r/podcasts

I want to hear folktales from all over the world, without fluff and filler, music, sound effects, or over-acting.

Preferably, they’d be read by people with real accents from the culture of the fairy tales or folk tales they are reading or telling.

That last part is a big ask, so not a deal breaker.
What is a deal breaker is vocal fry, high breathy baby-lady voice, or nasal imperious man voice.

They don’t have to be kid-appropriate; in fact, I would prefer if they weren’t adapted to be appropriate for kids to hear, or for our 21st century cultural norms, but the original version.

For example, most Snow White re-tellings don’t include the part where they heated up the stepmother’s shoes and made her dance until she died.

I haven't seen many threads discussing this podcast, and those I have found are pretty dead, with not many comments.

I binged this podcast over the span of a month or so, and have been listening to weekly episodes since, so I have a lot of thoughts on it, but nobody to discuss it with.

I love reading biographies and hearing stories of people's personal lives, so I enjoy the subject matter a lot most of the time. There are quite a few episodes I've skipped, though, because there it focuses on abusive relationships or strange abusive circumstances that are...I mean, let's be real, not cults. At all.

For a show that is asks the question "was I in a cult?" I feel like there should be circumstances in which the answer is "no." And don't get me wrong, I would say all of these people were abused or mistreated on some level. I think reaching for words like "cult" make sense when in many cases these people struggled for years to describe and define the bizarre, traumatic situations they found themselves in, and big words like "cult" leave an impact on people. Describing your uniquely fucked up experiences as a cult gives the person listening the idea that what you went through was bizarre, traumatic, dangerous, and very serious.

So while I don't blame the victims for reaching for the closest word that gets their point across, I think it would be far more interesting for the podcast to explore what defines a cult, and how there are unique circumstances that may not be cults, but are equally traumatic, and may have cultish tones without being full blown cults.

But I think that there's maybe two reasons that the hosts avoid doing this.

1. The most obvious issue I suspect is that they don't want to invalidate anyone's experiences. Here are people who spent years enduring abuse and trying to grapple with their experiences and define what they went through. And, after coming to terms with their experiences, they then are brave enough to tell the world about traumatic months and years — sometimes after having never spoken a word of it to anyone in their lives, fot fear of judgement/misunderstanding, or due to lack of vocabulary.

I do think think that this could be "solved" by acknowledging the storyteller's experiences as being traumatic, and treating their situation with the same respect and gravity as former cult members' stories. And applaud them for their bravery just the same, but have a conversation about what sets their experiences apart from a cult.
2. The other big reason...frankly I do not think Liz's experience counts as a cult. And I think acknowledging that some of the people claiming to have been in cults were not, in fact, in cults, would lead to her having to admit that her own experience wasn't quite a cult.

Anyway, I was wondering what you all think!

Hi! I’m looking for a classic format book club (a book is read by members and then discussed) podcast hosted by women, preferably more than one. I’ve seen some where the topics include BookTok, fanfiction and trendy books but I would like a more classical style book club. Grateful for all tips!

I’m looking for some good conspiracy theory podcasts. Give me all the recs! Thank you advance!

I am wanting to start to understand the world of investing/ the stock market, but it’s a bit intimidating, so I was hoping to find a podcast that breaks it down in a way that mere mortals could understand.

Any recommendations would be much appreciated!

If you like family stories - wild/traumatic childhoods, I’m really enjoying this one. Despite the heavy subject matter it’s not too heavy. Host is a comedian, includes lots of interviews with her siblings and family members. No ads which is nice!

Adding - if you liked The Ballad of Billy Balls you’ll probably like this too! If you haven’t listed to the Ballad of Billy Balls what are you waiting for???

Just as the title says! I prefer the story of one over many but if there's something you highly recommend I will definitely listen!

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I don’t want to start at the beginning of something, but would be find going back a couple weeks or months.

I’m into Sci Fi and Fantasy. Looking for maybe shorter episodes probably less than an hour each.

I just finished and I’m obsessed ! I need more! I know this is a podcast subreddit but I also loved Baby Reindeer and am open to shows about women stalkers as well. I know that sounds weird but there’s something so psychologically engaging about it. Thanks!

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I’m looking for those rare podcast episodes that leave you feeling deeply unsettled long after you hit stop. Which episode had the effect on you?

For me, it has to be the Casefile multi part coverage on the EAR/ GSK

The host explains how the predator would break into victims' homes weeks in advance just to unlock windows, hide shoelaces to tie them up with, and memorize the floor plans.

Yeah.. no thanks

A couple months ago, I posted in here looking for something fun and interesting and a little (or a lot) unhinged, and that didn't include gore, any kind of horror involving kids, or serial killers. (You can see my previous post here)

Since then, I've binged:

*Finding Drago

*Scamanda

*The Runaway Princesses

*Love Trapped

*Wind of Change

*Dirty John

*Who Blew Up the Guidestones

*The Idiot

*Serial season 1

*Sea of Lies

*Reply All (the case of the missing hit)

*Small Town Murder (How Not to kill a sugar daddy)

*Normal Gossip (love is blind with Malala)

*Creeptime (Juan Pedro Martinez)

*Casefile (Laura and Ashley)

*The dollop (David Hahn, Action Park)

What else y'all got for me??

It's been a couple years since I came across a podcast I loved so much I binged the back catalog. I miss having that to look forward to, wondering if there are still some out there that will capture my imagination.

I am open-minded re genre

EDIT: thank you all so much! This accomplished my overriding goal: to get excited about podcasts again. Part of the point of getting into them was to not mindlessly click around for content yet I was spending so much time doing exactly that.

I missed having that stack of potential pleasure to look forward to and thanks to you I have it again.

Does anyone have good podcasts to listen to which educates you on random interesting topics? And then also a good political commentator for news?

I loved the investigative nature of a ghost story. And the addition of a medium made it really interesting. Any recs for a similar format -multiple episodes focusing on one story. TIA!

What the hell happened and who decided to change the format? I got about halfway through the latest episode and turned it off. It’s like they replaced Chris Molanphy with an imposter Chris Molanphy. The storytelling is gone. It’s a weird, stilted script now. This was a favorite of mine, and I’m super bummed out.

I have three young children and such is the nature of my job that I don’t get to spend a lot of time having grownup conversations. I have found that my vocabulary, once the envy of SAT-takers everywhere, is not what it used to be. I need the most lexically-challenging podcast you can think of that isn’t STEM. I’m looking for people that talk like a NYT or Atlantic culture and society writer, but not puppet-mastered by an oligarch trying to reintroduce feudalism. Help!

They dropped an episode today covering the Coco Berthmann case which is how I found out about this podcast since I follow that case really closely. It’s hosted by Nancy Moscatiello and Scott Eldridge the team behind Scamanda. I was blown away by the most recent episode because it turns out that they knew about Coco Berthmann’s fraud long before it was ever made public. I know a lot of people here like scam podcasts like me so I wanted to recommend it as it’s a fairly new podcast!

My commute is about 15m. Generally podcasts I can finish in a commute or day are what I like 15-30m. I don’t mind going over multiple days if the podcast is really interesting but I do prefer succinct.

Currently I generally listen to The Daily or The Journal but looking for something that is maybe not so much news oriented.

I do like interesting, entertaining and/or funny interviews with interesting people but I also find a lot of podcasts of that type to be long and meandering conversations. What I really wish is that someone made abridged versions of the best interviews or best stories told in interviews that were 15-30 long.

What do you suggest?

This was one of my Top Ten podcasts: an investigative look into a decades-old mystery.

I also enjoyed The Shrink Next Door, Exposed: Cover-Up at Columbia University, Kill List,

Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare, The Somerset Man, and others whose names don't come to mind at the moment.

Does anyone have any recs for series like these? I've started several but they don't always hold my interest. Not looking for true crime, unless it's a case long ago in the past.

Thanks!

Thanks for all the recs everyone! I've got some listening to do!

ETA. Forgot to mention Unicorn Girl, which I'm listening to right now. It's absolutely nuts. No spoilers if you've already heard it please!