Note that I speak for myself here and my opinions/comments in no way reflect the other Splattercast co-hosts. This is going to be a really long commentary on all sorts of things podcasting related. It meanders, but I don’t care. You’ve been warned

There’s an amusing documentary called Dig! which is about two bands that loved each other: The Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Once the Warhols got a sweet major label record deal and got popular, BJM turned against them and now they are mortal enemies. You’d think it would be easy to root for people you like, but it seems many people are hardwired for jealousy and envy.

About a year ago there was this thing called the Horror Podcasting Network. You might remember it. There were big plans for it. We even put on a Left 4 Dead Night. The idea was to get all of the horror podcasts together in one big spot for self promotion and to grow the community. It was a good idea and concept. Unfortunately, the guy who started it was a dickhead whiner that went behind my back and started saying false shit about the Splattercast to other podcasts causing me to go Super Saiyan. I’m the kind of person that once I’ve been crossed, there’s no going back. Any further interaction with me will not have a happy ending. I had actually written up a long statement that fully explained everything that happened with HPN (and which I just went back and reread for nostalgia) and planned on posting it to DL only to have multiple other podcasts request that I not do that for fear that it would make all of HPN look bad. Fine. A 2nd attempt was then made to bring HPN back from the ashes. A few podcasts attempted to pick up the pieces (us included) and spent a lot of work drafting up a charter and whatnot to hopefully avoid that situation in the future. Unfortunately, more drama occurred when some of the podcasts who weren’t directly involved in creating the charter felt slighted and started more nonsense (good news, I wasn’t responsible for that one! lol). In the end, the whole thing crashed and burned in a fiery inferno of hurt feelings, dismissive attitudes, and high school bickering.

I learned a lot about podcasting and the personalities that go along with it during that experience. As you know, the Splattercast as a whole has been a big supporter of the podcasting community with things like our Co-host Months and the Splatcademy Awards. Many of our listeners have started their own shows which we fully support. But in all honesty, the younglings just aren’t the same as the Jedi’s. There’s something to be said for those podcasts that have stayed on, week in and week out, for multiple years, through change and real life problems (we often forget that all these people that host shows have real lives, and many times, real life is hard). When one of them dies, it makes the rest of us pause.

The Midnight Podcast is one of those shows. For full disclosure, I was not a regular listener of the show. Not because I didn’t think it was any good, but for the simple reason that I just don’t care much for zombies. It’s just not my thing. But I do have very fond memories of the show. The original host, Root Rot, interviewed me about The Grand Horror back when we were just excited to have some blogger make a mention of our shitty film. I’ve listened to the show off and on now and then but the main thing I took away, and still keep, is the classiness of not only Root Rot, but Corey as well. Corey took over the show (I believe with episode 100) and throughout the entire HPN fiasco, he was one of the sanest people I dealt with. I don’t pretend to know anything about what went on behind the scenes that led to the demise of his show, but from what I gather, it’s more of the same type of drama that I went through with HPN. Whether it was because of its longevity or the fact that it would repeatedly come up in conversations of the best podcasts, I always considered the show to be one of the “giants” of podcasting. We old fellows that have been in the game for years have a different perspective and memory about the “good ol’ days”. There used to be only a handful of us around. It felt a bit as if we were in some sort of exclusive club and that what we were doing was something really different. In podcasting terms, we’re like ancient Redwood trees. When one of us is cut down it reminds us of just how different the podcasting universe is today. There are always people chipping away, hoping to knock the big guys out. For what? Because it makes them feel good? Because they think they’ll get their audience? For money?

Can there be too many podcasts? Honestly, I think so. Nobody wants to keep people from making podcasts and nobody wants to fight with anybody about it. But bickering and fighting occur all the time. It’s just a reality. I’ve seen it up close and from a distance. This certainly isn’t as much of an issue with the “smaller” podcasts but it is a real presence with bigger shows. I think there has become a really unhealthy competition for listeners and I don’t really understand why. One of the things I’m proudest about for the Splattercast is the fact that we have such a large audience without the need to promote it. I remember setting up myspace and facebook pages and then letting them fall into disrepair and neglect because we just didn’t care to actively seek out listeners. Our podomatic feed long ago became useless because we’d exceed the bandwidth within the first few days of each month, so we rarely ever take the time to update it. We’ve been asked by multiple podcasts to exchange promos to which we say “Um, we have none” (though I did just make a promo for the Splatcademy Awards which you might here on some shows in the future). When’s the last time you heard us beg listeners to visit our iTunes page and leave a review? Hell, for a span of a few months, we didn’t even reactivate our voicemail when it went dead due to the fact that we never mentioned it on the show. In some cases we’ve lost listeners because I just can’t handle their stupidity and will tell them that. I’ve always felt that the show could get a much larger audience, but we never follow through with anything because, ultimately, I just don’t care. If people listen, they listen, if they don’t, oh well.

But lots of podcasts believe that is the ultimate endgame. They want lots of listeners. Lots of listeners brings clout. Clout brings notice within the industry. Notice within the industry brings in free movie screeners or books or interviews or dildos. Free shwag brings about the opportunity to “make money” since you’re now shilling for companies. The possibility of “making money” brings about the desire for even more listeners, which causes competition and rivalry, which causes drama. Lots of drama.

It’s really all pretty nonsensical. I think it’s a natural thing to wonder “Hey, I wonder if I could make money off this? After all, I am spending a lot of my time creating it, so getting some compensation would really make this worthwhile for me.” And there are probably some horror podcasts out there that can make that work. In fact, I don’t really see any difference from a podcast wanting to play paid advertisements and another podcast putting a big paypal “Donate” button on their site or selling merch. We have some Amazon ads on our site whose sole goal is to help Jeff pay the web costs associated with maintaining the site and hosting the Splattercast files (that’s a lot of bandwidth, yo). It’s essentially the same thing, everybody wants the money but go about it in a different way. But nobody is going to make money podcasting and if they do, it’ll be so minuscule and insignificant that it isn’t worth fighting about anyway.

For the sake of argument, let’s say there are 100 horror podcasts on the internet. I would venture to guess that 80 of those 100 are just horror fans that want to talk about their favorite movies and have no interest in pursuing anything further of it. But the other 20 are people who put a lot of work into their shows. Some of our podcast brethren are highly produced and they spend hours each week putting out their shows. I couldn’t imagine doing that. The most intensively produced thing we do at the Splattercast is the Splatcademy Awards. I doubt most of the listeners really understand how much time and effort goes into creating that particular show. But some podcasts do that kind of prep work and production every week. So it’s only natural that those 20 or so shows want to be “the best”. When you put in that much time and effort in research, post production, interviews, promos, sound fx ,music, etc., you just want to know that what you are doing is worth it. And since nobody makes money at this, the only real barometer for these types of podcasts are listeners. They just hope to be able to parlay that listener success into something financial and we’re getting into an era where many podcasts are really exploring those sorts of possibilities. It never used to be like that. “Free entertainment” used to to be the unwritten rule of podcasting and I still think it is. But as more and more podcasts try to find ways to make money, it’s also going to polarize listeners. It’s like a punk band that has street cred until they “sell out” to a label. It’s that same sort of mentality that permeates all forms of entertainment. I don’t know why people feel so strongly about that kind of thing, but I do know that almost everybody experiences it with something sooner or later. My personal feeling? Who cares. If somebody wants to try and make money with a podcast, let them.

Which brings me to the next thing I’ve heard rumblings about: free speech. Most horror podcasters operate under the idea that “we all love and get along with each other”. I hate to ruin everyone’s hippie vision, but that’s just not true. Some podcasters just don’t like each other. Some podcasts have called each other out on their shows. Some podcasters talk shit about others behind their back. It just happens. You’ve got to remember that, generally speaking, if you have a podcast and are talking about movies and topics, then you’ve got an ego. It’s like talk radio, opinions become louder and more abrasive when your goal is to get listeners. And you think you’re right. All the time. That’s just how people are. And if there is one truism in the world of podcasting it’s that egos will clash. This just gets amplified when you’re competing for listeners. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes bullshit that goes on that most listeners are never privy to. For example, the HPN fiasco was a case lesson for everyone involved. I was fully prepared to release, publicly, what happened and let the chips fall where they may. I didn’t because some podcasts that I respect asked me nicely not to. But that led to more problems because there is a large contingent of podcasts that firmly believe that “Say anything at anytime about anyone no matter what the situation is”. Essentially, if a podcast is being stupid about something, the idea is to publicly call them out on it because it’s an issue of morals and free speech. One of the conflicts about the HPN charter was that one of the rules of being in HPN was that all conflicts were kept in house. Some podcasts just philosophically disagree with that and that’s fine. I’m of the opinion that anybody can say anything about whatever they want, but just as some of us believe it is almost a duty to speak out on conflicts occurring, others see it as just not necessary in the grand scheme of things. If I’ve got a problem with a certain podcast, I’ll simply choose not to deal with them first and foremost, and then if it needs to go further, action will be taken. I don’t believe publicly airing dirty laundry should be the default choice. If it needs to get to that, so be it, but otherwise it just looks tacky and childish. But again, that’s just a difference of philosophy between respective podcasts. It’s not so much an issue of free speech as it is being classy. Again, if someone deserves to be ripped then they should be ripped, but doing it publicly only appeals to the diehard loyal listeners who latch on to that kind of stuff. It just creates a lot of bad blood between podcasters and other fans who don’t agree with that philosophy, and really, is publicly ripping a podcast really worth it? I mean, who cares? Is that really something the free speech world needs to be involved with? Instead of lamenting high school bullshit, spend that time to create a new segment for your show, or to talk about shit you actually care about. Most people don’t publicly rip other people unless they want some sort of “cool” cred. Again, sometimes people really deserve it, but most of the drama that occurs in the podcasting world is so trivial and mindless that even bringing it up is just a negative reflection on yourself rather than the person you are lobbing grenades at. When you know you are popular, sometimes that can get to your head and you start thinking you have the cache to do that kind of stuff. And unfortunately, it’s way more prevalent than most listeners probably think.

Which brings me to the listeners…

Every popular podcast has a small contingent of crazies. They’re the equivalent of those creepy teenage Marilyn Manson fans who carve names into their chests with a razorblade. They are people that if you met them in real life you’d avoid like the black death. They show undying devotion to not only your show, but the personalities within your show, and if you called upon them, they’d probably suicide bomb a rival podcast just because they love you so much. Every single entertainment medium has freaks like this. They just get it into their mind that these people who talk about horror movies that they’ll probably never meet are worthy of godlike worship and undying devotion. They pester you with e-mails or voicemails. They start acting like they know you and that they’ve been best friends with you since grade school. 99% of all listeners are swell people and throughout our 3+ years, we at the Splattercast have met lots of cool people and become good friends with many of them. But the crazies need  expunged whenever they reveal themselves. I’m very good at this. This has become a big issue, particularly on X-Box Live. I’ve had numerous run-ins with Splattercast listeners who are now, no doubt, ex-Splattercast listeners. You crazy freaks need to keep your distance from me. Seriously. I’m sure there are podcasters reading this right now that know exactly what I’m talking about. These people are beyond hope and need to be cut loose immediately. It got so bad that I deleted almost everybody off my X-Box Live friends list, including people who weren’t douchebags, just because I didn’t want to deal with that bullshit. Like I said, this is just a super small minority of listeners, but they end up being the ones that cause all the problems because they tend to be the loudest and cause the most strife. They’ll go to other message boards and shit on the listeners, or leave insane voicemails attacking the most personal things about someone, and generally be the “army” that thinks they are following the wishes and desires of the podcaster they worship. They’re basically fundamentalist crazies. And I despise fundamentalist crazies.

You must remember that relationships and friendships aren’t built on a one way street. You can’t “know” someone because you listen to them every Monday. Hell, I might be an exception, but there are only two people on this planet that actually know anything about me. I can tell you honestly that there are Splattercast hosts that I’ve known for over 10 years that would be shocked to know some of the things I’ve done or what some of my true beliefs are. People think they know me because of what I post on the message board, which I’ll just tell you right now is 98% bullshit (and I’m referencing to things such as politics, idiotic arguments, things like that, not reviews and such) . Let that sink in for a minute. Your entire perception, or at least a large part, is based on non face-to-face interaction with someone who openly admits that most of it is misdirection at best, flat out falsehoods at worst. Why do I do this? 1. Because I think it’s humorous watching people react and 2. I have no desire to let anyone actually know me. It’s just a barrier I create, no offense, but there are plenty of stupid people who keep thinking it’s real. The point is you’ll never meet most podcasters and if you take the podcast you’re listening to seriously enough to get animated over, well, that’s just pretty stupid. Eventually it might get to the point where you can consider yourself a friend, but honestly, most interactions never get that far. It’s like real life, sometimes you just don’t care to want to know someone. Some people you just aren’t interested in. It takes two to build a relationship and if one is obviously giving off vibes that say “Get the fuck away from me”, then don’t push it.

For me, the Splattercast isn’t about the listeners. It’s about laughing with my friends every Monday night. Friends who are in Tennessee, Colorado (or wherever the hell Deejay is on any given Monday), and California. People I like a lot and just don’t get a chance to see on a regular basis.  Some listeners make the mistake that a particular podcast is doing it “for them” and if something happens on that podcast that affects them, then they take it personally. There’s just no reason to become obsessed with a certain show. Don’t get me wrong, every podcaster wants somebody to be listening to their show, otherwise they could just talk to themselves in a mirror and feel satisfied. But some listeners just take it too far and they need to realize that there is a personal podcast bubble that should not be invaded. Maybe that’s just the bullshit we have to deal with for being public personalities.

Where the hell was I going with all this? I don’t even remember. I told you this would be rambling. Anyway, yeah there are too many podcasts. Yes, a lot of podcasts have egotistical dickheads that like to cause pain and misery for others. Yes, there are crazy listeners that need to shut the hell up. Yes, there are a ton of great people, listeners and podcasters, in this community that have to suffer because of the drama that goes on behind the scenes. Horror podcasting is a good thing, ultimately. It brings lots of awareness to the genre, is an outlet for fans to interact and learn more about their favorite films and celebrities, and helps cultivate independent films and filmmakers.

But the main systemic problem in the horror podcasting community is not petty drama because that will always be a part of it. It’s not the crazy contingent of listeners that take the ramblings of some fans they don’t know way too seriously. It’s not an issue of  “free speech” as some people have pointed out. It’s not even an issue of making money. No, the fundamental problem is that nothing new is happening. Honestly, the most unique thing that’s happened to horror podcasting in the past year is Zombiegrrlz with it’s fresh all-female take on the genre. And I’m not including shows that are primarily story driven, like 19 Nocturne Boulevard. I’m talking in terms of casts that are primarily commentary driven. It’s all just overlap of the same topics talking about the same things. Only now instead of ten or twenty shows, there are dozens upon dozens. All looking for the same pool of listeners. It’s understandable why there is so much drama now. With more and more podcasters, it just ups the odds that there will be more dickheads among them.

Unfortunately, I see no way of this ever being fixed. Things will never be the way they were a few years back when this whole horror podcasting thing was still in its relative infancy. That’s why seeing a show like Midnight Podcast go down is so shitty. It feels like a proud fighter in an old John Ford western who realized that the west is changing and the desire to go on being the fastest gunslinger just wasn’t worth it anymore.

We Redwoods need to stick together. Pretty soon, there won’t be any of us left.

Filed under: Commentary