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I'm looking to stock up on podcasts, whether in Mandarin, French or English. Don't worry about my tastes I'll sort it out later
But share good podcasts in other languages if you know any (it might be useful for other people)
For true crime I really like Murder in America
I mostly go for nonfiction stuff related to current events or history. Unfortunately some of these aren’t free.
Slow Burn - Each season goes deep on a particular event in recent (US) history. Quality falls off a bit after the first few seasons.
Fiasco - produced and hosted by the the guy that did the first 2 seasons of Slow Burn. Also US centric.
History on Fire - Haven’t listened to too much of this yet but was suggested the episode on Ötzi the Iceman which made me a fan. Probably the only one on here that isn’t US centric.
Throghline from NPR. Another history-ish podcast but focuses on current issues and the history behind them.
Going to check out some of these suggestions.
I don't listen to podcasts often. But I like:
Citations Needed: a podcast about media. Basically goes into how media covers some events and topics from a leftist perspective.
Cane and Rinse: video game discussions and analyses. Each episode covers a specific game
Citations Needed: a podcast about media. Basically goes into how media covers some events and topics from a leftist perspective.
Interesting. I'll check this out.
And if you like Sawbones, check out My Brother, My Brother, and Me.
It’s a comedy advice podcast from the lovable idiot and his two brothers. It’s great fun, and was referenced in the musical Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda is a big fan).
I listen to many, but here's my favorites:
If you like The Beef and Dairy Network, you may like 3 Bean Salad. It’s Ben Partridge with two other comedians, Henry Packer and Mike Wozniak. Starting at episode 1 helps with the in-jokes, but otherwise it’s all standalone episodes.
I like planet money from NPR
I'm surprised I didn't see anyone recommend The Adventure Zone, especially the first season. One of the best actual play podcasts out there, especially the first two seasons.
I'll recommend some hidden gems that need more love:
Mabel: A woman works as a live in nurse for an elderly woman, and the show is voicemails she's leaving to her ward's estranged daughter. It's poetic and beautiful, and then strange events start occurring.
Dark Ages: a fantasy workplace comedy where an unpopular museum gets a new exhibit, the crown of the Dark Lord, who terrorized the country hundreds of years ago.... Who just recently was resurrected and wants it back. Probably the best produced shows I've listened to with a great intro song.
The Cryptonaturalist: a very normal nature show that is normal about normal nature. Also has poetry! Actually feel good podcast.
Wolf 359: science crew is in a remote space station, and picks up a radio signal out of nowhere. Starts off funny, then gets wild.
Brimstone Valley Mall: three demons disguised as humans, working at a mall in the 90s.
Cult Or Just Weird: in depth dives into things which could be a cult or are just weird.
Wooden Overcoats: British comedy podcast about a funeral home in a small village suddenly having to deal with competition
Everything Is Alive: interviews with inanimate objects
Uncanny County: Welcome to Nightvale meets Twilight Zone but it's also funny
Also there's podcast versions of books written on the Internet, which I'll plug here!
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky: What if Harry was not an idiot and knew what science was and was actually supported at home? Fixes a lot of dumb plot holes from the original series and frankly, is better. Also explores rationalist thinking!
Worm by Wildbow: This is literally my favorite book and will make you never see the superhero genera the same again. Superpowers can happen to anyone seemingly at random. A young woman gets the power to control insects and wants to be a hero, but after meeting some villains the line between hero and villain blurs. There's a chapter that's one short sentence long and I've had conversations over an hour long about what it meant.
-Twig by Wildbow: A world where mad, Frankensteinian science took off instead of the regular kind. Follows a child experiment and his fellow childhood experiment friends on adventures for the definitely evil empire!
Pact by, you guessed it, Wildbow: Guy who just pulled himself out of homelessness who hates his crazy manipulative family gets the inheritance from his grandmother, which he didn't want. Turns out that also involves also inheriting the karma from his family, who were practicing the most hated form of magic possible, diabalism. So now the whole magical community is actively trying to kill him as he's scrambling to survive
Also if you like audio books, check stuff out from your library, too. It helps them out and helps them get funding when people do stuff like that.
Dungeons and Daddies is one I've been working through recently, its a DND actual play, has some talented people, they had an episode with another podcast hey riddle riddle, not gotten to them yet but they seemed good too.
I loved Stephen Fry's Deadly Sins and Leap Years
The only podcaster I listen to is John Goblikon. And whatever podcaster he is interviewing. And whatever podcaster has him as a guest the next week.
Episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia-97sBw85g
I use podcasts to escape so I more lean towards comedy podcasts. My top is
Regulation Podcast (PREVIOUSLY F**kFace)
My Brother My Brother and Me
Clutch my Pearls
We're Here to Help
Then more seriously
Swindled
Nerdland Podcast
My time has come! I have a podcast for everything. What do you like?
I subscribe to over 250 podcasts. -_- I don’t listen to all of them every day, and many aren’t in production anymore.
I love to listen and learn.
Unexplainable - Explainers on scientific mysteries, each episode is less than 30 minutes
What Went Wrong - Behind the scenes movie podcast. It’s a miracle any movie gets made.
Song Exploder - Musicians take apart their songs, layer by layer and talk about how it was made
Hysteria - Politics and News focusing on how the issues affect women
Levar Burton Reads - Levar Burton reads short stories. Not in production anymore, but there are almost 200 episodes worth of stories to hear
Hello From the Magic Tavern - A guy falls to another dimension but still gets WiFi so he started a podcast interviewing fantasy characters in that universe
Welcome to Night Vale - A fictional story told through a bi-monthly community updates radio broadcast. All conspiracies in Night Vale are real.
Hacked - Stories about hacking and internet crime.
Ologies - Science show about ‘-ologies’ careers
QAA is best podcast of the times
I enjoy the following rotation:
EconTalk - Interviews about all kinds of stuff with a classical liberal econ professor.
The Greatest Generation & Greatest Trek: Star Trek reviews with dick jokes and production notes
Joy, a Podcast. Hosted by Craig Ferguson
Love Worth Finding: sermons from Baptist minister Adrian Rogers
Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life: Presbyterian sermons
History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps: Peter Adamson goes over All. The. Philosophy. Ever. See the sister cast for non-Western philosophical schools.
In no particular order, I listen to all of them regularly:
Omnibus - general obscure history hosted by indie rocker John Roderick and Jeopardy's golden boy Ken Jennings
The Dollop - (mostly) American history with a leftist bent. One comedian reads a story the other hasn't heard before.
Not Another D&D Podcast - apologies for the first episode, but great world- and character-building. Really shows how great cooperative storytelling can be
Last Podcast on the Left - comedy/horror. Conspiracies, cults, UFOs, and other weird shit. Their historical deep dives are awesome.
I listen to these regularly, but there's a limited series podcast I like to recommend called S-Town. It's excellent, especially if you're from the southern US or grew up in a rural area. If you aren't from the south or a rural area, it'll probably be an extra-wild ride!
My medieval reenactment camp group is basically The Crick after we found a stump at our campsite.
The Constant by Mark Chrisler. It covers examples of all the different way people have been wrong throughout history like thinking birds flew to the moon for winter or how homeopathy started. I always find it super interesting and pretty funny too.
It's the only podcast I subscription to on patron.
These are some of my favorites, I'm sure I'm missing some though.
Second how did this get made, listened to it on the way back from a trip this afternoon. I avoid the "Live!" ones as they are usually very poorly mixed and often the audience gets involved so you just sit and listen to badly mixed laughter for 4 minutes. Go see em live if you want that experience.
I feel this way about most love recordings of podcasts (or anything for that matter, with the exception of standup comedy) - if I wanted live episodes I'd go see them live.
Lions Led By Donkeys! Weird and usually stupid military history, featuring everything from Roman warfare up to Vietnam.
I'll also toss in Well There's Your Problem. It's an engineering disasters podcast. With slides (if you're watching on YouTube).
If you want more in-universe crossover, Kill James Bond and What a Hell of a Way to Dad are also good. So is Failure to Launch
Behind the Basards, History of Rome and Revolutions by Mike Duncan, Hardcore History.
I see a bunch of other Cool Zone Media shows, but not Molly Conger's Weird Little Guys.
Her calm cadence and thorough exploration of specific American wingnuts is fun. And as far as I've seen, most of the stories end with the guy dead or in prison, so happy endings.
I've really been enjoying it!
Almost TOO detailed and well researched, but I think that's more on me for listening to her masterful work as distraction while doing other things.
I like fiction podcasts, and the main one I'm working through currently is The Magnus Archives. Each episode is a short first-person paranormal horror story, and they start out pretty standalone, eventually building more background and connections between the stories and adding more "frame story" about the people collecting these tales. I wouldn't say it's an SCP clone, but it's kind of shaped similarly.
Darknet diaries is one of my all time favorites.
If you like music analysis then Strong Songs is also interesting
And for a non serious listen I like to listen to Sherlock & Co, which is an amazing audioplay where Watson becomes a podcaster to deal with his PTSD. The adventures are self contained, so you can hop on any you like.
Darknet Diaries also has TOR website. Sadly it doesn't have latest episode, so I don't know if it will be updated.
I'll second Darknet Diaries! Hell of a podcast!
Srsly Wrong
Reply All
Dungeons and Daddies
The What If? Podcast
Turned Out A Punk
Something Rotten
Behind The Bastards
Went looking for Reply All. I found that podcast as my "first" podcast, I'd never gotten into any before. Listened from episode one every day for weeks, and suddenly.... They were announcing they were ending... I hadn't realized they had ended...
Because they hadn't yet. I somehow timed my listening of the whole show such that I heard the second or third last episode (where they first announced the ending) on the day it was put out... So I had to wait a week each for the last 2 episodes...
Great variety of content, despite the tagline...
404media.co has a really high quality one! They also got a 2024 award from EFF.
"Welcome to the podcast from 404 Media where Joseph, Sam, Emanuel, and Jason catch you up on the stories we published this week. 404 Media is a journalist-owned digital media company exploring the way technology is shaping–and is shaped by–our world. We bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds both online and IRL through investigative reporting, smart blogging, and breaking news. At 404 Media you’ll read, and hear, stories you can’t find anywhere else written by journalists who are leading experts on their beats."
My regular rotation (in order of how many of them I listen to, %):
Knowledge Fight. Dan listens to InfoWars so you don't have to.
He has immersed himself in the world of Alex Jones, InfoWars, and other right-wing shit-headerry for almost 8 years now, and he brings a depth of research and continuity to the conversation that nobody else really does. He goes beyond the usual "wow, what a hypocrite" criticism and thoroughly eviscerates anything even remotely resembling a valid point that these dicks make. His co-host, Jordan, screeches along in an occasionally hilarious fashion.
They're about to release their 1,000th episode, and virtually all of them are worth a listen (even going back to 2016-2017). It really shows how often people like Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Trump, Laura Loomer, and so forth have been overlapping and collaborating for years.
I absolutely love these:
It's a watch along podcast for quite possibly the lowest depths of US reality TV, Mountain Monsters.
Their other podcast The Dogg Zzone 9000 is at least as funny, though it is dependent upon which cursed media artifact from the wrong dimension which they're reviewing.
The Linux Experiment
A podcast I like to listen to that hasn't been mentioned yet: Opt Out
Opt Out is a podcast where I sit down with passionate people to learn why privacy matters to them, the tools and techniques they’ve found and leveraged, and where we encourage and inspire others towards personal privacy and data-sovereignty.