Friday 8 April 2016

Why you should be Listening to these 4 Podcasts

Podcasts have quickly become one of my favourite media forms. They are like TV for your ears! There are so many different formats - documentary, Q&A, comedy, stories - you name it. I've been listening to various podcasts for 3 years or so, and here are 4 that I've stuck with:


Welcome To Night Vale
Considering I was completely new to podcasts, Night Vale was a weird one to start with. Because it's just that: weird. Even after 80 episodes I have no idea what's going on in Cecil's strange little town, and I love it. It's structured as a bi-monthly radio show with a man named Cecil as the presenter. And it's pretty normal. Except soon you realise that all-mighty glow clouds and forbidden dog parks and hooded figures and angels who aren't really angels aren't things that exist in normal towns.
The narrator's voice is amazing. Cecil's voice is calming yet unnerving, but after a while his emotions come through as well. The background music is eerie and the show supports various indie artists by playing a different song during each episode. It is so unique and fun and I look forward to every episode.

Not too Deep with Grace Helbig
Grace is one of my favourite Youtube personalities. I met her in January 2015 for her book signing in Bluewater and she is funny in person as well as online. In Not too Deep, Grace interviews other Youtube personalities, asking them bizarre questions whilst deliberately avoiding getting too deep into things. Instead of going on a Youtube video spiral when I can't sleep (which would inevitably lead to less sleep because of my too-bright phone screen light), I listen to Not too Deep. There is some swearing and adult humour, but it is very light hearted and splendidly silly in the best way possible.


Dear Hank and John
Another great podcast presented by Youtubers. The Vlogbrothers produce some amazing content on Youtube, but I might love their podcast even more.
In it, they give advice on all sorts of questions that people write in and ask them, ranging from 'will humans eventually conolise the galaxy?' to 'can we pee on our own heads?' Their dubious advice is often hillarious and occasionally very profound as they attempt to answer some unusal but facinating questions.

Serial
This is where a large amount of the recent podcast hype originated from, and I've finally begun to listen to it! The first season of Serial explores the background to a real murder that occurred in 1999, bringing up a range of old evidence in order to check the presenter's question: did they catch the right man? The episodes vary in length and the story is exciting. It is all about how the law works and how people work - two things which I cannot claim to know much about, but am very interested by.

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