When I first came to college, I had a very hard time falling asleep. I’d toss, turn, flip, groan, and bang my head against the pillow in hopes of getting some shut eye. One particularly torturous evening, I decided to fiddle with the apps on my iPhone I’d never bothered to open. Intrigued, I stumbled upon the podcast app and decided to see what it was all about. Knowing little about this form of entertainment, I naturally went to the top charts and tapped on the first one, "Serial."
From the moment I tapped on "Serial" I was hooked. Instead of blasting upbeat pop on the elliptical, I would catch up on world news with NPR and have a better understanding of what was happening in my community. Hank and John Green’s show "Dear Hank and John" has been here to offer up advice, poetry, fourth tier English soccer facts, and cool Mars facts to wow my friends. Rather than scroll Netflix with little purpose, I found myself watching "Gilmore Girls" along with the always amusing men of "Gilmore Guys." Podcasts became my sanctuary for sleepless nights, lonely meals, and a way to make a boring walk across campus extraordinary.
Further researching into this new (to me) form of entertainment, I discovered I am not the only one to enter this medium of art. According to NY Magazine, we have entered a golden age of podcasts, in which independent artists are able to flourish. It’s much more cost effective to record, edit, produce and publish podcasts than the average radio/TV programming. This paves the way for several artists to create what they want, not what they believe will sell well. Creators can cater their shows to the mainstream, but still have plenty of freedom to produce for the fringe groups.
Podcasts are taking over the journalism world and redefining broadcasting as we know it. You don’t even need to have an iPhone any more just to listen, either. Several apps such as Stitcher, Overcast, and Castro have been created to further the independent artist movement. Podcasts are relevant, real conversations happening on a weekly basis, staying up-to-date on the trends in listener content. Podcasts are, to the core, real people with real lives, having honest conversations about every topic under the sun.
Now, I can’t say I’ve found a cure to my insomnia, but I have found a sidekick to combat the sleepless nights. Podcasts have offered my crazy-hectic life a way of winding down and having a good laugh at any time of the day. I’m grateful to live in an age in which if I wake up tomorrow and decide I want to create a podcast dedicated to my love of overheard conversations, I have a medium to produce it. Now, considering I am writing this on one of my sleepless nights, I’m going to set the sleep timer on my most current episode of "Not Too Deep with Grace Helbig," and say goodnight.
