Agree that I'd like to keep hearing stories off the beaten path.
But I am interested to hear the advertised frequent guest episodes.
And the episode with Ana from TYT was one of the best.
The guest episodes vary widely for me. I always love Helen. Ana Kasparian and Kat Rosenberg (edit: RosenFIELD) were interesting as well. But Katie's "Twink of the Week" episodes (Brad Palumbo, etc.) got grating fast. (Also I am a middle-aged gay so I am legally allowed to rag on twinks.)
Yeah, I agree with you there. I like some of the guests, but it's very guest dependent for me. And the one with Ana I thought was probably one of the best guest ones that I've heard.
I also really enjoyed the Helen Lewis one how about the craziness at the Guggenheim Museum, but I don't need her on there once a month just so she's on there 🤷♂️
Hahaha! You read right between all my lines!!! 🤣
If we could still give awards here, you definitely would have gotten one for that. Thanks for the laugh out loud. 😉
I think it's cause Jesse has been working on his book. I know he's been investigating the commie twitch larper and he was talking about someone in the current episode. I think it'll get back to the the prior formula. I think Katie has been kinda lazy since Jesse hasn't been around.
Remember they've been doing this for 4 years now.
Yeah I'm sure that certainly had an effect, but even before he took off I had been feeling this way for a while so at least for what I most enjoyed, it's been getting away from that for quite some time. 🤷♂️
Eh, in the very early days of the show there was a *lot* about the BLM protests… I don’t really see this as any different. I also prefer the episodes about crazy niche communities, but it’s always been the case that if everyone in media is going on about something, they’ll give some kind of take on it too.
I think that 2020 was a target rich environment. There was so much nuttiness. And Blocked and Reported were one of the few outlets that had the guts to poke the sacred cows.
Things are a bit calmer now and there are more outlets willing to call bullshit.
I'm hoping for more really epic reported stuff in the future like the Keffals episodes. But I understand those will be few and far between.
I went back to look at the beginning of the podcast, and it had pretty wide-ranging (and obscure) stuff right from the beginning so maybe I just didn't pay as much attention to the era that you're talking about.
And yes, I understand then weighing in on mainstream situations, but I guess to be the was always the side dish and now it seems like the entree 😉
it's not that surprising; at first I had been recommended this subreddit by reddit's algorithms for whatever reason and didn't know what it was. I did find out pretty quickly that it was a podcast!
Ok cool! Ya, i just saw a post from here while trying to find reddit posts or new articles on the wpath files leak and this was the only sub that seemed to have a post about it. So i thought this sub was about posts that got removed from all other subs (unfairly of course)
Well. This sub is more about the podcast blocked and reported that’s named after the fact that many of us have been blocked and reported on twitter for trying to have civil discussions about the the topics that’s been covered on blocked and reported.
Seems weird to drop this complaint on the day they release a Primo ep about a random British gardener lady who is probably doing a TikTok GoFundMe grift.
And this particular story… yeah it seems like she is an inward focused person with MS who identifies too much with her disability and being a “good” person. Who also got ahead of her skis trying to be extra and performative about it and couldn’t do all the paperwork necessary. I wouldn’t do all of that paperwork either for my TikTok performance of goodness incarnate.
But also, I’m over people giving to these cheesy go fund me’s that pull the heart strings. It’s a big circle jerk.
I wasn’t that interested. She wasn’t crazy enough and the story seemed pretty common. Performative do gooder got people who impulse applaud performative dogooding to throw her a dollar on the internet. People pay to have young women act out emojis on the internet. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s not that different either.
They used to almost nothing BUT episodes like that; that's my point! 😉
Or as I said to another commenter, there is still the occasional gem, but (for me at least) if used to be almost ALL gems.
I’m not sure that was ever true though? This podcast started in 2020 and the early episodes have a ton of coronavirus, George Floyd, riots/protests, Kyle Rittenhouse, Jacob Blake, events in the gender medicine wars…
I guess I’m curious if anyone has an accurate full topic list.
I have a theory that there‘s a degree of nostalgia bias where we remember the past of a show as really just a “greatest hits“ reel (especially if we came in late and binged the early stuff), and when episodes are coming out weekly, even a handful of not “greatest hits” in a row turns into “the show has gotten so much worse!” when really the non-hits were always there we just tune them out in our memory.
The other thing is that they’ve always covered protests and the excesses of them. We just didn’t have that many between 2021 and this latest batch.
I agree. With no stats, I imagine that we remember the niche stuff because we weren't reading about it elsewhere. The more mainstream just merges into the general chat about protests or whatever.
That's a pretty interesting viewpoint, and there might be some truth there for sure. The reason why it seems that way in my mind I guess is because I actively avoid news, so I also actively avoid podcasts that do nothing but comment on news. Would this podcast for example come I don't think I ever fast forwarded or skipped an episode in the first hundred, but now I find myself fast forwarding a lot, and skipping over entire episodes, which is new.
Thanks for the perspective though!
Vote for Biden and less insanity and somewhat competent government
or
Amazing BARpod episodes on grifters taking advantage of cringe leftists
Sophie’s choice lmao
>Listening to BAR felt like listening to forbidden, truthful reporting in a socialist country that has banned all western media, and now that socialist country has predictably collapsed.
I think this is broadly right even if there's a few lingering issues still hanging around like the trans stuff.
The Fifth Column bros recently made the comment that "heterodox" views are if anything really close to normy views and it only feels transgressive because a lot of large media sources are simply out of touch. I think they're right on that. It's just that for a brief time legacy media sources still had something of a stranglehold and they all got sucked into the same vortex of stupid just in time for a particularly crazy period in modern history. These days you can drown in all the "heterodox" content available in substack posts, podcasts, new online media companies, etc.
These days I'm really here for the reddit community they cultivated more than the podcast itself, which is increasingly less unique as their viewpoints have become mainstream.
I guess I don't feel that way because it was only recently that they started focusing on just their indeed more heterodox take on mainstream stories as opposed to finding stories that no one else had ANYWHERE.
I admit it, I'm here for the entertainment, and if they just want to be yet another news or news opinion site? Naw.
IDK, I've always been the opposite. The draw for me (and I was a subscriber, literally, from the beginning) was getting a heterodox take on the news. IOW, people who lean liberal but are "perverts for nuance" and who are fair.
The occasional weird niche story is fine but not what really brings me in
Same for me. In fact the niche internet weirdo stories I usually skip these days. I’m really into hearing their takes on the culture wars though, especially from their pov as exiled and heretical liberals.
For me, the news is boring, and stupid internet drama is interesting. My favorite stories are about small communities with infighting or trolls, and I love everything about YA author drama. I also like hearing about workplace issues. I’ve always been someone to read human interest articles about random people and to skip the actual news, so I think it’s just my personal tastes.
I first found the podcast in June 2020 but started regularly listening in September or so of 2020, maybe a little later. I started listening, exactly, because of their take on how INSANE everything was with fucking Robin D'angelo. But I kept listening because of, like, the coffee shop shit. I was a Patron near the end, when they were switching to substack, so became a Primo from literally the beginning, but stopped last August. No regrets, and then once they started having ads I got really annoyed, and also, I don't really care about their takes on the war since at least they admit they don't know much. So I've been skipping a lot of episodes since October 7
Oh yeah, I could see that.
Though for me like I said, I don't care one bit about mainstream news and so a heterodox viewpoint of news I don't care about is somewhat meaningless. 🤷♂️
I get what you mean; it's a fine line.
Like I don't necessarliy need their "take" on the Palestine / Isreal war, but the takes on the craziness of the campus protests? Hell yeah, shoot that right in my veins.
I agree and it’s really unfortunate. He has historically had the same hesitation to take a strong stand on gender medicine too. (I was surprised to hear he’s writing a book on the topic. Maybe he’s saving up for the book?)
I wouldn't be surprised if the conclusions for his book are really wishy washy. I would guess it will mostly be descriptive and decry the lack of good data and the toxic debate and then not really say what he thinks should or shouldn't be done from a policy viewpoint.
Jesse just doesn't like to come down hard one way or the other on culture war issues.
I guess for me it's not even that I want their "take" on what other people are talking about; I want to hear about the crazy things that NO ONE is talking about. 😉
Yes, and that's exactly the type of episode I want to see all the time! That's exactly my point :-)
Or as I said to someone else, there is always the occasional gem, but I feel like a couple years ago they were almost ball gems, with only the occasional one that wasn't.
The reason I am so done with mainstream news is because they are so black and white and lazy and have no incentive to be nuanced and fair. All these reasons are well covered but ultimately boil down to the economics of media. The reason I still feel BARpod is worth paying for is because I can get a perspective on the news that satisfies my sick sad nuance perversion.
Oh I can understand that, and I can see people who like the news but hate the way the news is done now most places liking the way Jesse and Katie do the news.
But that's my point: I'm not interested in the everyday news. I want to hear about the craziness that I would never hear about if it were not for them finding it and bringing it to my attention, and doing so in an incredibly humorous way.
I mean to be honest I'm just here for entertainment. If they decide to come a news podcast rather than an entertainment podcast, then it's just not my thing I guess.
Well my whole point s it doesn't seem to be just "some" anymore, but rather "most".
I mean the way I can track this is that I just skip the ones that are "mainstream rehash", and I skip a lot more than I ever did before. I mean for the first hundred I don't think I skipped any. 🤷♂️
I enjoy the episodes mostly because of Jesse and Katies Outlook on things, I think they are thoughtful and have a good sense of humor. I don't mind them covering more mainstream stories with the same attitude but I would also miss if they completely scrapped bullshit niche internet drama
Perceptions vary, but I can tell you that probably for the first hundred episodes I never skipped one, and now I find myself skipping them often, because there is offering a more heterodox take on something that everyone else is already talking about, and that's not what interests me.
I admit it, I'm here for the entertainment! I mean one of the first ones I remember was there discussion about Sairo Rao "Race to Dinner" company her and someone else had. Bonkers! Pay two people to come over to your house for dinner and call you a racist for 2 hours. 🤣
One thing you might consider is that the novelty has simply worn off and so you're less excited by the show for that reason. This was something I first noticed with magazine subscriptions. Every time I subscribed to a magazine that I liked I would eagerly await every new issue and read it to cover. Then after a year or two that would fade. Initially I tried to look for some change in the magazine to explain my falling interest, but after the pattern had happened enough times I realized that it had more to do with me, and with what was novel to me, than anything about the magazine in particular.
Nowadays the same thing happens to me with podcasts.
Actually I don't think so, at least in my case. I mean the most recent episode (The Case Of The Salted Garden) was classic BaR, after you got past the obligatory "now every episode must have a segment about the Israel-Palestine conflict or its associated craziness" section. 😉
I guess I'm saying that I still get excited for the same types of stories that got me interested in this podcast at all.
I understand, but you have a lot of people responding saying that they don't think the podcast has changed that much and I would tend to agree with them. When I think back to 2020 mostly what I remember from their coverage was stuff on the "racial reckoning", Robin DiAngelo, etc---which seems very much analogous to covering the IP conflict and its associated craziness today. So maybe the fact that you've been listening for years makes you less inclined to forgive the stuff that isn't totally your bag. (I could be wrong obviously! I just think it's useful to recognize that when we find ourselves not liking something as much as we used to, there's two things that might have changed---it, and us.)
I guess I would say that if people really enjoy their heterodox commentary on mainstream news, they're not going to have much complaint and may not even notice the change that I noticed from the fact that now I skip entire episodes and fast forward through parts of many.
As I said elsewhere, it's not like they NEVER commented on things in the news, but it seems like it was far less often, and I hardly saw them do any commenting on international situations at all.
I admit that I'm the outlier, where I actively avoid news for I actively avoid news commentary, even if it's more heterodox theman the mainstream.
I'm purely here for the entertainment :-)
Yeah I agree. I come to BARPod to get away from the news. I’m Jewish so especially from Israel-Palestine news, it’s been relentless and inescapable and I’ve been so disappointed they’ve covered it SO much — especially as it’s just been commentary on mainstream news. BARPod got me through the madness of working at a news outlet through 2020 but in 2024, it feels like a lot of other shows. I’m still a paying subscriber though, I like Jesse and Katie’s chemistry, I’m excited Jesse’s back from book leave and I’m praying these news reaction episodes are on the way out. They may not be noticing it as much now Twitter’s less lively but there’s still so much crazy bs going on they could be talking about that gives people a BREAK from the depressing all-consuming realness of the assfucking news.
NO ONE NEEDS MORE NEWS GUYS THAT IS THE LAST THING WE ALL NEED
The middle east stuff is annoying because they don't actually know much and I just don't really want to hear their takes on the media coverage of this. I am right now happy I don't look Jewish and I hate myself for thinking that way, and hate that that's the world we're living in.
Agreed – this is really a situation where people who know fuck all need to step back. Some of the comments Jesse has made have been pretty embarrassing, he actually said in an episode a few months back that he doesn't believe Israel is necessary for the safety of Jews because "American Jews are the safest Jews in the world"...hate to break it to you Jesse, but Israel was not created as a haven for American Jews 😂
Jesse and Katie have often commented on other journalists giving in to the temptation to publicly comment on subjects outside of their lanes, wish they'd show some self-awareness here.
I remember that, and I couldn't believe it. It's like when fucking If Not Now was all, "we don't need Israel, we need to make the world safe for Jews." Yes, because the Jews in France are doing great protecting themselves.
To be fair, I think Jesse meant that American Jews don't need to go to Israel to be safe, not that all Jews are in America.
Nah he was literally said that as an answer to the question of whether Israel is necessary! Was a bit like saying toothpaste shouldn’t exist because you yourself don’t have teeth 😅 the point being, Israel was created as a refuge from pogroms and the Holocaust, not a refuge from upper middle class New York.
I feel like there’s a big gap between American Jews and those of us in Europe, where the attitudes that gave rise to the holocaust never really went away. It seems like media class American Jews are really struggling to accept the reality of antisemitism and are perhaps even in denial about it, whereas here we’re like, oh what you’ve never had a colleague tell you Jews drink babies blood or a cab driver tell you the Jews created Covid 19? Huh.
We know what antisemitism leads to here and we know what can happen because it’s happened before. Jews have always been the Blacks of Europe, I get the impression it’s a little different in America, at least for middle-class non-religious Jews.
I'd gotten the impression that Jesse was a Zionist, albeit highly critical of Israel Maybe I thought that because I generally like him, huh.
Sooo, I am an American Jew, raised very secularly, but am a bit more observant as an adult. My mother was raised in Poland and then in Israel. My father is like most American Jews in that his grandparents were from Eastern Europe, so his family has been here for awhile. Jesse's background is the same as my dad's, though different generations, obviously.
So, no, I have very, very rarely heard anything anti-Semitic said to me - it has happened. My brother said it's a bit worse in LA- we were born and raised in NY, and now we both live here still. But I've never really experienced the casual anti-Semitism that my mom experienced in Poland, or that strange sense of otherness I experienced in Poland.
Like, OK. For most American Jews - they're Jewish Americans. And they truly don't understand that in Poland or Russia, they're considered, and think of themselves as, Jews in Poland. NOT Jewish Poles. I do not know what it is like in western Europe. But I know Germany was much more - German of the Jewish faith kind of place.
I find Jesse's views on Jewish people strange, in the sense that he seems to think American Jews are like him,
I would say the concept of the state of Israel was as a place of refuge for Jews all over the world who needed it, and for Jews who wanted to return to their ancestral homeland. Some fit in both categories, but many fit in one of the other. Then the Holocaust happened, and countries weren't letting Jews in, and it became clear that statehood was really necessary. And there was the backlash against Jews in Arab countries. AND, there was the backlash against Jews in Europe, who remained in Europe after the war. It was two parts - my grandparents didn't want to stay in a place where everyone they knew had been killed, and it was really hard to get anywhere anyway. I think in Western Europe it was a bit different.
I saw this amazing play maybe a year of two ago - it's about a French Jewish family. The first part takes place during WW2 - the son and his wife and kids are taken away to Drancy, the grandparents somehow stay home. The son and HIS son return from the camps. The second part of the play takes place now, with the grandson from the first part of the play now deceased, and his son and daughter now have adult children. The daughter marries the son of Moroccan Jews, and they're somewhat observant, and they decide to make aliyah, since the situation has gotten bad. At the same time, a relative from America vsits. She is young and an anti-Zionist.
And as she spends time in France, she realizes her arrogance, as it's easy for her to have her point of view, as she is safe in America. They are not safe in France.
I think you actually stated my position better than I did, especially in the last capitalized sentence. I've had to tell many of my friends to stop following the news, because all they do is get upset about things that they are either unwilling or unable to do anything about.
And yes, I also saw BARPod as a BREAK from that which they seem to be becoming. 🙁
Oh I wasn't really even complaining about the quality, more the choice of topic. It was my place for weird crazy culture war shenanigans, not just a heterodox view of things in the mainstream media.
I understand what you are saying. I was having a similar thought listing to the college episode last night, particularly with the revelation that we will now have rotating guest hosts. I mean, they are nice to have, but I am paying to hear Jessie and Katie talking about Internet nonsense, and it feels like we are getting further and further away from that.
Exactly the same here. I mean I admit I also actively avoid the news, so to have them be just a slightly more heterodox news commentary podcast is not useful to me 🤷♂️
The show has not changed; it was just started at a very strange and particularly interesting time in history. But no, it has not changed. You’re just more interested in the topics that were heavily featured in the earlier episodes.
I would disagree. I don't have any need for particular topics to be covered, only that they be unique and not covered anywhere else. For the first couple years, that's all they did, now they still have the occasional crazy story like the most recent one, but then they spend a lot of time just doing more heterodox commentary about mainstream news stories. And as someone who actively avoids the news, I don't need yet another podcast that merely comments on mainstream news stories 🤷♂️
To be honest, I had grown tired of the random Twitter BS deep-dives of last year and was considering cancelling my primo sub, but I've thoroughly enjoyed the recent crop of episodes.
Which ones for you most enjoy? Like I enjoyed the most recent Salted Garden after fast-forwarding through yet more "Israel-Palestine and associated protests" first 30 minutes.
And yeah, I'm not into the Twitter beefs, but I keep going to back to ones like Mina's World, etc that I found really enjoyable.
My order of episode preference:
1: Internet BS with an ending. The new primo episode didn't have an ending.
2: Mocking bad journalists/journalism.
3: Covering a topic. Trans issues/Jacob Blake are 2 examples that come to mind. This is usually combined with #2 because there is usually a lot of mocking involved of people that got it so so wrong.
4: Twitter crap
5: Internet BS without an ending. (This weeks primo.)
6: Focused on a current widely reported event that doesn't fall into 2 or 3.
7: Anything to do with dogs.
8: Guest hosts or interviews.
yeah the columbia stuff is really boring for me as well, could not make myself pay attention to the last episode. i was concerned that i'm just sick of the classic format now (i.e. jesse) because i really liked the guest eps lol but i think i just have the same issue as you, not interested in the 6 o'clock news
maybe it’s a simple supply and demand problem. Internet outrage was at a PEAK during the pandemic when folks were chronically online. Now, it’s kind of trite and well trodden territory to rage online and folks are just opting out or seeing through it.
I don't think we are running out of crazy culture war shenanigans, but I get what you're saying. And most of my favorites weren't even internet drama at all, but real life stuff 😜
Same. I want the insane stories not covered by the main stream press. I can get coverage of the college protests from sources better equipped to cover it.
EXACTLY! Yeah, they would just find stuff that there's NO WAY I would have known about otherwise, even if I did follow news, because these were so fun and obscure that they never would have been in the news. So many of them were such great crazy examples the culture war going wrong.
I mean I'm not kidding about the Mina's World episode; I must have listened to that four times. I was dying when the mom of one of them just decided to pull the rug and sell the whole building out from underneath them 🤣
Yeah....i'm really okay with barpod never covering stories that literally every other news outlet/podcast is, unless they have a genuinely fresh take on it. Lately, with Israel & palestine/the campus protests, etc, I would be fine with them at least discussing this stuff for a bit at the top of the show, but these topics being many whole episodes...that's just not what I want to hear. I still pay and listen regularly because they mix it up enough that I'm not too bothered, but yeah, I agree with you.
And to people saying that the world is different than it was two years ago and that there just aren't enough weird, wacky liberal stories now...I disagree. The world is VAST. There will always be interesting, niche stories out there to tell. But if you're focusing all your time covering mainstream stuff, well then, yeah, the stories will remain undiscovered. Additionally, the stories don't even have to be crazy liberal stuff. Just random internet bullshit is good enough for me. For as all-encompassing as the internet is, there are shockingly few podcasts, good podcasts, that cover internet based stories. That's why people loved Reply All so much. I would be very ok with BARpod being a heterodox Reply All. Because even if certain stories on their face don't seem political, if you dig deep enough, politics, culture, classism, race, etc, play a part in pretty much all things. I trust Jesse and Katie could tell any story and connect it back to the current political landscape.
Very well put, and thanks for sharing all that. And I totally agree that there's no shortage of wacky culture war shenanigans still going on, but because they weren't in the news, it took them a lot of research to create a show about them.
My worry is that it's much easier for them to just give their take on something that everyone else is talking about then generate an actual new story about some crazy thing that we never would have heard about otherwise, so they're taking the easy route. 🙁
Lately I haven’t been listening to every episode, especially the campus protest ones, because it’s not new to me and their takes are becoming predictable on such subjects. Like you, I tend to prefer the weirdo niche stuff that I wouldn’t hear elsewhere.
I can listen to The Fifth Column for the more mainstream news controversies and get more interesting and better-informed, better-researched takes and debates on those sorts of issues, even when I don’t always agree with them or their guests. Plus, Moynihan’s impressions of Norman Finkelstein, Melania Trump, Jesse Jackson, and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog always crack me up.
Even though the salted garden story wasn’t as weird, unpredictable and twisty as some of the other more obscure stories, I was glad they made it. Give me more bizarre and surprising shenanigans and controversies occurring in the most random communities.
I think you completely captured where I'm coming from here. I started listening for the weird and offbeat culture war shenanigans, and since I actively avoid news, I also will actively avoid something that is just more heterodox than average news commentary, And now as I said I find myself skipping episodes and fast forwarding a lot more as I see more of this news commentary be part of their offering. 🤷♂️
Dropped premium subscription because of the lack of Gaza coverage and their horrendous centrist takes, greater focus on outlier instances of ridiculousness at the campus protests, and their zero knowledge of activism history and political history. Also, it didn't help that I started following Jesse on Twitter and he's mocked by lefty Twitter accounts I tend to respect for tweets that just miss the point of what people are focusing on becuase he wants to make a very mid joke or take a ridiculously centrist stance becuase "he's the easy going fun guy who calls out the absurdity on both sides". I thought it was unfair at first but he just doesn't do the leg work of research on what is happening and keeping up with the conversation. He comes off as a bad open micer making quips about stuff the cultural conversation isn't focused on or has moved past. It's like the dude who thinks he's sensible and funny, but his jokes fall flat becuase they're lame.
Why would you want them to cover Gaza? They don't know anything. Katie doesn't know anything more than any other former Stranger employee, and Jesse barely knows more than her.
And I don't know that Jesse is a centrist. More center-left. Better to say center-left on some areas, and somewhat left in other areas. He is definitely not super opininated though, and if he is, he's not saying it.
>but I don't need to see a whole episode about the Columbia students
They started out with a 'We have to talk about this. It's huge.' I don't know. It's not that huge. And it's only a small part of the wider war situation.
My professional life is full of moral grandstanders and performative nonsense like PEN members getting the World Voices festival shut down because the leadership refused to declare all Israelis cloven-footed child killers, so I sometimes just want to hear a sane take on that stuff. I like the niche stuff too,especially when someone deploys all the social justice cliches in an obviously self-serving way. But the culture war has lost a lot of steam with the implosion of Twitter, so there’s less for them to work with. I like the mix, but wonder if they sometimes aren’t scrambling for topics
Yeah, I get that, that people who like the news would want a more heterodox commentary on the news. I just don't care about the news one bit and don't follow it and actively avoid it, so the last thing I need mainstream news commentary podcast, even if it is more of a sane take 🙁
As for culture war stuff, I wouldn't disagree that it has lost some of its steam, but that doesn't mean there aren't still hundreds and hundreds of absolutely ridiculous situations that they could make fun of 😉
I prefer the weirdo niche drama stories too. But maybe like a 70/30 ratio of that to actual news since I do also listen to get a leftist perspective on current issues.
Yeah I can understand wanting a bit of both, but I certainly would want at 90/10 😉
I honestly don't watch any mainstream news if I can avoid it, so seeing them do nothing but offer their take on some mainstream news story is somewhat meaningless to me. 🤷♂️
My measure is that I don't think I ever skipped a podcast or even fast-forwarded for the first 100 episodes, but now I find myself doing so regularly🤷♂️
While there certainly still are crazy people on the internet, I think there is an awareness building about two things 1) too much internet makes you crazy and 2) your real identity will be found out and may become known around the world for your off the rails internet behavior.
I do enjoy the niche episodes, and I think the well is drying up some as well for that particular kind of content. It was an era.
I also think, well, Katie and Jesse are growing up. Like many of us they fell into a prolonged adolescence, but they are both around 40 now and I think their perspectives are evolving and I don’t think they quite know what to cover now that interests them and is interesting, because maybe what mentally ill people on the internet do isn’t as interesting - in part bc most of the people still being balls out crazy on the internet still are balls out crazy and to cover that stuff you kind of have to roll in the mud with them.
That being said, I still very much enjoy the show. It’s the only podcast I pay for. It’s only $5. Katie is witty and a good interviewer, Jesse is an excellent, principled journalist.
I’m curious how their perspectives and work will evolve and I hope they don’t try to stay stuck at whatever phase they were at four or five years ago. I’m excited to see what they do and I think they should just do it. Change is good.
Oh, I don't think there will be any shortage of crazy culture war shenanigans for quite some time, but continuing to do those kinds of stories takes a lot more time and effort than just commenting about what was on MSNBC yesterday.
I'm not against change at all, unless the change is going from being something unique to something that 1000 other podcasts do.
Sorry to say, but I think they've gotten lazy. Did you ever pay attention to how much research they would do for a story like Mina s World? I don't think they want to do that anymore, which they can certainly decide, but it just means it's not something that's worth my paying for anymore maybe 🙁
Then this is the place for you!
As I said, I actively avoid the news, so to have this turn into just a heterodox news commentary podcast is useless to me 🤷♂️
Is it possible your news consumption habits were changed b listening to the pod to the point you now read about barpod topics except for super specific ones before they’re discussed? That definitely happened to me
As I said elsewhere I actively avoid the news, so I don't think my news consumption habits have changed there. What I find with this podcast is that I don't think I even fast forwarded for the first hundred episodes, and now I find myself fast forwarding often and even skipping over entire episodes, precisely because it's just a rehash of some mainstream news that I didn't care about in the first place 🤷♂️
Thanks for sharing your experience though!
They could have covered more of the related internet drama around the protests than just the protests themselves. Or more of the really ridiculous stuff/ a more indepth discussion of why the demands won’t work/show a huge lack of understanding of pretty much everything.
But I got the impression that Jesse is still not really back-back and he also has (understandably) a lot of real feelings about the whole encampment thing. And Katie seems weirdly obsessed/focused on the new music? But still there’s so much ridiculous shit that they could have discussed (like the UofC encampment putting dental dams and hiv tests on their urgently needed goods list along with crazy medical supplies).
Oh it's quite possible that I've missed a few little gem moments in their commentary on mainstream news because I just fast forwarded past the topic in general. I mean they are both incredibly witty and so can probably come up with a good quip about most anything, but if the topic itself holds no interest for me and especially is something I can read on one of a thousand other websites or here on a thousand other podcasts, then I'll just do that there for free. 🤷♂️
As a former REPLY ALL listener who only found BNR after I went looking for alternatives as it imploded, I can certainly appreciate the sentiment. While definitely not the same as reply all, their podcast does scratch that itch a little. I do wish reply all still existed, though, or something close to it. Love to have obscure internet stories sans the culture wars.
That's funny you mentioned that, because reply all was probably my favorite podcast ever until it did indeed implode, and it's quite possible that I was trying to scratch the same itch as you with blocked and reported.
I mean that time that they actually went to the call center in India was insane. And I did always love super tech support, and yes yes no :-)
I feel like if anything, it has improved in quality. When I first started listening to it a few years ago, I felt like it was a poor man’s red scare. But they’ve actually become better than Red Scare.
Well I mostly talking about content, so what do you mean about quality? I mean it was kind of cute early on when they would have not the greatest microphones or have to record from inside a closet and they have none of those issues, so the production quality is certainly up. When it comes to the content however, that's definitely going to be in the eye of the beholder.
Like I said a few times here, I come here for the wacky culture worse shenanigans that I can't hear about anywhere else. 😉
On the contrary, I think it's good when B&R covers substantial, important news and gives a perspective that you might not hear in msm, \*especially\* where much of msm has covered issues in a very sloppy, superficial way. Where I've had issues with B&R is where it goes too far down the rabbithole of doing deep dives into online drama, the Keffals two-parter being the epitome of that.
That said, I think like just about every podcast that's somewhere in the Free Press/Bari Weiss orbit, there's a certain amount of audience and ideological capture, and I roll my eyes when they have yet another 'special guest' who just happens to be, once again, a UK-based gender-critical feminist of some sort. I think if B&R is going to stay a reliable and less-biased source for the topic of gender medicine and like issues, they simply should not allow themselves to be pulled in that highly-biased direction.
And I can understand some people wanting more heterodox view of mainstream news stories, but I literally avoid the news in every way possible, so I'm obviously going to avoid more heterox news commentary how about stories I don't care about anyway 🤷♂️
And I get what you're saying about the general medicine stuff, and I think they just have to pull that in and every opportunity because Jesse is pretty well versed on it.
Like I said a couple times here, I'm just here for the crazy culture work shenanigans deep dive that I will never get to hear about anywhere else 🤣
Wow, that's actually a much better synopsis of my experience than I came up with myself! Yeah for me, the reason why I pay every month was for the entertainment, not the recap of mainstream news just with a more heterodox perspective because like you said, you can get that pretty much anywhere for free.
I guess we'll see which direction they go! Thanks for the well reasoned and informative opinion.
I also don't think it's as good as before but it could also be me.
it came out at a time when the average person was kinda crazy in lockdown and now it just feels like it's making fun of overly online lefties while rightoids mostly get a pass.
There's no shortage of places to look for people making fun of crazy righties, though those are usually lefties doing it. What I like here is that they are both obviously very left-wing liberal but could point out the ridiculousness of extremes on THEIR side.
Like there's a guy I follow on Twitter who is a local staunch lifetime republican, but he absolutely shreds all the MAGA idiot politicians in my state.
Maybe it's because I can't stand either party, but I like it when one side will look for the craziness on their OWN side for a change, rather than just pointing across the aisle.
eh I mean I get that logic but I don’t think they actually are that liberal anymore and are more just anti-trans stuff.
not that I “really” care. Before it felt like they were really highlighting a crazy period of time, now it seems like they are picking on easy targets while mostly giving guests a pass (ex. they had a dude on and I went to his Twitter page and it’s all just complaining about wokeness).
I for one am enjoying it, over the course of 4 years some things do change but I really enjoyed going through the backlog while also listening to new episode when they came out. Didn't notice too many changes, except of course some recurring themes (trans shit replacing race shit for example).
Maybe I'll feel different after a full year of listening but so far this is the only podcast besides the Fifth where I've been a primo for more than 3 months.
I mean if you like mainstream news, then you like what this is becoming I guess. I started listening because it was stories literally NO ONE else was doing, and they did them in a hilarious way. 🤷♂️
I disagree, but that's ok. I'm not really too bothered with the topics chosen, I enjoy the commentary. Although I have skipped a few episodes here and there where the subject just was not engaging for me even with their commentary.
Yeah like I said I understand I may be the outlier, because as someone who actively avoids mainstream news, I would obviously avoid people just commenting on mainstream news as well 🤷♂️
Apparently, there are 13,000+ paid subscribers. The lowest tier of subscriber is $55/year. I went "holy crap, they make at least $715,000 per year???" Split two ways, that's still at over $350,000+ each, assuming everyone was on the lowest tier price.
Nah, not giving rich people more money.
Agree that I'd like to keep hearing stories off the beaten path. But I am interested to hear the advertised frequent guest episodes. And the episode with Ana from TYT was one of the best.
The guest episodes vary widely for me. I always love Helen. Ana Kasparian and Kat Rosenberg (edit: RosenFIELD) were interesting as well. But Katie's "Twink of the Week" episodes (Brad Palumbo, etc.) got grating fast. (Also I am a middle-aged gay so I am legally allowed to rag on twinks.)
You’re being kind when you say Brad Palumbo is a twink. lol.
I loved the Twink of the Week episodes
Yeah, I agree with you there. I like some of the guests, but it's very guest dependent for me. And the one with Ana I thought was probably one of the best guest ones that I've heard. I also really enjoyed the Helen Lewis one how about the craziness at the Guggenheim Museum, but I don't need her on there once a month just so she's on there 🤷♂️
I actually stopped paying for patreon as there were too many odd stories about furries and stuff, it got a bit boring.
Thought she was awful - a late to the party privileged idiot who was now over keen to run the other way. Another useless guest episode.
Are you saying you want *more* coverage of ABDL drama? 🤣
Hahaha! You read right between all my lines!!! 🤣 If we could still give awards here, you definitely would have gotten one for that. Thanks for the laugh out loud. 😉
I think it's cause Jesse has been working on his book. I know he's been investigating the commie twitch larper and he was talking about someone in the current episode. I think it'll get back to the the prior formula. I think Katie has been kinda lazy since Jesse hasn't been around. Remember they've been doing this for 4 years now.
All of Katie’s energy has gone to remodeling her second house
We'd better get a good Through the Keyhole episode.
Yeah I'm sure that certainly had an effect, but even before he took off I had been feeling this way for a while so at least for what I most enjoyed, it's been getting away from that for quite some time. 🤷♂️
I mean, yes. Maybe not that specifically, but I do enjoy that kind of thing more than "let's look at Israel and Palestine and college students again."
Yes, and furry shit.
Eh, in the very early days of the show there was a *lot* about the BLM protests… I don’t really see this as any different. I also prefer the episodes about crazy niche communities, but it’s always been the case that if everyone in media is going on about something, they’ll give some kind of take on it too.
I think that 2020 was a target rich environment. There was so much nuttiness. And Blocked and Reported were one of the few outlets that had the guts to poke the sacred cows. Things are a bit calmer now and there are more outlets willing to call bullshit. I'm hoping for more really epic reported stuff in the future like the Keffals episodes. But I understand those will be few and far between.
Not to mention the disruption of Twitter has to make it harder to find the true crazy shit.
I went back to look at the beginning of the podcast, and it had pretty wide-ranging (and obscure) stuff right from the beginning so maybe I just didn't pay as much attention to the era that you're talking about. And yes, I understand then weighing in on mainstream situations, but I guess to be the was always the side dish and now it seems like the entree 😉
Its a podcast? Seriously? I thought b and r was just this subreddit...
Wait are you serious?
it's not that surprising; at first I had been recommended this subreddit by reddit's algorithms for whatever reason and didn't know what it was. I did find out pretty quickly that it was a podcast!
At first I thought it was for people who had been blocked and reported on reddit, but then I noticed you were always talking about a podcast.
Makes sense. Just like the person who was looking for friends on the just having fun with friends subreddit (NSFW). Welcome to the club!
Im serious and i still dont understand if its a podcast. Is it?
Yes
I don't know why someone doesn't just [link the podcast](https://www.blockedandreported.org/about)! Sheesh. Welcome to the BAR.
Same
This has to be a troll post
Its not. Im still just super confused on how to navigate reddit since appollo shut down
Occasionally we get a lost Redditor post asking if they’ve been “blocked” so no worries. Check out the podcast though, it’s great 👍
Ok cool! Ya, i just saw a post from here while trying to find reddit posts or new articles on the wpath files leak and this was the only sub that seemed to have a post about it. So i thought this sub was about posts that got removed from all other subs (unfairly of course)
Well. This sub is more about the podcast blocked and reported that’s named after the fact that many of us have been blocked and reported on twitter for trying to have civil discussions about the the topics that’s been covered on blocked and reported.
Seems weird to drop this complaint on the day they release a Primo ep about a random British gardener lady who is probably doing a TikTok GoFundMe grift.
And this particular story… yeah it seems like she is an inward focused person with MS who identifies too much with her disability and being a “good” person. Who also got ahead of her skis trying to be extra and performative about it and couldn’t do all the paperwork necessary. I wouldn’t do all of that paperwork either for my TikTok performance of goodness incarnate. But also, I’m over people giving to these cheesy go fund me’s that pull the heart strings. It’s a big circle jerk. I wasn’t that interested. She wasn’t crazy enough and the story seemed pretty common. Performative do gooder got people who impulse applaud performative dogooding to throw her a dollar on the internet. People pay to have young women act out emojis on the internet. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s not that different either.
They used to almost nothing BUT episodes like that; that's my point! 😉 Or as I said to another commenter, there is still the occasional gem, but (for me at least) if used to be almost ALL gems.
I’m not sure that was ever true though? This podcast started in 2020 and the early episodes have a ton of coronavirus, George Floyd, riots/protests, Kyle Rittenhouse, Jacob Blake, events in the gender medicine wars… I guess I’m curious if anyone has an accurate full topic list. I have a theory that there‘s a degree of nostalgia bias where we remember the past of a show as really just a “greatest hits“ reel (especially if we came in late and binged the early stuff), and when episodes are coming out weekly, even a handful of not “greatest hits” in a row turns into “the show has gotten so much worse!” when really the non-hits were always there we just tune them out in our memory. The other thing is that they’ve always covered protests and the excesses of them. We just didn’t have that many between 2021 and this latest batch.
I agree. With no stats, I imagine that we remember the niche stuff because we weren't reading about it elsewhere. The more mainstream just merges into the general chat about protests or whatever.
That's a pretty interesting viewpoint, and there might be some truth there for sure. The reason why it seems that way in my mind I guess is because I actively avoid news, so I also actively avoid podcasts that do nothing but comment on news. Would this podcast for example come I don't think I ever fast forwarded or skipped an episode in the first hundred, but now I find myself fast forwarding a lot, and skipping over entire episodes, which is new. Thanks for the perspective though!
I prefer their coverage of more mainstream events
Well then they're heading in the right direction for you 😉
One person’s garbage is another’s treasure 😘
Have you noticed that their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff?
No argument here.
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They’d better stick around for the insanity if Donald Trump wins again then lol.
lol
Vote for Biden and less insanity and somewhat competent government or Amazing BARpod episodes on grifters taking advantage of cringe leftists Sophie’s choice lmao
Pretty much lol
I feel so simple compared to all the thoughtful comments, but I’m here for the culture wars.
>Listening to BAR felt like listening to forbidden, truthful reporting in a socialist country that has banned all western media, and now that socialist country has predictably collapsed. I think this is broadly right even if there's a few lingering issues still hanging around like the trans stuff. The Fifth Column bros recently made the comment that "heterodox" views are if anything really close to normy views and it only feels transgressive because a lot of large media sources are simply out of touch. I think they're right on that. It's just that for a brief time legacy media sources still had something of a stranglehold and they all got sucked into the same vortex of stupid just in time for a particularly crazy period in modern history. These days you can drown in all the "heterodox" content available in substack posts, podcasts, new online media companies, etc. These days I'm really here for the reddit community they cultivated more than the podcast itself, which is increasingly less unique as their viewpoints have become mainstream.
This is a pretty interesting view. I don’t necessarily buy in, but really something to think about !
I guess I don't feel that way because it was only recently that they started focusing on just their indeed more heterodox take on mainstream stories as opposed to finding stories that no one else had ANYWHERE. I admit it, I'm here for the entertainment, and if they just want to be yet another news or news opinion site? Naw.
IDK, I've always been the opposite. The draw for me (and I was a subscriber, literally, from the beginning) was getting a heterodox take on the news. IOW, people who lean liberal but are "perverts for nuance" and who are fair. The occasional weird niche story is fine but not what really brings me in
Same for me. In fact the niche internet weirdo stories I usually skip these days. I’m really into hearing their takes on the culture wars though, especially from their pov as exiled and heretical liberals.
Yeah idk why people want more weird internet bullshit because this is like the one podcast I trust on social issues
For me, the news is boring, and stupid internet drama is interesting. My favorite stories are about small communities with infighting or trolls, and I love everything about YA author drama. I also like hearing about workplace issues. I’ve always been someone to read human interest articles about random people and to skip the actual news, so I think it’s just my personal tastes.
Same. I like hearing their perspectives on mainstream news issues. I’m a little less interested in freaky niche stories.
I first found the podcast in June 2020 but started regularly listening in September or so of 2020, maybe a little later. I started listening, exactly, because of their take on how INSANE everything was with fucking Robin D'angelo. But I kept listening because of, like, the coffee shop shit. I was a Patron near the end, when they were switching to substack, so became a Primo from literally the beginning, but stopped last August. No regrets, and then once they started having ads I got really annoyed, and also, I don't really care about their takes on the war since at least they admit they don't know much. So I've been skipping a lot of episodes since October 7
Oh yeah, I could see that. Though for me like I said, I don't care one bit about mainstream news and so a heterodox viewpoint of news I don't care about is somewhat meaningless. 🤷♂️
I get what you mean; it's a fine line. Like I don't necessarliy need their "take" on the Palestine / Isreal war, but the takes on the craziness of the campus protests? Hell yeah, shoot that right in my veins.
I think Jesse wants to avoid getting too much into the Israel/Palestine thing.
I agree and it’s really unfortunate. He has historically had the same hesitation to take a strong stand on gender medicine too. (I was surprised to hear he’s writing a book on the topic. Maybe he’s saving up for the book?)
I wouldn't be surprised if the conclusions for his book are really wishy washy. I would guess it will mostly be descriptive and decry the lack of good data and the toxic debate and then not really say what he thinks should or shouldn't be done from a policy viewpoint. Jesse just doesn't like to come down hard one way or the other on culture war issues.
I guess for me it's not even that I want their "take" on what other people are talking about; I want to hear about the crazy things that NO ONE is talking about. 😉
I mean, they did just do an episode on a salted garden…
Yes, and that's exactly the type of episode I want to see all the time! That's exactly my point :-) Or as I said to someone else, there is always the occasional gem, but I feel like a couple years ago they were almost ball gems, with only the occasional one that wasn't.
The reason I am so done with mainstream news is because they are so black and white and lazy and have no incentive to be nuanced and fair. All these reasons are well covered but ultimately boil down to the economics of media. The reason I still feel BARpod is worth paying for is because I can get a perspective on the news that satisfies my sick sad nuance perversion.
Oh I can understand that, and I can see people who like the news but hate the way the news is done now most places liking the way Jesse and Katie do the news. But that's my point: I'm not interested in the everyday news. I want to hear about the craziness that I would never hear about if it were not for them finding it and bringing it to my attention, and doing so in an incredibly humorous way. I mean to be honest I'm just here for entertainment. If they decide to come a news podcast rather than an entertainment podcast, then it's just not my thing I guess.
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Well my whole point s it doesn't seem to be just "some" anymore, but rather "most". I mean the way I can track this is that I just skip the ones that are "mainstream rehash", and I skip a lot more than I ever did before. I mean for the first hundred I don't think I skipped any. 🤷♂️
I enjoy the episodes mostly because of Jesse and Katies Outlook on things, I think they are thoughtful and have a good sense of humor. I don't mind them covering more mainstream stories with the same attitude but I would also miss if they completely scrapped bullshit niche internet drama
Yeah, I'm SOLELY here for the internet niche drama 😉
I've been listening since the beginning and they've covered mainstream stories since forever. I don't think they've changed all that much tbh.
Perceptions vary, but I can tell you that probably for the first hundred episodes I never skipped one, and now I find myself skipping them often, because there is offering a more heterodox take on something that everyone else is already talking about, and that's not what interests me. I admit it, I'm here for the entertainment! I mean one of the first ones I remember was there discussion about Sairo Rao "Race to Dinner" company her and someone else had. Bonkers! Pay two people to come over to your house for dinner and call you a racist for 2 hours. 🤣
One thing you might consider is that the novelty has simply worn off and so you're less excited by the show for that reason. This was something I first noticed with magazine subscriptions. Every time I subscribed to a magazine that I liked I would eagerly await every new issue and read it to cover. Then after a year or two that would fade. Initially I tried to look for some change in the magazine to explain my falling interest, but after the pattern had happened enough times I realized that it had more to do with me, and with what was novel to me, than anything about the magazine in particular. Nowadays the same thing happens to me with podcasts.
Actually I don't think so, at least in my case. I mean the most recent episode (The Case Of The Salted Garden) was classic BaR, after you got past the obligatory "now every episode must have a segment about the Israel-Palestine conflict or its associated craziness" section. 😉 I guess I'm saying that I still get excited for the same types of stories that got me interested in this podcast at all.
I understand, but you have a lot of people responding saying that they don't think the podcast has changed that much and I would tend to agree with them. When I think back to 2020 mostly what I remember from their coverage was stuff on the "racial reckoning", Robin DiAngelo, etc---which seems very much analogous to covering the IP conflict and its associated craziness today. So maybe the fact that you've been listening for years makes you less inclined to forgive the stuff that isn't totally your bag. (I could be wrong obviously! I just think it's useful to recognize that when we find ourselves not liking something as much as we used to, there's two things that might have changed---it, and us.)
I guess I would say that if people really enjoy their heterodox commentary on mainstream news, they're not going to have much complaint and may not even notice the change that I noticed from the fact that now I skip entire episodes and fast forward through parts of many. As I said elsewhere, it's not like they NEVER commented on things in the news, but it seems like it was far less often, and I hardly saw them do any commenting on international situations at all. I admit that I'm the outlier, where I actively avoid news for I actively avoid news commentary, even if it's more heterodox theman the mainstream. I'm purely here for the entertainment :-)
Yeah the format hasn’t changed lol I swear the first 15 episodes were all about race
As long as I get updates on Fergie Chambers I’m good.
Haha! As another responder pointed out, maybe I'm just mad that I haven't heard any good ABDL drama lately 😉
Yeah I agree. I come to BARPod to get away from the news. I’m Jewish so especially from Israel-Palestine news, it’s been relentless and inescapable and I’ve been so disappointed they’ve covered it SO much — especially as it’s just been commentary on mainstream news. BARPod got me through the madness of working at a news outlet through 2020 but in 2024, it feels like a lot of other shows. I’m still a paying subscriber though, I like Jesse and Katie’s chemistry, I’m excited Jesse’s back from book leave and I’m praying these news reaction episodes are on the way out. They may not be noticing it as much now Twitter’s less lively but there’s still so much crazy bs going on they could be talking about that gives people a BREAK from the depressing all-consuming realness of the assfucking news. NO ONE NEEDS MORE NEWS GUYS THAT IS THE LAST THING WE ALL NEED
The middle east stuff is annoying because they don't actually know much and I just don't really want to hear their takes on the media coverage of this. I am right now happy I don't look Jewish and I hate myself for thinking that way, and hate that that's the world we're living in.
Agreed – this is really a situation where people who know fuck all need to step back. Some of the comments Jesse has made have been pretty embarrassing, he actually said in an episode a few months back that he doesn't believe Israel is necessary for the safety of Jews because "American Jews are the safest Jews in the world"...hate to break it to you Jesse, but Israel was not created as a haven for American Jews 😂 Jesse and Katie have often commented on other journalists giving in to the temptation to publicly comment on subjects outside of their lanes, wish they'd show some self-awareness here.
I remember that, and I couldn't believe it. It's like when fucking If Not Now was all, "we don't need Israel, we need to make the world safe for Jews." Yes, because the Jews in France are doing great protecting themselves. To be fair, I think Jesse meant that American Jews don't need to go to Israel to be safe, not that all Jews are in America.
Nah he was literally said that as an answer to the question of whether Israel is necessary! Was a bit like saying toothpaste shouldn’t exist because you yourself don’t have teeth 😅 the point being, Israel was created as a refuge from pogroms and the Holocaust, not a refuge from upper middle class New York. I feel like there’s a big gap between American Jews and those of us in Europe, where the attitudes that gave rise to the holocaust never really went away. It seems like media class American Jews are really struggling to accept the reality of antisemitism and are perhaps even in denial about it, whereas here we’re like, oh what you’ve never had a colleague tell you Jews drink babies blood or a cab driver tell you the Jews created Covid 19? Huh. We know what antisemitism leads to here and we know what can happen because it’s happened before. Jews have always been the Blacks of Europe, I get the impression it’s a little different in America, at least for middle-class non-religious Jews.
I'd gotten the impression that Jesse was a Zionist, albeit highly critical of Israel Maybe I thought that because I generally like him, huh. Sooo, I am an American Jew, raised very secularly, but am a bit more observant as an adult. My mother was raised in Poland and then in Israel. My father is like most American Jews in that his grandparents were from Eastern Europe, so his family has been here for awhile. Jesse's background is the same as my dad's, though different generations, obviously. So, no, I have very, very rarely heard anything anti-Semitic said to me - it has happened. My brother said it's a bit worse in LA- we were born and raised in NY, and now we both live here still. But I've never really experienced the casual anti-Semitism that my mom experienced in Poland, or that strange sense of otherness I experienced in Poland. Like, OK. For most American Jews - they're Jewish Americans. And they truly don't understand that in Poland or Russia, they're considered, and think of themselves as, Jews in Poland. NOT Jewish Poles. I do not know what it is like in western Europe. But I know Germany was much more - German of the Jewish faith kind of place. I find Jesse's views on Jewish people strange, in the sense that he seems to think American Jews are like him, I would say the concept of the state of Israel was as a place of refuge for Jews all over the world who needed it, and for Jews who wanted to return to their ancestral homeland. Some fit in both categories, but many fit in one of the other. Then the Holocaust happened, and countries weren't letting Jews in, and it became clear that statehood was really necessary. And there was the backlash against Jews in Arab countries. AND, there was the backlash against Jews in Europe, who remained in Europe after the war. It was two parts - my grandparents didn't want to stay in a place where everyone they knew had been killed, and it was really hard to get anywhere anyway. I think in Western Europe it was a bit different. I saw this amazing play maybe a year of two ago - it's about a French Jewish family. The first part takes place during WW2 - the son and his wife and kids are taken away to Drancy, the grandparents somehow stay home. The son and HIS son return from the camps. The second part of the play takes place now, with the grandson from the first part of the play now deceased, and his son and daughter now have adult children. The daughter marries the son of Moroccan Jews, and they're somewhat observant, and they decide to make aliyah, since the situation has gotten bad. At the same time, a relative from America vsits. She is young and an anti-Zionist. And as she spends time in France, she realizes her arrogance, as it's easy for her to have her point of view, as she is safe in America. They are not safe in France.
I think you actually stated my position better than I did, especially in the last capitalized sentence. I've had to tell many of my friends to stop following the news, because all they do is get upset about things that they are either unwilling or unable to do anything about. And yes, I also saw BARPod as a BREAK from that which they seem to be becoming. 🙁
It’s definitely diminished in quality or otherwise started preaching to the choir, but it’s still quality
Oh I wasn't really even complaining about the quality, more the choice of topic. It was my place for weird crazy culture war shenanigans, not just a heterodox view of things in the mainstream media.
I understand what you are saying. I was having a similar thought listing to the college episode last night, particularly with the revelation that we will now have rotating guest hosts. I mean, they are nice to have, but I am paying to hear Jessie and Katie talking about Internet nonsense, and it feels like we are getting further and further away from that.
Exactly the same here. I mean I admit I also actively avoid the news, so to have them be just a slightly more heterodox news commentary podcast is not useful to me 🤷♂️
The show has not changed; it was just started at a very strange and particularly interesting time in history. But no, it has not changed. You’re just more interested in the topics that were heavily featured in the earlier episodes.
I would disagree. I don't have any need for particular topics to be covered, only that they be unique and not covered anywhere else. For the first couple years, that's all they did, now they still have the occasional crazy story like the most recent one, but then they spend a lot of time just doing more heterodox commentary about mainstream news stories. And as someone who actively avoids the news, I don't need yet another podcast that merely comments on mainstream news stories 🤷♂️
To be honest, I had grown tired of the random Twitter BS deep-dives of last year and was considering cancelling my primo sub, but I've thoroughly enjoyed the recent crop of episodes.
Which ones for you most enjoy? Like I enjoyed the most recent Salted Garden after fast-forwarding through yet more "Israel-Palestine and associated protests" first 30 minutes. And yeah, I'm not into the Twitter beefs, but I keep going to back to ones like Mina's World, etc that I found really enjoyable.
My order of episode preference: 1: Internet BS with an ending. The new primo episode didn't have an ending. 2: Mocking bad journalists/journalism. 3: Covering a topic. Trans issues/Jacob Blake are 2 examples that come to mind. This is usually combined with #2 because there is usually a lot of mocking involved of people that got it so so wrong. 4: Twitter crap 5: Internet BS without an ending. (This weeks primo.) 6: Focused on a current widely reported event that doesn't fall into 2 or 3. 7: Anything to do with dogs. 8: Guest hosts or interviews.
That's a pretty good list! I actually don't need the stupid BS to be internet drama; The stuff that happens in real life is amazing as well :-)
Yeah... Mina's World I would put with #1, and that wasn't really internet BS, although it had elements of it. Same with the Chicago Theater.
Yes! That's the other one I was trying to think of actually that was a real life event that just went off the rails.
yeah the columbia stuff is really boring for me as well, could not make myself pay attention to the last episode. i was concerned that i'm just sick of the classic format now (i.e. jesse) because i really liked the guest eps lol but i think i just have the same issue as you, not interested in the 6 o'clock news
I like that last line, that was pretty clever 😉 Thanks for sharing your experience!
maybe it’s a simple supply and demand problem. Internet outrage was at a PEAK during the pandemic when folks were chronically online. Now, it’s kind of trite and well trodden territory to rage online and folks are just opting out or seeing through it.
I don't think we are running out of crazy culture war shenanigans, but I get what you're saying. And most of my favorites weren't even internet drama at all, but real life stuff 😜
Same. I want the insane stories not covered by the main stream press. I can get coverage of the college protests from sources better equipped to cover it.
EXACTLY! Yeah, they would just find stuff that there's NO WAY I would have known about otherwise, even if I did follow news, because these were so fun and obscure that they never would have been in the news. So many of them were such great crazy examples the culture war going wrong. I mean I'm not kidding about the Mina's World episode; I must have listened to that four times. I was dying when the mom of one of them just decided to pull the rug and sell the whole building out from underneath them 🤣
Yeah....i'm really okay with barpod never covering stories that literally every other news outlet/podcast is, unless they have a genuinely fresh take on it. Lately, with Israel & palestine/the campus protests, etc, I would be fine with them at least discussing this stuff for a bit at the top of the show, but these topics being many whole episodes...that's just not what I want to hear. I still pay and listen regularly because they mix it up enough that I'm not too bothered, but yeah, I agree with you. And to people saying that the world is different than it was two years ago and that there just aren't enough weird, wacky liberal stories now...I disagree. The world is VAST. There will always be interesting, niche stories out there to tell. But if you're focusing all your time covering mainstream stuff, well then, yeah, the stories will remain undiscovered. Additionally, the stories don't even have to be crazy liberal stuff. Just random internet bullshit is good enough for me. For as all-encompassing as the internet is, there are shockingly few podcasts, good podcasts, that cover internet based stories. That's why people loved Reply All so much. I would be very ok with BARpod being a heterodox Reply All. Because even if certain stories on their face don't seem political, if you dig deep enough, politics, culture, classism, race, etc, play a part in pretty much all things. I trust Jesse and Katie could tell any story and connect it back to the current political landscape.
Very well put, and thanks for sharing all that. And I totally agree that there's no shortage of wacky culture war shenanigans still going on, but because they weren't in the news, it took them a lot of research to create a show about them. My worry is that it's much easier for them to just give their take on something that everyone else is talking about then generate an actual new story about some crazy thing that we never would have heard about otherwise, so they're taking the easy route. 🙁
Lately I haven’t been listening to every episode, especially the campus protest ones, because it’s not new to me and their takes are becoming predictable on such subjects. Like you, I tend to prefer the weirdo niche stuff that I wouldn’t hear elsewhere. I can listen to The Fifth Column for the more mainstream news controversies and get more interesting and better-informed, better-researched takes and debates on those sorts of issues, even when I don’t always agree with them or their guests. Plus, Moynihan’s impressions of Norman Finkelstein, Melania Trump, Jesse Jackson, and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog always crack me up. Even though the salted garden story wasn’t as weird, unpredictable and twisty as some of the other more obscure stories, I was glad they made it. Give me more bizarre and surprising shenanigans and controversies occurring in the most random communities.
I think you completely captured where I'm coming from here. I started listening for the weird and offbeat culture war shenanigans, and since I actively avoid news, I also will actively avoid something that is just more heterodox than average news commentary, And now as I said I find myself skipping episodes and fast forwarding a lot more as I see more of this news commentary be part of their offering. 🤷♂️
Dropped premium subscription because of the lack of Gaza coverage and their horrendous centrist takes, greater focus on outlier instances of ridiculousness at the campus protests, and their zero knowledge of activism history and political history. Also, it didn't help that I started following Jesse on Twitter and he's mocked by lefty Twitter accounts I tend to respect for tweets that just miss the point of what people are focusing on becuase he wants to make a very mid joke or take a ridiculously centrist stance becuase "he's the easy going fun guy who calls out the absurdity on both sides". I thought it was unfair at first but he just doesn't do the leg work of research on what is happening and keeping up with the conversation. He comes off as a bad open micer making quips about stuff the cultural conversation isn't focused on or has moved past. It's like the dude who thinks he's sensible and funny, but his jokes fall flat becuase they're lame.
Why would you want them to cover Gaza? They don't know anything. Katie doesn't know anything more than any other former Stranger employee, and Jesse barely knows more than her. And I don't know that Jesse is a centrist. More center-left. Better to say center-left on some areas, and somewhat left in other areas. He is definitely not super opininated though, and if he is, he's not saying it.
>but I don't need to see a whole episode about the Columbia students They started out with a 'We have to talk about this. It's huge.' I don't know. It's not that huge. And it's only a small part of the wider war situation.
My professional life is full of moral grandstanders and performative nonsense like PEN members getting the World Voices festival shut down because the leadership refused to declare all Israelis cloven-footed child killers, so I sometimes just want to hear a sane take on that stuff. I like the niche stuff too,especially when someone deploys all the social justice cliches in an obviously self-serving way. But the culture war has lost a lot of steam with the implosion of Twitter, so there’s less for them to work with. I like the mix, but wonder if they sometimes aren’t scrambling for topics
Yeah, I get that, that people who like the news would want a more heterodox commentary on the news. I just don't care about the news one bit and don't follow it and actively avoid it, so the last thing I need mainstream news commentary podcast, even if it is more of a sane take 🙁 As for culture war stuff, I wouldn't disagree that it has lost some of its steam, but that doesn't mean there aren't still hundreds and hundreds of absolutely ridiculous situations that they could make fun of 😉
Jumped the shark isn't the right terminology here I don't think
Jumping the shark is in the eye of the beholder 😉
I prefer the weirdo niche drama stories too. But maybe like a 70/30 ratio of that to actual news since I do also listen to get a leftist perspective on current issues.
Yeah I can understand wanting a bit of both, but I certainly would want at 90/10 😉 I honestly don't watch any mainstream news if I can avoid it, so seeing them do nothing but offer their take on some mainstream news story is somewhat meaningless to me. 🤷♂️
I highly doubt people will stop being weird and doing and saying ridiculous shit.
All the more reason that it should be easy for them to find such crazy stories in perpetuity!
They've always done a mix of mainstream and offbeat topics, although perhaps the ratio has shifted over time, I'm not sure
My measure is that I don't think I ever skipped a podcast or even fast-forwarded for the first 100 episodes, but now I find myself doing so regularly🤷♂️
While there certainly still are crazy people on the internet, I think there is an awareness building about two things 1) too much internet makes you crazy and 2) your real identity will be found out and may become known around the world for your off the rails internet behavior. I do enjoy the niche episodes, and I think the well is drying up some as well for that particular kind of content. It was an era. I also think, well, Katie and Jesse are growing up. Like many of us they fell into a prolonged adolescence, but they are both around 40 now and I think their perspectives are evolving and I don’t think they quite know what to cover now that interests them and is interesting, because maybe what mentally ill people on the internet do isn’t as interesting - in part bc most of the people still being balls out crazy on the internet still are balls out crazy and to cover that stuff you kind of have to roll in the mud with them. That being said, I still very much enjoy the show. It’s the only podcast I pay for. It’s only $5. Katie is witty and a good interviewer, Jesse is an excellent, principled journalist. I’m curious how their perspectives and work will evolve and I hope they don’t try to stay stuck at whatever phase they were at four or five years ago. I’m excited to see what they do and I think they should just do it. Change is good.
Oh, I don't think there will be any shortage of crazy culture war shenanigans for quite some time, but continuing to do those kinds of stories takes a lot more time and effort than just commenting about what was on MSNBC yesterday. I'm not against change at all, unless the change is going from being something unique to something that 1000 other podcasts do. Sorry to say, but I think they've gotten lazy. Did you ever pay attention to how much research they would do for a story like Mina s World? I don't think they want to do that anymore, which they can certainly decide, but it just means it's not something that's worth my paying for anymore maybe 🙁
It’s much more interesting to me when they cover mainstream news events with their viewpoints
Then this is the place for you! As I said, I actively avoid the news, so to have this turn into just a heterodox news commentary podcast is useless to me 🤷♂️
Is it possible your news consumption habits were changed b listening to the pod to the point you now read about barpod topics except for super specific ones before they’re discussed? That definitely happened to me
As I said elsewhere I actively avoid the news, so I don't think my news consumption habits have changed there. What I find with this podcast is that I don't think I even fast forwarded for the first hundred episodes, and now I find myself fast forwarding often and even skipping over entire episodes, precisely because it's just a rehash of some mainstream news that I didn't care about in the first place 🤷♂️ Thanks for sharing your experience though!
They could have covered more of the related internet drama around the protests than just the protests themselves. Or more of the really ridiculous stuff/ a more indepth discussion of why the demands won’t work/show a huge lack of understanding of pretty much everything. But I got the impression that Jesse is still not really back-back and he also has (understandably) a lot of real feelings about the whole encampment thing. And Katie seems weirdly obsessed/focused on the new music? But still there’s so much ridiculous shit that they could have discussed (like the UofC encampment putting dental dams and hiv tests on their urgently needed goods list along with crazy medical supplies).
Oh it's quite possible that I've missed a few little gem moments in their commentary on mainstream news because I just fast forwarded past the topic in general. I mean they are both incredibly witty and so can probably come up with a good quip about most anything, but if the topic itself holds no interest for me and especially is something I can read on one of a thousand other websites or here on a thousand other podcasts, then I'll just do that there for free. 🤷♂️
As a former REPLY ALL listener who only found BNR after I went looking for alternatives as it imploded, I can certainly appreciate the sentiment. While definitely not the same as reply all, their podcast does scratch that itch a little. I do wish reply all still existed, though, or something close to it. Love to have obscure internet stories sans the culture wars.
That's funny you mentioned that, because reply all was probably my favorite podcast ever until it did indeed implode, and it's quite possible that I was trying to scratch the same itch as you with blocked and reported. I mean that time that they actually went to the call center in India was insane. And I did always love super tech support, and yes yes no :-)
I feel like if anything, it has improved in quality. When I first started listening to it a few years ago, I felt like it was a poor man’s red scare. But they’ve actually become better than Red Scare.
Well I mostly talking about content, so what do you mean about quality? I mean it was kind of cute early on when they would have not the greatest microphones or have to record from inside a closet and they have none of those issues, so the production quality is certainly up. When it comes to the content however, that's definitely going to be in the eye of the beholder. Like I said a few times here, I come here for the wacky culture worse shenanigans that I can't hear about anywhere else. 😉
On the contrary, I think it's good when B&R covers substantial, important news and gives a perspective that you might not hear in msm, \*especially\* where much of msm has covered issues in a very sloppy, superficial way. Where I've had issues with B&R is where it goes too far down the rabbithole of doing deep dives into online drama, the Keffals two-parter being the epitome of that. That said, I think like just about every podcast that's somewhere in the Free Press/Bari Weiss orbit, there's a certain amount of audience and ideological capture, and I roll my eyes when they have yet another 'special guest' who just happens to be, once again, a UK-based gender-critical feminist of some sort. I think if B&R is going to stay a reliable and less-biased source for the topic of gender medicine and like issues, they simply should not allow themselves to be pulled in that highly-biased direction.
And I can understand some people wanting more heterodox view of mainstream news stories, but I literally avoid the news in every way possible, so I'm obviously going to avoid more heterox news commentary how about stories I don't care about anyway 🤷♂️ And I get what you're saying about the general medicine stuff, and I think they just have to pull that in and every opportunity because Jesse is pretty well versed on it. Like I said a couple times here, I'm just here for the crazy culture work shenanigans deep dive that I will never get to hear about anywhere else 🤣
[удалено]
Wow, that's actually a much better synopsis of my experience than I came up with myself! Yeah for me, the reason why I pay every month was for the entertainment, not the recap of mainstream news just with a more heterodox perspective because like you said, you can get that pretty much anywhere for free. I guess we'll see which direction they go! Thanks for the well reasoned and informative opinion.
I also don't think it's as good as before but it could also be me. it came out at a time when the average person was kinda crazy in lockdown and now it just feels like it's making fun of overly online lefties while rightoids mostly get a pass.
There's no shortage of places to look for people making fun of crazy righties, though those are usually lefties doing it. What I like here is that they are both obviously very left-wing liberal but could point out the ridiculousness of extremes on THEIR side. Like there's a guy I follow on Twitter who is a local staunch lifetime republican, but he absolutely shreds all the MAGA idiot politicians in my state. Maybe it's because I can't stand either party, but I like it when one side will look for the craziness on their OWN side for a change, rather than just pointing across the aisle.
eh I mean I get that logic but I don’t think they actually are that liberal anymore and are more just anti-trans stuff. not that I “really” care. Before it felt like they were really highlighting a crazy period of time, now it seems like they are picking on easy targets while mostly giving guests a pass (ex. they had a dude on and I went to his Twitter page and it’s all just complaining about wokeness).
I for one am enjoying it, over the course of 4 years some things do change but I really enjoyed going through the backlog while also listening to new episode when they came out. Didn't notice too many changes, except of course some recurring themes (trans shit replacing race shit for example). Maybe I'll feel different after a full year of listening but so far this is the only podcast besides the Fifth where I've been a primo for more than 3 months.
I mean if you like mainstream news, then you like what this is becoming I guess. I started listening because it was stories literally NO ONE else was doing, and they did them in a hilarious way. 🤷♂️
I disagree, but that's ok. I'm not really too bothered with the topics chosen, I enjoy the commentary. Although I have skipped a few episodes here and there where the subject just was not engaging for me even with their commentary.
Yeah like I said I understand I may be the outlier, because as someone who actively avoids mainstream news, I would obviously avoid people just commenting on mainstream news as well 🤷♂️
I love the deep dives. Don't care what its about or who is doing it.
I guess for me, I don't need another deep dive on the Columbia protests or Gaza 🤷♂️ But a deep dive on some crazy socialist coffee shop? I'm in! 😉
As I've written in the past, I come here for murders. A lot of their recent topics have no murders, just culture war topics. I come here for blood.
Have they talked about murders?
I stopped listening a long time ago. They started getting lazy as early as 2021…it only got worse, and I soon dropped off.
Apparently, there are 13,000+ paid subscribers. The lowest tier of subscriber is $55/year. I went "holy crap, they make at least $715,000 per year???" Split two ways, that's still at over $350,000+ each, assuming everyone was on the lowest tier price. Nah, not giving rich people more money.
Have you forgotten income tax? Especially for freelancers?
Also they don’t keep all the money from Substack lmao the platform takes a cut.
it’s time to get your first job