The Power of Podcasts
[Accessibility description: A photo of Tigress Osborn wearing headphones, with a microphone in front of her and a sign with NAAFA’s logo to her right.”]
[Accessibility description: The Fat Spotlight. A NAAFA Production. October 1 on your favorite podcast app. Hosted by Tigress Osborn.]
The first time I ever listened to a podcast was when I was invited to be a guest on one in 2021.
There’s a good chance that you already know what a podcast is, at least basically. There are technical definitions about RSS feeds and auto-download that are relevant to audio historians and podcast geeks, but what most people know is that podcasts are audio recordings they listen to on their computer or phone, sometimes for education, sometimes for entertainment. Postcaststatistics.com says that over half a billion people listen to podcasts each year globally. In the US, 55% of the population tunes in to podcasts each month.
As popular as podcasts became between the early 2000’s and today, but I was a latecomer to catching the podcast wave because I thought podcasts were something mostly for Apple people. I’d associated podcasts with iPods, and simply hadn’t paid attention to the expanding number of apps and websites where podcasts lived.
Then Trevor Kezon, a member of the Future of NAAFA Committee and later a NAAFA board member, invited me to come on The Big Fat Gay Podcast to talk about the first Fat Liberation Month in 2021. I listened to a couple of episodes to see what the show was like. That’s how I discovered I actually already had a podcast app on my phone (duh!). I knew there were fat podcasters out there. I’d been hearing about their shows, especially Aubrey Gordon on Maintenance Phase, from people who knew my work with NAAFA. I’d been seeing them mentioned on social media. I finally dove in, building a podcast feed of old and new shows, sometimes just searching for the word “fat” to see what came up, other times following guests and hosts from one show to the next.
In the 5 years since, I’ve listened to (at least) hundreds of hours of podcasts of all kinds, with diverse topics and different formats. I work really hard to know what’s going on with the many podcasts of the fat-o-sphere, bingeing some and at least sampling many others. An average podcast listener spends about 7 hours per week listening. I am above average. My podcast playlist is, like many aspects of my life, very, very fat, both in the sense that it’s a big list and in the sense that there’s a lot of fat and fat liberation content in my feed.
In the same 5 years that I was becoming a podcast lover, two other things were happening: 1) people continued inviting me on podcasts as a guest, and 2) NAAFA grew our virtual event program from only a few events ever to up to 30 per year. I was becoming a better interviewee and a better interviewer. I talked to small indie podcasts and podcasts produced by big media companies like BBC, NPR, and I Heart Radio. All of that interview time, on both sides of the microphone, helped me better understand just how many more people NAAFA could reach if we brought our mission to change perceptions of fat to the podcast world more directly.
And now we’re going to do just that. The Fat Spotlight, NAAFA’s first podcast series, launches October 1.
I can’t wait for you to see the line-up of guests this fall. Episode One stars a world-renowned model, author and influencer. The October and November include one of the most respected scholars writing about fatness, a popular comedian and Hollywood producer, an adventure traveler, and more. We’ll start dropping names on email and socials this week, so stay tuned for more news. New episodes will drop every Thursday.
Once we turn on The Fat Spotlight, we will mostly retire the NAAFA Webinars Series, the almost-a-podcast-anyway virtual show we’ve hosted on Zoom. We’ll have episodes here and there, especially with guests who want to do the kind of show-and-tell presentations that I actually love to do myself. But for interview content, we’ll mostly host that on the Fat Spotlight, which will be available on all of your favorite podcast apps.
But never fear! Classic episodes of the NAAFA Webinar Series will still be available on YouTube, and we’ll bring some of the best over to the podcast apps as flashbacks. And we’re not abandoning our commitment to a robust offering of virtual events where fat community can come together for laughter, learning, and support. We’re expecting to host at least 12 more virtual events this fall, on top of the podcast. Watch your emails and our social media channels for more on those.
So get ready to find NAAFA on your favorite podcast app. Whether you’re new to podcasts or a seasoned listener, we hope you’ll love what we have in store. And if you’re like I was five years ago and podcasts aren’t your thing (yet), we’re honored and excited to be your introduction!
All of this is possible because of the support of our donor community. What you give to NAAFA supports The Fat Spotlight, our virtual events, The Campaign for Size Freedom, and more. Make a one-time gift today in honor of our podcast launch, or become a Passionate Ongoing Donor with a monthly gift. When you Fund Fat, we all win! Help us make The Fat Spotlight a win from day one!
