Busting The Myth Of Podcast Exceptionalism

PP306 - Busting The Myth Of Podcast Exceptionalism

Evo Terra: [00:00:00] Making a podcast is a lot of things hard, rewarding fun, but there's one thing, making a podcast is not exceptional, and the sooner you come to grips with that harsh reality, the better for your podcast.

[00:00:21] Hello, and welcome to another podcast. Pontifications with me, Evo. Tara. Podcasting is not special. It is not as evidenced by the 1 million shows that are listed in Apple podcasts right now. It's not a great feat to make a podcast. It does not take, for the vast majority of us, heroic efforts. Maybe it did, actually.

[00:00:50] It really didn't. But nonetheless, let's pretend that maybe it did back in the day, but it's, as I've said, many times getting easier and easier to make a podcast, and as I just said, there are over a million available, so clearly it's not super difficult yet. It is shrouded in this sea of exceptionalism.

[00:01:13] And by that I don't mean from the general listening public, although maybe some of the people out there that you meet will say, wow, you've a podcast. Oh, that's amazing. Well, I don't really think that happens a lot. It's been more of a Oh, good for you than really anything. No, that, that air of whatever I called it a moment ago, that we're surrounded by this exceptionalism.

[00:01:38] It seems to come from within the community. It seems to come from with them, the community, especially the more community minded aspects of this community, and don't get me wrong, I'm, I think it's great that anybody wants to start a podcast. It can start a podcast. Yes. I think it's great that there are really cheap tools and really free tools that allow people to explore their creativity.

[00:02:08] Behind a microphone, even if that's the cheapo onboard microphone that comes through their computer. That's great. I'm not suggesting at any point of what I'm going to tell you today. I'm not suggesting that we should make it harder or we should Institute gatekeepers in the way. I'm just saying, and I always hate it when someone says, I'm just saying, but I said it.

[00:02:32] I'm just saying. That the act of having a podcast is an exceptional and we shouldn't treat it that way.

[00:02:43] I'm an author as well, and by I'm an author it means I've written like five different books and before I wrote a book I thought, wow, this is really hard. Writing a book must be a difficult thing, and in fact, writing a book is a difficult thing. It requires time, energy, and effort to sit down and focus.

[00:03:03] But realistically, it's just putting words on a paper, you know, it's typing or writing out long form if that's what you want to do. And once you've done it, and once any other published author can confess to this, you look back and you go, wow, that was hard, but it wasn't really exceptional. Especially that first draft you wrote right now, that wasn't exceptional at all.

[00:03:30] Was it? That was uttered garbage because that's what first dress are. They're made better over time. Musicians. Have you know the idea of making it big? Well, if there's a several steps you have to go through to get there, you're playing in the band when you're in the garage with your friends, maybe a scrape together, enough money to go sit inside a recording studio and kick out an album or two.

[00:03:55] But that was effort. Ma'am. You wrote all those songs. Wow. That's great. You made an effort to make that album, that CD, that, that MP3 stick. Wonderful. Not really exceptional though, is it? I mean. There's a lot out there. Same thing for drawing. If you are a sketch artist and you sketch on your iPod or iPad sketch on your iPad and your notebook, various things, it's great that you want to explore that creativity, but it doesn't make the out put of that exceptional.

[00:04:33] Just the act in and of itself is not enough to become exceptional. I'm harping on this. I've wanted to talk about this for some time. Right now it's going back to the community, the community minded people out there who again, I think is great. I think people need encouragement, especially when they're jumping into this right out of the bat and they'd have no idea what they want to do.

[00:04:58] I think it's wonderful that we have places where people can go and get mostly nonjudgmental assistance. I think that all needs to continue. There's a negative aspect to that, and that is that there is the assumption that what everyone is going to make is going to be great and it's not. There's the assumption that, okay, everything that is created is somehow worthy of praise and it's not.

[00:05:33] I'm okay with praising kids for taking efforts. I'm okay with praising grownups for taking efforts and doing things, but I also want to inject a little bit of harsh reality into the world, and that is, it's great that you're exploring something and having fun. It's great that it is rewarding to you. It's great that you went through the pain and suffering to do it.

[00:05:56] But that doesn't make it exceptional. That makes it great for you and maybe the group of people that are associated with that thing. And here's the trick. Maybe that's all that it needs. I mean, if it's hard work that was rewarding to you and fun, why wouldn't you keep doing it? That's great. You don't need it to be exceptional to anybody else, but you.

[00:06:20] I try never to call anybody out and I'm not calling anybody out. When they put out content to for the world here that is not fantastic. That's fine. I mean, I'm not going to call somebody out cause a lot of times you don't know. And I think that's one of the negative aspects that comes out of this big kumbaya hug that we have in the podcasting community of which I've been a part of and encouraged.

[00:06:46] Is that we're not letting people understand that the difference between something that is really worthy of being shared with the entire world and something that is just, Hey, if you like my stuff, that's great. I think a lot of the cheerleaders out there who are pushing people to promote your work and say great things and celebrate your ex, uh.

[00:07:07] I think deep down inside they all think the same thing. Yeah. If you should be celebrating those things, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're worthy of getting a billion downloads, which nobody has. By the way,

[00:07:21] it's this tricky thing when you encourage people to make something and they made something that fits their own criteria, what success looks like, and then it goes out to the world. And you find that that other people in the world have different criteria for success and quality. You find that quickly that Sturgeon's law applies in all things, and that's a, that's a tough road to hoe.

[00:07:50] That's a tough place to be when you recognize that your baby is your baby, but it's not everybody else's baby. Again, that doesn't mean you should quit. That means you should do the things you want to do that are hard, rewarding, and fun for you. But if you really want it to be exceptional, it might take more than that and then you might not have it, and that needs to be okay, or you have to work really hard and find a way to where you do have it.

[00:08:25] But just note making a podcast in and of itself, it's nothing special about that. So with that bit of a downer note, I will say, Hey, don't send this to someone who needs to hear it, because then you'd be a rude person. However, if you do need some words of encouragement shared with other people, by all means find a podcast or tell them about podcast.

[00:08:48] Pontifications. Dot com and if you are so inclined, even after I burst the door, burst your bubble to throw me a little support. You can go to buy me a coffee.com/evo Terra and who knows if I get a few more of those. Maybe I'll have happier, more upbeat things to say or not, but that's okay. I want to be that contrary and voice and podcasting and sometimes some things need to be said.

[00:09:14] Enjoy the rest of your Tuesday. I shall be back tomorrow with yet another podcast. Pontifications cheers.

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