On October 15, two major British stars took to the stage at London's O2, their final night of a sold-out tour of the country. Up to 15,000 fans surrounded the stage, which was set up “in the round” like a boxing ring, cheering, clapping and screaming.”I love you!Some wore official merchandise: T-shirts with the faces of their idols on them.
Not all champions have a podcast, but a lot of them do these days. The two men on stage were none other than Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair's former doctor, and Rory Stewart, the former MP and Tory leadership candidate, now host of the preposterously popular programme. The rest is politicsbeloved by centrist parents in Great Britain (and increasingly… Other demographicsalso).
This was the first time O2 had hosted a live political podcast, although it was not the first time the pair had taken to the stage. They had to start booking arenas after selling out the Royal Albert Hall – a venue that this month hosted a live version of the marginally less popular The Only Podcast News agents. Last year, Stewart described the amount of money he earns from podcasting as “Football tournament moneyEstimates that he and Campbell earn more than £100,000 a month seem reasonable – and that's before taking into account ticket sales for live shows (an average seat at the O2 costs around £100).
What's going on here? What would motivate someone to travel to a ghastly, event-packed mall and spend good money to watch two middle-aged men engage in a fairly predictable—for listeners of their twice-weekly episodes—discussion from several hundred feet away? What is the impact of the great success of independent and politically moderate podcasts? On both sides of the Atlantic OceanTell us what people want from politics and the media?
First, it proves that in a highly saturated information landscape, having a few knowledgeable people who can be relied upon to offer some fairly reasonable opinions can help reduce feelings of inferiority. Permanent victory.
Secondly, it once again highlights the fact that many people feel stuck in the middle Polarized scene – They resent the “mainstream media” that pushes the liberal left agenda too aggressively; He is repelled by narratives being pushed to the right. There is clearly an appetite for spaces where reasonable people can disagree politely and constructively.
Third, people are tired of being presented with an artificial, scripted and carefully managed version of reality. They just don't buy it anymore. Social media has made it so much easier to, as the meme goes, “DYOR” (do your own research). Whether or not what you find is wrong, bogus, or lacks context is unfortunately beside the point. Self-directed discovery can be more persuasive and persuasive than a carefully edited television news clip or newspaper article.
Meanwhile, TikTok is both a symptom and a cause of a growing desire for low-fi, unpolished, somewhat messy content (although ironically, the algorithms that feed us this content are getting more sophisticated by the day).
This desire for authenticity — even if carefully constructed — manifests itself in the way people vote, too. This is part of the reason why Nigel Farage (A.R.) is so famous Latest Ipsos poll He gave the UK's Reform leader the highest favorability ratings of any British politician.) This was a decisive factor in roaming and being free.”Play that music“Donald Trump beats flamboyant, celebrity-backed Kamala Harris in the US presidential election.
However, this is still not well understood. “Nothing that was true yesterday about how carefully this campaign was run is not true now,” MSNBC host Joy Ann Reed said of Harris during a televised discussion of the election results on November 6. Reid also noted that Harris had “the voice of every major celebrity…the Swifties, she had the Bee Hive” — a reference to the fan bases of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.
The failure to understand that endorsements from a slew of celebrities may not have been in Harris' favor was striking. But Reed wasn't the only one to promote the bizarre idea that the woman who lost the presidential election by nearly 2.5 million votes ran a “flawless” campaign.
If her campaign had been flawless, she would have won. It's funny that that would have required doing something like that Charismatic politicians And podcast hosts alike instinctively understand: let your guard down a little, and show people that you're a flawed human being, just like them.
