Recommended: A Bite-Sized Podcast with Smart Takes on Internet Culture
Podcast fans take note — even if you have already exhausted the many suggestions I passed along in a two-part roundup of the best examples of the form:
There’s a noteworthy new podcast that’s worth a listen — especially if you’re interested in the curious culture of the Internet.
TLDR is a spinoff of the public radio show On The Media, but its overseers PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman focus more or less exclusively on web phenomena, current and past. The episodes are short and sweet — maybe 10 minutes — and a few months after its launch the show is really hitting its stride. In fact, eyeballing its archives, my three favorites are all recent.
This one is about a game called “Last Man,” in which participants compete to avoid news — specifically, the winner is the last person to learn who won the Super Bowl.
This one tells the odd story behind The Slender Man, a quasi-folkloric web-era figure.
And this most recent episode is about Swatch’s ill-fated attempt to replace standard methods of time-telling with a new theory of “Internet time.”
The show is smart, concise and goes down easy. If you’re interested in the web’s weirder nooks and crannies, you’ll enjoy it. Subscribe to the podcast here, browse past episodes here, or check out the TLDR blog.
Write to me at rwalkeryn@yahoo.com or find me on Twitter, @notrobwalker.
