The Mortified Podcast released this episode around late May,\nwhere in a normal year, graduation would be taking place as normal. However, in\nlight of the COVID-19 pandemic, the producers cleverly used senior superlatives\nto come up with the theme for the episode: \u201cMost Likely to Save Us from a\nGlobal Crisis\u201d. I originally thought the stories that would be featured would\nbe inspiring stories of young children or teenagers preparing to solve some of Earth\u2019s\nmost pressing issues (like COVID). After all, the last episode I listened to, \u201cRoughin\u2019\nIt\u201d, seemed to have a well-connected theme of the great outdoors between each\nstory, which matched the episode title. I was especially excited, as most, if\nnot all of us, were members of the Class of 2020 graduating class, which would make\nthe stories even more relatable. Unfortunately, I found my shoulders droop after\nlistening to the first story, as it had virtually nothing to do with the\nepisode title. Instead, all three speakers shared unrelated stories about a child-written\nautobiography, a school trip to Costa Rica, and trying to not embarrass\nyourself in front of a cute guy in class. I believe the story title was created\nto match the news and what was \u201ctrending\u201d at the time, as graduation was on the\nminds of a significant portion of the population, and COVID-19 probably dwelled\non everyone\u2019s mind. Essentially, it resembled \u201cclickbait\u201d in a podcasting\nworld. Nevertheless, the misleading title did not detract too much from the\nstories, which were funny in their own way, and they likely provided the listener\nwith a good distraction from the sad reality that the title described.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Structure-wise, I was surprised that the pre-recorded introduction\nof the Mortified Podcast that I heard in the last episode was missing \u2013 the\nnarrator, Neil, immediately introduced us to the first story after the\nadvertisements finished playing. The lack of the familiar title sequence threw\nme off, as that was one of the only things that stuck out from the first\nepisode I listened to, and it certainly detracted from the podcast\u2019s identity\nin my mind. Furthermore, I imagine a new listener who was not familiar with the\npodcast would be thrown off, as they would not know what the podcast is about until\na few minutes into the episode. Though, by having more of a \u201ccold open\u201d style\nintro, the podcast did feel like it moved faster, which keeps listeners more engaged\nand probably more willing to listen to the entire podcast. Also, the lack of an\nintro made the show sound a bit more genuine, as it removes the pre-recorded\ntone of the opening and lets Neil speak directly to the audience from the beginning.\nInstead of the theme music from the title sequence, Neil implemented a lot of\nsound effects and shorter music clips to fit the theme, like Bonnie Tyler\u2019s \u201cI\nneed a hero!\u201d, which I honestly found more entertaining and humorous. I\u2019ll be\ninterested to see if the next episode I listen to has an intro, or if it jumps\nright into the stories like this one did!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neil did talk for a bit more in the beginning than the last\nnarrator, David, did in \u201cRoughin\u2019 It\u201d; however, their roles remained the same: introduce\none story, then only return at the end of it to perform a quick conclusion and intro\nfor the next piece. I still believe that more commentary would have helped make\nthe podcast more interesting, as it would add more character to each episode,\ninstead of the audience simply listening to three almost random stories. Additionally,\nadditional banter or opinion on the stories would add to a consistent identity,\nas Neil would be able to show more of his character and be a welcoming figure for\nlisteners of the podcast. On the other hand, Neil did seem to connect the\nstories more fluidly, as he introduces a \u201cmoral of the story\u201d before each one\nand uses that big idea to connect to the following story. For example, he\ndirected our attention to the importance of \u201ccalm, cool-headed decisions\u201d, and that\n\u201cconfidence is important, but meaningless if it isn\u2019t accompanied by compassion\u201d.\nBy zooming out and looking at the overall ideas of each story, Neil stitched together\nthree seeming unrelated stories (though still slightly disconnected) and constructed\na feeling of significance behind childish stories. The lessons that Neil\nbrought up definitely made the podcast more interesting, as it causes the\naudience to feel like they are learning things from these awkward stories,\ninstead of just listening to weird mistakes that people have made in the past. I\nalso found myself more invested in the stories, as I eagerly listened to see when\nthe morals of the story would come into play. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A quick note on the organization of the speakers – while\nthis episode was similar to \u201cRoughin\u2019 It\u201d in that there were also three stories\nshared, I found the stories in \u201cMost Likely to Save Us from a Global Crisis\u201d to\nbe ordered more reasonably, in chronological order. The first story was about a\nfourth grader, the second about a high schooler, and the third about a college freshman.\nWhile listening to each story, I could feel the podcast transition from more\ntrivial matters to more relatable topics, which I think flowed much better than\nthe random ordering of the last episode. It almost felt like I was growing up\nagain, experiencing the troubles of a child, teenager, and young adult in half\nan hour. I truly hope that the next\nepisode I listen to will also have a similar structure, as I found it to be a huge\nimprovement from the last episode. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Please give this episode a listen if you have time! The last story especially was incredibly ridiculous! Thanks for reading! \ud83d\ude42 (967 words)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Mortified Podcast released this episode around late May, where in a normal year, graduation would be taking place as normal. However, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the producers cleverly used senior superlatives to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":768,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions\/768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}