Fredericton — Capital city woman Haley Allen, 32, said she’s had it “up to here” with her so-called friends recommending podcasts that she’ll definitely, for sure never listen to. Allen said that one friend in particular, Devon Lewis, not only recently recommended a podcast, but had the nerve to follow up with her on whether she listened to it.
“If he was any kind of friend, he wouldn’t be asking me in the middle of my work day whether I listened to that goddamn podcast he recommended. Of course I haven’t,” she fumed. “I have a life. And I’m still not sure what a podcast even is.”
According to Allen, many of her most pretentious acquaintances have created their own podcasts about various topics, none of which she finds remotely interesting.
“This woman I know has a weekly podcast about parenting — I don’t have kids, so why would I care? Another guy has one about local politics… he works at a call centre but apparently he’s an amateur political scientist on the side. This other girl has one about cooking without gluten, and she sucks at cooking even with gluten.
“Why does everyone think they’re so important that they should have their own podcast?” she ranted rhetorically. “And why does it matter if I listen to it? It’s at the point where I don’t even want to hang out with anyone in person because they might ask me about the most pertinent points of their podcast, and it’ll be clear that I haven’t even listened to a minute of it. So awkward.”
We asked Allen whether she’ll remain friends with these podcast producers and promoters.
“I guess I will… right up until the point one of them asks me to be a guest on their podcast. Like, what a waste of time. That’ll be the last straw.”
At press time, Lewis was messaging Allen to ask if she’d caught the latest episode of This American Life.