In 2022, I spent 97 days and 20 hours listening to podcasts on Pocket Casts alone. (Add in time I listened on Spotify and other platforms and the total grows more shocking.) Im not sure how this is possible, or what it says about my social life, but here we are.

I know podcasts. I once had a podcast called Podcast Podcast and am nowthe host of Feed the Queue, both shows designed to help others find podcasts they love. I have a podcast newsletter and a podcast marketing newsletter. I have been a judge for the Signal Awards and the International Womens Podcast Awards and I am a member of The Podcast Academy. I teach classes about podcasting at Harvard and host panels at SXSW and Podcast Movement about how to grow their shows, and I founded a podcast marketing company. And, of course, I write about podcasts for you all right here.

What Im saying is, I know a lot about podcasts, and Ive listened to a ton of them. But there are more than three million podcasts out there, and one girl can only cover so much. I try to experiment with everythingindies, news, fiction, true-crime, comedy, sex, movies, food, and podcasts about digital security, bats, magicians, and even more niche podcasts (a few of which I wrote about here). I have written Lifehacker about podcasts that cover mental health, television, secrets, game shows, D&D, books, scams, and more.

My question for you, then, is what have I missed? Whats the show that made you fall in love with podcasts? (Also: Whats your favorite show right now? What podcast does everyone love that you cant stand?) Let me know in the commentsand to get the conversation going, here are three of my favorites.

On Lizzy Coopermans In Your Hands, Lizzy gives her listeners two options for what she will do next in her life. They vote their choice on her Instagram, and she does whatever wins. Its a literal choose-Lizzys-own-adventure. Lizzy is hilarious and brings on comedians and experts to help her listeners make a decision. Her life is literally in our hands, and our choices have been dictating some of her wildest adventures ever. Because of the show, Lizzy has gotten multiple piercings, become an L.A. tour guide for the TV show This Is Us, burned her journals, and created a workout that she does every day. Lizzys on pause for now, which means you have plenty of time to catch up on her wild adventures.

Every Monday through Friday on The Daily Zeitgeist, Jack OBrien and Miles Gray invite a comedian (or other cool person) onto the show to review whatever is in the zeitgeist that dayanything from the abortion ban to the newest Taco Bell menu item. The guys kick off the conversation with user-submitted comments and ask the guest to name something that is underrated, overrated, and something revealing from their Google search history before running through the weeks updates in politics, the coal gas study, UFOs, and more. Even on those dark days when the headlines make you want to crawl back into bed, Jack and Miles progressive takes will make you feel a little bit better about the state of the world. Plus, mini episodes come out in the evening to cover whats trending on Twitter, in case you still cant get enough. (I never can.)

Comedians George Civeris and Sam Taggart are unpacking straight culture one piece at a time with the aid of funny guests. Their conversations, which are about 75% wild tangents, are so off the wall that they go right past weird to totally genius. Whatever outrageous, tenuous ties they find between the topic of the day and queerness inevitably segue into quasi-philosophical conversations about gender. Think of it as academic comedy. Each show starts with a silly game segment that makes no sense (and nobody is allowed to ask questions about it), and George, Sam, and the guests end each episode with TRL-esque shoutouts. To steal from George and Sam, if this writeup doesnt make you want to listen to the show, then congratulations, you are probably gay.

Okay now its your turn to tell us: What podcasts do you love to listen to? Leave a comment below, and if we get enough recommendations, well round it up in a future Lifehacker post.

Originally posted here:

What Podcast Made You Fall in Love With Podcasts? - Lifehacker