Reflections on 4 years of podcasting

This week marks four years since I embarked upon an adventure that has enriched my life, connected me with amazing people, allowed me to have some incredible opportunities, enhanced my professional interests, and has taken up most of my free time. It was an adventure that started out simply and innocently enough: my friend and I were rewatching a show that we enjoyed (ABC's "Once Upon a Time"), we kept chatting about it, then we said, hey, maybe we should talk to a microphone about all of this! A few hours later, I Googled some YouTube videos on how to podcast, and as simple as that, a podcast was born.


I am someone with a zillion different interests. And podcasting, four years ago, seemed like yet another idea of something I could do on the Internet (I have been embarking upon random online projects since I was 13 and built a website on Angelfire... yes, that was the 90s, and yes, I'm ancient). Just four years ago, podcasting also was not a popular idea. Today, there are tons of celebrities and "popular kids" doing podcasts, but four years ago, in the pre-Serial days, it was a semi-dried-up way for nerds (I say that with love, I was one) to break out their microphones and audio editing skills and do something random and post it online. It was definitely an... indie thing to do.

Fast forward four years, and whoa. What a ride it's been.

A car that is used on set of "Once Upon a Time" parked in the filming location in Steveston, British Columbia during my visit in 2014

Okay, so here's the thing. I'm absolutely not wealthy off of this podcast. But I can say that it has done a ton of things for me professionally and personally... and yes, as cheesy as it sounds, I feel like a richer (as in, mentally stimulated and enriched by awesome experiences with amazing people) person because of it.

I definitely didn't start the podcast for either reason. I really embarked upon podcasting out of purely selfish, personal reasons: at the time, I was finishing a master's degree, I was working very little (just freelancing from home, mostly editing), and my husband was traveling a lot. I was lonely and tired of walls of text that I had to read through  day in and day out. I needed some sort of change of pace. Plus, I was doing a lot of research on women in the media, and I kind of was itching to just be a woman in the media. I had studied journalism back in the day but never really worked as a journalist... a part of me was still drawn to it, though. As small and as trivial as I figured my podcast would be, I thought maybe putting my voice out there in the world couldn't hurt.

I also knew that a major bonus of this podcast was going to be talking to my co-host regularly. I didn't have coworkers at that time in my life, and my friends had drifted apart for career and family reasons. I was pretty lonely. I didn't know her well at the time: we had casually met online and seemed to share a few interests. We got along well. I felt that there was a good vibe between us. To me, doing a podcast with someone I didn't have a lot of background with or didn't know super well but seemed to have a friendly and amicable relationship with actually seemed much more appealing than jumping into it with an old friend. I had had enough experience with doing projects with friends to know that one difference of opinion could spell the end of a friendship, or at least cause a lot of issues that you don't want to jeopardize a friendship over. Having a co-host who I had no baggage with was actually a good call. At the time, I figured if we didn't see eye to eye, that was fine, we could go back to being mostly strangers. What ended up happening, though, was actually the best case scenario: we grew and learned a lot together over our shared podcast baby, and we became good friends in the process. It has been an amazing advantage for us both to grow together with podcasting. We were also fortunate to discover that we each have different - and complementary - strengths and weaknesses. That has meant that the division of labor around the podcast has felt more natural and more even. We really strive to keep this amazing project alive.

I think our flexibility to change and evolve our podcast as needed, depending on our audience's interests and also on our own sanity (we learned early on if we couldn't sustain our podcast and make sure it fit into our individual lives and generally stay sane, there would be no podcast, so while we had to sacrifice some life things for the podcast, likewise we had to sacrifice some aspects of the podcast in order to maintain balance with the rest of our life). We learned so much, far too much for a single blog post, but I have posted a few videos on the topic, like how to start a podcast on a budget (neither of us invested much money in the podcast at the beginning, which was a good call because financially speaking, we have never earned much in return); I also did a video on how to come up with ideas for your podcast, which reflects what I have learned over time "on the job."

I think the biggest surprise about the podcast was that professionally it actually has been an asset to me. Having a mildly successful podcast does seem to be memorable in the minds of friends, colleagues and family. It's a point of interest, a curiosity, and for me, even though podcasting isn't my professional specialty, it's close enough to the realm of my background in journalism and writing to be a strong complement to what I do professionally. Beyond that, and my co-host has noticed this too, a lot of colleagues tend to remember that you have a podcast and it makes you stick out (in a good way). People seem eager to help us here and there, whether it's getting time off of work at somewhat the last minute to attend an event, to colleagues hooking us up with guests in the industry. When I started the podcast, I actually thought it was going to be another quirky hobby, but it actually seems to command a fair bit of professional respect. Take that as you will... again, this isn't why we got into it in the first place, but it was certainly a surprising, and pleasant, side effect.

We have had a lot of highs. A highlight for both of us was getting to interview some of the cast members of the show two years ago. We had tried hard to reach out to their PR with very little luck. But then we were invited to host a fan event, and everything turned around. It was awesome to be there to participate in an event that connected the fandom with the show's talent. The show's cast members who we spoke with are talented, hardworking artists. Actors get a lot of publicity, but I don't always think it's the right kind. I enjoyed having the opportunity to ask them questions that didn't objectify them or trivialize their work. I am certainly not the next "Inside the Actors' Studio" (and, let's be honest, they most certainly are rehearsed when they do routine interviews so I couldn't stray too far off the beaten path), but I loved the chance to ask them questions that would let them to reveal a little piece of their personality and the hard work they put into their chosen art/profession.

Our official podcast mug + the official mug for the television show.

Not everything has been a total bed of roses, although I have to say at least the good has far outweighed the bad. We have had our fair share of "haters". (Side note, during the worst period of receiving hate, I became super addicted to Miranda Sings' YouTube videos and found her "haters back off" videos cathartic.) Since we were podcasting about a tv show, one of the most bizarre things was when people seemed to get upset at us about stuff that the show was doing. I never expected to be confused with the show itself, but we kind of were. I mean, we don't even get screeners: it blew my mind that we would be conflated with the actual television show in the minds of fans/listeners/haters. Aside from that, we've had our fair share of long nights, technical issues, even "behind the scenes politics" with other podcasters. The usual stuff... just the usual background noise of any semi-professional endeavor.

Through it all, though, we've been blessed with some very smart and kind listeners. One of the most fun parts of podcasting was seeing the community that built up around our podcast. It took a while. Definitely over a year. But eventually, it happened. Now we have a private Facebook group for those who really enjoy our podcast and have bonded with each other over it. I have to say, every moment I felt before that happened, when I told myself, "now I've made it in podcasting!" paled in comparison to the time, about 2.5 or 3 years in, when we realized that there was a community of people bonding with each other because of our podcast. That blew my mind. That was it. That was when I knew we had done something special. (And I have seen that a lot of podcasters, vloggers, and other content creators say this as well. I always thought it was sort of a trite observation. But when it happened to me, I got it. It's true. Seeing a community form around something you created is pretty mind-blowing).

Podcasting has been fun. It has been a blast. And it's not over yet! I can't believe I've been doing this for four years. Where has my life gone?! My college years (4 years) felt like an eternity, and yet these four years of podcasting passed in the blink of an eye. Time flies, and all of that.

I don't know if I will continue podcasting forever. Maybe something else will come along for me to create on the internet. Or, perhaps, we will be podcasting for many more years. I would like that, too. I'm keeping an open mind. And, above all, I am keeping it straightforward and simple. After all, we started the podcast with a simple concept. In the end, it's a simple choice to keep going, and to keep enjoying it.

Check out our podcast, "Once Upon a Podcast," here: iTunes // Twitter // Facebook
Our 2017-2018 podcasting season will start October 10!