What Not to Do When Recording Your Podcast

What Not to Do When Recording Your Podcast - Reasons for Unsubscribing

I listen to a range of podcasts on a daily basis, mostly business related, as well as a number of 'geek' news, interviews, and movie entertainment shows. Many of these podcasts, particularly the geek themed shows, are just a group of friends, getting together to talk about a common love of all things geek.

Unfortunately the 'geek' podcasts can be some of the worst offenders for 'what not to do when recording your podcast'.

Admittedly, this post is just my personal pet peeves when trying to connect with a new podcast, ultimately it's your show, do what you want, but hopefully the following list will at least warrant your consideration.

1. Overly Long Pre-Show Banter Between the Hosts

If you have more than one host there's no need to spend 15 to 20 minutes recording your pre-show, 'what's everyone been up to?' banter (I don't care if it is your 300th show Absolute Geek Podcast).

A couple of sentences each is fine but a long explanation about your new life with a baby, how cute the other hosts think said baby is because it's a C-section baby, how old your other kids are, whether you want to have more kids, how glad you are to have had a vasectomy, what the procedure was like, who your favorite is in the upcoming football season (and I don't know after that, this pre-show banter was the final straw for me after listening to several episodes where you continuously took too long to get to the topic of the show).

There were five hosts (I think) on this episode of the Absolute Geek Podcast. I kept skipping 30 seconds ahead and they were still going 30-40 minutes in.

I listen to podcasts because they're a 'hands free' experience. Most podcast apps don't have time codes to skip ahead to specific points (as far as I know) so I either have to suffer through this garbage or stop what I'm doing to skip to the part of the show that the show title said it was about.

If you have a particularly unusual, funny, interesting, everyday life story, I'm there for it but I couldn't care less about whether your baby sleeps through the night or what they're wearing in the live video feed.

2. Play to Just Your Video Stream

Speaking of live video feeds, your YouTube and Facebook audiences are not your main audience. Most of us are not watching the video version of your show... you know why? We're doing other things while we listen.

On YouTube alone I'm subscribed to over 70 channels (and I'm making a concerted effort to keep that number down). Do you honestly think I have the time to watch an hour plus podcast show on YouTube where it's a commitment just to watch a 20 minute video?

And, do you think, if I'm going to put in the time to watch an hour plus video, two people talking into microphones makes for interesting, long form content?

I'm not saying don't livestream your show to YouTube or wherever, just remember a big percentage of your audience doesn't have the visuals. At least make some effort to describe what people are seeing when something visual (that has no audio cues) comes up.

3. Smoke Weed During the Show

You know how it's considered poor form to eat while podcasting because the microphone picks up all your chewing noises etc. What's equally annoying is smoking weed while podcasting, same reason (calling you out Kevin Smith - on nearly all your podcasts these days). We can hear all your weed smoking sounds, especially when you go into a coughing fit.

I'm not against weed or people who smoke weed. Have at it all you want, but if your show is nothing to do with weed other than the fact you're smoking it, maybe blaze up before the show rather than during. At least keep the on air smoking to that one show you have that specifically says 'wake and bake' in the title.

I haven't unsubscribed from a Kevin Smith Podcast yet (unless the feed went dead due to no content for months) but I'm getting close to it. He's at his worst when he's blazing up during a one on one interview. Seems to think it's fine, particularly if he's at home interviewing over a zoom call.

4. Barely Talk to a Guest About Their Latest Art, Job, Project etc.

One of my biggest pet peeves is with long form interview shows like Chris Hardwick's ID10T, or Michael Rosenbaum's Inside of You, is when they have a guest who's worked on some iconic project, has a film out, or has multiple amazing career milestones, but the majority of the show is talk about mental health, swapping house renovation stories, or discussing what it's like raising kids... you know, all that shit regular people deal with everyday, like it's some revelation that celebrities have regular hang ups and shit to do too.

Sure, talk about those things but you know what regular people don't get to do? They don't get to play Polka Dot man in a James Gunn film working with other big name stars (Chris Hardwick). Maybe spend a bit more than a few minutes on talking about the celebrity's latest work?

---o ---o--- o---

I'm going to leave it there. Of course these are not my shows. They're also free (which I really do appreciate because so many podcasters are putting their content behind paywalls now - which, surprisingly is not a pet peeve of mine). Do what you want on your show.

I'm just some random person on the internet whose opinion doesn't matter... at least that's what we tell ourselves.

Comments

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices. My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe? Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Image to Video Generator to Animate Art That Started as a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch

B ack in October of 2023 I used Prome AI's Sketch Rendering feature to color a 23 year old rough pen sketch I did of a princess watching butterflies, sitting next to a waterfall in the forest. You can read more about that in my previous article, The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Art Generator to Color and Enhance a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch The three images I used to create my final image (bottom right). Notice how closely the AI has followed my line art sketch (top left) but in the first image (top right) has misinterpreted the waterfall as some kind of large tree stump. Prome's render of the artwork was pretty good but I did end up creating a composite image myself from two of the best renders, to get my final image. Since then AI Image to Video has come a long way, particularly when it comes to creating animation from artwork and maintaining the art style for the whole generation. AI still does much better with turning photographic images to video but I found ...

Second Sunday Skateboard Session Ep 2 - Some Improvements

TET heelflip - looking better but still not a land. A s of writing this I've stuck to my plan of filming myself skate every second Sunday. By the time this post goes up I will have three episodes done. As part of that goal I am also skating more between episodes, about every second to third day for an hour, practicing Braille's Skateboarding Made Simple, Volume 1. That said, I'm not posting these videos here immediately after they're posted to my @TETLife YouTube Channel because I only post an article once a week, and that would make every second article a Sunday Session post. These posts are really so I can add some additional thoughts after the fact, and, of course, because this blog is about all things that interest me, of which skateboarding is one of them. In episode two I had intended to speak to camera more than I do but my driveway is right next door to my neighbor's shed/workshop, and I get a little self-conscious if I'm not too sure whether he's th...

Making an Effort to Be a President Trump Free Zone - Final Rant (I Hope)

I hope the American people, who voted for President Trump, get the full experience of what they thought they voted for along with what they're actually getting. Now may be a good time for them to learn to speak Russian because if World War Three does break out, it's not beyond possibility that it'll be the USA and Russia against the rest of the world, as Trump appears to be emboldening Russia to dig in on their attack on the Ukraine. China, may opt to stay neutral, or even join forces with the rest of the world because they've been quietly winning an economic war with so many countries, they may not care so much about the USA. Especially since President Trump wants to bring manufacturing back to America and impose tariffs on every country exporting anything to the USA. After that fiasco meeting President Zelenskyy had in the Oval Office with President Trump I've pretty much had enough. I'm not writing about what new dumb ass thing Trump's doing this week. ...

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...

Australian Federal Election 2025 - The Australian Democrats (Please Like Us Again) and The Greens

Image: Reve AI T here's not much to be said about the current Australian Democrats other than in 2025 Australian election, in May, they'll be out there hoping they win a seat... any seat... 'please like us again!' The Australian Democrats For just over two decades, from the late seventies onward, the Australian Democrats were the third most important party in the Federal government (if you don't count the National party since they've been on that coalition ticket with the Liberals for as long as I can remember). In fact, once I moved away from the Labor party, they were my top pick until the party slowly imploded in the early 2000's from a series of unfortunate events like leaders defecting to other parties, and a highly publicised incident of drunkenness, bullying, and abuse from a male party leader to a female colleague. It's been two decades since then (and that guy's with the Greens now)... please like us again! That aside, the party is still t...

The Australian Federal Election 2025 Could Be a Win For Independents

Australian Democrats founder, Senator Don Chipp, embodied the role of minor parties holding the balance of power with his quote of "keep the bastards honest." Photo Manipulated Caricature by TET. A s of writing this, the actual Australian Federal Election date has yet to be announced, as our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, attempts to keep the focus on the fallout of severe weather events in Queensland, however it's looking likely that some time in May is the safest bet. Despite this, all parties have been hard at campaigning, with smaller parties, and in particular, conservative independent candidates, seemingly rallying together to make sure people know how much influence they can have just by preventing the two major parties (Labor and the Liberal/National coalition) from having a majority in either (or both) houses of parliament. They're also doing their part to make sure voters finally understand that preferential voting works in everybody's favor over one ...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog