This is it.
This is the last Radiotopia Binge Week post.
For the past seven weeks, I have been spending inordinate amounts of time listening to just seven different podcasts — 99% Invisible, Love + Radio, KCRW’s Strangers, The Truth, Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything, and finally, Radio Diaries and Fugitive Waves. Each week I set a goal for myself: Starting on Wednesday, Feb. 19, I would listen to just one podcast, beginning to end. I would listen to as many episodes as I could until Wednesday night of the next week, where I would move onto the next show.
What I discovered was that, while I can’t call myself a fan of every podcast included in the Radiotopia Collective, I came to understand exactly why it was included. Throughout each podcast there runs a narrative, and each podcast’s narrative intertwines with the others to form a sort of grand metanarrative, which is expressed best by Radiotopia’s mission statement:
Our goal is to bring listeners extraordinary audio wherever they are listening, help independent producers grow their shows, and share what we’re learning along the way.
The story of the Radiotopia podcasts is a story of evolution. Each podcast started out with a certain degree of roughness, and as they went on, they fell into a rhythm. Some shows, like Love + Radio, were transgressive, in that they never dared to conform to the standard public radio format. Others, like Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything, played extremely well in that format while continuing to innovate from within.
The last two shows in Radiotopia’s inaugural lineup are deceptive. Radio Diaries, hosted by Joe Richman, is on its face the most NPR-ish show I have ever listened to. What makes it stand out past this surface impression is the quality of people Richman asks to do diaries.
Amanda, a lesbian teen struggling with a Catholic family that couldn’t understand her (but was still supportive), grows up to have a mother that has grown to accept her. Josh, a 16-year-old with Tourettes, grows up to teach in the New York City Public School System. Melissa, a teen mom who puts herself through college and raises a son back from the brink of death. And more.
I will admit, when I initially subscribed to Radio Diaries a while ago, I was hesitant to jump in because I thought the show was going to be your standard public radio fare. But the audio the teenage reporters are able to capture is so fantastic, and the way each person’s story is told is so respectful, that once I started listening I was sucked in. Using the commute on the way to and from work to listen, I found myself engrossed in many driveway moments — and I was listening on my iPod.
Fugitive Waves is very similar, in the sense that my initial impressions of the show was that it was your standard “special interest story” public radio programming. But Fugitive Waves is produced by the Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, and as a result all expectations of “normal” I might’ve had are immediately chucked out the window.
For instance, Fugitive Waves’ first episode is about Thomas Edison. I hate Thomas Edison, and I thought that the show was going to simply gush about how great of a person he was, and completely skim over the fact that he screwed a lot of people out of money and patents (Nikola Tesla. Cough). But it didn’t, and while the tone of the show was largely positive towards Edison, it presented him as a person — a genius person, but still packed with shortcomings and personality quirks that did more harm than good to him over time. So while I still may not like Edison, I understand him a great deal better than when I first tuned in.
There are only two episodes of Fugitive Waves currently up, and the second episode is great — so I won’t spoil any of it. Instead, I’ll wrap up with this plea:
Radiotopia is a public radio collective, meaning that the existence of each show in the group is more or less tied to whether people give it money or not. The fact that Roman Mars was able to get it started with amazing Kickstarter backers and cool sponsors is great, but now it’s out of the nest and (not to say it isn’t currently successful) has the potential to plummet to the ground unless its wings can develop the muscles necessary to fly.
That was a weird metaphor. Basically, and I’ve never done this for any project I haven’t been a part of directly (or indirectly): donate to PRX, Radiotopia, or each of the shows on the lineup individually. It is important that they are allowed to continue and grow in this space we’ve set up for them, because they might single-handedly be keeping radio relevant. Considering that, full disclosure, radio is something I want to be a part of, that’s kind of an important thing for me.
So yeah, support Radiotopia. For you, for me, for the future of radio.