Saturday, January 16, 2016

The Netflix Effect,


Today seems to be a day of small projects and while I have been working on them I have been listening to podcasts (I’ve been actively trying to cut down on my TV time lately), but something terrible and horrible just happened: I listened to all the episodes.
This keeps happening lately!


Literally this is the THIRD time this has happened this week. All of the new podcasts I’ve started are current and ongoing and my brain has been trained by Netflix binges to want 12 full hours of content! I don’t have cable anymore and watch everything through an Apple TV and it is a good thing because I don’t think I am capable any longer of being happy with ONE episode of something. I am an American after all. I want ALL OF THE THINGS RIGHT NOW!


Thank god This American Life has been on for 300 years and has a virtually inexhaustible archive of shows. That Ira Glass always knows how to make me happy.


In case you’re curious, these are the podcasts I started listening to this week. I recommend all of them:

Serial, Season Two (only 4 episodes so far!)
After the cultural juggernaut that was season one, you don’t need me to explain to you what this is.

The West Wing History Class (only 4 episodes so far!)
This is really wonky, but so is my love of the West Wing, a television show that has been off the air for like a decade. Each episode of the podcast is just two guys talking about each episode of The West Wing. They are wrong about all kinds of stuff and I should be a guest on this show so that I can set them straight.

The Minimalists Podcast (only 3 episodes so far!)
If you’re unfamiliar with The Minimalists, they’re sort of the rockstars of and standardbearers of the resurgent minimalist living cultural movement. Their website is kind of a big deal in certain circles and they finally have a podcast. If you’re unfamiliar with this minimalism idea it can sound kind of cultish sometimes, but really it is about removing all the stuff from one’s life and I think we could all use a little less stuff.

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