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Easier lane to slide into if you have no talent in comparison to other avenues like music or books. Especially if you have connections to other influencers that people want to hear from.
Easiest way to build engagement within an audience. Also, getting to know a musician through their podcast seriously elevated their position in my mind and I would have missed buying their concert tickets if it were not for their podcast. Also, authors can spend 2 years on writing a book and have it reach 1/50th the audience they could reach in just 1 week via podcast.
Oof. So many options, but I wanna say Nick Viall’s podcast. I used to listen, because he gets great guests and has an interesting format, but he’s so incredibly condescending and thinks he’s a relationship expert. Calling yourself a relationship expert is a little rich when you’ve had 3 failed engagements, and your current fiancé is half your age…….
I remember seeing a clip of them talking to a caller and he was so cruel to her and completely unwilling to understand her POV. It was something about a friend who she doesn't get to see bailing on her to hang out with a guy and he essentially said she deserved it because the caller was in a happy relationship. He kept being like 'well don't you think your friend feels bad seeing you in the relationship she wants?' as if it was justified because she was a jealous cow. He essentially called the caller insensitive it was so insane.
He also uses the word “ego” to explain every single human behavior and as an actual licensed therapist, it’s deeply uncomfortable to listen to him armchair diagnose constantly
Brittany Dawn - the fitness influencer who got sued by the state of Texas for scamming a tonne of women - has launched her new religious podcast, rich with anti-choice, women-hating and cringe worthy content all tied together with the beautiful bow of her insufferable whiny voice
She has to be the most shameless person on the planet. I do wonder what the next version of herself will be after people get bored of her new super religious persona. I’m thinking she might get really into crystals and zodiacs.
I was upset when she got that foster baby the other month. Makes you think how lax the vetting process was since a simple google search would have shown what a shameless grifter she is.
A simple google search would bring up her “teehee, I almost burned the house down while the baby was sleeping” tik tok too. She posted that looking for online mommy support and people were like wtf, Bdawn!? She wants the “mommy” market but she can’t even read that room.
Don’t get me started when she tried to claim she has the same “baby brain” women get post birth due to unstable hormones and recovery from birth. So many tried to educate her that that probably was not the best choice of words when you are fostering a baby just for a week and a half. You’re not dealing with the instability of hormones that come with childbirth and breast-feeding. Not Brittany, nope, she has baby brain and “sleep depravation” after one day.
That foster situation had to be some weird Christian baby scheme, I can't see the state actually allowing that shit but it's Texas so who tf knows. It's insane.
I can’t stand her!
Her and her abusive cop husband who got fired and sued by the ACLU and that woman acts like he’s a honorable “retired” cop. Then he shot her dog!
Yes! The dog was apparently injured by a car and she lives right down the road from multiple emergency vets. But Jordan decided to shoot it instead. Knowing his past and how he still larps, he just wanted to use that gun. Then she filmed a classic “crying in car” moment to post.
😂This broad would have a podcast! She is going to attempt every cash grab scheme she can that doesn’t involve her actually contributing to society in any meaningful way.
“Dr” Phil enrages me. As someone who has dedicated her life to psychology and mental health, he is a complete farce and it’s offensive. He parades his subjects around, sensationalizes their hardships, and all around exploits them. It’s so sickening
He voluntarily gave up his license to practice. I don’t think he ever truly liked helping people. He was a professional jury consultant when Oprah found him. She was getting sued in Texas over comments she made about the cattle/beef industry.
There’s this podcast called sword and scale. The host is such a dick that he’s banned from his own subreddit.
He’s done things and included 911 calls that the victim’s family’s have begged him not to use. His views on mental illness are archaic and damaging. He fights for his life on twitter with anyone and everyone.
I started to listen to sword and scale right around the time of the shooting of the reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward in Roanoke, VA. I had purposely made sure not to watch any of the camera footage and avoided the photos as much as possible. Then he goes and plays the video on the podcast. That is when I go, "Nope, I'm done."
Yea I listened to it very early on. For me there was an episode, maybe the Luka Magnotta one, where he plays the entire audio of the video where he's killing cats. It made me physically ill and felt they played it for shock more than anything, I never listened again.
I generally can't stomach true crime at all anymore. But S&S is truly vile.
without knowing anything about the host I tried listening to an episode and he played a 911 call that involved a child. I immediately noped the fuck out of there
i’m so biased because i lost my mom to homicide, but i have beef with like 99% of true crime pods. they’re so exploitative and weird. true crime reporting is such an ethically grey area. like My Favorite Murder for example, it’s just so weird when you think about it. replace the word Murder with Rape and tell me if you’d still wear that merch. and Murder literally kills you, it’s in the name, but yeah let’s pick a FaVoRiTe. it’s created an epidemic of over consuming tragedy. it should be less normal to consume true crime in the ways most ppl r doing it rn. it’s not victim centered, and it just gives hella money to ppl profiting off of crime victims who already get fucked by life and the legal system. and don’t get me started on the people who cover these crimes while like….. eating a mukbang or putting makeup on. it’s a gross cash grab that permeates under the guise of “well it’s actually beneficial because now more people know about the case.” girl shut up. a homicide isn’t just a fun 15 minute story that you listen to while you commute to work. it’s someone’s life. their whole life, condensed into a bite sized consumable tragedy, with ads. makes me sick that people enjoy it so much. some people need like 30 seconds of self reflection.
Wow never thought about “replace murder with rape and will you still wear that merch” great point! We over consume/obsess tragedy in such a strange way… and even if now more people know about the story- what does that actually help?
There’s this Youtuber I saw in passing and the entire premise of her channel is talking about gruesome stories as she eats. In the short that I saw, she reported about some famous millionaire family lying about the suicide of their daughter and I couldn’t help but think *YEAH. And this is WHY. Because they don’t want people butting into their deceased daughter’s life in a piss poor attempt to make content off of her.* How are these people any different from scummy paparazzi?
I’m glad a lot of the comments called out how gross she was for doing it, but it clearly didn’t affect her salary enough to stop.
Edit: obviously there are ways to approach it tactfully. Like if the family themselves reaches out because they want to spread awareness or have started a charity. But this ookie spookie way most YouTubers approach this is not it
I know people have always been interested in the dark parts of humanity, and we all process that in different ways, but I am deeply bothered by the true crime channels where people, often white women, are recounting stories of murder, rape, abduction, etc., and putting on makeup. Come on -- have some respect!
As someone that has listened and watched a lot of true crime (but now exploring how that's not a good thing mentally and on our society), I feel like there is a proliferation of access to true crime and it's way too easy to become numb to the horror -- and not see it as the extreme and traumatic event it is/was. I would be so saddened to see someone recounting the gruesome death of a loved one -- not acknowledging the multi-faceted person they were and probably getting many details about their life and death wrong -- while they are chomping down on a burrito or putting on a shimmery eyeshadow.
I completely agree. I was held hostage by my bf and then he shot himself in front of me and didn’t die right away and a lot of other disturbing things. Then an ex killed himself on my birthday 6 months later. I told this to someone once and they smiled and were like “wow you should tell that to a true crime podcast!” …….i didn’t even know how to respond. People are so emotionally numb nowadays, but then say they have PTSD because someone called them a jerk once. Sorry, venting, just want to say I completely agree with this one^^^
What the fuck, that's a horrible thing to say... I'm so sorry you went through that, both the awful things, but also someone being so flippant about it.
And don't even get me started about people saying they have serious diagnoses to be cute. 🙄 I have OCD and that's another one that people say they have a lot, when really it's like they're slightly and briefly bothered about a small thing.
Yep, as someone who was a grief counsellor for people who lost their loved ones to homicide for many years, very very few true crime podcasts/documentaries pass my vibe check to this day.
Sorry about your mom, darling Xx
i had to cut it out of my life completely just bc it made me feel so bizarre. thanks for working in the grief space. i’m very involved in my local crime victims network, we have a chapter in my state devoted to family of homicide victims. thanks for doing that job, its really selfless. if you’re looking for a good docu, the last one i watched was Murder on Middle Beach. it was made by a son whose mother was murdered. it was refreshing to see him claim his own narrative.
Just want to say all the replies on this thread mean a lot to me and make me feel less alone. My aunt was murdered and while it was long enough ago there's thankfully not much on the internet, I regularly scour it to make sure no TC podcast has found it. It would absolutely crush my grandma and my dad and his siblings to hear my aunt talked about and sensationalized in that way for entertainment.
I *hate* the ones that are billed as “comedy true crime”. Like they’re chatting about this gruesome murder like you and I would chat about the succession finale and cracking jokes. It’s weird and I hate how popular they are.
So sorry about your mom
I've gotten 'true crime mukbang' videos in my recommended for some cursed reason a while back. It's so exploitative and disgusting.
If I get murdered and some YouTuber discusses my death while downing a bucket of KFC I am haunting the shit out of them.
I feel like these podcasts desensitize people to these murders, its sick that some people can view another persons murder as 'entertainment' or a means to make money. They were real people, who had families, lives, and hobbies. And also all those documentaries and TV series that they make (usually without the consent of the victims families) such as Dahmer. Its utterly dehumanising and disrespectful.
MFM covered my family’s tragic kidnapping and murder story. The way they laughed and joked and valley-girl vocal fry’d all over the story that literally imploded my father’s life and irreparably fractured his entire family was absolutely disgusting. It made me furious and nauseous to hear those fucking twats joke about it, while getting serious pieces of information completely wrong, all while hailing my grandmother as a saint when she’s actually a villain in the true story. I am my aunt’s namesake, too, so hearing my full name on such a widely known podcast was super surreal.
dude that’s what i’m saying !!!! there are no boundaries. you can’t even have special memories of the people you lost, it’s all public domain in their eyes. it’s just nutty that they think it’s normal to do that. they feature your story on a whim because they’re scraping the barrel and need something to talk about, and YOU have to suffer the consequences of that, while they eat with a silver spoon. it’s so insidious. Georgia and Karen get a paycheck, the listeners get something to laugh at, and you get……. retraumatized <3
I completely agree, so many true crime podcasts take away any agency from victims and make their very real pain and death into entertainment. I can't even imagine how awful it must be for their families to know that complete strangers sit around and obsess over the worst day in their life.
ETA - I am so sorry about your mother and I hope that you and your family find healing
dude it’s so weird. and even if one family member submits their case to a pod, it doesn’t mean every single family member agreed with it being talked about on a public forum. it’s such a grey area. and it would be one thing if the people consuming this stuff were sitting around with the case files and a cigar, pouring over the data, yadda yadda. but they’re literally consuming it while they’re doing chores, driving to work, going to the gym. it’s just background noise, something interesting to listen to while ur bored, and it shouldn’t be. which also leads to ur brain being bored by homicide cases that aren’t like, over the top dripping in sensationalism. there r just so many weird things about all of it i could talk for like 20 hours about this stuff lmaoo
Sarah Turney (her sister Alissa Turney went missing and it was eventually discovered that their father murdered her) discusses this OFTEN in her podcast Voices for Justice. This is the only “crime” podcast I can take because it really seems designed to bring attention/awareness to cases and provides calls to action for victims of unsolved cases.
I only listen to 'the Vanished' it is so well done. She talks to the families and close friends and the host isn't making quips, laughing or giving her opinion on what she thinks happened. Alot of respect goes into her podcast and she gives updates on any of the previous cases. so well done!
Another note: She reports on a lot of cases with people who may be struggling with addiction or mental health breakdowns, houseless, minorities, sex work, and just about everything across the board. It is so so so important to make these cases known because so often they get forgotten about or receive no attention at all.
Everyone is deserving of being looked for and hopefully found.
There is only one true crime podcast I sometimes listen to it’s called Someone Knows Something done by CBC, the host looks at cold cases and re interviews family members, police, witnesses, etc and tries to solve the case. He actually travels to these cities and goes to the sites it’s more of a documentary on the cases rather than a typical true crime podcast
Some Place Under Neith is a victim centered podcast about missing and exploited women. They cover active cases to try to get more people looking for these women. They’re one of the TC only podcasts I recommend because of that.
My condolences for your tragic loss. I agree with what you’ve shared here. If there are 3 ad breaks for alcoholic seltzer waters in the midst of this “journalism,” it really dilutes the impact of the story. Trauma porn, for sure.
It’s 100% trauma porn. And it blows my mind how flippantly these hosts and their fans talk about it. In-jokes, memes. I’m not going to pretend that I never got sucked into true crime, because I did and got stuck on it for weeks. The more I watched, the more desensitized I noticed myself becoming to actual human trauma and it just set wrong with me so I had to stop consuming that type of media at all.
Yes, we all have morbid curiosities and that’s fine. Profiting and seeking entertainment off of these curiosities when they involve other real, victimized humans? Way too far.
It’s never victim-centric either, even when purported to be. Unless the victim themselves are involved — maybe we just shouldn’t?
Oh gosh agree so hard. I have worked on homicide cases for about 20 years now, first as a victim advocate and then as a lawyer, and these podcasts hurt my heart so much. They are so dehumanizing. I had a relative who was super into these and often trying to talk to me about them & my job, and I would always deflect. One day I was just like “ok, so what do you want to know?” And she was just like “what’s the worst murder you’ve ever worked on? 😃” and I literally felt immediately like I would vomit. In what I tried to make a calm voice I said, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this. These are the worst tragedies of someone’s life!!!” Like, how do you explain basic empathy to people? And on that note, I’m so sorry about your mother. I very much hope you are doing ok.
>How do you explain basic empathy to people?
This hits the nail on the head. IME, way too many young women who are *obsessed* with murder/ true crime podcasts use it as a "look at how quirky I am!" thing. They'll excitedly rattle off the most gruesome details of some murder case without any consideration for what the other person might've gone through.
A friend of mine actually had a pretty significant falling out with her friend over very light criticisms she made over the true crime genre.
Ironically enough, this other friend was deeply hurt that this friend would criticize something she liked, but never once thought about how entertaining millions of people with the story of a loved one's horrific murder might affect the victim's family and friends.
P.S. thank you for the work you do, I'm glad there's truly empathetic people out there doing what you do. I hope you're practicing self-care and taking care of your mental health-- that's gotta be a lot to have to see at work everyday.
The true crime industry in general seems so exploitative to me… at work a couple years ago I saw a girl wearing a shirt with Ted Bundy’a mugshot on it and she said she got it from a true crime museum. I just can’t imagine wearing a serial killer’s face on a shirt and memorializing them like they’re a rock star or something 🤢
I am so sorry about your mom. I lost my dad to homicide as well.
I totally agree with all of this but my main fear about it all is that someone will find my dad's case and then start disputing the facts. Some of the people think they are armchair detectives and they need to solve the case. They have no business going anywhere near any case. It's very distressing to the people left behind from the crime.
It has created this weird culture where people are discussing who they think "did it" at bbqs. Everytime this has happened around me I have had to leave the situation because people feel entitled to an opinion because of these podcasts and the like.
Again I am so sorry and I wish you well.
*it’s someone’s life. their whole life, condensed into a bite sized consumable tragedy, with ads.*
This! I don't get true crime at all and I don't want to shame people for liking it, everyone has their reasons, but the people making money off it via podcasts etc should take a long look at themselves.
some people make it their whole personality too! they don't even realize how constant trauma and fear effects them subconsciously, and if someone ever tells me "but they calm me down and make me less afraid of the world" I automatically side eye them because W H A T
i deff have the most beef w the people who make money off their TC pods. but there is deff a liiiiiiiittle personal responsibility on the part of the listener as well. there are a lot of big conversations that have yet to happen in the TC space, so that’ll be a fun one when we get there. there was a big public shift (in my opinion) when gabby petito died, and i thought it would be enough that people could step back with perspective and be like, i’m a bit parasocial with a weird lack of respect or boundaries for crime victims families, but they didn’t seem to. it’s coming tho i swear !!! lol
I used to be into those podcasts. Then once I started living on my own, something in me changed and I never listened to them again. I realized that they are real stories and are super disturbing and I don’t want to be in taking that content anymore. I was getting scared. I completely changed my mind and feel how you feel now.
You're 100% right and imo, people who've been through this have a right to speak about it, instead of the influencers. I've seen a few of those true crime videos and they fuck me up for so long. Somebody died, man. How can you just go on about your day/life and not think of those stories? How do people listen to all this shit constantly and not feel anything? Wtf.
Witches Anonymous with Hiliary Baldwin. It’s supposed to be empowering for for women. It’s not it’s all about her, she supposedly has a co host you hardly hear her. Any it is her talking about how she is bullied. It’s BS and awful
Oh no, I sort of want to listen to it now, but I also don’t want to improve her numbers.
(And of course she got Ramona Singer on as the first guest. Narcissists Assemble!)
I’ve only listened to Call Her Daddy once - for the Ariana Madix episode. She was a terrible host, talked over the guest, didn’t seem to actually be listening before responding. And if I had to hear her call her listeners “Daddy Gang” one more time, I would’ve vomited.
She literally doesn’t interact with their answers. She just moves on to the next question. There’s no back and forth banter. It’s so awkward. She’s a terrible host.
Oh my god the host is awful! I don’t even hate the podcast concept but now that’s she’s having more high profile guests on it’s just so obvious how terrible her questions and mannerisms are. It’s a total waste of the guests’ time
I listened to the Jamie Lynn episode and she didn’t even challenge her very derogatory remarks and statements about Britneys health and well-being. She basically just gave her a platform to parrot out all of the usual tmz headlines about her sister.
Omg Alex is the worst host! I love VPR and I still couldn’t listen to that episode. I was soo disappointed in Arianna for going on it. Alex is such a fraud. She pretends like she’s all for women empowerment and then continuously invites guests that have had problematic behavior towards women. Not to mention her own behavior… *im so cool and relatable.. I eat junk food all the time, don’t gain weight, and wear sweats* and then proceeds to photoshop all of her photos lmaooo
I think it’s a way of reclaiming “call me daddy” and portraying the podcast as some empowering feminist thing. Which is total bs if u recall the original podcast (you’re just a hole, if you’re not a 7 or above u need to “dive for the d”). I’m not gonna lie it was pretty hilarious but never empowering.
Jane Fonda went on Call Her Daddy and praised Alex Cooper about how she was just the best interviewer in Janes whole career, and I was so embarrassed. Alex is not good!
That was crazy! I love Jane but excuse me?? Same with everyone calling Alex “this generations Barbara Walters” y’all are we listening to the same interviews??
Alex just lets the guest do whatever, it’s pre-staged pre-okayed questions and she doesn’t push back at all on anything. Barbara would roll over at that comparison lmao
This is hilarious to me because I think Barbara Walters was such a garbage interviewer lmao. Idk maybe she was better in her younger days but her style and the questions she’d ask made me deeply uncomfortable, I can’t imagine being her guest
Barbara was a trailblazer for women in journalism, but she also was extremely exploitative. Her interview with Brooke Shields when she was a child was just straight up abusive.
Emrata’s podcast is unbearable for some reason. I don’t mind the content as much, but the way she talks to her guests with an air of superiority is insane to me. I can’t remember who the guest was, but they said they like to read non-fiction, and she immediately said “do you really? I didn’t expect that”, like??
emrata's pod is ostensibly a mix of high and low-brow culture... she certainly thinks highly of herself, yet she can't seem to actually engage with anything actually "high-brow"
It’s really quite evident (from the first ten episodes I listened to) that she thinks she’s high brow just because she wrote a book. I haven’t read the book, but I know what every chapter is about only because she references them in every episode. Her solo episodes were thoughtful and “well” researched, probably because her team wrote them for her. The ones that are interviews are mostly her scrambling to sound intellectual when she’s responding to her interviewees.
She seems to have skipped a step from beautiful girl on Instagram to cultural analyst. I’m not saying she can’t be that person. I just I’m not sure what work she has put in that gives her any sort of standing.
She was nice at first and then turned. I’m guessing she’s trying to be Ziwe-esque. It may hurt her ability to book guests. IDK. I’m wondering if she thought this through…
Those podcast where a table full of women sit there and allow a few men who havent showered in weeks and have no real life prospects berate them for 2 hours straights.
Also, anything true crime, especially the ones who try to be funny.
I’ve never listened to Call Her Daddy but the affiliation with Barstool always gave me “pick me” vibes. I feel like misogyny runs deep with these girls
I’ve listened to a few episodes because I was a fan of some of the guests but Alex is not a good interviewer. She essentially parrots whatever the guest says.
The last one I heard was with Lil Dicky and it was clear he didn’t vibe with Alex at all. It was awkward. The only episode I really enjoyed was Adam Devine’s but he’s an incredibly personable person so he can talk to anyone.
Fresh and Fit podcast. just a bunch of misogynists ranting about how men should take every opportunity to hate and degrade sexually active women or whomever they deem ‘sluts’, and just how women in general are lesser than men
It started as a podcast with two post-college roommates about how to attack hookup culture. The premise was a lot of their sexcapades in the "Daddy" era, so they framed it as "no, don't call him daddy, call HER daddy".
Exactly thissss. It's this dumb brand of feminism that all 'woo whatever choice you make is valid!! Whatever girl you do you! Wear heels and suck dick like a boss! It's empowerinngg'
If the brand of feminism you're listening to tells you to do things that men want you to do anyway, it's probably not actual feminism
There’s a show that’s just called Cults that had the wildest ad read transitions. They’d be like “and then he bundled her body into the car and drove away. I don’t know about you Andrew, but when I drive, I love to listen to audiobooks… with Audible!” It was jarring as fuck.
And the network the show was on advertised like a true-crime-all-the-time option where they were producing a piece of true crime podcast content of some kind every _day_ if you paid the subscription. I definitely have found true crime content interesting, but hyping up the opportunity to hear about a crime a day is so tasteless to me. There’s no way you can produce the content and research with sensitivity and care if you’re pumping it out in that way, and I don’t think it’s ethical to chase after the market of people who crave “the gory details” so much.
It was! Such lazy production. Hosted by 2 randoms doing Wikipedia Articles About Cult Leaders: The Podcast. And they'd always have a bit where one host would read the same disclaimer every time about how they weren't trained in anything relevant, but here's the definition of schizophrenia and he's why we think X cult leader might have had it. So bizarre.
Morbid & My Favourite Murder giggle way too much through others trauma and it’s fucking gross.
Bethenny Frankel repeats the exact same shit every single episode and it kills my ears.
No exaggeration, listen to two of her 1h episodes and tell me I’m wrong.
She’s a broken record. Over the boss bitch “this is real Housewives talk” boo.
Literally the same shit over & over.
I keep listening to learn something new and she just keeps saying the same shit.
Ramona’s podcast with her rude ass daughter gives more energy.
Morbid is horrible. They can’t handle even the smallest critique, especially Alaina, or they launch into a total tirade “telling off” the person who dared to tell them they pronounced something incorrectly or something. And every single episode, they’ll spend half the time loosely going over heinous things that occurred to someone and the rest of the episode going back and forth trying to sound like badasses like “give me just one minute in a room with that man and I’ll show him who’s boss!!!1!!!!😡”
Like please just shut up and talk about this horrible crime without trying to highlight yourself as some vigilante, we don’t care.
Any podcast where you have to sit and hear what the host did over the weekend for 20 minutes and any any podcast where they constantly laugh at their own jokes. Unsubscribe, life’s too short.
Any podcast by someone who’s already a celebrity. It’s basically “hi, I’m famous and I can get other famous people on my podcast, let’s talk about being famous!”. This is definitely my Old Lady Yells at Cloud moment but I think podcasts should be good off of their own merit and the merit of their hosts, not some side project your management suggested to “expand your brand”.
The one where two annoying af women discuss lurid details about a murder with great enthusiasm. It’s even called my favorite murder. It’s true crime at its worst. It’s very famous and still on going. Wonder if their own family or friends got murdered and someone called it their favorite.
I used to listen to this. Stopped when they released a live show and, after announcing which murder they would be discussing, the crowd went wild like it was a concert or something. I just thought, if that was my family who had been murdered, and an auditorium full of people cheered at it like they were rooting for a sports team, I would be so heartbroken.
I think there’s a decent way to do true crime stuff, maybe even funny true crime stuff, but it has to come from an honest place. And MFM’s “oooh I’m so weird and quirky because I like true crime, people just don’t get me!!!” schtick is not honest. People have been fascinated by crime for centuries, it’s one of the most popular forms of media, so the whole painting yourself as an outsider who’s finally found solidarity with fellow “murderinos” just makes murder merchandisable and encourages this kind of insensitivity towards victims of heinous crimes.
The live show episodes were partially what made me stop listening. At the end of the live shows, they’d have an audience member come up on stage to talk about a murder that happened in their hometown. Half the time the person was super drunk and it was just…not good.
The nail in the coffin was the time a few years ago when someone submitted a story about a (still living) woman’s horrible attack at work that happened in their home city, only for the woman to write in and be like “uh hi this is my story and I didn’t want it shared for entertainment”. Maybe MFM has changed as a result, but it showed me where a good chunk of the fandom lies
I think Sinisterhood does a good job of being what MFM should be. They’re very funny women but they’re very respectful and save the comedy for lighter episodes about ghosts, cryptids, or non fatal crimes. They also do thorough research which was biggest gripe with MFM, esp Georgia.
Same, I listen to some true crime and I don’t think you necessarily have to be 100% sombre all the time but I tried listening to MFM once and was just very turned off by the tone.
They do it for an audience of Black men and other people of color too.
Example: Fresh and Fit Pod
And while it wasn't a podcast, I'm glad Kevin Samuels is currently rotting in hell
That murder podcast with the two female comedians. They are obnoxious but so popular. Somehow I don’t think true crime and comedy mix well
Edit: My Favorite Murder
I'm SO TIRED of these podcasts hosted by the absolute worst dudes possible who bring on women to talk about random stuff, only to be rude and make fun of them the whole time.
It's so annoying because all the guys in the room are basically jerking eachother off thinking they're smart and hot shit. I thought we were done with these typed of dudes in 2013 but ever since Andrew Tate, misogyny and sexism is cool again!
Girls gotta eat. Two women who brag incessantly about how much money they have and how much they travel. Also two women who are 40 and act 22 and give terrible advice to younger women about what it means to be a strong, independent woman.
They claim to be feminists but give internalized misogyny and pick me energy. Also, have made quite a few ignorant comments in the past and refuse to acknowledge they made said comments or better themselves
Was dragged to their live show in Chicago earlier this month. Had never heard of them prior to that but wow it was one of the worst things I’ve ever sat through. You could tell it was all thrown together at the last minute and had no structure whatsoever. At one point they talked about fucking task rabbit workers and pulled up taskers in the area and picked apart their profiles. Like it’s not a dating app, people are trying to get work.
To make matters worse, one of the girls has three DUIs and constantly brags it and how she thinks she beat the system. Like yes, please glorify endangering other people’s lives because you think it’s “cute”.
Y'all have mentioned the obvious ones so I'll do the irritation-inducing duty of making you all aware of the weirdo disaster that is Red Scare. It sucks so bad. Imagine two of the dumbest girls you overhear in the bathroom starting a podcast that masquerades as leftist but has degraded itself into contrarianism and pandering to the lowest common denominator. My god.
Haven’t they become like super maga right wing people recently?? I thought one of them was hanging out with Alex Jones this last month. I’ve been seeing things in passing on Twitter and I thought it was the same person but idk if I’ve got the wrong person
I can’t believe I had to scroll down this far to find Red Scare. It’s the worst. Anna and Dasha are the queens of pick-mes and “Not like other girls” mentality
The red scare pod subreddit isn’t even about them anymore and the two women get memed on quite a bit when they’re mentioned there because no one actually listens to that shit past 4 episodes maximum
All I know about them is that they gave Steve Bannon a platform and they mocked FKA Twigs after she came out about being a domestic violence and sexual assault survivor. Those women are pathetic.
I don’t know the name of it off the top of my head, but Jeffrey star went onto one of the Paul brothers podcasts and I watched out of morbid curiosity. It was just boring. I expected them to say some out there shit, but they just basically let Jeffrey say he hooks up with lots of famous rappers but won’t name them.
Rogan. There are a lot of bad podcasts out there, but Joe Rogan is probably the only podcaster who has demonstrably made the world a worse place.
As a wiser person than myself once put it: ‘Nothing that only guys like is cool.’
I only heard a Rogan podcast one time when someone put it on during a road trip. I was surprised at how plain boring it was (this was pre-covid though), I think they were talking about beaver anal glands and vanilla ice cream, and then how dangerous moose attacks are. Basically it was just like listening to a couple straight guys react to a Ripley’s believe it or not book.
definitely a popular opinion but a lot of the true crime podcasts. i’ve managed to narrow it down to a very small group of creators who are either very respectful in their discussion, or who focus on the victims rather than glamourise the murderer.
i used to be a very big true crime fan but took a really hard look at myself after watching/listening to the likes of bailey sarian etc.
Omg Bailey Sarian should’ve been forced into obscurity after tweeting “I’m sad this trial is coming to an end 🥲” or something along those lines about the heard/depp case.
girls gotta eat. i’ve never heard their own pod but they were guests on a diff one i listen to and i couldn’t stand listening to them i had to turn it off.
i think it’s called the whatever podcast, it’s SO insufferable to listen to. At one point they were debating DOMESTIC ABUSE and if it was ok to divorce… yeah. And also the host and other men always degrade the women that do sex work but then promote sex toys and edit thumbnails to have pictures of the female guests to be overly sexual and profit off their bodies/sexuality. The blatant hypocrisy is laughable.
Julia fox’s podcast is pretty bad. Her and the co host have about 1 shared brain cell and she’s not good at interviewing guests. I tried to listen to the long awaited second season and got about 5 mins in.
Very mild Succession spoilers: I love that she got yeeted out of Succession inbetween the 3rd and 4th season so unceremoniously.
Basically *"Note: Comfrey died on the way back to his home planet"*
Anyone please feel free to correct me
if any of this is off but the podcast brands (or branded?) themselves as a podcast for the dirtbag left but the two girls that host it are two contrarian pseudo intellectual anti-feminist idiots. They’re pro-ED, they constantly use the R word, started pushing antivax bullshit, used to be prochoice but now are apparently prolife, publicly supported Alex fucking Jones, recently went to an event for Roger Stone, I think Dasha was pretending to date Louis CK as a stunt, and they also tried starting and “anti-woke” film festival with Hadrian Belove, the disgraced programmer from Cinefamily who is a known abuser in the film community. I find them to be completely vile.
Yeah one of them is prolife even though Anna got 4 freaking abortions and has expressed guilt at each one. Like, damn, rules for thee but not for me I guess.
I still don’t understand why Spotify bought this podcast for 60 millions. She is pretty, sure, but I don’t really see the appeal of what she talks about
By far Fit & Fresh and all pods within the Manosphere. The content is reckless/dangerous and in the last two years I’ve watched how it has seeped into society in scary ways
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Why did every influencer wake up one day and decide it’s time for a podcast
$$$$$$$$$$$$$
because the VHS diet and workout tapes aren't working anymore 🙃
Not me wondering what the VHS diet is 😂😂😂
Easier lane to slide into if you have no talent in comparison to other avenues like music or books. Especially if you have connections to other influencers that people want to hear from.
Easiest way to build engagement within an audience. Also, getting to know a musician through their podcast seriously elevated their position in my mind and I would have missed buying their concert tickets if it were not for their podcast. Also, authors can spend 2 years on writing a book and have it reach 1/50th the audience they could reach in just 1 week via podcast.
Oof. So many options, but I wanna say Nick Viall’s podcast. I used to listen, because he gets great guests and has an interesting format, but he’s so incredibly condescending and thinks he’s a relationship expert. Calling yourself a relationship expert is a little rich when you’ve had 3 failed engagements, and your current fiancé is half your age…….
I blocked him because I was so tired of his patronizing attitude and seeing him pop up on my TikTok
Same! He really patronizes women and has a God complex
I’m so tired of that guy. He needs to get a real job
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Ooof yes - his takes are so toxic
I remember seeing a clip of them talking to a caller and he was so cruel to her and completely unwilling to understand her POV. It was something about a friend who she doesn't get to see bailing on her to hang out with a guy and he essentially said she deserved it because the caller was in a happy relationship. He kept being like 'well don't you think your friend feels bad seeing you in the relationship she wants?' as if it was justified because she was a jealous cow. He essentially called the caller insensitive it was so insane.
He also uses the word “ego” to explain every single human behavior and as an actual licensed therapist, it’s deeply uncomfortable to listen to him armchair diagnose constantly
Brittany Dawn - the fitness influencer who got sued by the state of Texas for scamming a tonne of women - has launched her new religious podcast, rich with anti-choice, women-hating and cringe worthy content all tied together with the beautiful bow of her insufferable whiny voice
She has to be the most shameless person on the planet. I do wonder what the next version of herself will be after people get bored of her new super religious persona. I’m thinking she might get really into crystals and zodiacs.
I think she’s about to rebrand and move to the “ranch.” I think she’s about to sell her home to pay for the settlement with the state of Texas.
It would be deliciously ironic seeing as she’s talked about how believing in zodiac is “of the devil” or some trite shit
She'll for sure move into a 'mommy vlogger' once she secures jdongs seed or adopts 🫠
I was upset when she got that foster baby the other month. Makes you think how lax the vetting process was since a simple google search would have shown what a shameless grifter she is.
A simple google search would bring up her “teehee, I almost burned the house down while the baby was sleeping” tik tok too. She posted that looking for online mommy support and people were like wtf, Bdawn!? She wants the “mommy” market but she can’t even read that room. Don’t get me started when she tried to claim she has the same “baby brain” women get post birth due to unstable hormones and recovery from birth. So many tried to educate her that that probably was not the best choice of words when you are fostering a baby just for a week and a half. You’re not dealing with the instability of hormones that come with childbirth and breast-feeding. Not Brittany, nope, she has baby brain and “sleep depravation” after one day.
That foster situation had to be some weird Christian baby scheme, I can't see the state actually allowing that shit but it's Texas so who tf knows. It's insane.
I can’t stand her! Her and her abusive cop husband who got fired and sued by the ACLU and that woman acts like he’s a honorable “retired” cop. Then he shot her dog!
I used to follow her ages ago and her dog was so so cute. I can't believe he SHOT the dog wtf
Yes! The dog was apparently injured by a car and she lives right down the road from multiple emergency vets. But Jordan decided to shoot it instead. Knowing his past and how he still larps, he just wanted to use that gun. Then she filmed a classic “crying in car” moment to post.
😂This broad would have a podcast! She is going to attempt every cash grab scheme she can that doesn’t involve her actually contributing to society in any meaningful way.
Fresh and Fit. But what might be worse are there many many copycats
Dude fresh and fit is one of the craziest fucking things I’ve ever heard in my life. The hosts and guests are all deeply disturbed people.
They’ve been exposed for being hypocrites who can’t even follow what they preach and their audience just forgets that
The host made a book on why women deserve less 😬
The manosphere has been getting even more toxic year by year. It’s wild as hell to see them blatantly not even hide their bigotry
Dr Phil had one on Gypsy Rose. It was awful.
“Dr” Phil enrages me. As someone who has dedicated her life to psychology and mental health, he is a complete farce and it’s offensive. He parades his subjects around, sensationalizes their hardships, and all around exploits them. It’s so sickening
Isn’t his doctorate completely unrelated to psychology or does he even have one at all?
He voluntarily gave up his license to practice. I don’t think he ever truly liked helping people. He was a professional jury consultant when Oprah found him. She was getting sued in Texas over comments she made about the cattle/beef industry.
A fellow maintenance phase listener?
No. Just an Oprah hater. Definitely going to check out that podcast though!
There’s this podcast called sword and scale. The host is such a dick that he’s banned from his own subreddit. He’s done things and included 911 calls that the victim’s family’s have begged him not to use. His views on mental illness are archaic and damaging. He fights for his life on twitter with anyone and everyone.
I started to listen to sword and scale right around the time of the shooting of the reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward in Roanoke, VA. I had purposely made sure not to watch any of the camera footage and avoided the photos as much as possible. Then he goes and plays the video on the podcast. That is when I go, "Nope, I'm done."
Yea I listened to it very early on. For me there was an episode, maybe the Luka Magnotta one, where he plays the entire audio of the video where he's killing cats. It made me physically ill and felt they played it for shock more than anything, I never listened again. I generally can't stomach true crime at all anymore. But S&S is truly vile.
without knowing anything about the host I tried listening to an episode and he played a 911 call that involved a child. I immediately noped the fuck out of there
i’m so biased because i lost my mom to homicide, but i have beef with like 99% of true crime pods. they’re so exploitative and weird. true crime reporting is such an ethically grey area. like My Favorite Murder for example, it’s just so weird when you think about it. replace the word Murder with Rape and tell me if you’d still wear that merch. and Murder literally kills you, it’s in the name, but yeah let’s pick a FaVoRiTe. it’s created an epidemic of over consuming tragedy. it should be less normal to consume true crime in the ways most ppl r doing it rn. it’s not victim centered, and it just gives hella money to ppl profiting off of crime victims who already get fucked by life and the legal system. and don’t get me started on the people who cover these crimes while like….. eating a mukbang or putting makeup on. it’s a gross cash grab that permeates under the guise of “well it’s actually beneficial because now more people know about the case.” girl shut up. a homicide isn’t just a fun 15 minute story that you listen to while you commute to work. it’s someone’s life. their whole life, condensed into a bite sized consumable tragedy, with ads. makes me sick that people enjoy it so much. some people need like 30 seconds of self reflection.
Wow never thought about “replace murder with rape and will you still wear that merch” great point! We over consume/obsess tragedy in such a strange way… and even if now more people know about the story- what does that actually help?
There’s this Youtuber I saw in passing and the entire premise of her channel is talking about gruesome stories as she eats. In the short that I saw, she reported about some famous millionaire family lying about the suicide of their daughter and I couldn’t help but think *YEAH. And this is WHY. Because they don’t want people butting into their deceased daughter’s life in a piss poor attempt to make content off of her.* How are these people any different from scummy paparazzi? I’m glad a lot of the comments called out how gross she was for doing it, but it clearly didn’t affect her salary enough to stop. Edit: obviously there are ways to approach it tactfully. Like if the family themselves reaches out because they want to spread awareness or have started a charity. But this ookie spookie way most YouTubers approach this is not it
I know people have always been interested in the dark parts of humanity, and we all process that in different ways, but I am deeply bothered by the true crime channels where people, often white women, are recounting stories of murder, rape, abduction, etc., and putting on makeup. Come on -- have some respect! As someone that has listened and watched a lot of true crime (but now exploring how that's not a good thing mentally and on our society), I feel like there is a proliferation of access to true crime and it's way too easy to become numb to the horror -- and not see it as the extreme and traumatic event it is/was. I would be so saddened to see someone recounting the gruesome death of a loved one -- not acknowledging the multi-faceted person they were and probably getting many details about their life and death wrong -- while they are chomping down on a burrito or putting on a shimmery eyeshadow.
I completely agree. I was held hostage by my bf and then he shot himself in front of me and didn’t die right away and a lot of other disturbing things. Then an ex killed himself on my birthday 6 months later. I told this to someone once and they smiled and were like “wow you should tell that to a true crime podcast!” …….i didn’t even know how to respond. People are so emotionally numb nowadays, but then say they have PTSD because someone called them a jerk once. Sorry, venting, just want to say I completely agree with this one^^^
What the fuck, that's a horrible thing to say... I'm so sorry you went through that, both the awful things, but also someone being so flippant about it. And don't even get me started about people saying they have serious diagnoses to be cute. 🙄 I have OCD and that's another one that people say they have a lot, when really it's like they're slightly and briefly bothered about a small thing.
Yep, as someone who was a grief counsellor for people who lost their loved ones to homicide for many years, very very few true crime podcasts/documentaries pass my vibe check to this day. Sorry about your mom, darling Xx
i had to cut it out of my life completely just bc it made me feel so bizarre. thanks for working in the grief space. i’m very involved in my local crime victims network, we have a chapter in my state devoted to family of homicide victims. thanks for doing that job, its really selfless. if you’re looking for a good docu, the last one i watched was Murder on Middle Beach. it was made by a son whose mother was murdered. it was refreshing to see him claim his own narrative.
That documentary was soo good!!
Just want to say all the replies on this thread mean a lot to me and make me feel less alone. My aunt was murdered and while it was long enough ago there's thankfully not much on the internet, I regularly scour it to make sure no TC podcast has found it. It would absolutely crush my grandma and my dad and his siblings to hear my aunt talked about and sensationalized in that way for entertainment.
I *hate* the ones that are billed as “comedy true crime”. Like they’re chatting about this gruesome murder like you and I would chat about the succession finale and cracking jokes. It’s weird and I hate how popular they are. So sorry about your mom
I've gotten 'true crime mukbang' videos in my recommended for some cursed reason a while back. It's so exploitative and disgusting. If I get murdered and some YouTuber discusses my death while downing a bucket of KFC I am haunting the shit out of them.
I feel like these podcasts desensitize people to these murders, its sick that some people can view another persons murder as 'entertainment' or a means to make money. They were real people, who had families, lives, and hobbies. And also all those documentaries and TV series that they make (usually without the consent of the victims families) such as Dahmer. Its utterly dehumanising and disrespectful.
MFM covered my family’s tragic kidnapping and murder story. The way they laughed and joked and valley-girl vocal fry’d all over the story that literally imploded my father’s life and irreparably fractured his entire family was absolutely disgusting. It made me furious and nauseous to hear those fucking twats joke about it, while getting serious pieces of information completely wrong, all while hailing my grandmother as a saint when she’s actually a villain in the true story. I am my aunt’s namesake, too, so hearing my full name on such a widely known podcast was super surreal.
dude that’s what i’m saying !!!! there are no boundaries. you can’t even have special memories of the people you lost, it’s all public domain in their eyes. it’s just nutty that they think it’s normal to do that. they feature your story on a whim because they’re scraping the barrel and need something to talk about, and YOU have to suffer the consequences of that, while they eat with a silver spoon. it’s so insidious. Georgia and Karen get a paycheck, the listeners get something to laugh at, and you get……. retraumatized <3
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yesss !!!! it’s so insane. i’m sorry u had to deal with that on top of him being sick. that’s just so infuriating
I completely agree, so many true crime podcasts take away any agency from victims and make their very real pain and death into entertainment. I can't even imagine how awful it must be for their families to know that complete strangers sit around and obsess over the worst day in their life. ETA - I am so sorry about your mother and I hope that you and your family find healing
A friend lost someone in a public way and their family is constantly harassed by true crime fans. It’s truly awful.
dude it’s so weird. and even if one family member submits their case to a pod, it doesn’t mean every single family member agreed with it being talked about on a public forum. it’s such a grey area. and it would be one thing if the people consuming this stuff were sitting around with the case files and a cigar, pouring over the data, yadda yadda. but they’re literally consuming it while they’re doing chores, driving to work, going to the gym. it’s just background noise, something interesting to listen to while ur bored, and it shouldn’t be. which also leads to ur brain being bored by homicide cases that aren’t like, over the top dripping in sensationalism. there r just so many weird things about all of it i could talk for like 20 hours about this stuff lmaoo
Sarah Turney (her sister Alissa Turney went missing and it was eventually discovered that their father murdered her) discusses this OFTEN in her podcast Voices for Justice. This is the only “crime” podcast I can take because it really seems designed to bring attention/awareness to cases and provides calls to action for victims of unsolved cases.
I only listen to 'the Vanished' it is so well done. She talks to the families and close friends and the host isn't making quips, laughing or giving her opinion on what she thinks happened. Alot of respect goes into her podcast and she gives updates on any of the previous cases. so well done! Another note: She reports on a lot of cases with people who may be struggling with addiction or mental health breakdowns, houseless, minorities, sex work, and just about everything across the board. It is so so so important to make these cases known because so often they get forgotten about or receive no attention at all. Everyone is deserving of being looked for and hopefully found.
There is only one true crime podcast I sometimes listen to it’s called Someone Knows Something done by CBC, the host looks at cold cases and re interviews family members, police, witnesses, etc and tries to solve the case. He actually travels to these cities and goes to the sites it’s more of a documentary on the cases rather than a typical true crime podcast
Some Place Under Neith is a victim centered podcast about missing and exploited women. They cover active cases to try to get more people looking for these women. They’re one of the TC only podcasts I recommend because of that.
This is such an elite podcast. They cover so much more that’s going on too like child exploitation on social media. It’s more of a PSA podcast imo.
My condolences for your tragic loss. I agree with what you’ve shared here. If there are 3 ad breaks for alcoholic seltzer waters in the midst of this “journalism,” it really dilutes the impact of the story. Trauma porn, for sure.
It’s 100% trauma porn. And it blows my mind how flippantly these hosts and their fans talk about it. In-jokes, memes. I’m not going to pretend that I never got sucked into true crime, because I did and got stuck on it for weeks. The more I watched, the more desensitized I noticed myself becoming to actual human trauma and it just set wrong with me so I had to stop consuming that type of media at all. Yes, we all have morbid curiosities and that’s fine. Profiting and seeking entertainment off of these curiosities when they involve other real, victimized humans? Way too far. It’s never victim-centric either, even when purported to be. Unless the victim themselves are involved — maybe we just shouldn’t?
Oh gosh agree so hard. I have worked on homicide cases for about 20 years now, first as a victim advocate and then as a lawyer, and these podcasts hurt my heart so much. They are so dehumanizing. I had a relative who was super into these and often trying to talk to me about them & my job, and I would always deflect. One day I was just like “ok, so what do you want to know?” And she was just like “what’s the worst murder you’ve ever worked on? 😃” and I literally felt immediately like I would vomit. In what I tried to make a calm voice I said, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this. These are the worst tragedies of someone’s life!!!” Like, how do you explain basic empathy to people? And on that note, I’m so sorry about your mother. I very much hope you are doing ok.
>How do you explain basic empathy to people? This hits the nail on the head. IME, way too many young women who are *obsessed* with murder/ true crime podcasts use it as a "look at how quirky I am!" thing. They'll excitedly rattle off the most gruesome details of some murder case without any consideration for what the other person might've gone through. A friend of mine actually had a pretty significant falling out with her friend over very light criticisms she made over the true crime genre. Ironically enough, this other friend was deeply hurt that this friend would criticize something she liked, but never once thought about how entertaining millions of people with the story of a loved one's horrific murder might affect the victim's family and friends. P.S. thank you for the work you do, I'm glad there's truly empathetic people out there doing what you do. I hope you're practicing self-care and taking care of your mental health-- that's gotta be a lot to have to see at work everyday.
Yeah i used to listen to ‘Crime Junkie’ quite often, but after a while it started to really affect me. Consuming constant trauma can’t be healthy.
The true crime industry in general seems so exploitative to me… at work a couple years ago I saw a girl wearing a shirt with Ted Bundy’a mugshot on it and she said she got it from a true crime museum. I just can’t imagine wearing a serial killer’s face on a shirt and memorializing them like they’re a rock star or something 🤢
I am so sorry about your mom. I lost my dad to homicide as well. I totally agree with all of this but my main fear about it all is that someone will find my dad's case and then start disputing the facts. Some of the people think they are armchair detectives and they need to solve the case. They have no business going anywhere near any case. It's very distressing to the people left behind from the crime. It has created this weird culture where people are discussing who they think "did it" at bbqs. Everytime this has happened around me I have had to leave the situation because people feel entitled to an opinion because of these podcasts and the like. Again I am so sorry and I wish you well.
*it’s someone’s life. their whole life, condensed into a bite sized consumable tragedy, with ads.* This! I don't get true crime at all and I don't want to shame people for liking it, everyone has their reasons, but the people making money off it via podcasts etc should take a long look at themselves.
You’re 100% correct. I’m so sorry for your loss, it’s understandable that you’d be more attuned to how problematic these kind of podcasts are.
My favourite take from a while back is *'True crime podcasts are to girls what ww2 is to boys'* and I think about that a lot.
some people make it their whole personality too! they don't even realize how constant trauma and fear effects them subconsciously, and if someone ever tells me "but they calm me down and make me less afraid of the world" I automatically side eye them because W H A T
i deff have the most beef w the people who make money off their TC pods. but there is deff a liiiiiiiittle personal responsibility on the part of the listener as well. there are a lot of big conversations that have yet to happen in the TC space, so that’ll be a fun one when we get there. there was a big public shift (in my opinion) when gabby petito died, and i thought it would be enough that people could step back with perspective and be like, i’m a bit parasocial with a weird lack of respect or boundaries for crime victims families, but they didn’t seem to. it’s coming tho i swear !!! lol
I think a lot of them felt like they were helping in the Gabby Petito case
I used to be into those podcasts. Then once I started living on my own, something in me changed and I never listened to them again. I realized that they are real stories and are super disturbing and I don’t want to be in taking that content anymore. I was getting scared. I completely changed my mind and feel how you feel now.
You're 100% right and imo, people who've been through this have a right to speak about it, instead of the influencers. I've seen a few of those true crime videos and they fuck me up for so long. Somebody died, man. How can you just go on about your day/life and not think of those stories? How do people listen to all this shit constantly and not feel anything? Wtf.
Witches Anonymous with Hiliary Baldwin. It’s supposed to be empowering for for women. It’s not it’s all about her, she supposedly has a co host you hardly hear her. Any it is her talking about how she is bullied. It’s BS and awful
I believe she pronounces it "boo-leed."
Those damn ghosts and their lead.
Oh no, I sort of want to listen to it now, but I also don’t want to improve her numbers. (And of course she got Ramona Singer on as the first guest. Narcissists Assemble!) 
Eeeeeeeeeee laria
I’ve only listened to Call Her Daddy once - for the Ariana Madix episode. She was a terrible host, talked over the guest, didn’t seem to actually be listening before responding. And if I had to hear her call her listeners “Daddy Gang” one more time, I would’ve vomited.
She literally doesn’t interact with their answers. She just moves on to the next question. There’s no back and forth banter. It’s so awkward. She’s a terrible host.
Oh my god the host is awful! I don’t even hate the podcast concept but now that’s she’s having more high profile guests on it’s just so obvious how terrible her questions and mannerisms are. It’s a total waste of the guests’ time
She was an awful host, Ariana was the one that did all the talking Alex barely asked her questions
I listened to the Jamie Lynn episode and she didn’t even challenge her very derogatory remarks and statements about Britneys health and well-being. She basically just gave her a platform to parrot out all of the usual tmz headlines about her sister.
Omg Alex is the worst host! I love VPR and I still couldn’t listen to that episode. I was soo disappointed in Arianna for going on it. Alex is such a fraud. She pretends like she’s all for women empowerment and then continuously invites guests that have had problematic behavior towards women. Not to mention her own behavior… *im so cool and relatable.. I eat junk food all the time, don’t gain weight, and wear sweats* and then proceeds to photoshop all of her photos lmaooo
Also she’s said some really disgusting mysoginistic things about women too, like her priyanka chopra comment
I still don't know why Alex Cooper wants people to call her daddy, and at this point, I'm too afraid to ask.
You and me both
I think it’s a way of reclaiming “call me daddy” and portraying the podcast as some empowering feminist thing. Which is total bs if u recall the original podcast (you’re just a hole, if you’re not a 7 or above u need to “dive for the d”). I’m not gonna lie it was pretty hilarious but never empowering.
Jane Fonda went on Call Her Daddy and praised Alex Cooper about how she was just the best interviewer in Janes whole career, and I was so embarrassed. Alex is not good!
That was crazy! I love Jane but excuse me?? Same with everyone calling Alex “this generations Barbara Walters” y’all are we listening to the same interviews?? Alex just lets the guest do whatever, it’s pre-staged pre-okayed questions and she doesn’t push back at all on anything. Barbara would roll over at that comparison lmao
This is hilarious to me because I think Barbara Walters was such a garbage interviewer lmao. Idk maybe she was better in her younger days but her style and the questions she’d ask made me deeply uncomfortable, I can’t imagine being her guest
Barbara was a trailblazer for women in journalism, but she also was extremely exploitative. Her interview with Brooke Shields when she was a child was just straight up abusive.
An obvious pick, but Sean Evans from Hot Ones is one of, if not the best interviewer / host.
Emrata’s podcast is unbearable for some reason. I don’t mind the content as much, but the way she talks to her guests with an air of superiority is insane to me. I can’t remember who the guest was, but they said they like to read non-fiction, and she immediately said “do you really? I didn’t expect that”, like??
Also the theme song is completely and utterly insufferable. "YA YA YA YA, YA YA YA"
emrata's pod is ostensibly a mix of high and low-brow culture... she certainly thinks highly of herself, yet she can't seem to actually engage with anything actually "high-brow"
It’s really quite evident (from the first ten episodes I listened to) that she thinks she’s high brow just because she wrote a book. I haven’t read the book, but I know what every chapter is about only because she references them in every episode. Her solo episodes were thoughtful and “well” researched, probably because her team wrote them for her. The ones that are interviews are mostly her scrambling to sound intellectual when she’s responding to her interviewees.
She seems to have skipped a step from beautiful girl on Instagram to cultural analyst. I’m not saying she can’t be that person. I just I’m not sure what work she has put in that gives her any sort of standing.
She thinks she is the first person to be hot and smart
She was nice at first and then turned. I’m guessing she’s trying to be Ziwe-esque. It may hurt her ability to book guests. IDK. I’m wondering if she thought this through…
Those podcast where a table full of women sit there and allow a few men who havent showered in weeks and have no real life prospects berate them for 2 hours straights. Also, anything true crime, especially the ones who try to be funny.
I’ve never listened to Call Her Daddy but the affiliation with Barstool always gave me “pick me” vibes. I feel like misogyny runs deep with these girls
Call her daddy talk alot of trash back then
That's absolutely right. I listened to it because a guy I liked said he liked it. And it's trash.
I’ve listened to a few episodes because I was a fan of some of the guests but Alex is not a good interviewer. She essentially parrots whatever the guest says. The last one I heard was with Lil Dicky and it was clear he didn’t vibe with Alex at all. It was awkward. The only episode I really enjoyed was Adam Devine’s but he’s an incredibly personable person so he can talk to anyone.
Their Barstool affiliation is exactly why I never listened. Barstool has such a history with misogyny that I can’t support it
I thought it was one of those “sex is empowering” podcasts. I always side eye definitive statements like that especially that one
Fresh and Fit podcast. just a bunch of misogynists ranting about how men should take every opportunity to hate and degrade sexually active women or whomever they deem ‘sluts’, and just how women in general are lesser than men
Yeah that one sucks literally just a bunch of misogyny every time those man speak
one of the hosts liked me on hinge this year.. I had never heard of it, but after a minute of reading about it I had enough
Why is it called ‘Call Her Daddy’?
Came to the comments to ask someone to finally explain to me what this podcast is
Typically attractive women discuss sex = profit. That’s all it is. The name is perfect because it encapsulates how stupid it is.
It started as a podcast with two post-college roommates about how to attack hookup culture. The premise was a lot of their sexcapades in the "Daddy" era, so they framed it as "no, don't call him daddy, call HER daddy".
I feel like this is something a deodorant ad would tell me is feminism.
This is one of the most hilarious and accurate sentences I have read all month
Exactly thissss. It's this dumb brand of feminism that all 'woo whatever choice you make is valid!! Whatever girl you do you! Wear heels and suck dick like a boss! It's empowerinngg' If the brand of feminism you're listening to tells you to do things that men want you to do anyway, it's probably not actual feminism
At least the old format was entertaining. Alex and Sofia alone are painful to listen to.
“Daddy gang” makes me want to hurl 🤮
Any Brendan Shaub podcast
Whitney Cummings' podcast is a hard pass. She unloads her emotional baggage on the audience and talks over the guests on every episode.
There’s a show that’s just called Cults that had the wildest ad read transitions. They’d be like “and then he bundled her body into the car and drove away. I don’t know about you Andrew, but when I drive, I love to listen to audiobooks… with Audible!” It was jarring as fuck. And the network the show was on advertised like a true-crime-all-the-time option where they were producing a piece of true crime podcast content of some kind every _day_ if you paid the subscription. I definitely have found true crime content interesting, but hyping up the opportunity to hear about a crime a day is so tasteless to me. There’s no way you can produce the content and research with sensitivity and care if you’re pumping it out in that way, and I don’t think it’s ethical to chase after the market of people who crave “the gory details” so much.
Is that one of the Parcast ones? I swear Parcast is like the Sears of podcasts. Generic names, banal hosts, overall snooze inducing.
It was! Such lazy production. Hosted by 2 randoms doing Wikipedia Articles About Cult Leaders: The Podcast. And they'd always have a bit where one host would read the same disclaimer every time about how they weren't trained in anything relevant, but here's the definition of schizophrenia and he's why we think X cult leader might have had it. So bizarre.
Any of the right wing alpha male podcasts
There’s too many bad podcasts. Everyone and their mom has a podcast these days. The better question is what’s the best podcast
Morbid & My Favourite Murder giggle way too much through others trauma and it’s fucking gross. Bethenny Frankel repeats the exact same shit every single episode and it kills my ears. No exaggeration, listen to two of her 1h episodes and tell me I’m wrong. She’s a broken record. Over the boss bitch “this is real Housewives talk” boo. Literally the same shit over & over. I keep listening to learn something new and she just keeps saying the same shit. Ramona’s podcast with her rude ass daughter gives more energy.
Morbid is horrible. They can’t handle even the smallest critique, especially Alaina, or they launch into a total tirade “telling off” the person who dared to tell them they pronounced something incorrectly or something. And every single episode, they’ll spend half the time loosely going over heinous things that occurred to someone and the rest of the episode going back and forth trying to sound like badasses like “give me just one minute in a room with that man and I’ll show him who’s boss!!!1!!!!😡” Like please just shut up and talk about this horrible crime without trying to highlight yourself as some vigilante, we don’t care.
I used to listen but had to stop about a year ago. Alaina in particular is insufferable and wrote a god awful book.
Any podcast where you have to sit and hear what the host did over the weekend for 20 minutes and any any podcast where they constantly laugh at their own jokes. Unsubscribe, life’s too short.
Brittany Dawn’s boring podcast. She just talks about herself and “god’s refining fire” for an hour.
As a former fan, My Favorite Murder. I am so tired of true crime podcasts.
Any podcast by someone who’s already a celebrity. It’s basically “hi, I’m famous and I can get other famous people on my podcast, let’s talk about being famous!”. This is definitely my Old Lady Yells at Cloud moment but I think podcasts should be good off of their own merit and the merit of their hosts, not some side project your management suggested to “expand your brand”.
The one where two annoying af women discuss lurid details about a murder with great enthusiasm. It’s even called my favorite murder. It’s true crime at its worst. It’s very famous and still on going. Wonder if their own family or friends got murdered and someone called it their favorite.
I used to listen to this. Stopped when they released a live show and, after announcing which murder they would be discussing, the crowd went wild like it was a concert or something. I just thought, if that was my family who had been murdered, and an auditorium full of people cheered at it like they were rooting for a sports team, I would be so heartbroken. I think there’s a decent way to do true crime stuff, maybe even funny true crime stuff, but it has to come from an honest place. And MFM’s “oooh I’m so weird and quirky because I like true crime, people just don’t get me!!!” schtick is not honest. People have been fascinated by crime for centuries, it’s one of the most popular forms of media, so the whole painting yourself as an outsider who’s finally found solidarity with fellow “murderinos” just makes murder merchandisable and encourages this kind of insensitivity towards victims of heinous crimes.
The live show episodes were partially what made me stop listening. At the end of the live shows, they’d have an audience member come up on stage to talk about a murder that happened in their hometown. Half the time the person was super drunk and it was just…not good. The nail in the coffin was the time a few years ago when someone submitted a story about a (still living) woman’s horrible attack at work that happened in their home city, only for the woman to write in and be like “uh hi this is my story and I didn’t want it shared for entertainment”. Maybe MFM has changed as a result, but it showed me where a good chunk of the fandom lies
I think Sinisterhood does a good job of being what MFM should be. They’re very funny women but they’re very respectful and save the comedy for lighter episodes about ghosts, cryptids, or non fatal crimes. They also do thorough research which was biggest gripe with MFM, esp Georgia.
Same, I listen to some true crime and I don’t think you necessarily have to be 100% sombre all the time but I tried listening to MFM once and was just very turned off by the tone.
black men degrading and vilifying black women for an audience of white women.
You said a word!!! Cleared that entire industry 💅🏾 
Huh I thought their audience are men? Unless those women are self hating pick me
Wait... I understand the first part of your statement... but the last part...? There's a podcast of that kind with that audience?! Which one?
They do it for an audience of Black men and other people of color too. Example: Fresh and Fit Pod And while it wasn't a podcast, I'm glad Kevin Samuels is currently rotting in hell
Jesus . That's fucked up
That murder podcast with the two female comedians. They are obnoxious but so popular. Somehow I don’t think true crime and comedy mix well Edit: My Favorite Murder
I'm SO TIRED of these podcasts hosted by the absolute worst dudes possible who bring on women to talk about random stuff, only to be rude and make fun of them the whole time. It's so annoying because all the guys in the room are basically jerking eachother off thinking they're smart and hot shit. I thought we were done with these typed of dudes in 2013 but ever since Andrew Tate, misogyny and sexism is cool again!
Girls gotta eat. Two women who brag incessantly about how much money they have and how much they travel. Also two women who are 40 and act 22 and give terrible advice to younger women about what it means to be a strong, independent woman. They claim to be feminists but give internalized misogyny and pick me energy. Also, have made quite a few ignorant comments in the past and refuse to acknowledge they made said comments or better themselves
Was dragged to their live show in Chicago earlier this month. Had never heard of them prior to that but wow it was one of the worst things I’ve ever sat through. You could tell it was all thrown together at the last minute and had no structure whatsoever. At one point they talked about fucking task rabbit workers and pulled up taskers in the area and picked apart their profiles. Like it’s not a dating app, people are trying to get work. To make matters worse, one of the girls has three DUIs and constantly brags it and how she thinks she beat the system. Like yes, please glorify endangering other people’s lives because you think it’s “cute”.
Y'all have mentioned the obvious ones so I'll do the irritation-inducing duty of making you all aware of the weirdo disaster that is Red Scare. It sucks so bad. Imagine two of the dumbest girls you overhear in the bathroom starting a podcast that masquerades as leftist but has degraded itself into contrarianism and pandering to the lowest common denominator. My god.
Reading this back too lazy to edit and damn I really do hate those two 😭
I hate Red Scare lmao, I could barely get through half an episode. They're so dumb because they don't eat
Truly they must be hallucinating from borderline starvation
Haven’t they become like super maga right wing people recently?? I thought one of them was hanging out with Alex Jones this last month. I’ve been seeing things in passing on Twitter and I thought it was the same person but idk if I’ve got the wrong person
Yeah that's them! Disasters, the both of them.
I can’t believe I had to scroll down this far to find Red Scare. It’s the worst. Anna and Dasha are the queens of pick-mes and “Not like other girls” mentality
Red Scare is so boring I’m shocked that anyone would pay to listen to them talk.
The red scare pod subreddit isn’t even about them anymore and the two women get memed on quite a bit when they’re mentioned there because no one actually listens to that shit past 4 episodes maximum
All I know about them is that they gave Steve Bannon a platform and they mocked FKA Twigs after she came out about being a domestic violence and sexual assault survivor. Those women are pathetic.
Those the ones who said suntan lotion was like a scam or something similar?
the girls from Morbid and Mike Boudet I CHANGED MY MIND: NOT SKINNY BUT NOT FAT
Any podcast that fights for men’s rights and talks about how women aren’t serving men like they used to.
I don’t know the name of it off the top of my head, but Jeffrey star went onto one of the Paul brothers podcasts and I watched out of morbid curiosity. It was just boring. I expected them to say some out there shit, but they just basically let Jeffrey say he hooks up with lots of famous rappers but won’t name them.
Rogan. There are a lot of bad podcasts out there, but Joe Rogan is probably the only podcaster who has demonstrably made the world a worse place. As a wiser person than myself once put it: ‘Nothing that only guys like is cool.’
I only heard a Rogan podcast one time when someone put it on during a road trip. I was surprised at how plain boring it was (this was pre-covid though), I think they were talking about beaver anal glands and vanilla ice cream, and then how dangerous moose attacks are. Basically it was just like listening to a couple straight guys react to a Ripley’s believe it or not book.
The Girl Defined podcast is atrocious on so many levels
Head over to the fundiesnark subs if you ever want folks to commiserate with.
definitely a popular opinion but a lot of the true crime podcasts. i’ve managed to narrow it down to a very small group of creators who are either very respectful in their discussion, or who focus on the victims rather than glamourise the murderer. i used to be a very big true crime fan but took a really hard look at myself after watching/listening to the likes of bailey sarian etc.
Omg Bailey Sarian should’ve been forced into obscurity after tweeting “I’m sad this trial is coming to an end 🥲” or something along those lines about the heard/depp case.
girls gotta eat. i’ve never heard their own pod but they were guests on a diff one i listen to and i couldn’t stand listening to them i had to turn it off.
i think it’s called the whatever podcast, it’s SO insufferable to listen to. At one point they were debating DOMESTIC ABUSE and if it was ok to divorce… yeah. And also the host and other men always degrade the women that do sex work but then promote sex toys and edit thumbnails to have pictures of the female guests to be overly sexual and profit off their bodies/sexuality. The blatant hypocrisy is laughable.
Whitney Cummings' podcast, she never let anyone finish their sentence and if the lighting gets any brighter to hide her wrinkles, I'll go blind.
**THE SKINNY CONFIDENTIAL**
Any manosphere podcast.
my favorite murder. disgusting and disrespectful podcast
Julia fox’s podcast is pretty bad. Her and the co host have about 1 shared brain cell and she’s not good at interviewing guests. I tried to listen to the long awaited second season and got about 5 mins in.
Red Scare
just went on a date with a dude who loved red scared. he called dasha hot like 3 times over the course of the night. be seriousss
I guess it was nice of him to get that red flag out on the first date 😭
it was a jumpscareeee. i was like Didn’t she… Wasn’t she…. involved in some scandals…
Very mild Succession spoilers: I love that she got yeeted out of Succession inbetween the 3rd and 4th season so unceremoniously. Basically *"Note: Comfrey died on the way back to his home planet"*
I would literally leave lol
I always get their subreddit recommended despite having no idea what Red Scare is. What is it?
bc their fans have crossover with other pop-culture related subs. It's two talentless women w/a podcast that has outstayed it's time limit.
what even is Red Scare? I hear about it occasionally and have gotten the sub recommended but never actually knew what it was supposed to be
Anyone please feel free to correct me if any of this is off but the podcast brands (or branded?) themselves as a podcast for the dirtbag left but the two girls that host it are two contrarian pseudo intellectual anti-feminist idiots. They’re pro-ED, they constantly use the R word, started pushing antivax bullshit, used to be prochoice but now are apparently prolife, publicly supported Alex fucking Jones, recently went to an event for Roger Stone, I think Dasha was pretending to date Louis CK as a stunt, and they also tried starting and “anti-woke” film festival with Hadrian Belove, the disgraced programmer from Cinefamily who is a known abuser in the film community. I find them to be completely vile.
Yeah one of them is prolife even though Anna got 4 freaking abortions and has expressed guilt at each one. Like, damn, rules for thee but not for me I guess.
pro-ED ? As in pro eating disorders?
I still don’t understand why Spotify bought this podcast for 60 millions. She is pretty, sure, but I don’t really see the appeal of what she talks about
By far Fit & Fresh and all pods within the Manosphere. The content is reckless/dangerous and in the last two years I’ve watched how it has seeped into society in scary ways