by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The thing I’ve noticed about a lot — A LOT — of podcasts is how somnambulistic they can be. It’s just two or more people talking in a very languid way that makes you want to go to sleep.
This is a really good book by Ben Smith.
So, my vision for a Gawker-like podcast (which you are free to steal!) would be something like this — you live stream a two hour podcast three times a week (if not more) then edit it down to an hour for the rest of the day for non-live listeners.
I would want the podcast to be snarky, fun and energetic. It would be a bunch of (hot?) young people talking about Emma Chamberlain, Julia Fox and the Dune 2 popcorn bucket that everyone wants to fuck. You know, the type of bullshit Gawker was ranting about in 2003-2004.
The key could be who your hosts — and guests — were. I would grab some hip, just-out-of-college neo-club kids and with great personalities and throw them together into the Thunderdome. I would try to have at least one more “conservative” person on a panel of three to mix things up. But they couldn’t be a knuckle dragging MAGA person, but someone who thinks SNL is too woke or something.
But it would have to be genuine and not forced. And that would be the hardest part of the whole thing — how to get the spark of people who had actual witty banter on the fly and who knew the zeitgeist well. In that respect, I guess you might need to find some young stand up to be one of your three?
The first guest for this podcast would need to be someone like Sarah Squirm of SNL. She would be the perfect person to establish what the podcast was going to be about.