Help, send podcast recs, or how I learned to have standards and hate Cool Zone Media
I'm seeking good current events political slop. Yes, "good" and "slop" sound mutually exclusive, but Chapo fits the bill. When I'm able to handle something more heady I listen to Citations Needed, Rania Khalek's Dispatches, Drop Site, Caitlin Johnstone, Rev Left, Guerrilla History, Electronic Intifada, but lately I've been too depressed to do much except play videogames and listen to easily-digestible podcasts where I don't have to catch all the details. And all these shows are either too serious / dense / require mental faculties and presence, and/or are too emotionally grueling to make for easy background listening.
Of the "easy listening" I had, I burned through Chapo, Bad Hasbara, what I could tolerate of Better Offline, and then I was out of good slop. I haven't really liked Trillbillies, Trash Future, or TrueAnon, so what's left? Is that it?
In desperation to fill the silence with voices, I tried to go back to an old and problematic ex: the Robert Fedvans projects Behind the Bastards and It Could Happen Here. Which reminded me how insufferable that media project is. I think I broke listening to Mia Wong trying to give an analysis of the tariffs that didn't really make a lot of sense and then she concluded with what seemed like forced laughs and gloating about how unhinged and doomed Trump's economic shenanigans were, closing out with a sudden shift to intense prognostication of the Trump Regime's inevitable downfall due to these self-destructive policies.
And I realized these are the things I dislike about Cool Zone Media: their brand of "humor" is just forcing themselves to laugh at things that aren't funny, and then they end with unwarranted optimism. It's not just Mia, Robert does that too, Gare does it a lot, they're all either doing an act or have a culture that makes them this way / selects for people who will think this way. But the end result is that, for all these people like to position themselves as radical leftists, their media project just ends up feeling like liberal cope. Not Clintonite levels of liberalism, maybe Bernard levels. They're just telling people that everything will work out. It explains to me why the people I knew in non-hexbearian life who liked this project the most all ended up being radlib crackkkers who were perfectly fine throwing Palestine under the bus for the sake of the Biden/Harris/Walz campaign. I think they liked the sense of comfort that CZM's projects provided against the most dangerous threat ever, Donald Trump. Speaking of which, I think what really got me to stop listening to anything from Cool Zone Media was that they barely talked about Palestine at all and when they did they were pretty mealymouthed about it. I should have unsubscribed from their feeds but I didn't get around to it.
Anyway what's good to listen to that I don't have to be very mentally checked in, competent, or emotionally tough to handle?
ZWQbpkzl [none/use name] - 4mon
20
Damarcusart [he/him, comrade/them] - 4mon
It me, but in reverse.
8
CommunistCuddlefish [she/her] - 4mon
I mean yes if I were doing OK I would not be consuming podcasts at such a high rate that I'd run out of them, because I'd be doing other things.
5
ZWQbpkzl [none/use name] - 4mon
Move to history podcasts.
1
imaginaryfriend @lemmygrad.ml - 4mon
I'd say give True Anon another chance. If you haven't, try their series on JFK before you abandon them completely.
8
CommunistCuddlefish [she/her] - 4mon
I will try.
4
Weedian [he/him] - 4mon
listen to The Game series, Dude Where's My Dad? series, and the Spider Network series
also the JSOC episode with guest Seth Harp is great
10
freagle @lemmygrad.ml - 4mon
The Deprogram
Empire Files
Economic Update
7
CommunistCuddlefish [she/her] - 4mon
Hadn't heard of Deprogram! Empire Files is also great. Thanks!
4
SteamedHamberder [he/him] - 4mon
I will always love economic update if only for the bargain bin 50 cent hook on the intro.
2
EllenKelly [comrade/them] - 4mon
I like 5-4 the podcast about the us supreme court, know your enemy, citations needed (obviously)
i tried listening to behind the bastards again recently and there's a 3 minute ad break every 12 minutes, they have nothing to discuss over a 4 episode 5 hour 'show', all they do is say mean things followed by 'shut up, i love you'
i dont really listen to much else, a few different people from the proles pod started making stuff again, it wasnt bad
6
EllenKelly [comrade/them] - 4mon
Oh abby martin's podcast is probably good, maybe check out means.tv too
4
disco [any] - 4mon
Have you listened to Blowback yet? Everything they've put out has been great.
There's also QAA, which is mostly focused on dissecting weird right wing movements (originally about Q anon but much broader now)
As an aside I liked Cool Zone Media a lot and listened to all their shit for a while, the thing that finally stopped me was when they were running recruitment ads for the Washington State Sherrif's department during BLM lol
5
CommunistCuddlefish [she/her] - 4mon
I have listened to some Blowback and I loved the seasons I listened to, forgot to include it in the former category of "things that warrant more attention".
One issue i had with it is their sound dynamics. The volume swings too much and my ears are very sensitive so when they go from normal volume to SUPER LOUD it hurts and that's part of why I stopped listening.
Edit: I also used to like CZM a lot and listened to a bunch of their stuff. The Wim Hoff eps of BTB were legitimately funny and I used them to help talk someone out of listening to that grifter. I think their quality went down or they got co-opted or liberalized or something, I'm not sure what. Could just be that the heightening contradictions of capitalism and imperialism are revealing more fracture lines than we previously knew about.
Allegedly podcasters have no control over what gets advertised but lmao at that timing anyway.
Also thanks for QAA but I made a decision long ago that I kind of didn't need to know the details about weird right wing movements because my approach to all of those right wingers is made very simple by their virulent racism: they want me dead, therefore I want them dead, and I don't need to know anything more about the particular ways they're contorting themselves into knots to justify and rationalize their xenomisia.
2
plinky [he/him] - 4mon
more civilized age is a fun fantasy escape, if you have some bits of you caring about star wars
4
CommunistCuddlefish [she/her] - 4mon
Thank you and my apologies comrade, but the bits of me that cared about star wars died long ago.
3
spudnik [he/him, they/them] - 4mon
If you like history: We're Not So Different
It's a podcast about the medieval era generally, with two cool hosts who understand materialism. If you liked Chapo's Hell on Earth, you can probably find quite a few eps of WNSD you'll enjoy
4
sexywheat [none/use name] - 4mon
Colonial Outcasts
Geopolitical Economy Report
3
CommunistCuddlefish [she/her] - 4mon
Hell yeah these look great, thank you
3
Biggay [he/him, comrade/them] - 4mon
Try fivetofour and All Lawyers Are Bastards. 5-4 has a substantial backlog that is decently relevant, ALAB is sparse but what there is is pretty good.
3
ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them] - 4mon
My ultimate podcasts are Quorators, Pendejo Time, Guys and Bigsoftitty.png, the latter being an exemplar of the category
Oh, and Boonta Vista obviously
3
CommunistCuddlefish [she/her] - 4mon
Bigsoftitty.png
That's quite the name to just throw out there without any "it's about ____", go on....
Quorators looks right up my alley, and Boonta Vista I was skeptical of til I read this review on their site:
"I listened to this show and it make my brain so big and hard and now I can’t get it off the floor. Send. Help. Please." - Reverend Doctor Hubbard via Apple Podcasts, Australia
Thanks for the recs!
4
segfault11 [she/her, any] - 4mon
Kill the Computer/Western Kabuki and Panic World are good podcasts about the intersection between online culture and contemporary politics
Remember Shuffle is about analyzing 2000s culture through a dirtbag left lens, if it piques your interest, they've had an episode with and Chris Wade
3
JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them] - 4mon
The Dollop can be fun.
3
Weedian [he/him] - 4mon
Ghost Stories for the End of the World. its super dense but really good. the early stuff can be a little rough in regards to the production quality but luckily the creator basically remade the first series in the new "Belgian X-Files" series. for a good stand alone entry check out one of the Halloween "Tales From the Graveyard Bunker" episodes
3
batsforpeace [any, any] - 4mon
I needed to take a break from politics/news podcasts as well in the last few weeks so I listened to a lot of get played and get animed (this one is paywalled). It's 3 people talking about games and anime they watched together, I think it has too many bit attempts and jokes BUT the banter about games is quite good actually, politically they might be typical bernie type soc dems from california, I'm not sure if they go any further than that. Found them because Jathan from this machine kills mentioned them once.
More generally I still listen to the tech shows once in a while like tech won't save us or this machine kills, system crash is on pause, I think 404 media are not leftists but they sometimes have interesting stuff, same for better offline, I have a suspicion Ed Zitron is pro-west/NATO though based on one comment he made about Russia, could be wrong though. I still need to check mystery AI hype theater 3000 to see if it's good.
Still listen to trillbillies once in a while, especially when Aaron is on, could never listen to chapo, trashfuture, or the newer trueanon eps, don't really like their jokes, they kinda force you to sit through 50% of their jokes to get to the other 50%. The socialist program with Brian Becker and Layan Fuleihan is pretty good. Still never miss tankie group therapy, and sometimes check other the east is a podcast eps, Sina's long train of thought takes are always interesting and good listening. Sometimes rev left and red menace too (they cross post eps between each other). Sometimes american prestige but they invite a lot of random think tank types and mainstream academics so some eps are a waste of time, their news round ups are pretty good.
Sometimes I’ll just throw on a random one from the Michael Parenti collection too.
CommunistCuddlefish in podcasts
Help, send podcast recs, or how I learned to have standards and hate Cool Zone Media
I'm seeking good current events political slop. Yes, "good" and "slop" sound mutually exclusive, but Chapo fits the bill. When I'm able to handle something more heady I listen to Citations Needed, Rania Khalek's Dispatches, Drop Site, Caitlin Johnstone, Rev Left, Guerrilla History, Electronic Intifada, but lately I've been too depressed to do much except play videogames and listen to easily-digestible podcasts where I don't have to catch all the details. And all these shows are either too serious / dense / require mental faculties and presence, and/or are too emotionally grueling to make for easy background listening.
Of the "easy listening" I had, I burned through Chapo, Bad Hasbara, what I could tolerate of Better Offline, and then I was out of good slop. I haven't really liked Trillbillies, Trash Future, or TrueAnon, so what's left? Is that it?
In desperation to fill the silence with voices, I tried to go back to an old and problematic ex: the Robert Fedvans projects Behind the Bastards and It Could Happen Here. Which reminded me how insufferable that media project is. I think I broke listening to Mia Wong trying to give an analysis of the tariffs that didn't really make a lot of sense and then she concluded with what seemed like forced laughs and gloating about how unhinged and doomed Trump's economic shenanigans were, closing out with a sudden shift to intense prognostication of the Trump Regime's inevitable downfall due to these self-destructive policies.
And I realized these are the things I dislike about Cool Zone Media: their brand of "humor" is just forcing themselves to laugh at things that aren't funny, and then they end with unwarranted optimism. It's not just Mia, Robert does that too, Gare does it a lot, they're all either doing an act or have a culture that makes them this way / selects for people who will think this way. But the end result is that, for all these people like to position themselves as radical leftists, their media project just ends up feeling like liberal cope. Not Clintonite levels of liberalism, maybe Bernard levels. They're just telling people that everything will work out. It explains to me why the people I knew in non-hexbearian life who liked this project the most all ended up being radlib crackkkers who were perfectly fine throwing Palestine under the bus for the sake of the Biden/Harris/Walz campaign. I think they liked the sense of comfort that CZM's projects provided against the most dangerous threat ever, Donald Trump. Speaking of which, I think what really got me to stop listening to anything from Cool Zone Media was that they barely talked about Palestine at all and when they did they were pretty mealymouthed about it. I should have unsubscribed from their feeds but I didn't get around to it.
Anyway what's good to listen to that I don't have to be very mentally checked in, competent, or emotionally tough to handle?
It me, but in reverse.
I mean yes if I were doing OK I would not be consuming podcasts at such a high rate that I'd run out of them, because I'd be doing other things.
Move to history podcasts.
I'd say give True Anon another chance. If you haven't, try their series on JFK before you abandon them completely.
I will try.
listen to The Game series, Dude Where's My Dad? series, and the Spider Network series
also the JSOC episode with guest Seth Harp is great
The Deprogram
Empire Files
Economic Update
Hadn't heard of Deprogram! Empire Files is also great. Thanks!
I will always love economic update if only for the bargain bin 50 cent hook on the intro.
I like 5-4 the podcast about the us supreme court, know your enemy, citations needed (obviously)
i tried listening to behind the bastards again recently and there's a 3 minute ad break every 12 minutes, they have nothing to discuss over a 4 episode 5 hour 'show', all they do is say mean things followed by 'shut up, i love you'
i dont really listen to much else, a few different people from the proles pod started making stuff again, it wasnt bad
Oh abby martin's podcast is probably good, maybe check out means.tv too
Have you listened to Blowback yet? Everything they've put out has been great.
There's also QAA, which is mostly focused on dissecting weird right wing movements (originally about Q anon but much broader now)
As an aside I liked Cool Zone Media a lot and listened to all their shit for a while, the thing that finally stopped me was when they were running recruitment ads for the Washington State Sherrif's department during BLM lol
I have listened to some Blowback and I loved the seasons I listened to, forgot to include it in the former category of "things that warrant more attention".
One issue i had with it is their sound dynamics. The volume swings too much and my ears are very sensitive so when they go from normal volume to SUPER LOUD it hurts and that's part of why I stopped listening.
Edit: I also used to like CZM a lot and listened to a bunch of their stuff. The Wim Hoff eps of BTB were legitimately funny and I used them to help talk someone out of listening to that grifter. I think their quality went down or they got co-opted or liberalized or something, I'm not sure what. Could just be that the heightening contradictions of capitalism and imperialism are revealing more fracture lines than we previously knew about.
Allegedly podcasters have no control over what gets advertised but lmao at that timing anyway.
Also thanks for QAA but I made a decision long ago that I kind of didn't need to know the details about weird right wing movements because my approach to all of those right wingers is made very simple by their virulent racism: they want me dead, therefore I want them dead, and I don't need to know anything more about the particular ways they're contorting themselves into knots to justify and rationalize their xenomisia.
more civilized age is a fun fantasy escape, if you have some bits of you caring about star wars
Thank you and my apologies comrade, but the bits of me that cared about star wars died long ago.
If you like history: We're Not So Different
It's a podcast about the medieval era generally, with two cool hosts who understand materialism. If you liked Chapo's Hell on Earth, you can probably find quite a few eps of WNSD you'll enjoy
Colonial Outcasts
Geopolitical Economy Report
Hell yeah these look great, thank you
Try fivetofour and All Lawyers Are Bastards. 5-4 has a substantial backlog that is decently relevant, ALAB is sparse but what there is is pretty good.
My ultimate
podcasts are Quorators, Pendejo Time, Guys and Bigsoftitty.png, the latter being an exemplar of the category
Oh, and Boonta Vista obviously
That's quite the name to just throw out there without any "it's about ____", go on....
Quorators looks right up my alley, and Boonta Vista I was skeptical of til I read this review on their site:
Thanks for the recs!
Kill the Computer/Western Kabuki and Panic World are good podcasts about the intersection between online culture and contemporary politics
Remember Shuffle is about analyzing 2000s culture through a dirtbag left lens, if it piques your interest, they've had an episode with
and Chris Wade
The Dollop can be fun.
Ghost Stories for the End of the World. its super dense but really good. the early stuff can be a little rough in regards to the production quality but luckily the creator basically remade the first series in the new "Belgian X-Files" series. for a good stand alone entry check out one of the Halloween "Tales From the Graveyard Bunker" episodes
I needed to take a break from politics/news podcasts as well in the last few weeks so I listened to a lot of get played and get animed (this one is paywalled). It's 3 people talking about games and anime they watched together, I think it has too many bit attempts and jokes BUT the banter about games is quite good actually, politically they might be typical bernie type soc dems from california, I'm not sure if they go any further than that. Found them because Jathan from this machine kills mentioned them once.
More generally I still listen to the tech shows once in a while like tech won't save us or this machine kills, system crash is on pause, I think 404 media are not leftists but they sometimes have interesting stuff, same for better offline, I have a suspicion Ed Zitron is pro-west/NATO though based on one comment he made about Russia, could be wrong though. I still need to check mystery AI hype theater 3000 to see if it's good.
Still listen to trillbillies once in a while, especially when Aaron is on, could never listen to chapo, trashfuture, or the newer trueanon eps, don't really like their jokes, they kinda force you to sit through 50% of their jokes to get to the other 50%. The socialist program with Brian Becker and Layan Fuleihan is pretty good. Still never miss tankie group therapy, and sometimes check other the east is a podcast eps, Sina's long train of thought takes are always interesting and good listening. Sometimes rev left and red menace too (they cross post eps between each other). Sometimes american prestige but they invite a lot of random think tank types and mainstream academics so some eps are a waste of time, their news round ups are pretty good.
Sometimes I’ll just throw on a random one from the Michael Parenti collection too.