After months of sharply criticizing President Donald Trump’s actions, decisions and rhetoric, the left-leaning MeidasTouch Podcast overtook the Joe Rogan Experience for the first time last week, according to YouTube’s weekly ranking of top podcast shows.
While Rogan’s 20.1 million YouTube followers dwarf MeidasTouch’s 5.2 million, the podcasting giant’s show finished in second place. Progressive YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen and conservative-leaning Sean Ryan’s shows also made the top ten.
The MeidasTouch Podcast saw its rankings climb in July as Trump attempted to appease Congress, the media, and voters over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, with episodes zeroing in on the president’s past ties to and comments about the disgraced financier.
I just scrolled through the top podcasts in Apples Podcasts app. I didn’t realize the landscape had changed so much. There sure is a bunch of bullshit in the top 50 these days.
I knew a bunch of these were popular on YouTube, but I didn’t realize how that was translating to overall podcast rankings on a separate platform.
Makes me miss the more innocent days of early podcasts. And also clarifies why all my favorite long running podcasts say the advertising market for podcasts isn’t what it use to be.
I don’t see how these three bros lookin like assholes in suits are as popular as they are. The branding makes me suspicious.
I’ve literally never used podcasts. Am I missing anything? I currently just listen to YouTubers read Reddit stores while I drive.
They’re basically the modern version of radio shows and can be nearly anything. A lot of them are just interview or current event shows. Public radio puts out a lot of good news and educational ones. My personal favorites are comedians playing Dungeons & Dragons (The Adventure Zone, Not Another D&D Podcast). They end up being part collaborative storytelling and part improv comedy, with the dice introducing enough chaos to keep it interesting.
Podcasts are an open standard (they’re just an RSS feed with audio files attached), so there’s tons of different phone apps that can play them.
Podcasts can be highly personal. Personal taste and all that. In other words, my recommendations probally wouldn’t hit with you. Lots of “two white guys talking” energy. But I’ve listened to them for so long I “know” them well.
I’d say, try exploring them. Stay away from political ones, and maybe away from ones run by big conglomerates like iHeartRadio.
Also, in my opinion, while the word podcast means content you can subscribe to via an rss feed. Audio, or video. It has come to include “long form content you could listen to, while ignoring the video part.”
I wonder…can I self host podcasts? Like if I had pinchflat rip things I liked from YouTube and link it to my phone over VPN, I could let it run in the car with my phone screen off.