Comments on: After Four Years As A Podcaster

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 05:51:04 +0000

Wonderful thoughts on fame and the reasons people seek exclusivity from Amy and Jonathan — thank you!

Patrick — thanks for the well-wishes and the pending donation. I thought about the less-expensive H2, but I really want that four-track capability the H4 offers… beyond podcasting, I might get some new music recordings out of it, too.

As of the novel — I’m cooking on two right now. :-)

By: P.G. Holyfield

P.G. Holyfield — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:24:33 +0000

I sense a disturbance in the force…

Okay, enough of that. I just wanted to stop by and say Happy Anniversary. I’ll be contributing to your fund as soon as I can. By the way, consider an H2. I have one and absolutely love it. It may become my primary microphone for the next podcast novel.

Do what you gotta do, but continue working on the novel, Matt. Please? :)

By: jonathanschiefer

jonathanschiefer — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:16:12 +0000

I live near Los Angeles, and I listen to stories of actors (famous ones) who live in constant fear that they are going to be exposed for fakes or frauds. I’ve heard stories of writers who are afraid the last books they’ve written are the last books they will ever write and that whatever mysterious muse drives them will be stolen from them.

It has been my experience, that the kind of people who are drawn to podcasting are the same kind of people who were ridiculed or outcast as children through high school. They are the nerds and the geeks. Mur Lafferty just wrote a great piece about this in her Suicide Girls column.

What that rejection and ridicule did (and I include myself in this) is leave us feeling like we don’t belong, or that we aren’t good enough. If we’re able to work through the pain of that, we see that it did temporarily enslave us, but when we break those chains, we are more free than those who follow the various calls of society. We are free to be rejected and ridiculed, because we know who we are.

I believe the only reason people desire exclusivity is fear. They may be afraid of being rejected again by the masses, thus clustering together with those they trust. They may be afraid of failing, so they only speak with those who already agree with them.

But podcasting, in fact social media in general, isn’t about exclusivity. It’s about freedom! Because of podcasting I am free to speak my mind, to reach out to people I would never get a chance to meet otherwise, to not be constrained by the limits the world TRIES to put on me. Exclusivity within social media is both a contradiction in terms and totally self-defeating. It’s a club. It’s the same kind of club I wasn’t aloud to join when I was in high school, complete with the same limiting rules.

Keep it. I like freedom.

By: AmyBowen

AmyBowen — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:40:01 +0000

Thanks for sharing all of this, Matt. I feel the same way: Podcasting is very important to me precisely because it connects me closely to my friends (and people I would like to be my friends). Another reason I love it is that equality of status created by the fact that so many of the people involved are both creators and consumers of creative content. I need to be reminded of that once in a while, because one of the pitfalls I face in my journey to become a Podiobook author is the temptation to let the attention go to my head and get drunk on fame. That would be bad, for everyone involved.