TED

“You’ve probably seen ‘s now-famous TED Talk”

I saw this statement in a post, and I can guarantee you that for whatever person you substitute, I have not. TED is yet another thing I am supposed to love without question but is an anti-brand to me. I can’t get excited about forced profundity or delighted that rich technocrats throw the commoners a few crumbs by letting us see the videos of these stilted, affected performances from their parties for themselves.

This is not unrelated to the notion that we are supposed to love high production value podcasts but with shows like This American Life, the production itself is what makes it unpalatable to me. I’ve had enough artifice and slickness, now I’m searching for the visceral, the joyful and the authentic.

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dave

Dave Slusher is a blogger, podcaster, computer programmer, author, science fiction fan and father. Member of the Podcast Hall of Fame class of 2022.

8 thoughts on “TED”

  1. As far as podcasts go- I think you can strike a balance between being authentic and still having decent production values.  I don’t listen to a whole lot of the NPR podcasts anymore, I like more independents.  But I also can’t tolerate poor production either.  BlogTalkRadio stuff is completely off limits for me – because who wants to listen to a bunch of people pretty much on the phone with each other?

  2. TalkShoe is the best podcast fileserver out there (because it’s reliable and free), as long as you don’t also use it to produce your podcast.As for Ted, I enjoyed it when it was one inspirational episode a month. Now it seems like it’s one every day and they’re more commercials than useful information. But even at its best I would listen and think, “That thing you’re so excited about? We could have had that 20 years ago if the people applauding it in that room hadn’t worked so hard to squash innovation and suppress the people with the ideas.” Such is life.

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