رونوشت 🔗
WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.151 --> 00:00:25.785
Victorians took pictures of their dead loved ones and the easy reaction to that statement is how creepy but here is the useful lesson for podcast hosts the things you make become part of people's memory of you and sometimes part of their memory of someone they love today we're going to talk about how to make a podcast that leaves people with something more durable than another disposable piece of content so
2
00:00:28.792 --> 00:00:30.032
Welcome back to Your Mic.
3
00:00:30.412 --> 00:00:40.575
My name is Freddie Cruz, founder of Speak Podcasting, and this episode is presented by the Speak Originals Network, home to shows like Made in House Houston and The House of Theft.
4
00:00:41.035 --> 00:00:45.756
Learn more about the shows at speakpodcasting.com slash speakoriginals.
5
00:00:46.156 --> 00:00:48.217
Now first, we've got to get the history right.
6
00:00:48.877 --> 00:00:52.958
Postmortem photography was a real morning practice in the 19th century.
7
00:00:53.338 --> 00:00:58.099
Families sometimes photographed loved ones after death, especially children.
8
00:00:58.879 --> 00:01:06.779
Photographs could be expensive and rare, so for some families, that photograph was the only image they would ever have of that person.
9
00:01:07.973 --> 00:01:10.655
These were not necessarily creepy souvenirs.
10
00:01:10.695 --> 00:01:17.139
They were mementos of love and loss, something we take for granted in the iPhone age.
11
00:01:17.799 --> 00:01:27.285
And the internet, well, we made this history stranger than it ever needed to be because not every old stiff-looking Victorian person is actually dead.
12
00:01:27.825 --> 00:01:31.908
Early photography required people to sit still for long exposures.
13
00:01:32.868 --> 00:01:39.634
The stories about every corpse being propped upright with wires or given painted eyes are heavily exaggerated.
14
00:01:39.694 --> 00:01:41.895
Now, why does that nuance matter?
15
00:01:43.056 --> 00:01:49.141
Because creators should be allergic to a story that gets more viral by getting less true.
16
00:01:50.362 --> 00:02:01.471
If the real story is quiet, human, and complicated, like all of us are, but the fake version is more shocking, tell the real one anyway.
17
00:02:02.435 --> 00:02:04.617
Trust is built in those choices.
18
00:02:05.558 --> 00:02:11.162
It's all about creating artifacts and not just posts and not just recording episodes.
19
00:02:12.103 --> 00:02:16.326
Photography changed morning because it gave people something to hold on to.
20
00:02:16.427 --> 00:02:20.270
Podcasts do something similar, but with our voices.
21
00:02:21.402 --> 00:02:24.204
A person's voice carries more than just information.
22
00:02:24.244 --> 00:02:32.951
It carries pacing, humor, nervousness, accent, odd phrases, the exact way they say somebody's name.
23
00:02:33.711 --> 00:02:38.895
And that means your work has a second life you'll never be able to measure in analytics.
24
00:02:39.475 --> 00:02:47.661
A listener might save an episode, one that you possibly might despise because it helped them through a hard year.
25
00:02:48.602 --> 00:02:56.766
A family might keep an interview because it captured a grandparent's story and that grandparent may have just passed away last month.
26
00:02:58.047 --> 00:03:04.449
A client may return to an episode years later because it reminds them why they started.
27
00:03:06.430 --> 00:03:09.692
You'll never be able to manufacture that kind of meaning.
28
00:03:10.722 --> 00:03:21.550
But you can make space for it by asking better questions and by resisting the urge to turn every episode into a race for speed, novelty, and reach.
29
00:03:22.932 --> 00:03:26.574
The personal is not automatically meaningful.
30
00:03:27.675 --> 00:03:28.476
Here's the other side.
31
00:03:29.497 --> 00:03:33.380
Just because a story is personal doesn't mean it belongs on the internet.
32
00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:33.560
Right?
33
00:03:34.657 --> 00:03:38.438
You never have to bleed on the microphone just to create something lasting.
34
00:03:38.478 --> 00:03:41.138
The question is not, how much can I reveal?
35
00:03:41.378 --> 00:03:45.359
Or in the LinkedIn bro space, how authentic can you be?
36
00:03:47.180 --> 00:03:51.521
The question is, what does this story help somebody understand?
37
00:03:52.821 --> 00:03:56.262
If you talk about grief, give the listener somewhere to stand.
38
00:03:56.302 --> 00:04:02.263
If you interview somebody about losing, don't treat their pain like a dramatic beat.
39
00:04:03.324 --> 00:04:11.135
If you share a hard personal experience, identify the purpose, what changed, and what they can take from it.
40
00:04:11.615 --> 00:04:14.359
That's how you make memory without making trauma content.
41
00:04:15.321 --> 00:04:16.162
Here's another lesson.
42
00:04:17.435 --> 00:04:19.556
Record the stories that disappear first.
43
00:04:20.456 --> 00:04:25.277
If you host an interview podcast, and this is where it's most helpful, here's your action item.
44
00:04:26.057 --> 00:04:30.139
Find one person in your life whose story you assume you already know.
45
00:04:30.639 --> 00:04:32.139
Record an hour with them.
46
00:04:32.839 --> 00:04:44.943
Ask about their first job, the place they grew up, the worst decision they ever made, the best advice they ignored, the thing they wish people knew about them or even asked about them.
47
00:04:45.723 --> 00:04:49.945
Do it cleanly, do it with good audio, and do it ASAP.
48
00:04:51.385 --> 00:04:53.186
Maybe you'll never publish it.
49
00:04:54.527 --> 00:04:55.487
And that's not the point.
50
00:04:56.787 --> 00:05:08.272
The point is that every good host has the power to preserve a voice, a memory, and a story that would otherwise vanish when people who know it are gone.
51
00:05:10.233 --> 00:05:15.235
Victorian post-mortem photography was not about a fascination with death.
52
00:05:16.376 --> 00:05:20.318
It was about refusing to let a person disappear without a trace.
53
00:05:21.598 --> 00:05:23.759
Make work that does the same thing.
54
00:05:25.440 --> 00:05:26.060
Not louder.
55
00:05:27.041 --> 00:05:28.261
Not more dramatic.
56
00:05:29.822 --> 00:05:33.003
Instead, something that lasts longer.
57
00:05:33.663 --> 00:05:35.804
So, do us all a solid.
58
00:05:36.505 --> 00:05:42.447
Send this episode to a podcast host who needs the reminder that their voice can be more than just content.
59
00:05:43.408 --> 00:05:44.408
It can be an artifact.
60
00:05:45.668 --> 00:05:46.472
This is your mic.
61
00:05:47.697 --> 00:05:48.822
Leave something worth keeping.