If you, like many people, have seen the “that girl” trend on TikTok, you have a sense of the type of lifestyle “that girl” has.
“That girl” wakes up at 6 in the morning, drinks a cold pressed green juice, does her pilates workout, and listens to a podcast as opposed to mindlessly watching Netflix or rotting on TikTok for an hour.
But what makes podcasts so integral to this dream identity of being such a put-together person?
It’s somewhat of a trick question, as the type of podcast matters. Most people wouldn’t classify a conversational friend-group-focused podcast, like Under the Influence, a “that girl” podcast, as opposed to something like the New York Times’ The Daily, Ira Glass’ This American Life, or Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant’s Stuff You Should Know.
Part of the reason for this distinction is simply the oversaturation of the podcast market, resulting in a decrease of both supply and demand.
According to research done by Listen Notes, the number of new podcast shows dropped by almost 80 percent between 2020 to 2022, and is continuing to fall.
As Joshua Benton at Nieman Lab wrote, “What’s the old Yogi Berra quote? Nobody ever goes there anymore — it’s too crowded. That might be a contradiction if you’re talking about a restaurant or bar — but it seems to be accurate in the podcast-making space, which has become so crowded that fewer people want to enter it.”
Part of this overcrowding is the rise of the friend group podcast genre. Some notable ones include influencer podcasts like Suburb Talks, with 4.9 stars and over 17,000 ratings on Spotify, or Youtuber podcasts like Tiny Meat Gang, with 4.9 stars and over 39,200 ratings on Spotify. The popularity of these podcasts (especially their ability to attract a loyal audience and convert them to personal followers) inspires other friend groups to start their own podcasts.
But as a listener, how many people really want to spend significant portions of their days listening to other friend groups talk for hours, especially when they could just talk to their own friends?
If you’re subscribed to a lot of these podcasts, those hours stack up, making it seem unproductive or even like a waste of time. This could explain the 2020 to 2022 decrease shown in Listen Note’s “Last Active Podcast by Year” chart. New creators of podcasts are discouraged due to the low demand for these types of podcasts, and the audio or video editing that goes into creating a podcast isn’t worth the time anymore, so the number of new podcast shows decrease in response. Additionally
Back to the original question, why are some podcasts seen as “better” than others? What contributes to the success or popularity of podcasts like the “that girl” podcasts listed?
The answer seems to lie in their purpose: all of these podcasts contribute either knowledge or tangible change to the general public.
Take Serial for example. 14 years after Adnan Syed was found guilty for allegedly murdering his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, the podcast brought an overwhelming flurry of public attention to Syed’s case and raised doubts surrounding the evidence used to convict him. Syed was released from prison and now works for Georgetown University’s Prison and Justice Initiative.
People love investigative podcasts like Serial and Dateline or This American Life (all three of which are on Apple’s top podcasts of 2023) because they have real-world impacts, bringing new perspectives or new ideas to light. In a world overtaken by mind-numbing hustle culture and burnout, it makes space for audiences to think critically about the world not just as it is, but also how it should be.
Along the same vein, “news overview” podcasts (also on Apple’s top podcasts of 2023) like The Daily and Up First are popular because it provides audiences with a digestible way to keep up with current events that fits into hectic schedules and busy lives, with the ability to be consumed while multitasking. Another genre that fits into this reasoning is knowledge-based podcasts like Huberman Lab, Hidden Brain, and Stuff You Should Know, where all three, as you may have anticipated, are featured on Apple’s top podcasts of 2023.
People aspire to be “that girl” who listens to podcasts because they inherently aspire to know more, to be better. Maybe the podcasting landscape is dying, or maybe the podcasting landscape is just making room for quality storytelling and content that has the ability to genuinely change lives.
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