Dear Marc,

I don’t remember when I first discovered WTF with Marc Maron. Going back laboriously through the archives on the website (have you considered a date-based archive…? I mean, I know the idea is to keep people on the site for as long as possible, but… yeesh, that’s a lot of clicking…), I recognize particular episodes as far back as February of 2015.

It’s been at least a decade, and all along, your conversational style and selective transparency and vulnerability on the mic, with your guests and in the opening monologues, resonated. After all, it’s an interviewing (and podcasting) approach I share and have employed myself across a few different shows for a very long time.

More on that in a few paragraphs.

A Compliment Sandwich

I’ve sung your praises as one of the best interviewers in podcasting (see also: Krista Tippett and Sam Fragoso, but each in very different ways and for very different reasons) pretty much from the beginning.

I’ve archived scores of episodes, sometimes for the historical value (you’ve created an episodic oral history of American comedy without compare), sometimes for the revelatory glimpses into other creators’ processes, and probably most often simply because something in the conversation moved me deeply.

Sometimes, of course, a single episode would check all those boxes.

I’m very grateful for the body of work you and Brendan McDonald have produced, and while I respect the decision to shutter the show, its absence will be keenly felt.

So, thanks for WTF. I hope the archive remains available indefinitely; you’ve created something of real value to the culture, and I don’t have to tell you: we need that.

The Pickle in the Middle

Over the last decade, I’ve heard you refer to yourself many times as a podcasting “pioneer;” that you were there at the beginning, or words to that effect.

At first, I would smirk and chuckle at the exaggeration.

But it kept coming up, more and more, especially as your own profile (deservedly) grew.

And then, during your recent appearance on Seth Meyer’s show, Seth himself called you a pioneer. There was a bit of riffing between the two of you about how if you’d been in the top ten podcasters when you’d started, it would have been you and the nine other podcasters, because there weren’t more than ten. A joke, sure, and I’m paraphrasing, but…

That’s when I realized the exaggeration was starting to drift into — probably due to ignorance — revisionist history territory.

Here’s the thing, Marc:

You deserve every laurel to rest on for what you’ve done with WTF since September 1st, 2009. You’ve undeniably made an impact, helped define a particular niche, and, without question, helped raise awareness for the medium. The accolades, recognition, and awards are appropriate.

But you’re not a podcasting pioneer, good sir.

By the end of 2009, over 20,000 new podcasts launched that year alone, and something like 43% of adults surveyed in the US — never mind the rest of the world — had an awareness of the medium, with nearly 25% having downloaded at least one episode of a show.

In 2009, your 34 episodes accounted for just three percent of the million episodes released that year.

By 2009, an annual trade show / conference was in its fourth year (I was there at the first, in 2005).

In 2009… folks entering podcasting weren’t pioneers.

The trail had been blazed.

By 2009, you and the other 20,000+ new podcasters… were settlers.

Again: you deserve credit where credit is due for helping create a certain niche in podcasting.

But with all, considerable, due respect, Marc, please stop calling yourself a podcasting pioneer, or misrepresenting, however innocently, that you were there at the beginning.

It’s disrespectful to those who were, and, given your considerable megaphone, likely to unfairly write a history that doesn’t represent reality.

Who the Heck Am I to Call Out One of the Most Popular Podcasters?

My name is Matthew Wayne Selznick. My first podcast debuted on October 15, 2004.

It was, by the only measure available at the time (Podcast Alley, if I recall correctly, or maybe Adam Curry’s first manually-maintained directory), the 41st podcast ever, and the 40th original podcast if you discount those repurposed from terrestrial or streaming internet radio broadcasts.

You can find that first episode of The MWS Media Radio Show Podcast (granted, a ridiculously long and not particularly accurate name, but hey, we were all making it up as we went along like, y’know, pioneers…) and all of the subsequent episodes of that first of my many shows, at the Internet Archive.

By the second episode, The MWS Media Radio Show Podcast became the first podcast to exclusively feature independent music unaffiliated with the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). No podcast had yet been sued for playing unlicensed commercial music, but we knew it was coming if folks kept playing major label music (and many were).

I sidestepped the issue. One might say I was a pioneer in that regard, too, since others saw the sense there and followed my decision to only play truly independent music.

About a year later, my Brave Men Run podcast launched as one of the first two dozen or so “podcast novels” — fiction released episodically, a chapter at a time. The first podcast novel was Tom Corven, from a gentleman with the appropriate name of Paul Story, earlier that year. It wasn’t as wildly popular as Scott Sigler’s Earthcore, which is often credited as the first (and which led to a profile in The New York Times in March of 2007), but Paul Story, he was a pioneer.

Late in 2005, I attended the first Podcast and Portable Media Expo in Ontario, California, along with podcasters and vendors from all over the world. The year after, I spoke on panels at the next one, and elsewhere, because by then, I was, well, a recognized pioneer of the medium.

In 2005, podcasting had become enough of a thing for the first book teaching people how to do it appeared in bookstores. I was featured in the second, Tricks of the Podcasting Masters, in 2006.

Since becoming a podcasting pioneer in October of 2004, I’ve recorded, produced, or managed, for myself and for clients, over 1,300 podcast episodes.

Of course, the first podcast ever launched even earlier. That honor goes, arguably, to Doug Kaye on September 24, 2023, who was also — and this might be of particular interest to you, Marc — very likely the first person whose podcast — IT Conversations — regularly featured interviews with guests.

A pioneer, that Doug Kaye!

And let’s not ever forget the guy who made podcasting possible at all, Dave Winer, who invented the RSS-with-enclosures protocol waaaaaay back in 2000. Without Dave Winer, podcasting would not be the people’s media it has become.

Anyway.

Podcasting has been, as Garrett Morris used to say as Chico Escuela, “beddy beddy gut to me.” Not on the order of magnitude it’s been for you, but, like you, podcasting changed my life. I would not have the career I have now, helping other creative folks bring their endeavors to fruition, to market, and to an audience, if not for podcasting.

The Other Piece of Bread

I believe comedians are culture’s philosopher poets, and you, Marc, are one of our finest.

You’ve changed culture, for the better, through WTF. That’s a legacy many aspire to and very, very few can claim.

And again, I write with my whole heart, and a heart full of gratitude and respect: thank you for your sixteen years of WTF. I, like many, many others, have been enriched and improved by that body of work.

You’ve earned a place in the pantheon of folks who have helped podcasting almost as much as podcasting has helped them. That’s something you should embrace and be very, very proud of.

I hope you’ll continue to amplify awareness for podcasting, and the potentially life-changing opportunities the medium can offer, long after the last episode of WTF.

I hope you’ll use that megaphone of yours to express gratitude for podcasting and sing the praises of the true pioneers who made your own life-changing experience with the medium possible.

Gratefully,

Matthew Wayne Selznick

Postscript

Why an open letter? Why put this gentle rebuke out there for the world to see, instead of emailing you directly?

I assure you; it’s not in an attempt to diminish you or your work. That’s far beyond my power and even farther from my intentions.

It’s just a matter of distribution.

As I wrote above, you’ve got a huge megaphone, and you, rightfully, get to decide what you say into it — including, potentially, publicly sharing emails you receive.

I don’t have a megaphone. I’ve got… I don’t know… a cardboard paper towel roll to speak into, by comparison, but still, and so: an open letter. Because if this is on the web, there’s a non-zero chance folks can discover it, and perhaps be educated on the history of podcasting, and your place in it.

Thanks again.