Misty Lamb’s fortnightly column on society, published on Saturdays
Alright, I’m going to say it – it’s time to impose a tax on podcast equipment. In fact, I propose we, the upstanding British public, petition to introduce an annual Hunger Games-esque spectacle (with little to no blood spilt) for prospective podcasters. Let’s restore meritocracy one step at a time by beginning with the podcast epidemic.
Understandably, the industry boomed during the pandemic, with a reported 139% growth in the hours Britons have spent listening to podcasts between 2018 to 2023. Ofcom reports 11.7 million people in the UK listen to at least one podcast a week.
Podcasts are great. They can be educational and insightful, providing guidance and discussions on a wide range of topics. My gripe lies with the podcasts targeted at younger audiences; the ones created by young people specifically. If you gave 20-year-old Misty a microphone and asked her to give life advice to the public, she would have derailed a great number of lives.
What the young people are truly yearning for is a mentor, a friend, or an agony aunt – me. That was a joke, even if my column functions in somewhat of a similar way. When thinking about podcasts genres and their aims, they can be narrowed down into two purposes: to educate or to be relatable. Oftentimes these two intertwine and fuse, not always in our best interests.
Many young influencers who found their fame online through relatability, their following through connection and resonance, have penetrated the podcast industry. This is not all bad especially when considering the loneliness epidemic experienced by many Gen-Zs, in cultures built on and spearheaded by individualism. However, media literacy is declining, passive consumption is growing, our idleness encouraged by the proliferation of video essays and podcasts telling us what to think, what is normal, what the definition of this or that is.
The young podcasters industry is essentially filled with virtual signalling and sanctimony. They blur into an amorphous mass most accurately represented by the, now heavily memed, interview of actor and musician, Jaden Smith: “And I’m just like, ‘Dude, like… oh my God, like… can we talk about like, the political and economic state of the world right now? Can we talk about what’s going on with the environment?”
What ever happened to credentials, earning your place? What ever happened to listening, learning, analysing? Why are we all talking? Freedom of expression and all aside, should everybody have the right to a platform?
A concerning amount of podcasts have been linked to the propagation of malignant ideologies. Monkey see, monkey do. A great proportion of them masquerade as self-help and self-affirming content. Like blind leading the blind, monkey finds camaraderie with other monkeys with the same afflictions.
I propose we introduce a Babble Tax for the worst offending inane yappers in the podcast industry. Even if we don’t tune into them ourselves. their snippets find their way onto our social media alongside the thinkpieces that follow them. If we all have to listen to it one way or another, and they get to profit from their babbling, then let’s at least make something good out of it – tax them all.
In regards to the Hunger Games idea, I am a pacifist so that was only for dramatic effect, although I do believe there should be an oversight of prospective podcasters. A sort of annual affair where they compete for public favour, are then shortlisted, and it is democratically decided which of them are granted a podcasting platform.
To some this might seem melodramatic and unnecessary. It probably is, but it also sounds pretty effective. Those of us who are sick and tired of this epidemic of unqualified waffling can be forgiven by getting a little excited at the prospect of a quick, clean cure.
