On October 15th, the two British megastars took to the stage at London’s O2 for the final night of their sold-out domestic arena tour. As many as 15,000 enthusiastic fans surrounded the podium, which was set up in a “circular” boxing ring, cheering, applauding, and shouting “I love you.” Some people were wearing T-shirts with idols’ faces on them, which are official merchandise.
Not all heroes have podcasts, but many do these days. The two people on stage are none other than Prime Minister Tony Blair’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell and former MP and Tory leadership candidate Rory Stewart, now stars of the insanely popular show The Rest is Politics. co-host, and is loved by centrist dads up and down. UK (and increasingly other demographics too).
It was the first time O2 hosted a live political podcast, but it wasn’t the first time the pair took to the stage. After the Royal Albert Hall was sold out, they had to start booking arenas. This month, the hall hosted a live version of the only less popular podcast, The News Agent. Last year, Stewart described the amount of money he makes from podcasting as “championship money for football players.” It seems reasonable to estimate that he and Campbell each earn more than £100,000 a month, but this is before taking into account ticket sales for live shows (mid-level seats at the O2 cost around £100). ).
what happened? You go to a horribly crowded shopping center/event venue and shell out a lot of money to watch two middle-aged men engage in an admittedly somewhat predictable — to listeners of the twice-weekly show — argument. What is it that drives people? Hundreds of feet away? And what does the huge success of independent, politically moderate podcasts on both sides of the Atlantic tell us about what people want from politics and media?
First, in a situation of massive information oversaturation, having a few knowledgeable people you can trust to provide fairly sensible opinions can help reduce the feeling of persistent overwhelm. I’m proving it.
Second, it reiterates the fact that many people feel stuck in the middle of a polarized landscape. That is, they are marginalized by a “mainstream media” that they feel is too aggressively pushing the agenda of liberals and leftists. I rebel against the narrative that is pushed to the right. There is clearly a desire for a space where reasonable people can disagree civilly and constructively.
And third, people are tired of being presented with artificial, scripted, and carefully stage-managed versions of reality. They just don’t buy it anymore. Social media has made it much easier to “DYOR” (do your own research), as the meme goes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter if what you find is wrong, fake, or lacks context. Independent discoveries are more powerful and persuasive than carefully edited television news segments or newspaper articles.
TikTok, on the other hand, is both a symptom and a cause of a growing appetite for lo-fi, unpolished, and slightly chaotic content (although, ironically, the algorithms that serve this content are ).
This thirst for authenticity, however carefully constructed, is also reflected in the way people vote. That’s part of the reason for Nigel Farage’s popularity (a recent Ipsos poll gave the Reform UK leader the highest favorability rating of any British politician). And it was a decisive factor in the U.S. presidential election, in which the rambling, free-spirited “turning up the music” Donald Trump defeated the sophisticated, celebrity-backed Kamala Harris.
However, this is still not well understood. “Nothing that was true yesterday about how perfectly this campaign was run is true now,” MSNBC host Joyanne Reid said of Harris during a televised debate on the election results on Nov. 6. “This was a truly historic and perfectly run campaign.” ” Reed also noted that Harris “had the voice of every famous celebrity.” . . Swifties, she had a bee hive” – a reference to Taylor Swift and Beyoncé’s respective fan bases.
What struck me was that she did not understand that the support from so many celebrities might not have worked in Harris’ favor. But Reid wasn’t the only one pushing the bizarre idea that a woman who lost the presidential election by about 2.5 million votes ran a “perfect” campaign.
If her campaign had been perfect, she would have won. Interestingly, this may have required doing something that charismatic politicians and podcast hosts instinctively understand. It’s about letting your guard down a little bit and showing people that you’re just as flawed as they are.
jemima.kelly@ft.com
