Today consists of a review of the podcasters I've been listening to over the past year. Podcasts for me are long-form content of about an hour, and are more about information than entertainment, but they of course need to be entertaining. They're also mostly about the words rather than any visuals, so they generally work well when simply listened to, meaning you can get on with other things at the same time.

Jostling for the top spot are Dark Horse and Forbidden Knowledge News (more on the latter in a moment).

Dark Horse is hosted by Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, a married couple who give me uncle and aunty vibes as they calmly collect their thoughts together on topics that I think half of Neocities would squawk about. Having been in the profession of evolutionary biology, they approach things with sense and reason and talk generally about health and well-being, something that interests me, even if "biology" per-se doesn't.

I'll talk about The Typical Skeptic Podcast next. I got into it over a year ago as Robert Kalil interviews and chats with people about topics of alien races, alien abductions and governments' alleged involvement in these things - I was interested in UFOs since my teens. There is a whole world of "targeted individuals" and "secret space programs" that I didn't really know about before tuning into this channel (although the latter is covered in the TV series Stargate SG-1, which I thoroughly enjoyed, back in the day). "Typical Skeptic" is a bit of a misnomer since Robert likes to accept pretty much whatever anyone is telling him, because, I suppose, it is at least their truth; Robert is nice to everyone and that's what makes the whole thing work.

While I'm fond of the channel, I am more skeptical, and I think this podcast has become a magnet for a lot of people who are "not all there" or have watched too much of things like SG-1 and believed into them. These people, I think, then see the community that seemingly envelops the podcast, and those who appear regularly on it, and are drawn into this. Once an overactive imagination sets in, perhaps fuelling dreams on the topics covered, they too then believe they are experiencing the same things. This is then coupled with the prospect of being "someone", and being listened to, without judgement. Robert himself often now claims "targeted individual" when he encounters technical issues, which I think are partly due to poor internet connection and a computer that isn't cut out for streaming to multiple platforms. He pumps out multiple episodes a day which is just too much for me to keep up with, and probably not doing him much good either - this past year I've become choosy about which episodes I will add to my listening pile.

Forbidden Knowledge News is like a refined version of Typical Skeptic; covering similar topics, but in a more professional manner. The host Chris Mathieu has also produced a documentary Doors of Perception, found on Amazon, that is well put together and draws together much of what is discussed on his channel. Like Dark Horse's Bret and Heather, Chris is someone who I like to imagine having a chat with, if only I had a concise topic to articulate, and enough charisma to back me up.

These last two, the Kim Iversen Show and Zeee Media appear a little too "polished"; like if you removed the green screen studio and took away the high grade "sponsors", you'd perhaps just have someone ranting about a news article (which is why I don't listen to long-form content, or live streams, from Tim Pool, Tim Pool wannabe The Quartering, and Russell Brand). But these two cover topics I feel are important to know about. From time-to-time, when left to her own devices and not interviewing someone, Kim has a tendency to go off on one, going round in circles when she's trying her best to make a point or get something across, or there is perhaps just time to fill.

The sponsors segment is something I could criticise Dark Horse for; it makes me cringe that they need "help to pay the bills" - why can't informative channels exist solely on good wills and intention, rather than be trying to sell me something I have no clue about or interest in? While theirs is quite lengthy, (they read out a page each for three of them, back-to-back), they at least put a box round the segment and begin and end them with a chime. Zeee Media's ads to content ratio is often too much and made worse by being the same ones for each episode, all too noticeable if, like me, you download a number of episodes in one go and watch them back-to-back. If Typical Skeptic could up his game he would actually do better to include a decent advert. He seems to have a requirement from Rumble but he doesn't do it or them justice, and just rattles off a supplied paragraph as fast as he can.

Some other channels I check in on do provide hour-long content, but they're of the type that needs to be watched, so those need good justification for me to sit and absorb them (this past year I've also been working my way through the Andromeda TV series, so that generally fills that slot).

I don't rely on a "feed" to feed me, instead I use my own lists [here], and I use Parabolic to download stuff. You can read my full page of tips and tools [here].