The Disheartening

How I learned to accept that my fun hobby will never lead to anything else

It’s a quiet pub. There’s a low jukebox rumble. An old man is sat in the corner. His teeth yellowed, his pompadour hair struggling and broken, his glass half empty, and his face hangs heavy on his crooked neck. His general demeanour speaks of defeat. As you approach his area he looks you over, but remains just a background. You strike up conversation with a friend on what you listen to and what you do yourself, but before you can get too deep, he beckons you over, and as you draw nearer, he coughs out a short warning:

”You a Podcaster, then eh? In the Podcasting game are you? Tell you what, that’s the hardest game in the world that is. I used to be in it myself you know. Yea. I was a Podcaster for thirty years man and boy. Hardest game in the world. Had to give it up in the end. Terrible back injury”

In January 2017 I started Smersh Pod. A side-line hobby to get some Bond related junk out of my system that had built up for decades, and chat with people I liked and was a fan of. It was fun, and a lovely diversion from my day job.

By the end of 2017, things were starting to happen that were very exciting, and by 2019 the podcast had taken off, I had met some amazing people, written for Empire (a dream for many years) and had finished my first book. Things could only get better.

Then lockdown happened.

Well. It may not be lockdown’s fault entirely, but I feel that’s where it started.

Smersh Pod was my third stab at podcasting. I had one in 2010-ish called “An Occasional Theme”, which was a sketch show podcast built up from many people, and me, submitting their own sketches, and all stitched together, then in 2014 I had another with my friend Dean in for a short while. Back then podcasting was mainly for people who either couldn’t get their voices heard, or had a voice and couldn’t get that idea commissioned. It felt like a level playing field, and maybe even a bit of a new frontier. If you were good enough, you could get heard, and if you were brave enough, you could try for more.

At the very least it felt fair.

Then in 2020 celebrities began to really get involved.

I’m not saying celebrity podcasts didn’t exist before 2020, they very much did, and there were loads, but once lockdown began, there were more, and slowly, but surely, the market became horribly saturated, with even the big broadcasters getting involved.

Back in the day, you’d have a fair shout of getting in the, frankly baffling, iTunes charts with a new episode. These days the top 20 is pretty much dominated by celebrity - either hosting, or producing. It’s become a nice bit of pocket money for the majority of them.

Meanwhile the smaller podcasts, who a few years ago felt like they were maybe getting a foothold, are washed out under the volume of intensity.

Not only do these other podcasts have the names and built-in following, they also have P.R. machines ensuring that they are shared far and wide.

“But John, why don’t you spend some time making videos and trimming clips, making vids etc??”

Well, I have a day job. I also have children who stay with me in my small flat a lot of the time, therefore my time is incredibly limited and mostly taken up with life stuff, or doing the podcast.

This is where I have come to be where I am now; A nodding acceptance that this fun hobby is just that. For a short while it felt like a door opening into an exciting world, but it isn’t. It’s just a hobby, albeit a very fun and rewarding one.

I’m not alone in sharing these sentiments either. I see a good deal of creatives suffering and wanting to give up, lost in the waves and reflecting on where it went wrong. Truth is, it didn’t, it’s just Ma & Pa Stores vs. Walmart.

I love the people that like what I do, and they are all very kind, very supportive, very lovely and very generous, and I now do what I do with them in mind. The lovely Smershers.

I guess if there’s anything to say it’s that if you like a podcast/YouTube/Creative that isn’t driven by a unfeeling, unscrupulous P.R. machine, maybe drop them a Patreon subscription, buy them a coffee, review their work, or at the very least share it on your TL. It makes a huge difference. It really does.

Anyway.

I would really like to thank people like Banyabat and Toddits, who do amazing work to support Smersh Pod and get the episodes out there to new listeners. I think without them I may have lost faith in the whole enterprise long ago.

See you on the next one.

Love and bloody peace,

John Rain

2024