On Podcasts

On Podcasts

by Khayra Bundakji

I’m not sure why or how it happened, but music never was a part of my life like it was for my peers. Whenever anyone would offer to the conversation how moved a song made them, it just wouldn’t register. Much like boys, much like makeup, much like fashion, it was yet another socially ostracising quirk of mine to not connect with or remember lyrics of music.

Then one day, on my daily 45-minute commute to university, I discovered NPR. Terry Gross from Fresh Air, Ira Flato from Science Friday, and the gang from GeekSpeak added a dimension to my grayscale Saudi life I didn’t realise I lacked. This was before I had friends to discuss science or pop culture. Finding radio shows that felt I was amongst friends reunited me with a piece of my heart I didn’t know existed.

  

Once I gluttonously got through international podcasts, I desperately searched for something that would speak to me. Something, say, in Jeddah. Leading me to That Jeddah Podcast (whoa, powerful SEO), which led me to Nessreen (omg, do you guys know her?), which led me to GeekFest, which now prompted me to invite myself to MSTDFR, my current pet project – a podcast on geekdom, pop culture, science, and the region packaged as casual conversation in Arab-lish.

PODCAST PERFORMANCE

Surprisingly, 2009-2012 witnessed many of my media debuts on UAE radio, TEDx talk, friends' podcasts, and fashion modelling. By the time I became a regular on MSTDFR, I was keenly aware of my speech quirk (possibly lisp?) that I recognise Terry Gross and Joan Cusack having. Having gone corporate for a bit, many books and leadership training classes directed my attention to “upspeaking” and waiting for permission to speak. Having an actor as a husband and theatre major as a friend directed my attention to performing vs sharing. So today on the podcast, whatever good I’m doing is from a subconscious knowledge of all these things. What ineffective habits I have are being worked on, I think.

ADDRESSING ISSUES

Having humanity’s social needs digitised has been painful to many. Podcasts are a great bridge for us in this decade to get a sense of bonding while learning something that contributes to our own path. Sure, you could Skype with friends, but let’s face it, technology hasn’t caught up yet. Being able to tune in – at your own pace – to a bunch of friendly people talking with clean sound quality and then having interactions via show notes & Twitter is far superior and more convenient.

In my opinion, the space between on-demand social interaction and knowledge sharing is too big to plug just with text and video. The reality of an ancient group sitting around a fire talking about their community as their hands were preoccupied with crafts or instruments overshadows the lazy activity of watching a talkshow on TV.

Mark my words, everyone will start paying attention to podcasts OR something better than podcasts will rock our world.

WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?

My podcast listening choices changes with my priorities. At this time, I’ve been delving into comic books and women’s voices in geek culture. So lots of love to Fake Geek Girls, Oh Comics!, and Double Page Spread. My mindfulness exercises also take form as podcasts, making Anxiety Coaches Podcast and Anxiety Guru very important to me. Lastly, for fun, I love The Nerdist, Fresh Air, Science Friday, Freakonomics, and Stuff You Missed in History Class.

The only thing that would stop me from listening to a podcast is poor audio quality and lack of packaging. Most podcast listening happens when I’m doing laundry or whatever, so hosts need to mention what the interesting thing is before AND after they discuss why it’s interesting, for example. Show notes need to be tight. Facts need to be checked. People in the episode need to be mentioned and linked to. Production for my benefit and sustainable connection with episode guests is very important to me.

EARTH-SHAKING LEVEL

The current biggest societal change I can see coming from podcasts is normalising smart, interesting women. Don’t run away from my perceived feminism! I promise I won’t be annoying with this. Especially since I’m not a feminist, I’m a masculist.

Think about it; this is the first time appearances – and so pre-conceived notions of any minority – is out the window. They don’t matter!

And more importantly, women literally only have their voices to express themselves, a big step from recently being voiceless in the professional and political dimension. Women’s ability to see more colors than men, to be more careful, to be more giving, hasn’t had a powerful impact for their causes. Women do naturally have a larger spectrum of social speech tone recognition and vocal capabilities in expressing emotion; this will be a first in having a natural leg-up in a field.

Apart from the average person adjusting to listening to a woman — really listening to what she’s saying, without being distracted by visuals — podcasts will be a burgeoning platform for your average woman to realize she has something to say and her expertise counts.

“Khayra, watchu talkin’ bout? I don’t need no adjustment to listening to a woman! I ain’t sexist!”

Aha, but unfortunately, you kind of do need it. Small presence of women in any field or role seems a lot bigger than it really is. Generally, if shown a picture where 50% of people in it are women, it’s perceived as more than half. So what’s actually happening is us feeling uneasy with the female gender taking its practical place as half the population. Both women and men have shown unease with women having equal presence as men. And on the flip-side, men are seen as creepy if they’re nurturing to children or as weak if they choose to cry instead of punch. All of these perceptions are unnatural to our species.

Bottom line, podcasts aren’t going away. Perhaps today’s form will fade, but the rate at which people seek out their needs at a time it suits them is too real. Pubs and cafes were where you’d go to have that communal experience, intellectual or silly, at your leisure (1600s), then came parks for the apartment-bound, then came restaurants for the cook-less (1700s), then came discos for the uninvited to personal parties (1920s), and then finally the Internet brought virtual spaces of file-sharing (90s), social networks (00s), and on-demand TV networks (10s). This is such a natural progression of finding a balance between human interaction and work-life balance.

Don’t agree? 

Well, maybe you should take your well-written or eagerly-recorded message to @MSTDFR to put me in my place! I could even respond on the MSTDFR podcast that is located here.

~ END ~

Khayra is a hard-core enabler of geeks and all sorts of nerdery. If you have geeky inclinations and are in Jeddah (or anywhere else, for that matter), seek her out.