predate pens

Writing prose takes absolutely ages! Well, for most of us. You're welcome to 'well, actually' this claim, but most people find it a struggle to fill a page with words, but could fill twenty minutes with speech with very little trouble, given a comfortable and supportive environment. The spoken word came before writing, and for most of us, in the right contexts, it just flows more readily. Writing, once it's more than a few paragraphs, can seem like schoolwork to be shirked. Putting it out into the world is no less daunting. But talking? That's just what we do. is just what we do

Just set a time to talk – have some keen speakers and an agenda of sorts, and later on you can cut it up and put it together. (The whole thing comes together in the edit more than you might expect – but I'll save that pleasure for any ‘How to make a podcast’ piece we may do as a follow-up)

3. Podcasts are accessible

Podcasts can be heard around the world, and cost the listener nothing. In bygone centuries, people published tracts full of opinions, ideas and arguments, and distributed them locally – these days zines are the closest direct equivalent. Podcasts are like zines, except they have theme tunes are regional accents. You can make them at home, you can be fairly overt in what you say, and hope it will find the right people.

4. You can fill a niche

One of the best reasons to make a podcast is because there is a podcast you'd love to listen to, but it doesn't exist yet. There is something important missing from the world which you need, and you intend to do something about it! (This is very similar to the reason people make fan art, or write novels, or make indie games).

5. There is something people need to know

There is a burning truth. You know it, and if people could only hear it, they'd grasp it, and the whole world would be better.

Be careful with this one. People don't always take to ideas in the ways we expect them to. It's still a solid reason, however. Spread the word you have, and do it engagingly – a word I keep coming back to, because people will only keep listening if the experience of listening satisfies them in some way – and you could be the start of something important. Or the middle of it. But not the end!

Four reasons why you actually shouldn't make a podcast

We're most of the way though, so let's have a sidebar, or an interval ice-cream and consider some reasons why you SHOULDN'T make a podcast. (It's a slightly shorter list than the ‘reasons you should’ because I don't want you to take fright. We'll return to a bit of positivity once you've seen these fair warnings).

1. It's not easy to get listeners!

Hmm... You make a good point. Everybody and their dog has a podcast already. (As a part-time podcast-theme writer I can confirm that more than one person has commissioned me to make a theme for a dog-starring podcast). The listeners of the world are already spoilt for choice, and getting people to listen to yours might be a thankless task, leaving you feeling like you're shouting into the void.

Well, maybe. Or maybe your podcast will be good! A word of mouth success – a dream we all love to indulge in. Or, even more plausibly, you'll take promotion as seriously as planning and recording, and work to get this podcast in front of a lot of ears. After all, ‘finding the audience is hard’ is a compelling reason to never write a novel, stream a stream, paint a painting or do almost anything creative. It's your choice if it's your sticking point.

2. You might not have anything to say!

Actually, that would be a fairly good reason not to do a podcast. If you have style without content (or worse, neither style nor content) you might eventually find it a hollow experience.

However, do you really ‘have nothing to say’? This ranks alongside ‘I'm not very talented’ and ‘I can't act’ (or, in high-profile trials, ‘I don't recall’) as something which is said far more often than it's true. If you have even a scintilla of care for the people of this world, you have something to say. You're here, reading this. You'd like the world to be better and your mouth wants to flap about it. You have something to say! All you need for a podcast of substance is a good, original idea, and it doesn't even need to be your own good, original idea.

3. You might not have the time to make it regularly!

That doesn't stop some podcasts I know, which come out infrequently, but are always welcome. It does take time and energy to make podcast and if you're only going to make one episode every six months, or perhaps two episodes ever, you might find there's a better distribution method than a podcast. This might be down to your audience and your appeal, of course.

Maybe do a single one-off blog post (like this!) or a video essay instead and take it from there. There are poets and audio-drama makers who release (free or paid) Bandcamp albums of their words, and it's another way to present your non-podcast ‘podcast’ in the world for free.

4. You might be making it purely out of spite!

You might be making it purely out of spite purely because someone else is already making the podcast you want to exist, but they get it all wrong!

This isn't actually a reason not to make one. It's an amazing prompt for any kind of art, and it means you go into it with clarity, energy and a real drive to make a thing of quality.

‘This is how you do it properly’ has been the root of a lot of the best projects I ever did – but it shouldn't be the only reason for it to exist.

Why don't you?

Podcasts are a joy to conceive and a labour to actually produce. They're baby-like in these regards, and in the cost of time and energy they require.

If you are still keen and heartened after reading this mixed platter of encouragement and discouragement, then I really hope you make a podcast, with the same caveat I'd give when I really hope a friend gets a pet dog: I hope you do, if it is right for you to do so! It's a marvellous choice, provided you're ready to get going, to keep on keeping on.

When and if you do begin a podcast, please get in touch and let us know about it. I may not listen to many podcasts (except when I have a big sewing project to get through), but I believe in them completely. They can help. They can spread knowledge. They can elicit empathy. What else is the Internet for?

(Well, I can name a few things, but let's not end on too much smut.)

Bring it all back now!

The Geeks for Social Change Podcast will be returning (in glory, I hope) this year, and I've been tasked with making it come to life. I look forward to living by some of the claims I've made in the article you just read (unless you skipped to the end, of course – incidentally, the butler did it).

I'm very keen to hear from you about what you'd like to hear in our podcast, because we're a community, you and I (and Kim and everybody else, of course), and these things are best when they emerge from the hopes, intents, knowledge, guidance and whims of the whole community, not dictatorially from above. Please do get in touch (though the Discord, or some other way that pleases you more) and give us some feedback – including whether you disagree with any of my points and advice from this piece, as this is the prime time to set me right!

But don't let the prospect of a revived GFSC podcast distract you from the topic of your own podcast! Whether or not you're now set to start one, I hope to hear some of your recommendations on the podcasts which do exist, which do good work, and which in any way make your knowledge clearer, your vision clearer or anybody's life better. What should we be listing to? And what should we be saying?