As I continued listening to the series “Strangers”, I found myself having a unique experience in every single episode I listen to. To give a quick background, Strangers is a series on Apple Podcasts that dives deeper into a stranger’s story and how their life has shaped them into who they are today. The episodes usually start with the narrator, Lea, introducing the subjects and then having the “Strangers” tell their own stories themselves. The narrator usually does not chime in while the subjects are telling their stories but it was different this time around and we will discuss this in the blog. The episode ends with the narrator giving her opinion and thoughts on the story and wrapping it up herself. I listened to two more episodes: Two Men and a Baby and Love Hurts. These two episodes were each unique in different ways and it provided the listeners In Two Men and a Baby, the story tells of a gay couple on their journey through adopting a child through foster care. The couple’s names are Patrick and Steven and the podcast this time around is very different with Lea conducting an interview-style of the podcast. Lea tries to get Patrick and Steve to remember the greatest challenges they faced as well as the most memorable experiences they had with their baby who is named Violet. Steve talked about his love for Violet upon receiving her when she was only four days old. Patrick provided a more realistic view of the situation when he said that the family whom the child comes from can reclaim Violet within a year of her birth. Lea was also very respectful and did not disclose the reason why the original family was incapable of supporting the child. It was really interesting for me while listening to this podcast because with two subjects telling the same story, it was probably hard for them to narrate their own story because they might cut each other off or make it confusing for the listeners to follow along. I really liked this interview-style because each person can give their thoughts and it definitely made it more interesting to see the struggles of raising a child in a unique situation from two different perspectives. Even though this deviated away from the way the episodes were set up in the previous ones I have listened to, it was a great way to change it up since it is two subjects telling the same story. The next episode: Love Hurts, deviated even further away from the structure of the previous episodes. This episode’s subject was Lea, the narrator herself. She talks about her struggle through finding a partner after getting a divorce when her son was at the age of five. I thought this was a very interesting episode because we have been accustomed to Lea’s voice as she narrates for us in all the previous episodes. However, we never wondered what Lea’s backstory is like and we get some of it here. I really sympathized with her stories about how potential partners always ended up rejecting her because she said she has a son and that would be a burden. Overall, these two new episodes I listened to were very different in terms of the usual structure and it kept me engaged as well as willing to listen to more episodes after.
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Hey Ricky I really enjoyed reading your blog post and thought it was interesting that a podcast has a narrator/host and has the guests be the main speakers. I was wondering if that made it at all difficult to follow the story of the podcast. Also what is the purpose of the host other than introduction do they do anything during the podcast at all? Another interesting thing I was wondering about was whether or not having two people tell the same story ever get overlapped if one story teller ever said something that the other story teller disagreed with. If they scripted the story I feel like they wouldn’t run into these issues but if they didn’t script the story I feel like I often run into issues if I’m telling a story with a friend and either they say something differently than I or vice versa. It’s also interesting to think about how different perspectives can be in life, we experience things so differently as a result of our background and personal life experiences and biases. Having the same story told by a hundred people and you would end up with a hundred different stories. It would be an interesting podcast idea to have one story told by a bunch of witnesses and just analyzing what’s different between them and hearing what different people payed attention to and why. Another cool thing you did here was you listened to two podcast episodes and both of them are very different from each other. I wonder why they deviate away from the style that their listeners know and how they decide which stories should be told which way as one has to believe that the decision is intentional.
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