For all of true crime’s growing popularity over the past several years, crime podcast devotees are still often labeled as abnormal ghouls, empathy-deficient creatures who fall short on human decency. More than one true crime podcast owes its entire existence to the idea that crime isn’t a normal thing to discuss, that it can’t be integrated into other conversation; if interest in crime is a disease, then creating a podcast is seen as an efficient way to sequester the infected in a figurative or literal closet. It certainly doesn’t help that—without needing to name names—true crime podcasters who behave badly tend to get more attention than those who don’t, and to be seen as more representative of the culture than they are.
With all that it mind, it’s not too surprising that crime podcasting can still be seen as an outsider’s pursuit. But anyone who spends much time immersing themselves in the world of podcasts will find before long that that’s just not true. One of the best and most powerful things about podcasts of any genre is the virtual communities they create, the solidarity they foster, the way they can make anyone feel less alone. My very favorite true crime podcasts—like RedHanded, Nighttime, What Did You Do?!, and Criminal Broads, to name just a few—are the ones who do this most consistently, who recognize the dignity and humanity of both their subjects and their audience.
One of the best and most powerful things about podcasts of any genre is the virtual communities they create, the solidarity they foster, the way they can make anyone feel less alone.These kinds of podcasters remember to point out the reality of the cases they examine. They put themselves in the positions of the people in these stories. They’re aware of how thin the line is between both sides of the law. They reach out to their listeners, engage with their ideas, and respect them as inquiring minds who are just trying to make sense of awful things that have happened, that do happen, whether or not they’re discussed on a podcast—whether or not they’re discussed at all. For me, the best true crime podcasts believe in the inherent value of that discussion, and of making it a group activity.
Earlier this year, I traveled to Seattle to attend PodCon, an annual conference celebrating all things podcasts. While many kinds of podcasts were represented, PodCon has always had a special fondness for audio dramas, or fiction podcasts, and the fervent fandom they inspire. (Have I stayed up until midnight to hear the mind-blowing 50th episode of The Bright Sessions the second it dropped? Maybe! Did I co-create a Facebook group for listeners of I Am In Eskew to trade their nerdy fan theories? Who’s to say? Might I have joined a Discord server just to talk about Debbie’s mysterious notebook in King Falls AM? Yes, I might have. I did.)
Every morning, on the walk to Washington State Convention Center, my friend and I enjoyed watching which people ahead of us would peel away from the other pedestrians to vanish inside the center; without getting scientific about it, if someone had blue hair or was dressed like a jellyfish, this seemed to increase the chances that they were going to PodCon. Once we got to the lobby, it wasn’t always easy to know what to say, but it was an oddly convivial social anxiety—less like being among strangers, and more like being among friends whose names you couldn’t quite remember.
Inside the bustling exhibition hall, checkered with tables of podcasters handing out stickers, hugs, and encouragement—inside the yawning auditoriums, the welcoming conference rooms, the quiet room for attendees who felt overwhelmed—the invisible world of podcasts became visible to me as it never had before. And mere minutes into PodCon, it became clear that I’d never be able to list all the amazing things I’d seen there.
Aaron Mahnke—the host of Lore, Cabinet of Curiosities, and Unobscured—was one of the more mobbed conference attendees, who spent an afternoon chatting with listeners and podcasters. The creators of top-notch horror like White Vault were cheerfully milling around, and Archive 81’s Dan Powell gave a meticulous presentation on podcast sound engineering. Audio drama legends Lauren Shippen and Paul Bae gleefully slapped together an improvised podcast, Dreamboy‘s Dane Terry convinced a rapt audience to sing a song with him, and a chance conversation led me to a satirical crime podcast, Dear Murder Street (check it out if you haven’t).
But perhaps the most representative moment happened early on the first morning, when my friend and I stumbled upon Cecil Baldwin—the principal voice actor of Welcome to Night Vale, and a bona fide megastar in the world of audio dramas—sitting on the floor outside the bathrooms, tinkering with a small mountain of audio equipment and affably handing out Bluetooth headphones. Anyone willing to swap their ID for some headphones could walk around the conference center that morning and listen to the ad hoc radio station that Baldwin—not unlike the character he plays on Night Vale—was cobbling together, just because, for the sheer joy of it.
When I had headphones linked to Baldwin’s radio station (which he dubbed Low People Radio), it was broadcasting Middle Eastern music. Later, Baldwin switched to storytelling and interviews. Later still, he used his radio station to host a silent dance party—so that on an upper floor of the convention center, a group of erstwhile strangers bounced to the same music streaming through their headphones, which observers couldn’t hear, but which bound the dancers invisibly.
So what is it that makes podcasts so personal, so special? Whenever we try to answer that question, the word “intimate” gets overused. All art is intimate; all art creates worlds that are both shared and unique, recognizable from one person to the next but never exactly the same. But audio has a certain adaptability, transferability, like liquid filling the shape of whatever moment you’re in: Whether you’re riding the subway, baking a cake, having a meltdown about the subway or straining to disable your smoke detector because you burned the cake, a podcast is not only a soundtrack, but a companion—a source of conversation for people who find conversation stressful. In an overwhelming world, a podcast can serve as a transparent shield, a window that transforms a roaring storm into the steady tap of rain.
During PodCon’s closing show, the brilliant Helen Zaltzman—host of The Allusionist, a podcast about language—broke down the word “podcast,” and the reasons why so many people dislike it. It’s based on a brand! It sounds made up! It’s a portmanteau, like “brunch,” and we’re all finally starting to admit that we hate the word “brunch”! But Zaltzman argued that there are so many more important considerations when we think about this word, and those considerations go a long way towards explaining why podcasts have created such a vibrant community. As Zaltzman put it:
“So here’s what the word ‘podcast’ means to me. ‘Podcast’ lets me hear the voices and the thoughts of people that I would otherwise never get to hear from. ‘Podcast’ let me start something without getting anyone’s permission. ‘Podcast’ let me experiment in a creative form and learn more than I’ve ever learned doing anything. ‘Podcast’ lets me speak to hundreds of thousands of people without leaving my room, but it’s also sent me all around the world. Thanks to ‘podcast,’ I’ve met some of my favorite people. And thanks to ‘podcast,’ you’re here, and so am I. So you might not think this is a great word—you might not even think it’s a good word—but it’s our word. It’s our word.”
Four months after PodCon 2 came to a close, conference co-founder Hank Green announced that PodCon would not be returning. A variety of financial and logistical challenges had converged to make the event unsustainable, though Green expressed optimism that another conference might develop solutions to the issues they’d found insurmountable. As beloved as many podcasts are, in many ways, the medium is still finding its footing in today’s entertainment landscape. For every My Favorite Murder or Reply All, there’s a multitude of indie podcasts fighting for a wider audience, even as some bask in the glow of a small but fiercely loyal following—a coven of people who’ve found the same secret, whose days all light up when a new episode hits their feed.
I hope that the distinctiveness of podcasts doesn’t go away. As more and more of them are being adapted for television, as content creators are closing up shop, as pay walls are going up and business models are evolving, it can be a scary time for podcast lovers who’d like some things to stay the same. And in a world that too often frames any piece of art as proto-TV, proto-film, Hulu interrupted, a humble pit stop on the road to the screen, I hope we can protect and cherish the community of listeners who gathered not just in Seattle this year, but who are still gathered everywhere, now, in a vast and wonderfully complicated silent dance party, stretching across a world of our own making.
