And this is why, when people over the years have told us, “I really want to do a podcast,” the first advice is: “The same time, the same day, every week. Forever.” And that’s the only advice I give because if you can do that for a year and you ask me what else you need to do, then we can have that conversation.
But if you’re not willing to be a pro like that, good luck. I doubt your ability to get traction with an audience, because I think so much depends on that.
Ben: The podcasts that I listen to throughout the week are something I really look forward to—those shows being there at that time when I do the thing that I do when I listen to them. And so we’ve been very lucky to burrow under the skin of a lot of people—
Adam: I wonder if that’s how we know, Ben? Like, we’re not just the president of Hair Club, we’re also the clients? I think we know what’s meaningful to a podcast listener because we are them ourselves. In a way, I feel like nouveau podcasting right now is often made up of hosts who are doing it because it’s lucrative in their niche, you know?
Ben: Wait, this can be lucrative? Shit, what have we been doing?
Ars: I’m at a place in my life right now—and maybe you guys are, too—where I find it very hard to emotionally engage with the news. I find myself turning off the news on the radio, on my phone, in ways that I didn’t three years ago, five years ago. I used to be hyper-on: all the news, all the things, all the time. And I just can’t now. I just want to hear some guys talk about martinis.
Ben, you mentioned earlier that this is a show about the hang, and it’s sort of loosely anchored around the thing that you love, Star Trek.
Do you have that same feeling when it’s chatting with Adam Pranica about Baywatch? Does the subject for you, both of you, matter at all? Or does Star Trek have a particular emotional resonance in a way that, you know, lawns don’t?
Ben: I think that the Trek of it all is still really important to the show. And I think that we’re in an era where the news is devastating and exhausting in equal measure, and, you know, Trek has a lot of politics in it.
Adam and I share a lot of politics, but we also, I think, are pretty conscious of this being a place where the horrors of the world aren’t the center of attention.
