To answer your question, Aidan, I’ve been thinking recently about how podcasts are a singular medium in the way they engender parasocial relationships—which is a strained way to say “I keep feeling like the strangers I listen to in the car are my best friends.” Thinking too about how they are a branch of the web that is highly portable and resistant to algorithmic platform interference, as long as you didn’t get locked in by Spotify, in a way that newsletters clearly want to be… as long as you aren’t locked in by Substack.
I like my physical neighborhood and I wish my digital sense of place was more like it. So I'm drawn to the idea of having a connection to the people whose work I follow, however tenuous—like a shared server mailing list—rather than attaching my emotions to complete unknowns. Subscribing to your blog and to sneak’s now!
On Jan 12, 2025, at 10:39 PM, lxu@tilde.club wrote:
Hey Brendan,
This is an interesting question, what brought you to become interested in wanting to hear other people?
Although I must say in these times, it's hard to find real people.
I have a blog over at https://blog.aidxn.fun I also write a lot (more creatively, though most of it is sad) on my Tilde page.
- Aidan / lxu
On Mon, 6 Jan 2025, Brendan Jercich wrote:
That’s it, that’s the whole question. Where can I hear or read you, tildes? (I myself have neither. For now.)
—Brendan