I’m looking to stock up on podcasts, whether in Mandarin, French or English. Don’t worry about my tastes I’ll sort it out later
But share good podcasts in other languages if you know any (it might be useful for other people)
The Linux Experiment
I liked “David Tennant does a podcast with…”
My regular rotation (in order of how many of them I listen to, %):
- Lateral with Tom Scott
- Wait, wait, don’t tell me
- Well there’s your problem
- Behind the Bastards
- It could happen here
WTYP 🤜🤛
- Better Offline: Ed Zitron tearing apart how shitty the tech industry has become
- QAA Podcast: studies conspiratorial thinking (originally devoted to watching Qanon lunatics), typically hilarious
- Accidental Tech Podcast: three third-party Apple developers talking about tech, primarily in the Apple ecosystem
- Chapo Traphouse: Leftist politics, typically pretty funny
- Noble Blood: history podcast retelling stories about members of nobility in short form
- Fall of Civilizations Podcast: history podcast that dives deep into civs like Carthage and the Assyrians, etc
- TrueAnon: Leftist politics, deep dives on topics
- Last Podcast on the Left (name is a horror film reference): true crime with anecdotes, lots of diversions that might not be for everyone
- Alphabet Boys: each season deep dives a taboo action by gov agencies (FBI, ATF, etc)
- Song Exploder: deep dives on the writing and recording of songs with the musicians behind them
- What Went Wrong: deep dives on movie productions
- Behind the Bastards: deep dives on terrible people throughout history, lots of diversions that might not be for everyone
- Grumpy Old Geeks: tech and nerd news (including sci-fi media) from two cynical guys who have been in the biz for years, typically funny
Love QAA! Will have me cackling out loud at times
Wait a minute, are you Julian? Cackle cackle.
. Mad At The Internet
*Stuff you should know" is a fun podcast, two guys go over a random topic.
They aren’t experts in anything, but it’s fun to hear them try to explain what they’ve learned about everything from how cranes work to darker things like the Tulsa race riots.
Josh and Chuck are awesome. I enjoy how they slip in false info jokes, and go off on tangents
Omnibus is also good in this vein. Ken Jennings and his friend go over some weird and obscure history you might not know about. It’s not very in-depth a lot, more factoids, but always pretty cool.
I see a bunch of other Cool Zone Media shows, but not Molly Conger’s Weird Little Guys.
Her calm cadence and thorough exploration of specific American wingnuts is fun. And as far as I’ve seen, most of the stories end with the guy dead or in prison, so happy endings.
I’ve really been enjoying it!
Almost TOO detailed and well researched, but I think that’s more on me for listening to her masterful work as distraction while doing other things.
I absolutely love these:
- Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg (behavioral psychology)
- The Sloppy Boys (comedy cocktails)
- The Bugle (comedy satire politics)
- Danny Wallace’s Important Broadcast (comedy radio show)
- Heavyweight (comedy mystery)
- HomeAssistant podcast (smarthome tech HomeAssistant)
- Self-Hosted (tech)
- Maintenance Phase (comedy wellness)
- Severance Podcast (tv show Severance)
- Strong Songs (your favorite songs, explained)
- All Consuming (comedy product reviews)
The Severance podcast is a really great behind the scenes extrapolation of each episode by the cast and crew. I recommend this one too! It’s fun to hear how many of them are fans of the show since most of them had no idea what was going on while filling their portion.
I’m surprised I didn’t see anyone recommend The Adventure Zone, especially the first season. One of the best actual play podcasts out there, especially the first two seasons.
I’ll recommend some hidden gems that need more love:
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Mabel: A woman works as a live in nurse for an elderly woman, and the show is voicemails she’s leaving to her ward’s estranged daughter. It’s poetic and beautiful, and then strange events start occurring.
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Dark Ages: a fantasy workplace comedy where an unpopular museum gets a new exhibit, the crown of the Dark Lord, who terrorized the country hundreds of years ago… Who just recently was resurrected and wants it back. Probably the best produced shows I’ve listened to with a great intro song.
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The Cryptonaturalist: a very normal nature show that is normal about normal nature. Also has poetry! Actually feel good podcast.
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Wolf 359: science crew is in a remote space station, and picks up a radio signal out of nowhere. Starts off funny, then gets wild.
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Brimstone Valley Mall: three demons disguised as humans, working at a mall in the 90s.
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Cult Or Just Weird: in depth dives into things which could be a cult or are just weird.
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Wooden Overcoats: British comedy podcast about a funeral home in a small village suddenly having to deal with competition
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Everything Is Alive: interviews with inanimate objects
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Uncanny County: Welcome to Nightvale meets Twilight Zone but it’s also funny
Also there’s podcast versions of books written on the Internet, which I’ll plug here!
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky: What if Harry was not an idiot and knew what science was and was actually supported at home? Fixes a lot of dumb plot holes from the original series and frankly, is better. Also explores rationalist thinking!
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Worm by Wildbow: This is literally my favorite book and will make you never see the superhero genera the same again. Superpowers can happen to anyone seemingly at random. A young woman gets the power to control insects and wants to be a hero, but after meeting some villains the line between hero and villain blurs. There’s a chapter that’s one short sentence long and I’ve had conversations over an hour long about what it meant.
-Twig by Wildbow: A world where mad, Frankensteinian science took off instead of the regular kind. Follows a child experiment and his fellow childhood experiment friends on adventures for the definitely evil empire!
Pact by, you guessed it, Wildbow: Guy who just pulled himself out of homelessness who hates his crazy manipulative family gets the inheritance from his grandmother, which he didn’t want. Turns out that also involves also inheriting the karma from his family, who were practicing the most hated form of magic possible, diabalism. So now the whole magical community is actively trying to kill him as he’s scrambling to survive
Also if you like audio books, check stuff out from your library, too. It helps them out and helps them get funding when people do stuff like that.
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Last Podcast on the Left is my go to for true crime and paranormal related topics.
I’m surprised no-one has mentioned “if books could kill”.
They basically tear all their top seller self help books to shreds. It’s very entertaining and actually really smart too.
It is a great podcast. But all of Michael Hobbes podcasts are. He still co hosts maintenance phase and now Sarah is running you are wrong about alone.
100%. I still listen to you’re wrong about too.
Really enjoy the rest is history.
My time has come! I have a podcast for everything. What do you like?
I subscribe to over 250 podcasts. -_- I don’t listen to all of them every day, and many aren’t in production anymore.
I love to listen and learn.
Unexplainable - Explainers on scientific mysteries, each episode is less than 30 minutes
What Went Wrong - Behind the scenes movie podcast. It’s a miracle any movie gets made.
Song Exploder - Musicians take apart their songs, layer by layer and talk about how it was made
Hysteria - Politics and News focusing on how the issues affect women
Levar Burton Reads - Levar Burton reads short stories. Not in production anymore, but there are almost 200 episodes worth of stories to hear
Hello From the Magic Tavern - A guy falls to another dimension but still gets WiFi so he started a podcast interviewing fantasy characters in that universe
Welcome to Night Vale - A fictional story told through a bi-monthly community updates radio broadcast. All conspiracies in Night Vale are real.
Hacked - Stories about hacking and internet crime.
Ologies - Science show about ‘-ologies’ careers
There is only one podcast truly worth your valuable time, and it’s the Get Skrek’d Podcast - “A shot-by-shot analysis of the award-winning film, Shrek 2 by your tour guide and host, Logan Flinders.”
No other podcasts compare. No other podcasts matter.
Get Shrek’d is love. Get Shrek’d is life.
Radio lab is great :)
I would love to know some Chinese one’s too
