[1]
By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with [2]
For roughly half a millennium crows have come together in murders; foxes in skulks; cats in clowders; lions in prides; toads in knots; kangaroos in mobs.
Podcasts appeared by name roughly twenty-one years ago [3], and since then the medium, primarily a US one, has experienced a phenomenal rate of increase of listeners and viewers, concentrated [4] in the audience which is less than 35 years of age, with more college education than average, and whiter. Most of this audience reportedly watches and listens at the same time.
For the time being, the collective noun pod applies to peas and whales, not yet to podcasts. Whales think but don’t read; it’s not yet certain that in the pod of podcasts, reading has been replaced, but the younger the audience, the more this is happening.
So here is a Christmas-New Year holiday experiment – the pod of podcasts aired since December 25 without a Dance with Bears to read beside them.
[5]December 31: Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TchxhIJLhPo [6]
[7]December 31, 2025: click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nezrMIltqqQ [8]
[9]January 4, 2026: click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhCNl09tRw8 [10]
[11]January 5, 2026: click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ6Vj8FYjeg [12]
[13]January 5, 2026: click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YQgRRRdgY0 [14]
[15]January 10, 2026: click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzl2iYoX6Uk [16]
[17]January 11, 2026: click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9UAFpmpLWo [18]
[19]January 14, 2026: click https://gradio.substack.com/p/gorilla-radio-with-chris-cook-diana-7ab [20] -- starting at Min 31:44.