In 2024, I spent more minutes listening to strangers speaking on podcasts than to the real actual voices of friends and family. It gets worse. One man’s voice in particular I listened to more than any other. I hate this guy quite a lot. Oh, and I was a paid supporter of the podcast.

In this post, I want to talk about why I held onto the show so long; how I wrestled with finding other fans who hate this dude like I do; how the intimacy of podcasts and other long-form audio can trick our brains.

At the end of this post, I humbly offer a framework you can use to understand the relationship of your media consumption and parasocial relationships.

I want to hear from you if you’ve gone through these realizations recently, or realize that you need to. Please leave a comment, or reach out to me!

OK, let’s dig in.

Part 0: My History With Podcasts

When podcasts first entered my life, they looked very different to how we think of them today. In the mid-2000s, American rock band Switchfoot produced a semi-regular series of 5-minute videos documenting life on tour and in the studio. These lightly edited vlogs (“the Switchfoot podcast!”) were delivered fresh to my iPod Classic via iTunes. Yeah, remember iTunes?

For a significant part of my teenage years, Switchfoot was my favorite band, deepest obsession, and truest love. I looked forward to the podcasts as a glimpse inside the life of these surfer rocker bros. In a time before social media really took off, these video podcasts were a way to glimpse the lives of my biggest crushes.

Fast forward almost ten years later — it’s 2016. I live in Chicago with friends. I sit cross-legged in my closet in front of the mirror, straightening my hair or putting on makeup. I didn’t have a TV, radio, or cable back then. So, I turned to podcasts to stay on top of current events. As I get ready for work or to go out, I listen to strangers try and make sense of the 2016 election. I listen to tech journalists review products I like. Later, in 2017, I listen to podcasts about the #metoo movement. In this era, podcasts were my key to what’s happening in the world.

Fast forward again. It’s 2025. I almost always have a podcast on in the background while I work, do laundry, go to the gym, or travel. Many of the politics shows I listened to back then have turned too radical for my ear, or not radical enough. In this latest era of my podcast consumerism, I seek niche shows and interests over broad information. As media saturation reaches critical mass, my discovery of new niche shows falls into the following pattern of Discovery > Consumption > Support:

1. Show I like has episode featuring guest
2. Guest is cool, plugs their show.
3. I listen to guest’s other show
4. Consume guest’s show’s entire backlog
5. See if guest’s show has additional content on Patreon
6. If I really like their content, subscribe on Patreon for more.

Part 1: Defining Parasocial Relationships (Good and Bad)

So, what’s a parasocial relationship? We all have them to some degree. Supporting a sports team, evangelizing your favorite band, or following a celebrity is a form of parasocial relationship. The key of a parasocial relationship is that you do not actually have a relationship to the person.

In some ways, podcasts — a long-from audio medium, where you’re often listening to friendly, light-hearted conversation — can especially trick listeners into thinking they have a relationship with the hosts. When you spend so much time listening to other people’s conversations, eavesdropping, giving their money, it is possible to enter into a sense of entitlement. You might think you understand the hosts, or worse, that they care what you have to say.

This isn’t all negative. The good side of this coin is audiences truly connect with hosts, their content, and the entertainment product being made. Creators enjoy access to their community. Wouldn’t you then say it’s even better if a creator can make a living off this?

The reality is, digital media consumption has shifted human interaction in a way that previous generous could not fathom. There’s no guidance or rulebook on how to prime our brains for the possibility of having dozens, if not hundreds of hours of available content of a person to consume if you really, for some reason, want to. The way we navigate relationships with media figures in this hyper-connected world has broken completely.

Sounds cynical, doesn’t it? There’s positives despite the dangers. For those who have difficulty forming connections with others, or who are separated from each other, bonding over shared interests through creator communities can fill an important gap. However, the cost of extremism in either direction really worries me.

So, where does that leave us in the context of this post?

TLDR: It’s natural to feel an emotional response to the conversations and voices we listen to. What you do with that emotional response is where discernment comes in.

Part 2: “Thank You For Making Anything At All”

It’s impossible not to smile while listening to Off-Book. Each week, the hosts, guest, and band invent a musical from scratch. Off-Book ran from approx 2017–2023. While it no longer exists today, it remains a most singular piece of musical improv history.

“Thank-you for making anything at aaaaall!” sings Jessica McKenna, in a recap episode celebrating the show’s legacy. Jess is recalling a song title from from a previous spontaneous musical. She now applies the spirit of that song title to certain parasocial interactions in her life.

According to Jessica, Thank you for making anything at all, has stayed with her as a sort of totem against those who go online and complain about a free entertainment media product, AKA haters, AKA me.

Within Jess’ remark is a simpler idea — creators do not have to make anything at all. Rather than complain about it or tear it down, why not thank them for creating something from nothing? If you don’t like it, turn it off and go away.

Before we go any further, I feel like I need a big “duh” disclaimer: creators are human beings. Negative feedback hurts their feelings, and people can be cruel. Performers, creators, and podcast hosts aren’t monolithic idols for us to tear down or mock. When you say hurtful things, that’s someone’s work and someone’s life.

And yet, when you make a work and put it in the public eye, people have every right to criticize it. For some, it can be difficult to separate art and artist.

This brings us back to the start: If I hate [redacted] podcast host so much, why did I keep listening?

For that reason, I won’t be naming [redacted] host or show. As I touched on in the previous section, I would argue human beings were never meant to engage with this much media in this way. It is theoretically possible to consume media 24/7. “Doomscrolling” and “binging” are terms that have come into common parlance in the on-demand era.

The person I listened to for so long, essentially, gets to be professionally mean. If you’re professionally mean, does that make you a mean person? If you professionally talk shit and belittle others, does that make you an exhausting person to be around? These are the types of questions that swirled in my head as I listened. I could feel my body responding to the way this person spoke about others, or even their own co-host. I realized I was creating prolonged exposure to a toxic personality. I was absorbing his way of speaking, his judgments. I didn’t like his voice in my head.

At a certain point I decided those thoughts and reasonings were simply too complex to think towards a man I do no know, as I consumed a free media product.

I realized I want podcast listening to be enjoyable again. I want to be Jessica’s theoretical fan singing “Thank you for making anything at all!” [birds twirling and chirping around me] rather than [redacted]’s listener thinking “This guy really fucking sucks and brings this whole thing down.”

Am I crazy? I would think. This guy is a dick, right?

Is anyone else hearing this?

That’s where the trouble began.

Part 3: This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

[Redacted]’s show is not the first time I’ve had to quit listening to a podcast for not being able to handle the host. The circumstances were a bit different last time: I was experiencing a phenomenon called misophonia.

Misophonia essentially means that certain sounds trigger strong emotions like anger, or another change in your body or behavior. For me, it just literally hurts. I don’t know how else to describe it. I can’t stand certain sounds, and that’s that.

The speaking voices of particular hosts were grating on me. No big deal. These peoples’ voices just aren’t for me. It’s a shame, actually, because I liked the hosts personalities, and the subjects discussed.

I made a post on Twitter presenting these fact neutrally. I was not putting the hosts down. People’s voices are what they are; it’s just a shame I couldn’t enjoy the show.

I returned to the post, and was dismayed to find others had responded. People weren’t mad at me or contradicting me. Quite the opposite, they were now disparaging the speaking voices of the hosts — two women. My post had turned into a place where people could chime in and call on harmful stereotypes associated with upspeak and vocal fry.

How clear it was in my own head didn’t matter (“I don’t care for these voices, they’re not for me”) — the responders were using the post to reflect their misogynistic views. I had unintentionally created a space where people felt comfortable dogpiling the speaking voices of women.

I deleted the post and issued a clarification. It was a real learning moment.

Say, can you spot a difference between these two statements?

1. I personally find it hard to listen to the tones of this podcast host’s voice
2. These women are shrill and annoying

Similarly, can you spot the difference between:

1. It’s important to be careful how we talk about [thing], because the subject is used by certain groups as a dogwhistle for racism.
2. We can’t talk about [thing] without people calling us racist.

I am lucky to have friends in my life who deeply understand intersectional feminism and how important these nuances are. However, I have also lost relationships with people who genuinely refuse to see how even if you say the first thing with good intentions, clear heart, clean conscience… it doesn’t matter. Someone who means the second, in the bad way, can still read your words and think you’re sending them a signal validating their behavior.

If you do not belong to the group impacted by validation of these signals, it’s easy for you to argue with or belittle the voice of the person trying to help you understand.

When we seek to confirm our biases and opinions, we stand at the beginning of a negative funnel. If we aren’t training ourselves to be discerning with what we consume and read and are influenced by, we are lost.

A second recent podcast I’ve had issue with is run by a former journalist I admire. There’s been a shift in reliability of the hosts over time. Whenever those hosts say something “off” (read: entitled or annoying), I found myself fighting the urge to run to Reddit to look for negative posts that validated my opinion.

You’re hearing this, right? Alas my Lord I am only so strong. I thought I learned my lesson with the previous two experiences, but I guess I am a hater at heart. When I realized I had a problem with [redacted], I admit I did end up running to the subreddit to see if anyone else had said something negative about this person.

I didn’t want to say anything mean, I just want to see if others were seeing what I was seeing. Am I crazy, or was that super rude? Is he being a dick, or is it just me?

Is this annoying to anyone else?

It is so tempting to reinforce negative feelings you have by trying to find validation from others. There are no guidelines or rulebooks to understand this. I am an adult, and I find it overwhelming. Imagine how our young people could be so swept away.

I can’t be the only one hearing this, right?

I’m sorry to say, I made a post in [redacted]’s community forums. In it I confessed — much like this post — how I found the person hard to listen to. I didn’t like how they talked about others. I didn’t like their demeanor. I described feeling worn down by listening to them.

I didn’t feel great about doing this. In my mind, this type of writing would be acceptable if my relationship with [redacted] was that of a friend, roommate, coworker, or even acquaintance. In that case, the impact or actions of that person would actually impact me, and it would be appropriate to say something. Well, that is not the case.

Responses came in. I saw I was not alone in recognizing the behavior of the creator. Comments from pro-[redacted] fans trickled in as well, taunting me for getting got. I didn’t feel validated. I had a sinking, sad feeling instead: this person wouldn’t care. They would find joy in my comments. His whole shtick is getting under people’s skin, after all. Congrats, [redacted], you got to me.

Pretty soon after, I realized there was a serious problem. My feelings, sense of self, my personhood cannot get tied up in this. I had stepped on a rake in a prison of my own making. I was literally bent out of shape at a parasocial situation I invented, that did not exist.

It is simply too much thinking to do about a stranger. The impact this host has on me is zero. I don’t have to listen to the content. I don’t have to interact with other fans of it. I can find other shows, there’s other things to listen to.

However, because the person’s voice is in my ears all the time, I’m reacting emotionally and in a human way to the things they say. Their vocal ticks become mine. I listen to them and I hear them. If I’m in the middle of doing laundry, and they say something, I exhale in frustration. I snort and roll my eyes. I snap back to an empty room.

This man’s voice was my most-listened to voice in 2024.

Part 4: A List of Petty Gripes, AKA Everything I Hate About [Redacted] , Which Really Says More About Me

Here’s a list of everything I can’t stand about this guy in one place. If you somehow ended up here without the context of the other sections, I’m sorry. Please remember that I am the freak in this scenario, and [redacted] is a human being.

Sorry [redacted] I paid you money but I can’t stand listening to you. Bye.

1. He’s just mean
2. He continually needles his host and seeks to embarrass or belittle him. Whether or not it’s all for an act or not, in practice, it is just 1 man bullying another man.
3. He drags the show down
4. He interrupts everything to blurt “wait wait wait” so often I have considered making a supercut. Wait wait wait, go back, stop, stop, hold on, hang on, now hang on, just a minute. It’s irritating to reiterate something over and over. It’s irritating. Irritating, I tell you. irritating. Are you irritated yet?
5. And once we do wait, what does he do? What spin or insight does he bring? Well after grinding the momentum of the show to the halt (“wait….. …………………………………X?”) the extra pizazz, the juj, the special something is that X is so outlandish and funny. Yes, [redacted], X. That’s what we were all laughing at anyways, without….. never mind.
6. The role he brings to the show is that of a straightman, which comes across as “My life is the only valid life/thoughts/experience, everyone else is a moron.” Look, I’m not saying that’s a unique trait in a podcast host, I just mean it’s really on display in this particular broadcast.
7. Total asshole whose moments of pathos feel like backpedaling
8. Once made a comment that he’s sober now but was an asshole when he drinks. Made me wonder how bad he used to be that the way he treats and talks about others is what he’s comfortable saying into a microphone for the general public.

His voice and mannerisms would interrupt my train of thought. It was changing my internal voice, it was impacting me more than I wanted.

He’s a dick, and I don’t like listening to dicks, even if they’re entertaining dicks. This is the same reason I left behind some of my news shows — those hosts are smart, but they’re smug and shocked, and that’s all they talk about.

[Redacted] show is about making fun of people. So, in theory [redacted] is the perfect host to make fun of people.

This is not a joke. I swear to God I had a dream I was defending the other host from [redacted]’s laughter and snide remarks. If we were in a group of friends, you might try to stick up for that friend. “Ha ha, OK, well let’s move on.” I might take that friend or the other aside — hey, are we OK? Well, none of that applies because I simply do not know these people and they should not be on my mind this much.

When I dream of confronting the host directly about behaviors that do not impact me, I realize that I need to take a step back and either reconsider my support, my priorities, or realize that the most-listened to voice of the year is making me deeply unhappy.

It is important to set boundaries with media consumption.

Part 5: Content Creation & Dependency

By this point in the post, you may be asking yourself, why did it me so long to simply stop supporting this creator?

That’s a good question. What makes it hard to walk away from content creators we invest in?

Let’s first talk about what causes us to form bonds with creators. In the case of the shows that I enjoy, I enjoy niche cultural commentary of media I believe no one else will talk about.

In October 2024, I paid for the privilege of hearing two strangers whose opinions I enjoy review an album I do not particularly like. That album was “Momentum” by TobyMac, and that podcast was “The P.O.D Kast.”

I wanted to hear someone experience that trainwreck in the modern day to help wash my brain from the context in which I experienced it when it came out. Everything comes back to identity in some way. If I stopped supporting that podcast (which I have no plans to do at the moment), I lose connection to a niche field of creators and fans who examine the same type of work I also examine. I lose their perspectives, reactions; I lose access to a particular audience.

For me, parasocial connection creates tension between creativity and consumption. While entertainment is my primary goal when listening to these “niche” shows, in the back of my mind I’m always thinking about what I’m writing about, thinking about, or working on lately.

For a long time, I held onto [redacted]’s show, because I didn’t know anyone out there doing what they were doing. I found value in the anthropological nature of their pursuit of weird, niche communities. Plus, I really like the other co-host.

At the end of the day, was the juice worth the squeeze? What creative nutrients I got from listening to the show could come from another protein body. And if not, maybe I didn’t really need it anyways.

Part 6: Where Do We Go From Here?

If you take anything from this post, please consider how important it is to set digital boundaries with the communities you support or enjoy. When you build better boundaries for yourself, and engage responsibly with media, you set yourself up for success. Don’t be like me. Don’t tie up your self-worth with voices in your ear.

Here are some tools for you:

1. How often in a day or a week are you interacting with media?
2. Do you follow creators or individuals on social media? Who have you followed the longest?
3. Who do you look up to?
4. Do you feel like this creator owes you something?
5. Do you feel like this creator would listen to you if you talked to them?
6. Do you think that you would be friends with that creator if the circumstances were right?

Our society relies on screens, distractions, and disassociations while life gets harder for ordinary people. These unspoken social boundaries did not exist before.

What would the Spotify Wrapped at the end of your life look like? Whose voice was in your ear the most? Who are you really listening to? What really matters?

Thanks for reading!