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Things Fell Apart - new Jon Ronson podcast

Started by Icehaven, November 11, 2021, 04:49:54 PM

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Icehaven

Dunno if there's already a thread for this, couldn't find one, but it's his new podcast focussing on various incidents/milestones in the culture wars. I like Ronson and I don't really know what the culture wars are although I feel as though I should so thought I'd give it a go. Only one episode up so far (on BBC Sounds unfortunately) and it was good but a bit short, could do with being more like an hour I think.
First one focuses on an American wannabe film director who sort of inadvertently ended up making a documentary that fuelled the evangelical anti-abortion movement back in the 70s and helped turn it into a political issue. Actually made me want to see the doc out of ghoulish interest, it sounds bizarre.

dissolute ocelot

It's been mentioned in the Glinner thread (mainly because we're hoping Ronso will do a bit on Glinner). Ronson has done a lot of this stuff on people who've embarrassed themselves online. It's good that people are paying attention to online culture because it seems they'd rather write essays on Sally Rooney or Succession than discuss the things millions of people read every day. Sad if it's not brilliant, but sounds like stories that are worth hearing.

chveik

i'd love to have my mind wiped of everything related to culture wars stuff

gilbertharding

Quote from: icehaven on November 11, 2021, 04:49:54 PM
(on BBC Sounds unfortunately)

I'll listen to these. I don't have much experience of BBC Sounds, but it seems to work OK... except the search function is utterly bobbins. I tried to find this yesterday, but couldn't remember the title, so I searched 'Jon Ronson'.

Of course, because 'Jon Ronson' isn't in the title, it couldn't find it. For fuck's sake.

Icehaven

Quote from: gilbertharding on November 12, 2021, 09:52:53 AM
I'll listen to these. I don't have much experience of BBC Sounds, but it seems to work OK... except the search function is utterly bobbins. I tried to find this yesterday, but couldn't remember the title, so I searched 'Jon Ronson'.

Of course, because 'Jon Ronson' isn't in the title, it couldn't find it. For fuck's sake.

Yep that's partly my issue with it, I think it's a BBC thing in general as searching for their brand new prime time series The Outlaws in the iplayer app brings up a 70 odd year old film first.

olliebean

I think you both must be doing it wrong. Searches for "Jon Ronson" and "The Outlaws" turned up the desired results straight away for me, both in BBC Sounds/iPlayer searches and in the overall BBC site search.

Pranet

My problem with it is that there appears not to be a download so I need to get iplayer it.

MojoJojo



MojoJojo

Of course I'm using the app, you probably can't get an mp3 off the website. And I've just tried the website search and it doesn't work at all - letters I type don't appear in the text box.


Icehaven

Yep I had to install the Sounds app to be able to download it too.

Pranet

They are pushing people that way. Used to be pages for the podcasts by station, which suited me as I'm a middle aged cliche and 99% of the things I wanted to listen to would be on the Radio 4 page. But they got rid of that recently. Wouldn't surprise me if you have to use the app in the near future for everything. Which I would find really annoying.

studpuppet

You can use get_iplayer to download the programme files off the Sounds website - works the same as on the iPlayer site.

Mister Six

Annoyingly, this isn't available in the US, at least on the Sounds app or BBC website. Anyone got a clever workaround?

Even my usual VPN isn't working for some reason, but I'd rather listen to it on my phone anyway.

olliebean

Quote from: icehaven on November 12, 2021, 04:27:17 PM
Yep I had to install the Sounds app to be able to download it too.

Sod that, I'm not downloading a file that I can only play with a specific app. The whole point of downloading it is so I can listen with my app of choice.

BritishHobo

I will give this a go, but I'm a bit wary. I loved So You've Been Publicly Shamed, thought it was a really important book - but then his podcast on August Ames' suicide disappointed me, because it felt like a dishonest and reverse-engineered attempt to prove public shaming definitely definitely didn't lead her to it. It's not necessarily that I think he's wrong, it's just that it came off very thin, with conclusions not really supported by the podcast. The cherry on top was the reveal that Ronson had contacted Ames' grieving husband only about a week after her death. Very weird, cynical thing.

George Oscar Bluth II

Very annoying that the BBC calls things "podcasts" that are not available on public podcast feeds and are only available on their own app. Boo.

Pranet

Quote from: Mister Six on November 12, 2021, 08:50:36 PM
Annoyingly, this isn't available in the US, at least on the Sounds app or BBC website. Anyone got a clever workaround?

Even my usual VPN isn't working for some reason, but I'd rather listen to it on my phone anyway.

He says it is on apple podcasts in the US and Canada.

mjwilson

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on November 13, 2021, 06:02:58 AM
Very annoying that the BBC calls things "podcasts" that are not available on public podcast feeds and are only available on their own app. Boo.

Oh I thought it was only me who was pedantic enough to get worried about this.

beanheadmcginty


olliebean

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on November 13, 2021, 06:02:58 AM
Very annoying that the BBC calls things "podcasts" that are not available on public podcast feeds and are only available on their own app. Boo.

Especially when some of their programmes are actually available as proper podcasts. Leaves you wondering whether there is a podcast feed somewhere and you just don't know where to look for it. There's a page with a list of "podcasts" but no obvious way of telling which ones have an RSS feed other than clicking on one, then clicking on an episode (upon which the damn thing starts playing immediately), then clicking on the "Programme Website" link, then clicking "Leave this page" on the "Are you sure?" popup, then seeing if the programme website has a Podcast tab.

George Oscar Bluth II

The app is fine if you want to listen to the football on Five Live while doing the dishes or whatever and the option to download radio shows is welcome but...podcasts are a specific decentralised thing. It's not a 'podcast' if it's Spotify exclusive either.

olliebean

Just seen on Ronson's twitter that this is apparently being released as a proper podcast early next year.

Pranet

Quote from: olliebean on November 13, 2021, 12:22:15 PM
Especially when some of their programmes are actually available as proper podcasts. Leaves you wondering whether there is a podcast feed somewhere and you just don't know where to look for it. There's a page with a list of "podcasts" but no obvious way of telling which ones have an RSS feed other than clicking on one, then clicking on an episode (upon which the damn thing starts playing immediately), then clicking on the "Programme Website" link, then clicking "Leave this page" on the "Are you sure?" popup, then seeing if the programme website has a Podcast tab.

This is it. There might well be cost or remit reasons why everything can't be a proper podcast but at least make it easy to know which is which.

This site seems to do the job of the old podcast pages of showing you what is actually available as a podcast and you can specify radio stations.

http://www.listenersguide.org.uk/bbc/?station=radio4

Mister Six

Quote from: Pranet on November 13, 2021, 07:21:55 AM
He says it is on apple podcasts in the US and Canada.

Bollocks, I don't have an Apple phone either.

jamiefairlie

Quote from: beanheadmcginty on November 13, 2021, 11:26:38 AM
Little chat between Jon and Ads Curts in the Guardian today:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/nov/12/jon-ronson-and-adam-curtis-on-the-culture-wars-how-has-this-happened-where-is-the-escape-hatch

Count me as another who thinks BBC Sounds needs to get cunted in the fuck.

Some great insights in that article:

The promotion of narcissism as an aspiration, rather than antisocial state

I got interested in this idea that power now works not through traditional forms but through the idea of individualism; it says you should be allowed to do what you want to do, but we will serve you to get that. You and I both know what it's like to be an obsessive individualist, but we've become intrigued by how that plays out in a society in which you've got lots of people wanting to be individuals

The rise of hysteria in place of pragmatic discussion:

And then journalism lifts off from Planet Real and goes off into the realms of histrionic personality disorder. I actually think histrionic personality disorder describes most of the progressive classes in western societies, in that they've given up on their progressivism and retreated into a histrionic attitude to the world

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: BritishHobo on November 12, 2021, 09:06:14 PM
I will give this a go, but I'm a bit wary. I loved So You've Been Publicly Shamed, thought it was a really important book - but then his podcast on August Ames' suicide disappointed me, because it felt like a dishonest and reverse-engineered attempt to prove public shaming definitely definitely didn't lead her to it. It's not necessarily that I think he's wrong, it's just that it came off very thin, with conclusions not really supported by the podcast. The cherry on top was the reveal that Ronson had contacted Ames' grieving husband only about a week after her death. Very weird, cynical thing.

Yeah, I remember thinking that as well. It was the perfect project for Ronson; he'd just done a book about public shaming followed by a podcast about the US porn industry, and then here's a real-life tragic story that combines the two! I understand why someone in that position would rush to it, but it's a bit grim and I'm not sure the podcast really "honoured her memory" as such. You can imagine him reading the news and jumping on the phone to his co-producer: "Lina! We can go back to America and start looking at poooooorn again! Something's happened!"

I do, generally, like Ronson though and have enjoyed pretty much everything he's put out. Some of it has aged poorly, but I reckon his heart's more or less in the right place.

Ferris

Quote from: Mister Six on November 13, 2021, 07:17:36 PM
Bollocks, I don't have an Apple phone either.

I have one, but it's not available yet. No idea why.

olliebean

Quote from: Pranet on November 13, 2021, 07:21:55 AM
He says it is on apple podcasts in the US and Canada.

Is there a link for it? Apple podcasts run on RSS feeds, but Apple obscures the feed link. There are sites that will take an Apple podcast link and give you the URL of the RSS feed.