Making (Radio?) Waves

Making (Radio?) Waves

by Nessreen

It’s Sunday, the sun is shining painfully bright through my window and falls right on my bed, where I have thrown my laundry. I’m sorting through my clothes thousands of miles away from Jeddah, here in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, and I’m laughing into a freshly laundered shirt. 

Listening to The Low Priority Que (The LPQ). 

“And where the hell was Ghost this whole time?” Hakeem says, outraged, in the middle of a discussion about -SPOILER- Jon Snow’s demise on Game of Thrones. “Sam gets in a minor scuffle and mashallah Ghost is there to save him, but while his master was getting shanked by his own people, where was this Ghost direwolf?” 

“He was probably up there on the wall, heard Jon Snow was in trouble, looked around and thought, Uff meshwar,” says Tamim. 

Well, never mind that I bungled the transcription of that sound clip (you can listen to it yourself and point out where I made mistakes right here), and never mind that I was spending my weekend in this free world holed up at home listening to a podcast like a loser. 

7AGGANA

It’s become the best part of my weekends, having not one but TWO Jeddah-based podcasts to listen to. The LPQ is a podcast mostly on videogames and other geeky pursuits (anime, books), and MSTDFR focuses on a wider pool of nerdery – science, arts, culture. Both are in English and Arabic, hosted by smart, funny Saudis, and both give insight not only on the topics they specialize in (at which they each have a level of expertise), but also on how people from or in Saudi Arabia perceive and consume those topics. 

 

There’s a very specific flavor to these podcasts that I can’t find anywhere else, certainly not in the other podcasts I listen to – The Nerdist, Stuff You Should Know, Tim Ferris, Freakonomics, etc. I relate to The LPQ and MSTDFR, not only because I personally know the hosts, but because their language, their thoughts, their culture, are all ones that I understand.

While I’m sure homesickness and missing my friends and family in Jeddah plays a huge role in my fan-girl-ism, it’s also true that minus those factors, these two podcasts are deeply entertaining and definitely quality listening for any podcast consumer like myself. 

THE ALTERNATIVE ROCKS

In 2010, I started a podcast in Jeddah. At the time, I thought it was a great way to not only meet the most interesting people in the city and have them talk about their passions, but also a great excuse to not blog and to hear myself speak. 

In theory, it was brilliant – a podcast about and based in a country that the rest of the world died to hear from, and I would never run out of ideas or guests because Jeddah is filled with so many interesting characters. 

In practice, it failed hard. I didn’t count on setbacks, like technical expertise – sound quality was dismal, finding a venue to record with guests who were, in the beginning, strangers was difficult, and in general, I just did not have the resources or the good sense to make it work logistics-wise. 

I was also aware of the podcasting medium’s lack of traction in Jeddah at the time, which made it awkward for me, my co-hosts and my guests, all of us not trained at radio disc-jockeying, to properly BE in a recorded audio show. So much editing had to be done, so much fumbling around for content, and so much non-expertise at publishing these episodes online. This bad quality turned off real, seasoned podcast listeners, and couldn’t sustain the curiosity of first-timers. 

Still, it was a medium of expression largely untapped in the Kingdom at the time, at least not in the way we were throwing it out on to the internet, and it allowed my co-hosts and I to look into our little community and talk about the things that mattered most to us. In short form, we enjoyed ourselves regardless of all else. 

The podcast was mentioned in a BBC article online, and it was because we gave a voice to a group of people who, to this day, remains a mystery to the outside world. These modern, intelligent, young people who are also traditional, culture-oriented, and very different while at the same time very similar to their counterparts in other countries. 

A FEAST FOR THE EARS

When I first listened to The LPQ and MSTDFR, I was literally jumping up and down clapping my hands. YES! I yelled at my speakers, YES, YOU’VE DID IT, YOU GUYS. THAT’S IT. And I hugged my computer, and tears rolled down my cheeks, and I whispered until I fell asleep, “Yes, this is what it’s about.” 

...

Okay, no. But basically, yes. Here it is, the glory of a dream realized. These were the people meant to get it done, and just listen to how clearly they speak. 

I am so immensely proud of them. I want to spread the word about them like an STD, fast, contagious, relentless, and caught both by accident and on purpose. 

I want more people to listen to them, be inspired by them to create more podcasts in Saudi Arabia. 

I want competition to grow, to push them even further and to saturate the market, to be heard, to continuously work on their quality, and ultimately, to become their own representatives, for their own opinions and thoughts. 

Give them a listen. MSTDFR here and The LPQ here. Tell them I said hi.

~ END ~

Nessreen met almost all of the hosts of MSTDFR and The LPQ through That Jeddah Podcast, may it rest in peace. Read more of her blog posts on the podcast HERE.