10 Bingeable Shows That Are the Best Kind of Podcast Junk Food
Reading Time: 6 minutesSometimes your brain needs a break. A fun, addictive podcast is just what the doctor ordered.
There are plenty of podcasts out there that will set your brain on fire, catch you up on news, draw you into a mystery, or teach you to manage your money. But sometimes you need the opposite: something to help you tune in, zone out, and escape the stress of your day.
Maybe you need something not-too-taxing to sustain you while you’re painting your back porch or cleaning out your closet. Maybe you need something to quiet your worries while you fall asleep. Whatever the case may be, these shows will be your new best friends. Call them junk food if you like, but I think of them as a treat—kind of like downing a few bowls of your favorite sugary cereal or an entire tube of Pringles, but with your ears. They’re pure fun, and once you sub, you won’t be able to stop.
Normal Gossip host Kelsey McKinney doesn’t want to tell you about celebrity gossip, she’s here to tell you about the kind of gossip your mom shares with you that she heard from a friend from a friend who heard about it at the beauty salon. These are hometown, everyday people stories, full of villains and innocent bystanders stuck in awkward situations. Kelsey unfolds these minor scandals with the flair of an expert storyteller, adding details that make you feel like you’re experiencing them yourself, asking what would I do in this situation? Hilarious guests come on to experience the story with you, and they’re just as horrified as you are. Sometimes normal people’s lives are more interesting than the flashy, false stories we hear about famous people. These stories are real, they hit home, and they’re happening in your own backyard.
All Fantasy Everything is a comedians roundtable in which Ian Karmel, Katie Nolan, David Gborie, and Sean Jordan conduct a fantasy draft of things not usually drafted. The topics (animals that can fuck right off, songs that will kill the vibes at a wedding, hiding places, buff dudes) are always oddly specific and entirely amusing. There are many, many tangents, which are often even funnier than the drafts, so it’s okay if you’re not totally tuned in. It’s a smörgåsbord of humor, anchored by a reliably sturdy game mechanic.
On Who? Weekly, friends Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber tackle the most recent celebrity news in the world of people who are just barely celebrities. This isn’t even the D-list—You know the people you see on the cover of OK Magazine and think, ‘why are they famous, other than being on the cover of OK Magazine all the time?’ Those are Whos. Bobby and Lindsey cover their mind-numbing sponcon deals, the singles they release, and their strange appearances on random red carpets. The crux of the show is deciding whether people are ‘Whos’ or ‘Theys.’ And trust me, the ‘Whos’ are a lot more fun to hear about, especially from Bobby and Lindsey, who are sharp and quick witted and have the chemistry of longtime best friends. My favorite are their weekly call in shows, during which they play voicemails from their wickedly funny listeners, who have questions and comments about Whos, Themes, and everyone between. You’ll find yourself laughing even as you retain nothing of value—and in this case, maybe retaining nothing is actually for the best.
On every episode of Beautiful Stories From Anonymous People, comedian (and super nice guy) Chris Gethard calls up someone random, a regular like me and you, and probes into their lives for a full hour, asking questions about what they’re doing, pivotal moments in their lives, and anything on their minds. Letting strangers steer an open conversation often leads to funny, heartfelt, and unbelievable places. It’s like picking up the phone and listening in on an intimate conversation, chat-roulette style. Sometimes the stakes are low, but even in the ordinariness Chris pulls out the best of his guests proves everyone has a story to tell. He’s stumbled upon someone who has just been through something tragic of major (a loss of a parent, a new baby) or who had a strange upbringing you’ll want to hear about. (Like growing up in a funeral home.) On Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People, we are all compelling characters.
The bad news is that it is almost impossible to keep track of the latest business scams, but if you want to look on the bright side, they are often hilarious and YouTuber Blair Zoń is cranking out episodes of Iilluminaughtii to cover them faster than you can listen—about three times a week—and she doesn’t seem to be running out of material anytime soon, so much so that episodes are split into MLM Mondays and her Corporate Casket series, where ‘bad business go to die.’ She’s tracing pyramid schemes, charities, brands, and people (Drake, The Dodo, miracle spring water, family vloggers, Prager U Kids, some clothing company even worse than Shein…) to expose bad business flying under the radar. Episodes are under 30 minutes, so they’re perfect if you want just a little hit-o-scam—though some of these stories could be an entire series. (See: the one about Kid Nation, where CBS grabbed 40 kids and made them ‘fend for themselves’ in a fake desert town in New Mexico for our television watching pleasure. It didn’t go well.)
From Hidden Brain comes My Unsung Hero, tiny stories of people who have reached out to others in a time of need. Every episode gives the mic to a storyteller who remembers being saved by a good samaritan: A passerby pulling a victim of a car accident to safety, flight attendants going out of their way to calm a baby, a simple, life-saving act from a stranger that saved a suicidal man’s life. Each story is introduced and steered by Hidden Brain’s Shankar Vedantam, but he puts you into the hands of the storyteller who narrates a tiny thank you letter to a hero who may never it. These are quickies that will make you feel better about the world. If you want a place to start, try out my own story, about a stranger who saved my life when I fell on a patch of ice.
Longtime pop culture nerds (and longtime listicle writers who’ve worked at Rolling Stone, People, Entertainment Weekly, VH1, and Page Six) Jordan Runtagh and Alex Heigl do extensive research on your favorite movies, TV shows, and music for Too Much Information. They give you the ultimate deep dives into what went on behind the scenes with Are You Afraid of the Dark, The Beatles’ Revolver, Donnie Darko, Jagged Little Pill, MTV Cribs, and more. If you grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, it’s a time machine back to your childhood. Jordan and Alex get specific, and will stir up memories about the things you watched and experienced, breathing life into the media from your past. They’re funny and seem to know everything, and their enthusiasm for these classics is contagious.
Need a break from reality? Meet Cute Rom-Coms are original romantic comedies told in 15 minutes or less. New episodes are dropped that are part of a bigger series, then after 3 months, each series spins off into its own feed. Enter the world of a rom-com talk show, a Valentine’s Day meet-cute, love in the workplace, and a special holiday season starring Amy Sedaris, ‘Christmasuzannukkah.’ Another new holiday series is about a time-traveling toilet. These are bright bursts of comedy and romance that are addictive as the rom-com movies you can’t stop watching (for the 100th time.) There’s always a meet-cute, there are always quirky, relatable characters, and there’s always a surprise. You’ll fall in love.
Does Daffy Duck have brain damage? Is Jack Dawson from Titanic a time traveler? Did Captain Hook Kill Ariel’s mom? Was the Grinch the sole survivor of a brutal genocide committed by the Whos? These are the important questions being answered on Fan Theory Queries, as pop culture nerds Lara Williams, Spencer Williams, and Michael Sewell unearth preposterous fan theories from Reddit. They present the cases by these Reddit conspirators and weigh in on how believable the theories are. These pop culture deep dives that will blow your mind wide open. Binge a bunch of episodes in a row, or search for some of your favorite characters from TV, film, and beyond.
Tell Me What Happened is a bingeable adventure show that collects real stories about people helping other people in distress, and the episodes are all pretty terrifying/exciting. (And eventually uplifting, because there’s always a hero in the end.) ‘Heroic Bystander Saves Handler From Alligator Death Roll’? ‘Walking Through Fire to Save 65 Horses’? ‘12 Hours Trapped in Quicksand’? How can you not click on these? The episodes always bring on an expert with advice on how to survive the situation, and you might want to get out your pencils for the ‘how to escape quicksand’ lesson. (Which means this podcast could save your life.)