The Odd Lots podcast is having a moment. So much of a moment, in fact, that it got a profile in the New York Times. Reading that made me reread a profile of co-host Joe Weisenthal, published by the same outlet. That article, originally released back in May 2012, is something of a time capsule of a bygone media era. Blogging was all the rage. Speed mattered. It was fun!
Many moons ago, I had dinner with Joe in London. That was fun too. He was almost exactly as you might imagine. Engaging, nice and a bit twitchy. All thoroughly enjoyable, and all indicative of that bygone era. The question, then, is whether we can bring any of it back in our world of 60-second videos and Instagram captions.
I think we can and have long advocated for the return of blogging. I think they are a great way to report out information, engage an audience and follow a story as it develops. Back in November 2023, when it was announced Jezebel was shuttering, I wrote:
Videos and podcasts are great, I love watching them, listening to them and making them. But written content still really matters and people can engage with a personal voice i.e. blogging. I’m not saying it is easy, but it is certainly possible to do this on a smaller scale than Jezebel – i.e. individual creators making stuff and using all the tools at our disposal.
Odd Lots, Blogging and Personality
I still believe that, and not just because I enjoy building and growing such websites. Blogging inevitably leads to a bit of churnalism, though – read that profile and see how many stories Joe was producing each day. That is why accompanying newsletters can provide a bit of an opportunity to step back and analyse things. Audiences apprecaite some thoughfulness once in a while. (You may be seeing this as justification for the way I’ve built The Addition, and you’re right!)Â
I’ve said it before, and I’m happy to repeat it endlessly: In an age of increasing AI slop, human-created content, whether it’s podcasts or blogs or newsletters, matters. Personality matters. It’s what Joe Weisenthal did so well at Business Insider and what he and Tracey Alloway do so well on Odd Lots.
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