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  • Love recommending podcasts!

    • Like others have said, Behind the Bastards is great to find out about some of the worst people in history.
    • In relation to that Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is the opposite of Behind the Bastards. It's about people who did cool stuff who became cool.
    • Also in lieu of that, Bad Gays, it's about bad gays in history. I think they've covered similar folks on BtB, but this is obviously from a queer perspective.
    • Fad Camp and Maintenance Phase are great podcasts about dieting and wellness. Fad Camp is more about how damaging some of these diets can be, whereas Maintenance Phase is similar to You're Wrong About (which I also recommend)
    • The Weekly Planet are these two Australian guys who talk about movies, tv, comics and video games. They also have a YouTube channel called Me Sunday Movies where they'll upload some of their podcasts. Like they have a running segment called "Caravan of Garbage" which is just sort of talking about a movie, tv show or game. Currently they've started going through the RoboCop movies.
    • Also shameless plug, but Checkpoint is on the radio but they take their radio show and put it on a podcast. It's a podcast about giving a 1up to diversity in video games. Most of us are from the LGBTQIA+ community and that's where most of our perspectives come from, but it's also just folks from any marginalised group. Lovely bunch of folks (if I do say so myself).

    Uh yeah, I have some more, but like that's politics or it's writing related or spicyness in or out of the bedroom. But these are the ones I always recc.

    • You Are Not So Smart: You’ll marvel at both how flawed our reasoning can be and how well we make up for it by being collaborative creatures
    • Behind the Bastards: Everything you don’t know about the worst people in all of history, including people you didn’t even know of
    • Twenty Thousand Hertz: Stories of pretty much anything as long as it works well in an audio medium. Best sound design in the game; like candy for your ears
    • Cautionary Tales (Tim Harford): Stories of people making huge mistakes or taking insane risks. Fun because sometimes the mistake was trusting their intuition instead of a rigorous process, but just as often it was ignoring their intuition in favor of a rigorous process
    • Build for Tomorrow, formerly Pessimists Archive: History of people freaking out about new stuff that is totally benign today but they thought would ruin civilization. Like mirrors, bicycles, teddy bears, pinball machines
    • Team Human: Kind of the opposite. All about how “progress” has harmed indigenous people, minorities, women, etc. and talking to people about how to address our modern problems with “anti-human” technology and economics

    Edit: I somehow forgot to add Knifepoint Horror, but I just read that someone else recommended it and I’m very disappointed in myself because it’s such a good horror podcast that I literally physically got chills when I read its name. So good. Fuck, I would even put it at the top of this list if it weren’t dependent on being in the mood for spoopy stories.

  • We Might Be Drunk is the podcast I listen to with the most consistency, and definitely worth a listen. Two of my favorite comedians (Mark Norman & Sam Morrill) who are hilarious while also getting into aspects of day to day life.

  • Dead Rabbit Radio if you like the paranormal or conspiracy theories without any of the shitty right-wing connotations that come with that community. Jason Carpenter is one of the best podcasters I've listened to and deserved 10x the views he gets.

    I'm not affiliated with the show in any way but here's a link to the shows YouTube channel

    https://m.youtube.com/@DeadRabbitRadio

  • A lot of my faves have been mentioned (BtB, wtyppod, Bad Gays), so here's a few I haven't seen lited here.

    Discussion Podcasts

    It's Not Just In Your Head: Therapists talking about the intersection of mental health, capitalism, and treatments (problems with how we go about it and what we could change).

    The War on Cars: What it sounds like, urbanists talking about biking, transit, issues with car oriented development.

    Tech Won't Save Us: Interviews with people, having critical conversations of different technologies. Discusses issues of tech, capitalism, surveillance, and more.

    Total Liberation: Leftist podcast discussing a variety of topics about the decay of capitalism and how we can recreate and liberate ourselves.

    Audio Dramas/Story Podcasts

    The Punumbra Podcast: I listen to the Juno Steel series, it's about a private detective on Mars. Great story and characters, a bit more humorous but will also destroy you emotionally in the best way. Also very queer!

    The Bright Sessions: People with super powers go to therapy. I really loved the world they created and how they relate the super powers and mental health.

    Scare You to Sleep: Scary stories read in a calm voice. The stories are really good, I actually like the hosts original stories that she sometimes reads quite a lot.

  • Risky or Not?

    Each short episode discusses one amusingly named food or situation (e.g. “ Unopened Carton of Heavy Cream Almost 3 Weeks Past It's Expiration Date”). Hosted by two food safety experts with good banter.

  • The Soundtrack Show by David W. Collins! He talks about film scores, how they were made, and many other details. No music knowledge is required. Scroll through the episodes and pick any movie that looks interesting, but EVERY episode is so good!

  • Matt and Shane's secret podcast. They're funny if you have 15 year old boy humor like me.

  • Bananas: A comedy writer and a comedian talking about articles that are bananas. A couple of funny dudes who just want to laugh and tell stories, using crazy headlines as a jumping off point. They often have guests who identify as female or non-binary.

    The Unmade Podcast: A couple childhood buds who think of podcast ideas that they'll never make, but then they do make a few into special episodes. Listen from the beginning because there are a lot of in-jokes that are worth it.

  • The Plastic Pleasiosaur Podcast is a really fun sceptic/science podcast run by an old man and a femboy archeologist.

    Saw Bones is a highly entertaining and informative medical history podcast run by a cool, bisexual doctor and her adult-baby husband.

    Bizarre Podcast: Dogs Must Die is an once in a lifetime find: a tiny man describes every episode of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure to his very smart friend.

  • Knifepoint Horror. No other horror podcast has ever come close to being as good for me

  • Film sack

    Dr Karl

    Star wars minute

    Mr Ballen

    All around science

    The morning stream

    These I listen to regularly. I have subs to many limited series around true crime (the teachers pet, shandees story, liar liar, the night driver) and other subs to podcasts listed here eg behind the bastards and some podcasts centered around pink bands and punk music but I rarely have time to listen to these regularly.

  • These are my favorites.

    Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe

    • A fun-filled discussion of the big, mind-blowing, unanswered questions about the Universe. In each episode, Daniel Whiteson (a Physicist who works at CERN) and Jorge Cham (a popular online cartoonist) discuss some of the simple but profound questions that people have been wondering about for thousands of years, explaining the science in a fun, shorts-wearing and jargon-free way.

    StarTalk Radio

    • Science, pop culture, and comedy collide on StarTalk Radio! Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and Director of New York's Hayden Planetarium, and his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities, and scientific experts explore astronomy, physics, and everything else there is to know about life in the universe. New episodes premiere Tuesdays. Keep Looking Up!

    Unexplainable

    • Unexplainable takes listeners right up to the edge of what we know ... and then keeps right on going. This Vox podcast explores scientific mysteries, unanswered questions, and all the things we learn by diving into the unknown. New episodes every Wednesday.

    Fall of Civilizations Podcast

    • A history podcast looking at the collapse of a different civilization each episode. What did they have in common? Why did they fall? And what did it feel like to watch it happen?

    Literature and History

    • With millions of downloads, hundreds of hours of soundtracked content, and an overall emphasis on the cultural history behind famous works of literature, Literature and History is one of the most popular independent podcasts on its subject. Starting with Sumerian cuneiform in 3,100 BCE, Literature and History moves forward in chronological order through Assyriology, Egyptology, the Old Testament, Ancient Greece and Rome, and the birth of Christianity. The show's current season is on Late Antiquity (or 200-700 CE) and the dawn of the Middle Ages. A typical episode (they average about two hours) features a general introduction to a work of literature, then a full summary of that work that expects no prior knowledge, and finally, an analysis of the cultural, biographical, and historical forces that gave rise to the work in question. Original symphonic and ambient background music is woven throughout each show, and all episodes offer free full, illustrated, footnoted transcriptions as well as quizzes for purposes of review. The show has no advertisements, and its host takes pride in a professional approach that avoids chitchat and ephemera and gets straight to the educational content. You can listen to the episodes in any order, although most listeners begin at the beginning and proceed from there, as the podcast itself is chronologically organized. Doug Metzger finished his Ph.D. in literature in 2011. His chief scholarly interest, following his dissertation work, continues to be 19th-century realism and postbellum American philosophy.
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