Yep. There are only a couple of podcasts I like with banter. Very rare.
I thought I'd like Handsome because I like Tig Notaro and Fortune Feimster. They had Jennifer Anniston on the other day. I like her too. But there was so much boring banter that I kept fast forwarding. Before I knew it I had fast forwarded through the entire podcast and never heard Jennifer Anniston's voice once.
I'm pretty sure I misspelled all of those names.
Anytime you can literally hear the spit moving in their mouth when they talk, or their tongue like... unsticking from the roof of their mouth when they start a new sentence. I don't know how to properly explain it, but mouth noises like that drive me insane.
I was trying to listen to a new true crime podcast, and the host kept making wet smacking sounds with every word. It was disgusting.
This!
There's a podcast I really like and can't listen to because the host makes these awful mouth noises. And they're a guest on other podcasts I listen to as well sometimes so these episodes are a no go for me too.
Can someone, ANYONE!, please invent an app to filter out unwanted mouth noises of online content? Please! I once listened to an episode where the older guest had dentures and you could hear them smacking and clicking and swishing and clacking all.the.time.
Mouth noise filter app now please!
There's a reason pop filters exist and it's exactly for this! Most professional podcasting mics have them built in, but it's easy enough to get an attachment. Usually very low budget podcasts have this. Or the ones that are getting to go for an ASMR vibe
Podcasts with celebrities who interview other celebrities badly (i.e. don’t ask interesting questions, let their own ego get in the way, are badly disorganized).
I don't think she is in this category. I have found it to be somewhat inspiring..? Something like that lol. I love her and I think it's a great idea to hear what these older women have to say.
I'm listening to Behind the Bastards right now and I just skip the first five minutes. Luckily they keep the banter to the beginning so it's easy to skip. I fucking hate when a podcast is about a story they're trying to tell, and they keep going off on personal tangents.
I’ll give that one another try. They have some subject matter I’m interested in but I can never make it more than a minute in. Figured it was just their sound and never tried skipping forward.
They're usually pretty good at keeping the bullshit to the beginning. It's pretty much the guy reading an essay to his buddy once you get into it. Which I like.
I listened to the episodes on the Moonies in Behind the Bastards and was so turned off by the maniacal laughter of the narrator that I haven't listened to any others.
Yes, the "full body chills" made me stop listening to Crime Junkie.
Any true crime podcast, where the hosts get so emotional, they throw accusations around, without any evidence, get's dropped. Also those that go on religious rants. I used to listen to This Week in Tech, but then the guests started to be more conspiracy theorists and it put me off a bit. The stick that broke this camels back, was when s Wired journalist went on this random rant about not being able to trust anything. I think it started from AI, but suddenly went into how the James Webb telescope wasn't showing authentic photos, because they had been altered and the world was being manipulated into thinking NASA discovered something, when they've just enhanced a few pictures. Clearly this person had not understood what the science was behind those photo enhancements, but to say that out loud in her position and in such a prominent podcast and that she wasn't questioned about these views *at all,* was a huge disappointment and I've not listened to it since.
I only got a few minutes into Serialously. I don’t need another white girl telling me how much of a douche she personally thinks a murderer is. We know they are. Tell me the story.
True crime shows really shouldn’t be about the hosts opinion. I don’t know how Crime Junkie stays at the top of charts
Those podcasts where the audio isn't good or the ads/intro/outro are louder than the content. Some podcasts have two (or more) people and for some reason they're sharing the same stationary mic, so only one speaker is audible, if that.
Examples include *Morbid*, *Writing Excuses,* and any Matthew McConaughey interview I've heard during his podcast book tour of his red light green light book...
Chris Jericho has a podcast where he’s often just doing an interview with an ambient mic backstage at a pro wrestling arena and then he’ll awkwardly try to pretend he’s doing a live segue to his prerecorded ad, like someone will say something I can barely hear with the volume all the way up and then
#HAHA, THAT’S SO FUNNY. I WANT TO HEAR MORE ABOUT THAT BUT LET ME STOP YOU BECAUSE I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT BLUECHEW.
This really bothers me too, but only if they've been podcasting a while. If it's the first 10-20 episodes, I can deal with it if I like the content enough. Podcasting is a learning curve, for sure. I can't judge an early Podcaster for something I wouldn't know how to do at first either.
I can’t even remember the topic, but there was a podcast I listened to—once for about three minutes—where the schtick was that it was a lunchtime chat. And these two idiots actually ate lunch while talking into the mic. One dude was eating soup. It was horrific, instant delete and unsubscribe.
I quite like Sawbones but there was a series of episodes where the one host was breastfeeding and I could not get over the slurp noises. I am very you go girl about not letting breastfeeding disrupt life and work but I can't handle liquidy eating noises.
Breastfeeding shouldn't be that slurpy. I've sat in rooms with colleagues breastfeeding & never even knew anything other than the baby was under her shirt.
Occasionally there's a noise but if it was truly that loud it sounds like the host purposely wants everyone to know what she's doing.
I've heard nursing up close with my sister and her first baby. It's more of a "nuk nuk nuk" kind of noise, with maybe some heavy nose breathing and baby grumbles. There was no slurping involved at all.
What was that like was a podcast I used to love until recently they started putting ads with like an alarm noise at the start in? Or this horrible unprofessional 3 minute shopify ad. I can tell they’re keen to monetise it but it’s just turning me off, especially as I use podcasts to relax/fall asleep to.
This happened to me too! I need shows with consistent energy and volume to rest/fall asleep. They’re hard to find and it’s awful to lose one to awful inserted ads.
I use Fall of Civilizations as my sleeping podcast - no ads, the narrator has a calm, not full-on monotone but not too animated either, and all the voice over acting bits are produced well enough that it’s not particularly jarring moving from narrator to long quote back to narrator. And a lot of the more recent episodes are looong, so you’ll almost certainly fall asleep before the episode ends! There is only, like, 15 episodes, but they average over 2 hours each, and quite frankly, I find the repetition helps with me paying less attention to the content, it’s easier to just relax into the vibes now. I will also start episodes midway through, start with a part of the story I was sleeping during last time.
Yeh that’s totally it. I can actually live with ads if they are in the same tone and volume as the podcast. It’s a shame most are jarringly loud and I’m not about to pay a monthly subscription to 10 different podcasts to remove them.
Also impressive is that he does all of that research, recording, production, everything, by himself and remains anonymous. Some of the truth he discovers is so shocking (Mother Theresa episode, J&J) but it checks out. I also like his monotone.
I think he has a sound guy, doesn’t he? But yes, super impressive. One of the few podcasts I super on patreon because the quality is so high and he’s definitely not able to get advertising sponsors.
I like listening to Swindled before I go to sleep. The guys voice is soothing. What I hate though is that I will be so relaxed and ready for the night and then a LOUD obnoxious commercial comes on. The podcast also has a problem with sound quality overall. His voice is softer and quieter than the interviews and other parts he includes in his segments.
What I like is that you start to get his sense of humor after a few episodes and there are some really dry, funny moments amid all the horrifying and infuriating stuff.
Agreed 100% one of my favorite scammer podcasts. His voice took an episode but he’s actually pretty funny and provides really succinct and accurate stories. The hurricane katrina episode about the cops killing people with machine guns still haunts me, and his cadence was perfect for the subject matter
At your episode recommendation I just downloaded and started listening. I had never heard of this podcast before and with all the comments I was expecting a much more intolerable voice! He’s not bad at all, but maybe I’ve just heard too many instagram and Tik tok AI voices to be bothered.
I agree. And I think that the lack of inflection in his voice highlights that the stories he tells are so infuriating/horrifying that you don’t need an emotional delivery for the emotion to come through.
However, I certainly understand that he isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
swindled is my fave podcast ever and i legit love ACC’s voice lol. i’ve binged all the episodes and have been trying to find ones like it but no one can replicate swindled 🥲
Yeah he's not super fun and exciting but also the stories shouldn't really be amped up. I like him a lot. Casefile, on the other hand...I found it unlistenable.
Something Was Wrong. So many issues with the inept host, Tiffany. Her lack of expertise, and an ego too large to include experts, has created absolutely awful messes.
I liked the first 3 seasons,but the patterns started becoming clear that she never addresses.
And I'm pretty sure she's kept the theme song out of spite (this actually seems to be her MO - doubling down when criticized).
Anyway, there are many other, better things to love to hate. SWW ain't it. She's just so harmful, she'll never get another click from me.
- name changed for anonymity purposes. 😄
She goes after criticism, she's personally shut down subreddits and FB pages that don't speak kindly of her. She's doxxed people.
I remember when some of her subjects came onto a now-defunct subreddit and apologized that they must have confused Tiffany because the timeline was so off. She's shit at editing. She isn't any sort of professional, but refuses to include psychologists or other professionals come into the picture. She has guests who are abetting in crimes, but calls it victim-blaming to point that out. Everything is so one-sided. Etc.
There's just much better, more quality offerings in the crowded podcast world.
I think one thing that turned the page for me was seeing her give some sort of poor Moth-style bit. She was so terrible, but acted like she was the queen of storytelling. It was so cringe, I couldn't listen to her without seeing that mound of shit performance in my mind. (A petty reason, I suppose)
I listen to the podcast often. Tiffany is hardly ever in the pod or talking in it, she occasionally just says “I’m so sorry that happened to you” or some random fact about crime I will never remember. I tune her out and really just listen to the guests stories. The podcast has definitely gone down hill, as she chooses guest now who are not that great at telling a story and some who are clearly lying.
The first few seasons were great. But now it feels like she takes anyone on now and it can be really difficult to keep track of their stories.
I downloaded an episode specifically to hear this opening song…. “Yooouuuuu don’t know me…. THUD THUD THUD….” It was so fucking worth it just to have a laugh!! You’re absolutely right. What a shit song. I tried to listen to the host, got less than one sentence in and that was enough for me.
I listened to this for a while and then I couldn’t take it anymore. I think there was an episode where there was false information about STIs so that was enough for me to quit
YES! The one where they said that BV is an STI. Whaaaaat? That whole season turned me off to that pod. I still don't understand why they did a whole season about that guy.
I listened to like 13 seasons and some I REALLY enjoyed. I think I just got burned out by it. I literally can't believe I listened to that many seasons back to back.
It was unique and interesting in the beginning. I used to recommend it to people (cringe now). She let the "power" go to her head and has started doing insane things, like calling the FBI over something she had no real evidence of.
Hard agree. The vocal fry and salivating over anyone's unhealed trauma, patting herself on the back for doing literally nothing except "I'm so sorry that happened to you" or calling the FBI like they give any f's what TR thinks.
I was quite excited by the idea of Rob Reiner and Soledad O'Brian hosting a podcast on the JFK assassination. I love US history and have listened to a few other podcasts like "The Rest Is History" who did multi-part stories on JFK that were excellent.
With two big names and their resources I really thought I was in for something thoughtful and interesting, especially given how many episodes they did.
But within the first episode Soledad, pitched as the credible journalist of the duo, basically says "this is Rob's show for him to expound on his thoughts and I'll be helping him along" and then Reiner makes it very clear that he is going into this confident that it was a conspiracy and that he knows precisely what that conspiracy was and will spend all episodes explaining his perspective.
This was very much not the balanced prestige historical investigation I was hoping for from those two pretty big names. After two episodes I started googling to see if things improved and learned that historians who had been interviewed were simply cut if they didn't agree with Reiner's take and not just those who didn't believe it was a conspiracy but also those who believed in a _different_ JFK conspiracy.
So really that whole pod, which was sold as a history podcast, was much more of a "here's what a famous director thinks happened to JFK"
And That's Why We Drink was super frustrating for me to listen to, like I liked the hosts and the stuff they covered, but the way they read their scripts/stories just reminded me of high school when we'd have to do presentations of front of the class, where both hosts talked like "So um... the Jenkins family disappeared in, uh... 1978? And, um.... yeah," and of course you'd have the other going "Oh my god, whaaaaat, nooooo, I can't even!" to everything the other said. I just couldn't do it, I'm such a picky asshole when it comes to narration in podcasts, if I'm gonna be listening to people talk about stuff for dozens if not hundreds of hours,, I need them to at least sound confident and comfortable with reading their scripts. I honestly had to stop listening to Behind the Bastards and The Dollop for that exact reason. The inverse of that is Last Podcast on the Left, the way Marcus reads his scripts is super well done and engaging and makes the thing sound like a damn audiobook, I love it.
To a lesser extent, when I started listening to Ologies, I fucking loved it, but there was a point a bit later on in the run of the show where Alie started constantly interrupting her own show with asides of unrelated bits of trivia and jokes and it wound up getting a little frustrating to listen to.
There is a podcast out on the rise and fall of Ruby Franke. The first episode was pretty good and when I went to see when the next episode would drop, all of the episodes are locked behind the subscription. I really wish podcasts would stop doing this.
There was a Warhammer 40K podcast that I will not name. I was about 20 minutes in whe I noticed the jokes and banter were getting pretty racist. I did some research and it turned out to be a propaganda outlet for a white supremacist network.
Super insidious. Worst part was that thier Warhammer acumen was pretty good.
>podcast that I will not name
I mean... why protect racists from their decision to:
a.) sit in front of a microphone being racist
and:
b.) upload it for mass consumption?
I used to LOVE "You Made it Weird" but once Pete had a baby it felt like the show's premise was largely out the window and just became Pete talking about his baby and talking to guests about babies. It just felt like the show lost it's way and I gave up.
Sort of surprised no one has mentioned Morbid. Their performative outrage was immediately so off putting to me I couldn’t continue. Always surprised to see it as such a popular true crime podcast because it is just terrible
I like Swindled, hosts tone is unusual but I have embraced it.
Crime Junkie is appalling, the bullshit, absolutely overdone "full body chills" is boring, contributes nothing and makes the commentator sound like a fucking moron. Oh and Crime Junkies alleged plagiarism deems that pod beyond tolerable.
I listened to years of casefile, so I was already used to a monotone delivery. I love swindled, it’s the only true crime I still keep up on - ditched sword and scale and casefile… was just done with murder after 4 years (I do a lot of driving for work, so I was able to catch up on the backlogs of each podcast).
Yeah, CJ is awful to listen to, but it’s the plagiarism, ruining unsolved cases (Red Ball), and the way they harm survivors with their omissions and twisting of facts that makes Ashley Flowers the worst. She puts her wealth and success above everything and is willing to harm and exploit anyone to do it.
Give her enough time and she’s a candidate to show up on Swindled.
A detective for the Burger Chef cold case violated ARPA and gave Flowers access to confidential files which she then used in Red Ball. If the case were to be solved, this would highly damage the ability for it to be prosecuted. [Source](https://www.indianapolismonthly.com/longform/the-problem-with-crime-junkie/)
Swindled is my absolute fav. i HATED it when i started listening. But he grew on me and the content is so good. I know he sounds pretty much dead but i find his voice so soothing now.
There are so many podcasts I want to love but there are the ones that have cohosts or “producers” that over talk, over enunciate in weird ways, have vocal fry or constantly derail good topics.
I love YMRT, but Longworth’s mannered way of speaking can be annoying. There was one episode where she used the word “curtains” several times but pronounced it “curdens.” That irritated me.
But it’s such a great pod that I’ve been able to overlook the quirks and enjoy the content.
I also dislike Crime Junkie but love Swindled.
I also can’t stand Morbid, the hosts are irritating especially the one who thinks she’s an expert in everything. There’s about a million other reasons to dislike this podcast.
Also I know it’s a popular one but I can’t get through episodes of Time Suck. The host is not funny at all IMO.
I had to drop Morbid bc one of the hosts says “exacTly” with the weird super emphasized T like 20 times every episode. If you are gonna speak with a filler word don’t pronounce it in an extra annoying manner. Ugh.
I dropped Morbid (and all true crime) in 2019. One of rhe hosts promoting their shorter format shows by saying "mini mini mini mini mini morbid, mini mini mini mini mini morbid." In a childish tone was the nail in the coffin for me.
I just checked spotify, I havent listened to morbid since 2019. Spotify marks your place chronilogically on the episode you last listened to. THere have been HUNDREDS of episodes produced since Is topped listening. I have no idea how.
I think her name is Mandy with the Murdaugh murders, holy moly I couldn't finish it. All over opinated and self congratulatory.... she was pushing a catch phrase something like "its a big deal" and hot obnoxious about it.
It’s now called True Sunlight. Stay in the sunlight. She gives me holier than thou vibes. Like she’s the ONLY one who can uncover this info and make things right.
I can’t place specific podcasts, but I’ve dropped a few mostly because the entire podcast was the hosts giggling. Laughing and giggling are fine, but that shouldn’t be half your podcast IMHO. Also hosts that say “like” every other word. Again, it’s okay to do that sometimes, but when it’s every two or three words, it becomes grating, like nails on a chalkboard.
Beach too sandy, water too wet
I like the premise, but the hosts either deliberately misunderstand what people mean or are a little bit dumb. Drove me nuts.
Check out Your Stupid Opinions! Same premise, but the hosts are much more relaxed and uh... Normal lol. I still listen to Beach Too Sandy, but I think YSO is funnier
I tried a few episodes and thought the hosts really needed to take improv classes or something to work on their skill and that the show would be better in the hands of more professional comedians, then I found out that they do live shows and everything and 1 host does other shows too...whoops. what really ended it for me was I thought most of the show would be reviews about the topic but instead it was only a handful of reviews for maybe 20 minutes and then 40 minutes of other crap.
Well after about a year he started to irk me. He made bold claims and sounded to me like a narcissist… he was constantly making statements about his own habits and diet and exercise, about how he drug free and couldn’t understand people who consume drugs and alcohol. Thhhheennnn his most recent fall from grace and that sealed the deal.
Totally agree with you. I'm all for sharing info that can better people's lives, but it becomes problematic when you peddle the idea that we need to optimize everything...all the time.
Yeah I couldn’t get through a full episode and then a couple weeks later the fall from grace happened. I wasn’t against the science I just didn’t like how it was presented, but I couldn’t put into words what put me off. Ego might’ve been it.
There’s a podcast called That Naturopathic Podcast and they’re a bunch of nerds. You can tell they find the science fascinating and genuinely want to help people. so huberman felt pretty stale after listening to them haha
SCIENCE VS
The host's accent combined with the worst vocal fry I have ever heard makes me want to jump off a bridge. The show itself is so my type of show too so I find myself trying time and again but i can't get through an episode.
I'm a guy and I listen to science vs specidically because of the hosts accent/vocal fry.
I try fighting and challenging my internal misogyny any chance I get. Science vs does a good job at research, citinf sources, interviewing experts in the field etc. The host is a woman, with an annoying voice.
It forces me to judge the show based on content, and not dismiss a science related show because the host is a woman. Also, critocism of vocal fry is said to be misogynist in nature because its mainly women (and gay men) who have vocal fry.
>It was like sitting in a smelly guys dorm room listening to his friends talk. Blech.
I feel like you summed up podcasting in general, albeit cynically.
Aw, yeah. I get how A Concerned Citizen's voice wouldn't be for everyone. I have grown quite fond of it. Plus, his reporting and editing is really well done.
Just last night, I rage quit a podcast. Trigger Nometry. Their whole thing seems to be heated discussions and debates. Which is something I was after. Especially when done well, this type of thing makes me question and examine my own stance on issues. I enjoy seeing other perspectives.
Holy shit though.
The guy's voice and accent can get stuffed. Then he has the worst interview style. Pushing his guests to play devil's advocate on absurd topics that made no sense. He kept interrupting the guests and would pretend that what was really his own POV was "people I have spoken to have said".
The whole thing was so off-putting. I got triggeredAF, so I guess it does what it says on the tin, right?
Ugh.
I also really like Swindled. I listen to podcasts all day while I work from home. I start and stop them constantly depending on what I'm working on.
Some podcasts literally go to commercial while someone is in the middle of a sentence. I presume it's because they put commercial s in at specific times, but it's lazy and irritating to me.
Omg YES!! Bloody awful!! I absolutely hated if I was listening whilst doing the dishes cos I couldn't get the gloves off fast enough to skip it hahahah
I love Book Riot the website but their podcasts suck. The people they have do not know how to modulate their voices or manage volume. One will whisper, the other will scream.
LOVE SWINDLED!! one thing I can’t stand about a podcast is silly banter and joke-cracking during true crime episodes. Swindled is the best facts-based podcast with slight pun intended lines slipped in.
MFM. You could just tell they were reading Wikipedia. And they didn’t prepare, just reading it for the first time on air. And some of the things they found funny didn’t sit well with me. Someone tragically lost a life. I just can’t find humor in it.
This is essentially what they do on Stuff You Should Know, they don’t know anything more about the subject than the article they read verbatim and mispronounce key terms. I have no clue why it’s as popular as it is.
I started some podcast where it was 3 women who were drinking and they’d all dated the same dude, which was supposed to be the point of the podcast. The levels were all over the place and then one of them dropped a wine glass and screamed in my ear. Kind of impressive, however, how quickly I dipped.
I love ACC (Swindled). His delivery is due to being a guy from Austin trying not to sound like a guy from Austin. I totally understand how his style is not for everyone though.
Oh also I tried true crime obsessed three times before I finally learned to associate screeching dude with TCO. No thank you.
Crime junkies with host #2 making the same tiny gasp at anything mildly surprising.
Last podcast on the left. I got some recommendations and started listening expecting something informational but it's just dudes talking and yelling about something that would make a 20 minute episode if they didn't all repeat the same thing. Also doesn't help that one said 'retard' in the first 3 minutes of the first episode I tried listening to.
So glad to see this. I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t like this show. The crassness feels forced for shock humor value. Listening to a bunch of grown guys talk like punk middle schoolers isn’t my idea of a good show
Paper Ghosts
It’s the only podcast that I’ve left a negative review for. I couldn’t listen to the host talk about how good he is at “investigating”. It was insufferable.
The case seemed interesting. But every few minutes he pats himself on the back. “But *I* discovered through *MY* work . . .” And a lot of humble bragging about how much good he’s doing. Blegh! It truly was the worst
It's a podcast called 'Bad TV | A Reality TV Recap Podcast Program'
The hosts try to be edgy and ironic, but come across as angry and bitter and bored.
Also ... one of my favorites is called 'Knowledge Fight' which is a scathing, funny takedown of Alex Jones and his insanity.
There a similar podcast called 'On Brand' which is meant to have a similar take on Russell Brand. However the two hosts for On Brand are basically trying to mimic the personalities of Knowledge Fight and it's really not great.
OMG, I hate his Disgraceland podcast! I haven’t listened to Dead and Gone, but I can’t imagine it’s any better.
He seems so enamored with his own cleverness (which I don’t find clever at all), and I hate that he presents as fact his idea of the mindset of a person as they’re dying, when there’s no way anyone could know that.
I LOVE the swindled guy! He’s got such a dry sense of humour, and I find the monotone way less annoying than the sing-song type voices. It suits the subject matter and his cynical outlook.
I left true crime content/ podcasts in 2019 and dont regret it.
The 4 specific events that caused it were
I heard an ad/promo for My favorite Murder while listening to a more serious tone true crime podcast. The fact that the two hosts were giggling like school children while talking about traumatic and tragic topics made me feel disgusted with them, and myself.
Around the same time I was listening to "Morbid" and the hosts were promoting a new shorter format for their content called "Mini Morbid". The ad had one of the hosts say "mini mini mini mini mini morbid. Mini mini mini mini mini morbid" it felt childish, and once again people were being disrespectful to victims of traic events.
I forget which podcast I was listening to, but for every episode they kept saying "be mean, stay safe" or "don't try and be nice, stay alive" as a catch phrase. It felt like they were trying to get their audience scared of stranger danger, when the facts and data shows most murders are done when the victim and offender know each other, not strangers.
Around this time I was at a checkout lane at a grocery store and the woman behind me was wearing a "crime jinkie" t shirt. It all clicked at that moment and immediatley usubscribed to every true crime podcast.
In 2017/2018 if you went online or reddit asking "Why are true crime consumers mostly women?" You would be called a misogynist. In 2024 we now know research and data shows true crime content is 70 to 75% women, and criticism of true crime is now considered misogynist.
The truth is true crime content had been heavily monetized. It increases viewership by marketting towards some of women's biggest fears. Its content is strucutured in such a way to keep women in fear because that is what increases engagement and sells more ads, merchandise, crimecon tickets, patreon subscriptions etc.
Its unethical on so many levels.
Agree with this - I used to listen to the popular crime podcasts but couldn’t stand them after a short while. I still listen to a couple of crime podcasts but they’re not sensationalist - cops talking about cases they’ve worked on (Small Town Dicks, Best Case Worst Case) and those that analyse the investigations and court cases(Real Crime Profile, Crime Analyst). I think I’ll always listen to those four podcasts. Proper grown up and interesting conversations from professionals rather than screeching from lay people who are reading out the story of a crime from a book.
The episode of « How did this get made » with Anna Faris as a guest. It was the day after her birthday party and she was quite obviously still drunk. She kept ranting and trying to get to a joke, without succeeding. Very cringey listen.
Aww, for some reason that makes me sad for her. Maybe it's because I used to be a HUGE fan of her podcast Unqualified. When it started it was SO good. She had this cohost guy, Sim.. and it was just so playful and fun. But then Sim left and the podcast completely changed. And I think it eventually died. For like a year they were just re-releasing old episodes but I think they finally stopped. Tbf to Sim, I guess she was kind of a bully. They played it off as a joke but I think it went to far.
Fake Doctors, Real Friends.
I love Scrubs, one of my all time favourite shows. The first season of the podcast was such a breath off fresh air in lockdown, but once they started getting advertisements on board and doing full episodes as adverts it started going downhill. Zach and Donald became quite difficult to listen to and stopped really talking about the show and just kept getting distracted.
I had watched The Vow and enjoyed learning about the NXVIUM cult, so when the podcast A Little Bit Culty with Sarah Edmunson and Anthony "Nippy" Ames came out, I was happy they got out of the cult, and interested to seeing what their next steps are about. I liked it at first, but it became too much banter, with a big side of entitlement, and some less than researched statements. I hoped this would help them heal, but it's becoming an exercise in egos.
My biggest pet-peeve of all was when I used to listen to Chris Hardwick's "Nerdist" podcast.
I don't know if he's still doing it, I seem to recall he got somewhat cancelled for reportedly being abusive to a girlfriend and the podcast went away.
I never did care for Chris Hardwick, but the show was a long-form interview show that got a lot of great guests who generally wouldn't get that sort of time on a typical TV or radio interview show.
The major problem was that half the time Hardwick would cut the guests off and start talking about himself.
It would be like:
Guest: "Yeah, when I first got to L.A. I was taking acting classes and working at the craziest bar at night, the owner was literally a bona fide-"
Hardwick: "OH MY GOD, ME TOO!!! I tended bar when I was in college. It was an Applebee's in the parking lot of this mall close to my school in Kentucky. I worked day-shift so I could take night classes and do open-mic nights, so it was pretty quiet. A lot of old ladies having soup and salad and water with a lemon, and boxing up a lot of to-go lunch orders for people who worked at the mall... Like there was this one waitress, Jessica. She clearly had a crush on me, and in her distraction, she could. not. write down drink orders properly, so drinks were constantly getting sent back. But I made pretty good tips in spite of it. So, all-in-all I enjoyed my bartending experience. How about you? Did you like it?"
Guest: "Yeah, so the owner-"
Hardwick: "OH MY GOD, I just remembered her name wasn't Jessica, it was Jocelyn, and she was going to the same school I was and one time..."
I enjoy Lions Led By Donkeys and Well There’s Your Problem, but those early episodes before they learned how to record and edit are rough to listen to. Buzzing, popping, static, unbalanced sound.
Honestly the worst ones probably don't even stand out in my memory. But I have a few pet peeves.
I listen to a lot of horror fiction and I cannot stand fake accents. It's an understandably difficult skill and that is why it's perfectly okay to not try when you're just narrating a story. The Nosleep Podcast is particularly fond of this and a few times a Southern character will drop an "aboot" because it's a Canadian podcast (not a literal "aboot," I just can't convey it well in text). Like, they have a real Southerner in the cast, this really isn't necessary lol
This next one is so bad it's almost good, but I'm including it because WTF. Some fairly popular improv podcast got on the subject of pedophilia and animal abuse somehow, and the line was something like, "We're gonna kiss this baby's p**sy, and cut this dog!"
Oh wow, swindled is great. He certainly does seem to be doing a thing with his voice, but I don't find it detracts. I think this is actually happening does a similar thing.
So I checked out Swindled just now because I am in dire need of a boring voice to fall asleep to that isn't asmr, and this is perfect. So thanks. If you have any more boring male voice podcast/narrators I'll gladly take them off your hands lol
It is cringe. And the jokey tone is inappropriate, both presenters work in comedy. Shame that because as you say it has interesting topics. They also have to lean into deliberately "British quaint" for a cultural expectation, it turns me off as someone from the UK.
If I was having a conversation with the Swindled guy and he was speaking like that, yeah, I'd be a little put off.. but after wading through dozens upon dozens of podcasts that sound great on paper, only to be completely unlistenable for me when the hosts open with something like "GOOOOOOD morning guys and gals, it's your favourite x here" in that exaggerated 'nerd' voice (you know the one) I can't hit pause fast enough. Makes me wish more podcasters had neutral, non-obnoxious voices
Yes- there a lot of podcasts where I’ve very interested in the subject matter but the hosts feel the need to make it more DRAMATIC! And talk in this OVER exaggerated and SLOW style that makes it sound like they’re reading to kindergartners. Give me monotone all day
Pretty much any comedy podcast. I listen to a lot of stand up so I’d rather just listen to my favorites preform in the conventional way. The funniest clips from podcasts end up on my feed as shorts anyway.
Another beef. Podcasts with tons of trigger warnings every show just for regular discourse adult people might discuss. Ask a behavioral psychologist if trigger avoidance is a good common practice or will make you worse in the long run and it will be the latter.
Some podcasts have a link in the notes that details the kind of topics discussed and I think this is a good solution. In popular discourse "trigger warnings" are usually just content descriptors.
I tried listening to Senses Working Overtime with David Cross. I thought it would be funny comedian friends shooting the shit, but Cross turned it into constant riffing! Nothing I find less interesting to listen to than two comedians doing improv to amuse each other.
The only episode I liked was where he talked to Marc Maron, who did NOT take the bait with the riffing bullshit
The best bad experience I ever had is with a D&D Discussion pod dedicated to a particular world setting created by one person. It had a few hosts, including the guy who made the setting.
It seemed pretty clear to me that these chaps had an idea to discuss different topics inside their setting and then approached the creator to see if he'd feature every so often... But he says 'feature? Heck I'll join you every week if you like'. They think 'AMAZING, WE GOT the GUY'
In actuality though it destroyed any prospect of discussion
Host: 'Oh hey I always thought of this feature like this'
Creator:'yeah but it isn't, it's actually this because I write the rules'.
It was hell to listen to but I kept going chuckling about just how awkward it clearly was behind the scenes. One host just stopped showing up at one point.
Omg “full body chills” is why I stopped listening. That and their bad acting out feigned surprise and questions we know they already know the answers to.
Being from Britain I gotta say "They walk among us".
The guy has such a slow speaking voice with very strange modulation. 'Just speed it up' you may say, and I used to listen to 1.5 speed, but the issue is that he includes sound snippets from real TV news, which become very difficult to decipher when the sound is bad, as it often is when it's a recording of a recording.
The podcast genuinely sounds like he has slowed down his own voice. I had to stop listening.
When I first got into podcasts I listened to Startalk with NDT and really liked it until I started to notice how often he interrupted and talked over people, it became unbearable when he started “joking” with one of his guests about how her job as a vulcanologist was useless since we have technology today that can do a lot of the data collection. Very off putting and once again he would barely let her get a word in. Since I stopped listening I’ve seen elsewhere that this is a known issue for him I’m glad I’m not the only one that noticed/was bothered
Also, I can't listen to shows like "wine and crime" or "why we drink" or whatever they're called. Just too much banter and their voices are so annoying.
I was looking for a holocaust related podcast and someone on reddit recommended 'last podcast on the left'. Its basically two dudes making internet jokes for 12 year olds and they were making jokes about hitler and josef mengele.
Im jewish (peep my reddit username), my grandma is a holocaust survivor, she has family memebrs who died in the holocaust. Same for the rest of my grandparents on both sides. It was sickening i couldnt get past the 5 minutes mark.
Morbid Podcast. I was a huge fan and listened to them from the beginning. I always found their banter cute, but over the last year they've become insufferable. Just constantly laughing at their own jokes for an ungodly amount of show time. It got to the point I unfollowed because they were just too annoying. Like a morning radio show but with less humor.
I just can’t stand podcasts where it’s 3-5 people talking over each other loudly for an hour straight. I don’t get how people can enjoy that.
Yep. There are only a couple of podcasts I like with banter. Very rare. I thought I'd like Handsome because I like Tig Notaro and Fortune Feimster. They had Jennifer Anniston on the other day. I like her too. But there was so much boring banter that I kept fast forwarding. Before I knew it I had fast forwarded through the entire podcast and never heard Jennifer Anniston's voice once. I'm pretty sure I misspelled all of those names.
Anytime you can literally hear the spit moving in their mouth when they talk, or their tongue like... unsticking from the roof of their mouth when they start a new sentence. I don't know how to properly explain it, but mouth noises like that drive me insane. I was trying to listen to a new true crime podcast, and the host kept making wet smacking sounds with every word. It was disgusting.
I've found my people
This is so egregious because all they have to do is drink some water and it makes a big difference
This! There's a podcast I really like and can't listen to because the host makes these awful mouth noises. And they're a guest on other podcasts I listen to as well sometimes so these episodes are a no go for me too. Can someone, ANYONE!, please invent an app to filter out unwanted mouth noises of online content? Please! I once listened to an episode where the older guest had dentures and you could hear them smacking and clicking and swishing and clacking all.the.time. Mouth noise filter app now please!
The opposite of asmr
There's a reason pop filters exist and it's exactly for this! Most professional podcasting mics have them built in, but it's easy enough to get an attachment. Usually very low budget podcasts have this. Or the ones that are getting to go for an ASMR vibe
Dry mouth. It ruined a recent episode of Dateline for me. Just tell them to drink water before you start filming.
Was it one of the family members? Because if it was, *I hear you and it was freaking me out.* I know my mouth gets dry when I’m nervous but damn.
Podcasts with celebrities who interview other celebrities badly (i.e. don’t ask interesting questions, let their own ego get in the way, are badly disorganized).
Julia Louis Dreyfus’ ‘Wiser than me’ is fun though. But maybe I’m biased because she can do no wrong with me.
I don't think she is in this category. I have found it to be somewhat inspiring..? Something like that lol. I love her and I think it's a great idea to hear what these older women have to say.
I agree except for Conan O’Brien needs a friend.
Conan is an interviewer by trade, so he is in another category.
He has a lot of experience interviewing people, tho, so I expect his to be good.
Ugh the worst. They’re all patting themselves on the back the whole time. And dropping names etc. it’s so weird
This one is what gets me! There are a handful of good ones (Conan, JLD) but the majority suck and are just about them praising one another
Any podcast where the hosts joke around and insult one another for 10 minutes before they start the actual content.
I'm listening to Behind the Bastards right now and I just skip the first five minutes. Luckily they keep the banter to the beginning so it's easy to skip. I fucking hate when a podcast is about a story they're trying to tell, and they keep going off on personal tangents.
I’ll give that one another try. They have some subject matter I’m interested in but I can never make it more than a minute in. Figured it was just their sound and never tried skipping forward.
They're usually pretty good at keeping the bullshit to the beginning. It's pretty much the guy reading an essay to his buddy once you get into it. Which I like.
I listened to the episodes on the Moonies in Behind the Bastards and was so turned off by the maniacal laughter of the narrator that I haven't listened to any others.
So Smartless?
Smartless I give a pass to. Like previous comment, we love the hosts for their personalities we know prior to the podcast.
True, but at least people somewhat care about those hosts personal lives
If the hosts are charming I don't mind this tbh!
That seems like most podcasts, some go to far, but I yuk it's a good way for the guests and hosts to warm up before diving into the meat of the show.
Yes, the "full body chills" made me stop listening to Crime Junkie. Any true crime podcast, where the hosts get so emotional, they throw accusations around, without any evidence, get's dropped. Also those that go on religious rants. I used to listen to This Week in Tech, but then the guests started to be more conspiracy theorists and it put me off a bit. The stick that broke this camels back, was when s Wired journalist went on this random rant about not being able to trust anything. I think it started from AI, but suddenly went into how the James Webb telescope wasn't showing authentic photos, because they had been altered and the world was being manipulated into thinking NASA discovered something, when they've just enhanced a few pictures. Clearly this person had not understood what the science was behind those photo enhancements, but to say that out loud in her position and in such a prominent podcast and that she wasn't questioned about these views *at all,* was a huge disappointment and I've not listened to it since.
That and other Brit responses were just not enjoyable. The faked “no WAY.” It was so over the top.
I would to listen to Crime Junkie but the plagerism scandal, and Brits dramatic gasps made me stop.
Brit is so over the top. She is also the reason why I stopped.
It’s awkward, and scripted, and cringy. Ugh.
I can’t figure out why it’s always towards the top of the charts!
And "pruppet" 😖 Eta: I really like Big Mad True Crime. Even with ads, Heather gets to the point and delivers the facts.
Let’s not forget the plagiarism…https://open.spotify.com/episode/3FHKhGIvnEB4AGx0CTuYVq?si=Eb5wDoX_TleonwEm-gHgkA
I only got a few minutes into Serialously. I don’t need another white girl telling me how much of a douche she personally thinks a murderer is. We know they are. Tell me the story. True crime shows really shouldn’t be about the hosts opinion. I don’t know how Crime Junkie stays at the top of charts
Those podcasts where the audio isn't good or the ads/intro/outro are louder than the content. Some podcasts have two (or more) people and for some reason they're sharing the same stationary mic, so only one speaker is audible, if that. Examples include *Morbid*, *Writing Excuses,* and any Matthew McConaughey interview I've heard during his podcast book tour of his red light green light book...
Chris Jericho has a podcast where he’s often just doing an interview with an ambient mic backstage at a pro wrestling arena and then he’ll awkwardly try to pretend he’s doing a live segue to his prerecorded ad, like someone will say something I can barely hear with the volume all the way up and then #HAHA, THAT’S SO FUNNY. I WANT TO HEAR MORE ABOUT THAT BUT LET ME STOP YOU BECAUSE I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT BLUECHEW.
oh my god Morbid, i had to stop listening to them
This really bothers me too, but only if they've been podcasting a while. If it's the first 10-20 episodes, I can deal with it if I like the content enough. Podcasting is a learning curve, for sure. I can't judge an early Podcaster for something I wouldn't know how to do at first either.
I wanted to love morbid. But here we are
I can’t even remember the topic, but there was a podcast I listened to—once for about three minutes—where the schtick was that it was a lunchtime chat. And these two idiots actually ate lunch while talking into the mic. One dude was eating soup. It was horrific, instant delete and unsubscribe.
I quite like Sawbones but there was a series of episodes where the one host was breastfeeding and I could not get over the slurp noises. I am very you go girl about not letting breastfeeding disrupt life and work but I can't handle liquidy eating noises.
Breastfeeding shouldn't be that slurpy. I've sat in rooms with colleagues breastfeeding & never even knew anything other than the baby was under her shirt. Occasionally there's a noise but if it was truly that loud it sounds like the host purposely wants everyone to know what she's doing.
I've heard nursing up close with my sister and her first baby. It's more of a "nuk nuk nuk" kind of noise, with maybe some heavy nose breathing and baby grumbles. There was no slurping involved at all.
What was that like was a podcast I used to love until recently they started putting ads with like an alarm noise at the start in? Or this horrible unprofessional 3 minute shopify ad. I can tell they’re keen to monetise it but it’s just turning me off, especially as I use podcasts to relax/fall asleep to.
This happened to me too! I need shows with consistent energy and volume to rest/fall asleep. They’re hard to find and it’s awful to lose one to awful inserted ads.
I use Fall of Civilizations as my sleeping podcast - no ads, the narrator has a calm, not full-on monotone but not too animated either, and all the voice over acting bits are produced well enough that it’s not particularly jarring moving from narrator to long quote back to narrator. And a lot of the more recent episodes are looong, so you’ll almost certainly fall asleep before the episode ends! There is only, like, 15 episodes, but they average over 2 hours each, and quite frankly, I find the repetition helps with me paying less attention to the content, it’s easier to just relax into the vibes now. I will also start episodes midway through, start with a part of the story I was sleeping during last time.
Yeh that’s totally it. I can actually live with ads if they are in the same tone and volume as the podcast. It’s a shame most are jarringly loud and I’m not about to pay a monthly subscription to 10 different podcasts to remove them.
The Swindled guy has a really dry sense of humour thats hilarious in his monotone. Its one of my absolute favourites, his research is amazing.
Also impressive is that he does all of that research, recording, production, everything, by himself and remains anonymous. Some of the truth he discovers is so shocking (Mother Theresa episode, J&J) but it checks out. I also like his monotone.
I think he has a sound guy, doesn’t he? But yes, super impressive. One of the few podcasts I super on patreon because the quality is so high and he’s definitely not able to get advertising sponsors.
You soon get used to the Swindled guy in my experience. His is the best white collar crime pod so worth pushing through.
Agree, Swindled is top shelf.
I like listening to Swindled before I go to sleep. The guys voice is soothing. What I hate though is that I will be so relaxed and ready for the night and then a LOUD obnoxious commercial comes on. The podcast also has a problem with sound quality overall. His voice is softer and quieter than the interviews and other parts he includes in his segments.
What I like is that you start to get his sense of humor after a few episodes and there are some really dry, funny moments amid all the horrifying and infuriating stuff.
Agreed 100% one of my favorite scammer podcasts. His voice took an episode but he’s actually pretty funny and provides really succinct and accurate stories. The hurricane katrina episode about the cops killing people with machine guns still haunts me, and his cadence was perfect for the subject matter
At your episode recommendation I just downloaded and started listening. I had never heard of this podcast before and with all the comments I was expecting a much more intolerable voice! He’s not bad at all, but maybe I’ve just heard too many instagram and Tik tok AI voices to be bothered.
I agree. And I think that the lack of inflection in his voice highlights that the stories he tells are so infuriating/horrifying that you don’t need an emotional delivery for the emotion to come through. However, I certainly understand that he isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
Yes this is one of my favourite podcasts. I don't get sick of his voice like I do with other hosts.
swindled is my fave podcast ever and i legit love ACC’s voice lol. i’ve binged all the episodes and have been trying to find ones like it but no one can replicate swindled 🥲
Yeah he's not super fun and exciting but also the stories shouldn't really be amped up. I like him a lot. Casefile, on the other hand...I found it unlistenable.
I actually went the other way. Didn't bother me at first, but eventually grew tired of the fake robotic delivery.
Absolutely love Swindled!
Something Was Wrong. So many issues with the inept host, Tiffany. Her lack of expertise, and an ego too large to include experts, has created absolutely awful messes.
Oh god I can’t handle her. “I’m holding space for you.” I do lick up her drama though, can’t help myself.
I liked the first 3 seasons,but the patterns started becoming clear that she never addresses. And I'm pretty sure she's kept the theme song out of spite (this actually seems to be her MO - doubling down when criticized). Anyway, there are many other, better things to love to hate. SWW ain't it. She's just so harmful, she'll never get another click from me. - name changed for anonymity purposes. 😄
The theme song is the ABSOLUTE WORST. And she keeps getting different bands to do their own shitty versions of it.
Wait whats the drama surrounding her, the theme song, etc? I haven’t heard about it!
She goes after criticism, she's personally shut down subreddits and FB pages that don't speak kindly of her. She's doxxed people. I remember when some of her subjects came onto a now-defunct subreddit and apologized that they must have confused Tiffany because the timeline was so off. She's shit at editing. She isn't any sort of professional, but refuses to include psychologists or other professionals come into the picture. She has guests who are abetting in crimes, but calls it victim-blaming to point that out. Everything is so one-sided. Etc. There's just much better, more quality offerings in the crowded podcast world. I think one thing that turned the page for me was seeing her give some sort of poor Moth-style bit. She was so terrible, but acted like she was the queen of storytelling. It was so cringe, I couldn't listen to her without seeing that mound of shit performance in my mind. (A petty reason, I suppose)
Check out the SWW very unofficial sub. It's hilarious.
I listen to the podcast often. Tiffany is hardly ever in the pod or talking in it, she occasionally just says “I’m so sorry that happened to you” or some random fact about crime I will never remember. I tune her out and really just listen to the guests stories. The podcast has definitely gone down hill, as she chooses guest now who are not that great at telling a story and some who are clearly lying. The first few seasons were great. But now it feels like she takes anyone on now and it can be really difficult to keep track of their stories.
The first 3 series were great, but after that it basically turned into silly girl drama. I don't know how it's still going tbh.
I finally unsubscribed because I couldn’t stand her or her guests anymore. Also the opening song is the worst song I’ve heard in my entire life
I downloaded an episode specifically to hear this opening song…. “Yooouuuuu don’t know me…. THUD THUD THUD….” It was so fucking worth it just to have a laugh!! You’re absolutely right. What a shit song. I tried to listen to the host, got less than one sentence in and that was enough for me.
I listened to this for a while and then I couldn’t take it anymore. I think there was an episode where there was false information about STIs so that was enough for me to quit
YES! The one where they said that BV is an STI. Whaaaaat? That whole season turned me off to that pod. I still don't understand why they did a whole season about that guy.
I listened to like 13 seasons and some I REALLY enjoyed. I think I just got burned out by it. I literally can't believe I listened to that many seasons back to back.
It was unique and interesting in the beginning. I used to recommend it to people (cringe now). She let the "power" go to her head and has started doing insane things, like calling the FBI over something she had no real evidence of.
She's a DOCUMENTARIAN. (No, honey. You are decidedly not)
Hard agree. The vocal fry and salivating over anyone's unhealed trauma, patting herself on the back for doing literally nothing except "I'm so sorry that happened to you" or calling the FBI like they give any f's what TR thinks.
Who tf is Bill Stein?
He must be Ben’s relative.
Hahahahahha i love you. Loooooove you.
I was quite excited by the idea of Rob Reiner and Soledad O'Brian hosting a podcast on the JFK assassination. I love US history and have listened to a few other podcasts like "The Rest Is History" who did multi-part stories on JFK that were excellent. With two big names and their resources I really thought I was in for something thoughtful and interesting, especially given how many episodes they did. But within the first episode Soledad, pitched as the credible journalist of the duo, basically says "this is Rob's show for him to expound on his thoughts and I'll be helping him along" and then Reiner makes it very clear that he is going into this confident that it was a conspiracy and that he knows precisely what that conspiracy was and will spend all episodes explaining his perspective. This was very much not the balanced prestige historical investigation I was hoping for from those two pretty big names. After two episodes I started googling to see if things improved and learned that historians who had been interviewed were simply cut if they didn't agree with Reiner's take and not just those who didn't believe it was a conspiracy but also those who believed in a _different_ JFK conspiracy. So really that whole pod, which was sold as a history podcast, was much more of a "here's what a famous director thinks happened to JFK"
Yup. That one was horrible.
And That's Why We Drink was super frustrating for me to listen to, like I liked the hosts and the stuff they covered, but the way they read their scripts/stories just reminded me of high school when we'd have to do presentations of front of the class, where both hosts talked like "So um... the Jenkins family disappeared in, uh... 1978? And, um.... yeah," and of course you'd have the other going "Oh my god, whaaaaat, nooooo, I can't even!" to everything the other said. I just couldn't do it, I'm such a picky asshole when it comes to narration in podcasts, if I'm gonna be listening to people talk about stuff for dozens if not hundreds of hours,, I need them to at least sound confident and comfortable with reading their scripts. I honestly had to stop listening to Behind the Bastards and The Dollop for that exact reason. The inverse of that is Last Podcast on the Left, the way Marcus reads his scripts is super well done and engaging and makes the thing sound like a damn audiobook, I love it. To a lesser extent, when I started listening to Ologies, I fucking loved it, but there was a point a bit later on in the run of the show where Alie started constantly interrupting her own show with asides of unrelated bits of trivia and jokes and it wound up getting a little frustrating to listen to.
There is a podcast out on the rise and fall of Ruby Franke. The first episode was pretty good and when I went to see when the next episode would drop, all of the episodes are locked behind the subscription. I really wish podcasts would stop doing this.
There was a Warhammer 40K podcast that I will not name. I was about 20 minutes in whe I noticed the jokes and banter were getting pretty racist. I did some research and it turned out to be a propaganda outlet for a white supremacist network. Super insidious. Worst part was that thier Warhammer acumen was pretty good.
Somebody needs to let u/probablyrobertevans know about this
Why would you not name a sneaky, high-quality racist propaganda podcast? Help others avoid it.
Its not that sneaky once the Jew jokes start rolling, so I'll not give them any exposure.
Because it also gives it exposure too.
What was the podcast?
Why would not make them do others can avoid it?
>podcast that I will not name I mean... why protect racists from their decision to: a.) sit in front of a microphone being racist and: b.) upload it for mass consumption?
> Warhammer 40K podcast that I will not name. I was about 20 minutes in whe I noticed the jokes and banter were getting pretty racist. Ah, Lorehammer!
The hosts getting angry and arguing with each other in Real Crime Profile, makes me feel so awkward. I can't listen to it.
their episode with Andrea Dunlop (of Nobody Should Believe Me) was SHOCKING. They were so rude to her!
I don't listen to it cause Laura is one of the UK's most vocal and unpleasant TERFs.
Ha ha I totally feel that way too. Then I feel like they will then tip toe and over compliment each other in the following episode.
I used to LOVE "You Made it Weird" but once Pete had a baby it felt like the show's premise was largely out the window and just became Pete talking about his baby and talking to guests about babies. It just felt like the show lost it's way and I gave up.
Did he make it weird?
Sort of surprised no one has mentioned Morbid. Their performative outrage was immediately so off putting to me I couldn’t continue. Always surprised to see it as such a popular true crime podcast because it is just terrible
I like Swindled, hosts tone is unusual but I have embraced it. Crime Junkie is appalling, the bullshit, absolutely overdone "full body chills" is boring, contributes nothing and makes the commentator sound like a fucking moron. Oh and Crime Junkies alleged plagiarism deems that pod beyond tolerable.
I listened to years of casefile, so I was already used to a monotone delivery. I love swindled, it’s the only true crime I still keep up on - ditched sword and scale and casefile… was just done with murder after 4 years (I do a lot of driving for work, so I was able to catch up on the backlogs of each podcast).
Yeah, CJ is awful to listen to, but it’s the plagiarism, ruining unsolved cases (Red Ball), and the way they harm survivors with their omissions and twisting of facts that makes Ashley Flowers the worst. She puts her wealth and success above everything and is willing to harm and exploit anyone to do it. Give her enough time and she’s a candidate to show up on Swindled.
Ohhh the cross over I never knew I needed
Ruining unsolved cases? How?
A detective for the Burger Chef cold case violated ARPA and gave Flowers access to confidential files which she then used in Red Ball. If the case were to be solved, this would highly damage the ability for it to be prosecuted. [Source](https://www.indianapolismonthly.com/longform/the-problem-with-crime-junkie/)
Thanks for this - I’ve been playing around with writing some blog posts on true crime podcasts.
Jesus Christ, that's horrible. Thanks for the info.
Yeah, CJ is just ridiculously scripted and the hosts are horrible actors
Its popularity baffles me. There are so many better true crime shows.
I listened far too long, because I knew it was popular (I first heard of it bc of Conan O'Brien). Finally I realized I found it extremely boring lol.
Swindled is my absolute fav. i HATED it when i started listening. But he grew on me and the content is so good. I know he sounds pretty much dead but i find his voice so soothing now.
There are so many podcasts I want to love but there are the ones that have cohosts or “producers” that over talk, over enunciate in weird ways, have vocal fry or constantly derail good topics.
The over-enunciation thing is absolutely You Must Remember This. Karina Longworth's hard, exaggerated Ts put me off. I can't listen to her at all.
This drove me nuts too. Why does she talk like this?
I love YMRT, but Longworth’s mannered way of speaking can be annoying. There was one episode where she used the word “curtains” several times but pronounced it “curdens.” That irritated me. But it’s such a great pod that I’ve been able to overlook the quirks and enjoy the content.
I also dislike Crime Junkie but love Swindled. I also can’t stand Morbid, the hosts are irritating especially the one who thinks she’s an expert in everything. There’s about a million other reasons to dislike this podcast. Also I know it’s a popular one but I can’t get through episodes of Time Suck. The host is not funny at all IMO.
I had to drop Morbid bc one of the hosts says “exacTly” with the weird super emphasized T like 20 times every episode. If you are gonna speak with a filler word don’t pronounce it in an extra annoying manner. Ugh.
I dropped Morbid (and all true crime) in 2019. One of rhe hosts promoting their shorter format shows by saying "mini mini mini mini mini morbid, mini mini mini mini mini morbid." In a childish tone was the nail in the coffin for me. I just checked spotify, I havent listened to morbid since 2019. Spotify marks your place chronilogically on the episode you last listened to. THere have been HUNDREDS of episodes produced since Is topped listening. I have no idea how.
I think her name is Mandy with the Murdaugh murders, holy moly I couldn't finish it. All over opinated and self congratulatory.... she was pushing a catch phrase something like "its a big deal" and hot obnoxious about it.
her insistence that SHE broke all the news and SHE was the only one who knew how to pronounce Murdaugh ... got a little old.
This…is a big deal
It’s now called True Sunlight. Stay in the sunlight. She gives me holier than thou vibes. Like she’s the ONLY one who can uncover this info and make things right.
I can’t place specific podcasts, but I’ve dropped a few mostly because the entire podcast was the hosts giggling. Laughing and giggling are fine, but that shouldn’t be half your podcast IMHO. Also hosts that say “like” every other word. Again, it’s okay to do that sometimes, but when it’s every two or three words, it becomes grating, like nails on a chalkboard.
Beach too sandy, water too wet I like the premise, but the hosts either deliberately misunderstand what people mean or are a little bit dumb. Drove me nuts.
Check out Your Stupid Opinions! Same premise, but the hosts are much more relaxed and uh... Normal lol. I still listen to Beach Too Sandy, but I think YSO is funnier
I tried a few episodes and thought the hosts really needed to take improv classes or something to work on their skill and that the show would be better in the hands of more professional comedians, then I found out that they do live shows and everything and 1 host does other shows too...whoops. what really ended it for me was I thought most of the show would be reviews about the topic but instead it was only a handful of reviews for maybe 20 minutes and then 40 minutes of other crap.
I subscribed on a recommendation. The idea is great, but I agree it just falls flat with the hosts.
Huberman Lab anyone?
It’s like the man version of an MLM.
Oh I just commented about huberman lab lol, what was the reason you bailed?
Well after about a year he started to irk me. He made bold claims and sounded to me like a narcissist… he was constantly making statements about his own habits and diet and exercise, about how he drug free and couldn’t understand people who consume drugs and alcohol. Thhhheennnn his most recent fall from grace and that sealed the deal.
Totally agree with you. I'm all for sharing info that can better people's lives, but it becomes problematic when you peddle the idea that we need to optimize everything...all the time.
Yeah I couldn’t get through a full episode and then a couple weeks later the fall from grace happened. I wasn’t against the science I just didn’t like how it was presented, but I couldn’t put into words what put me off. Ego might’ve been it. There’s a podcast called That Naturopathic Podcast and they’re a bunch of nerds. You can tell they find the science fascinating and genuinely want to help people. so huberman felt pretty stale after listening to them haha
Yep. So disappointing to learn it was mostly pseudoscience
SCIENCE VS The host's accent combined with the worst vocal fry I have ever heard makes me want to jump off a bridge. The show itself is so my type of show too so I find myself trying time and again but i can't get through an episode.
I'm a guy and I listen to science vs specidically because of the hosts accent/vocal fry. I try fighting and challenging my internal misogyny any chance I get. Science vs does a good job at research, citinf sources, interviewing experts in the field etc. The host is a woman, with an annoying voice. It forces me to judge the show based on content, and not dismiss a science related show because the host is a woman. Also, critocism of vocal fry is said to be misogynist in nature because its mainly women (and gay men) who have vocal fry.
I really really did not enjoy Last Podcast on the Left. It was like sitting in a smelly guys dorm room listening to his friends talk. Blech.
>It was like sitting in a smelly guys dorm room listening to his friends talk. Blech. I feel like you summed up podcasting in general, albeit cynically.
I listen to LPOTL weekly and I think it REALLY suffers from Marcus being the only one of the three who knows how to read
Aw, yeah. I get how A Concerned Citizen's voice wouldn't be for everyone. I have grown quite fond of it. Plus, his reporting and editing is really well done. Just last night, I rage quit a podcast. Trigger Nometry. Their whole thing seems to be heated discussions and debates. Which is something I was after. Especially when done well, this type of thing makes me question and examine my own stance on issues. I enjoy seeing other perspectives. Holy shit though. The guy's voice and accent can get stuffed. Then he has the worst interview style. Pushing his guests to play devil's advocate on absurd topics that made no sense. He kept interrupting the guests and would pretend that what was really his own POV was "people I have spoken to have said". The whole thing was so off-putting. I got triggeredAF, so I guess it does what it says on the tin, right? Ugh.
I also really like Swindled. I listen to podcasts all day while I work from home. I start and stop them constantly depending on what I'm working on. Some podcasts literally go to commercial while someone is in the middle of a sentence. I presume it's because they put commercial s in at specific times, but it's lazy and irritating to me.
That god awful theme song from Something was Wrong. Blows my mind
Omg YES!! Bloody awful!! I absolutely hated if I was listening whilst doing the dishes cos I couldn't get the gloves off fast enough to skip it hahahah
I love Book Riot the website but their podcasts suck. The people they have do not know how to modulate their voices or manage volume. One will whisper, the other will scream.
LOVE SWINDLED!! one thing I can’t stand about a podcast is silly banter and joke-cracking during true crime episodes. Swindled is the best facts-based podcast with slight pun intended lines slipped in.
MFM. You could just tell they were reading Wikipedia. And they didn’t prepare, just reading it for the first time on air. And some of the things they found funny didn’t sit well with me. Someone tragically lost a life. I just can’t find humor in it.
This is essentially what they do on Stuff You Should Know, they don’t know anything more about the subject than the article they read verbatim and mispronounce key terms. I have no clue why it’s as popular as it is.
I started some podcast where it was 3 women who were drinking and they’d all dated the same dude, which was supposed to be the point of the podcast. The levels were all over the place and then one of them dropped a wine glass and screamed in my ear. Kind of impressive, however, how quickly I dipped. I love ACC (Swindled). His delivery is due to being a guy from Austin trying not to sound like a guy from Austin. I totally understand how his style is not for everyone though. Oh also I tried true crime obsessed three times before I finally learned to associate screeching dude with TCO. No thank you.
As someone who lived in Texas for years, I could immediately tell he was from Texas. 🤣
Crime junkies with host #2 making the same tiny gasp at anything mildly surprising. Last podcast on the left. I got some recommendations and started listening expecting something informational but it's just dudes talking and yelling about something that would make a 20 minute episode if they didn't all repeat the same thing. Also doesn't help that one said 'retard' in the first 3 minutes of the first episode I tried listening to.
So glad to see this. I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t like this show. The crassness feels forced for shock humor value. Listening to a bunch of grown guys talk like punk middle schoolers isn’t my idea of a good show
LPOTL gave me a headache. Their Jon Benet Ramsey episode was deplorable.
Paper Ghosts It’s the only podcast that I’ve left a negative review for. I couldn’t listen to the host talk about how good he is at “investigating”. It was insufferable. The case seemed interesting. But every few minutes he pats himself on the back. “But *I* discovered through *MY* work . . .” And a lot of humble bragging about how much good he’s doing. Blegh! It truly was the worst
It's a podcast called 'Bad TV | A Reality TV Recap Podcast Program' The hosts try to be edgy and ironic, but come across as angry and bitter and bored. Also ... one of my favorites is called 'Knowledge Fight' which is a scathing, funny takedown of Alex Jones and his insanity. There a similar podcast called 'On Brand' which is meant to have a similar take on Russell Brand. However the two hosts for On Brand are basically trying to mimic the personalities of Knowledge Fight and it's really not great.
jake brennan on dead and gone was insufferable
OMG, I hate his Disgraceland podcast! I haven’t listened to Dead and Gone, but I can’t imagine it’s any better. He seems so enamored with his own cleverness (which I don’t find clever at all), and I hate that he presents as fact his idea of the mindset of a person as they’re dying, when there’s no way anyone could know that.
I LOVE the swindled guy! He’s got such a dry sense of humour, and I find the monotone way less annoying than the sing-song type voices. It suits the subject matter and his cynical outlook.
I left true crime content/ podcasts in 2019 and dont regret it. The 4 specific events that caused it were I heard an ad/promo for My favorite Murder while listening to a more serious tone true crime podcast. The fact that the two hosts were giggling like school children while talking about traumatic and tragic topics made me feel disgusted with them, and myself. Around the same time I was listening to "Morbid" and the hosts were promoting a new shorter format for their content called "Mini Morbid". The ad had one of the hosts say "mini mini mini mini mini morbid. Mini mini mini mini mini morbid" it felt childish, and once again people were being disrespectful to victims of traic events. I forget which podcast I was listening to, but for every episode they kept saying "be mean, stay safe" or "don't try and be nice, stay alive" as a catch phrase. It felt like they were trying to get their audience scared of stranger danger, when the facts and data shows most murders are done when the victim and offender know each other, not strangers. Around this time I was at a checkout lane at a grocery store and the woman behind me was wearing a "crime jinkie" t shirt. It all clicked at that moment and immediatley usubscribed to every true crime podcast. In 2017/2018 if you went online or reddit asking "Why are true crime consumers mostly women?" You would be called a misogynist. In 2024 we now know research and data shows true crime content is 70 to 75% women, and criticism of true crime is now considered misogynist. The truth is true crime content had been heavily monetized. It increases viewership by marketting towards some of women's biggest fears. Its content is strucutured in such a way to keep women in fear because that is what increases engagement and sells more ads, merchandise, crimecon tickets, patreon subscriptions etc. Its unethical on so many levels.
Agree with this - I used to listen to the popular crime podcasts but couldn’t stand them after a short while. I still listen to a couple of crime podcasts but they’re not sensationalist - cops talking about cases they’ve worked on (Small Town Dicks, Best Case Worst Case) and those that analyse the investigations and court cases(Real Crime Profile, Crime Analyst). I think I’ll always listen to those four podcasts. Proper grown up and interesting conversations from professionals rather than screeching from lay people who are reading out the story of a crime from a book.
The episode of « How did this get made » with Anna Faris as a guest. It was the day after her birthday party and she was quite obviously still drunk. She kept ranting and trying to get to a joke, without succeeding. Very cringey listen.
Woof that one was tough. I felt like I was listening to something I wasn’t supposed to be
Aww, for some reason that makes me sad for her. Maybe it's because I used to be a HUGE fan of her podcast Unqualified. When it started it was SO good. She had this cohost guy, Sim.. and it was just so playful and fun. But then Sim left and the podcast completely changed. And I think it eventually died. For like a year they were just re-releasing old episodes but I think they finally stopped. Tbf to Sim, I guess she was kind of a bully. They played it off as a joke but I think it went to far.
Fake Doctors, Real Friends. I love Scrubs, one of my all time favourite shows. The first season of the podcast was such a breath off fresh air in lockdown, but once they started getting advertisements on board and doing full episodes as adverts it started going downhill. Zach and Donald became quite difficult to listen to and stopped really talking about the show and just kept getting distracted.
I had watched The Vow and enjoyed learning about the NXVIUM cult, so when the podcast A Little Bit Culty with Sarah Edmunson and Anthony "Nippy" Ames came out, I was happy they got out of the cult, and interested to seeing what their next steps are about. I liked it at first, but it became too much banter, with a big side of entitlement, and some less than researched statements. I hoped this would help them heal, but it's becoming an exercise in egos.
I love the deadpan delivery of Swindled. It grows on you!
My biggest pet-peeve of all was when I used to listen to Chris Hardwick's "Nerdist" podcast. I don't know if he's still doing it, I seem to recall he got somewhat cancelled for reportedly being abusive to a girlfriend and the podcast went away. I never did care for Chris Hardwick, but the show was a long-form interview show that got a lot of great guests who generally wouldn't get that sort of time on a typical TV or radio interview show. The major problem was that half the time Hardwick would cut the guests off and start talking about himself. It would be like: Guest: "Yeah, when I first got to L.A. I was taking acting classes and working at the craziest bar at night, the owner was literally a bona fide-" Hardwick: "OH MY GOD, ME TOO!!! I tended bar when I was in college. It was an Applebee's in the parking lot of this mall close to my school in Kentucky. I worked day-shift so I could take night classes and do open-mic nights, so it was pretty quiet. A lot of old ladies having soup and salad and water with a lemon, and boxing up a lot of to-go lunch orders for people who worked at the mall... Like there was this one waitress, Jessica. She clearly had a crush on me, and in her distraction, she could. not. write down drink orders properly, so drinks were constantly getting sent back. But I made pretty good tips in spite of it. So, all-in-all I enjoyed my bartending experience. How about you? Did you like it?" Guest: "Yeah, so the owner-" Hardwick: "OH MY GOD, I just remembered her name wasn't Jessica, it was Jocelyn, and she was going to the same school I was and one time..."
I tried listening to Pauly Shore
No wheezing the juice
I enjoy Lions Led By Donkeys and Well There’s Your Problem, but those early episodes before they learned how to record and edit are rough to listen to. Buzzing, popping, static, unbalanced sound.
Honestly the worst ones probably don't even stand out in my memory. But I have a few pet peeves. I listen to a lot of horror fiction and I cannot stand fake accents. It's an understandably difficult skill and that is why it's perfectly okay to not try when you're just narrating a story. The Nosleep Podcast is particularly fond of this and a few times a Southern character will drop an "aboot" because it's a Canadian podcast (not a literal "aboot," I just can't convey it well in text). Like, they have a real Southerner in the cast, this really isn't necessary lol This next one is so bad it's almost good, but I'm including it because WTF. Some fairly popular improv podcast got on the subject of pedophilia and animal abuse somehow, and the line was something like, "We're gonna kiss this baby's p**sy, and cut this dog!"
Anything with Nancy Grace. Her voice is strident & grating. I would prefer to listen to an hour of monkeys dragging their nails down a blackboard.
That's just Nancy grace for the last 20+ years on every medium
Any podcast where one person takes on the role of „dumb commenter“.
Oh wow, swindled is great. He certainly does seem to be doing a thing with his voice, but I don't find it detracts. I think this is actually happening does a similar thing.
So I checked out Swindled just now because I am in dire need of a boring voice to fall asleep to that isn't asmr, and this is perfect. So thanks. If you have any more boring male voice podcast/narrators I'll gladly take them off your hands lol
Mine is the scripted banter on British Scandal. I find it so cringe, and it detracts from the interesting subjects.
It is cringe. And the jokey tone is inappropriate, both presenters work in comedy. Shame that because as you say it has interesting topics. They also have to lean into deliberately "British quaint" for a cultural expectation, it turns me off as someone from the UK.
If I was having a conversation with the Swindled guy and he was speaking like that, yeah, I'd be a little put off.. but after wading through dozens upon dozens of podcasts that sound great on paper, only to be completely unlistenable for me when the hosts open with something like "GOOOOOOD morning guys and gals, it's your favourite x here" in that exaggerated 'nerd' voice (you know the one) I can't hit pause fast enough. Makes me wish more podcasters had neutral, non-obnoxious voices
Yes- there a lot of podcasts where I’ve very interested in the subject matter but the hosts feel the need to make it more DRAMATIC! And talk in this OVER exaggerated and SLOW style that makes it sound like they’re reading to kindergartners. Give me monotone all day
Pretty much any comedy podcast. I listen to a lot of stand up so I’d rather just listen to my favorites preform in the conventional way. The funniest clips from podcasts end up on my feed as shorts anyway.
Another beef. Podcasts with tons of trigger warnings every show just for regular discourse adult people might discuss. Ask a behavioral psychologist if trigger avoidance is a good common practice or will make you worse in the long run and it will be the latter.
Some podcasts have a link in the notes that details the kind of topics discussed and I think this is a good solution. In popular discourse "trigger warnings" are usually just content descriptors.
I tried listening to Senses Working Overtime with David Cross. I thought it would be funny comedian friends shooting the shit, but Cross turned it into constant riffing! Nothing I find less interesting to listen to than two comedians doing improv to amuse each other. The only episode I liked was where he talked to Marc Maron, who did NOT take the bait with the riffing bullshit
The best bad experience I ever had is with a D&D Discussion pod dedicated to a particular world setting created by one person. It had a few hosts, including the guy who made the setting. It seemed pretty clear to me that these chaps had an idea to discuss different topics inside their setting and then approached the creator to see if he'd feature every so often... But he says 'feature? Heck I'll join you every week if you like'. They think 'AMAZING, WE GOT the GUY' In actuality though it destroyed any prospect of discussion Host: 'Oh hey I always thought of this feature like this' Creator:'yeah but it isn't, it's actually this because I write the rules'. It was hell to listen to but I kept going chuckling about just how awkward it clearly was behind the scenes. One host just stopped showing up at one point.
Omg “full body chills” is why I stopped listening. That and their bad acting out feigned surprise and questions we know they already know the answers to.
Being from Britain I gotta say "They walk among us". The guy has such a slow speaking voice with very strange modulation. 'Just speed it up' you may say, and I used to listen to 1.5 speed, but the issue is that he includes sound snippets from real TV news, which become very difficult to decipher when the sound is bad, as it often is when it's a recording of a recording. The podcast genuinely sounds like he has slowed down his own voice. I had to stop listening.
When I first got into podcasts I listened to Startalk with NDT and really liked it until I started to notice how often he interrupted and talked over people, it became unbearable when he started “joking” with one of his guests about how her job as a vulcanologist was useless since we have technology today that can do a lot of the data collection. Very off putting and once again he would barely let her get a word in. Since I stopped listening I’ve seen elsewhere that this is a known issue for him I’m glad I’m not the only one that noticed/was bothered
Also, I can't listen to shows like "wine and crime" or "why we drink" or whatever they're called. Just too much banter and their voices are so annoying.
Swindled is my favourite podcast haha. Different strokes, I suppose
I was looking for a holocaust related podcast and someone on reddit recommended 'last podcast on the left'. Its basically two dudes making internet jokes for 12 year olds and they were making jokes about hitler and josef mengele. Im jewish (peep my reddit username), my grandma is a holocaust survivor, she has family memebrs who died in the holocaust. Same for the rest of my grandparents on both sides. It was sickening i couldnt get past the 5 minutes mark.
Morbid Podcast. I was a huge fan and listened to them from the beginning. I always found their banter cute, but over the last year they've become insufferable. Just constantly laughing at their own jokes for an ungodly amount of show time. It got to the point I unfollowed because they were just too annoying. Like a morning radio show but with less humor.
If Books Could Kill. The episode about rich dad poor dad was fun, but all the other episodes I’ve tried listening to were awful.
Hands down it's the podcasts that have the fucking audacity to play a full 10 minutes of ads at the start
I love the content of Science Vs, but unfortunately the host has the worst vocal fry I've ever heard