Journey to the Center of the iTunes: You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes

Illustration by Mary Grace Ewald

by Andrew Rosin

If you don’t know me, one of the things I love more than anything is Podcasts. If you ever looked at my iTunes? You’ll see me with around 40 podcasts. Now before you scoff? Some of these belong to the realm of the semi-regular. I mean, the Pod F. Tompkast or the Tobolowsky files do not require you to do too much listening. But as I’m sure some of you are like, “what’s a podcast?” I’ll be willing to take you through my iTunes and throw some of my podcasts up for review.

Why am I going to start with You Made It Weird? Because it’s a Podcast that conflicts me.

The largest strength of the show? The host. Pete Holmes has a genuine enthusiasm for pretty much anything. It’s one of the things that allows this admitted WTF clone (Holmes himself has called the Podcast “What the Heck?”) to thrive on its own. And it allows you to share in his inside jokes. Download and listen to the Patrick Hayes episode and you’ll never look at the phrase “not feeling it” the same way again.

Another major strength of the show is that no subject is out of bounds. Holmes is willing to allow himself to be the subject of a section of the podcast. And he’s willing to, for lack of a better term, be roasted. While it didn’t work as well for me, an example of that would be the second podcast with Chelsea Peretti. The one that worked for me was the second episode of the show with T.J. Miller. May seem ironic that an actor of Yogi Bear would call out Pete Holmes for his TV Writing choices, but in context it works. Listen to the episode, and it will hook you beyond a shadow of a doubt.

And the best recent episode? Bo Burnham from last week. It was a lengthy one. But the discussion of seeming effeminate as a heterosexual male was a road that few podcasts will go down. It’s exactly what Holmes was hoping for when the show started. Despite the fact that he decided to get rid of the “3 weird things structure.”

Clearly, I like the podcast. So why am I conflicted?

One of the few Podcasts I dropped despite the talent of the host and his team was The Todd Glass Show. They had moments where it was spectacular, but the length of the Podcast began to cause me to lose attention. And if I’m going to listen to a podcast, if you start to tune out, there’s something wrong. And with this podcast? It’s getting to be a time suck.

The initial episodes were between an hour and an hour and fifteen minutes. Perfect length. Dead solid perfect. Even when it made a move to two episodes a week? The early episodes were still great lengthwise. To put it in the vernacular. I was feeling it.

Now? I like the show enough that I want to listen to every episode. Chris Thayer had about 51 minutes of greatness in it. But that was a 2 hour plus show. Within the filler of recent episodes? I can find myself listening to another podcast. I mean the Nerdist Podcast puts up three a week that are less of a time suck. A dash of structure to the podcast will likely prove to be a pound of cure.

But that being said? If you’re someone who does not have a lot of podcasts in your life? This is a strong addition. Feed it in chunks, and you will most definitely be satisfied. But on the whole? This is a podcast that used to be a 5 out of 5 for me, and now it’s under a 4.

And if it becomes a Podcast that’s not for me anymore? I will be sad.