The End of Something Great – Barcast, Podcast Tips, and Endings · 8:52pm March 25th
Coinciding with this post is going to be an important announcement that should be read first on The Barcast. ( https://www.fimfiction.net/group/212308/the-barcast/thread/536073/retirement ) Pencil also wrote an awesome FAQ ( https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/1035911/last-call-at-the-bar-the-end-of-an-era) Naturally, I think it’s time for me to open my big mouth as I was always very closed with non-podcasters about the background and inner workings of The Barcast.
First off, I want to deeply thank everyone who came and listened to even a single podcast. Thank everyone who even donated a single bit to our streams. Thank everyone who came on as a guest and invited their fanbase. And of course, thank all the associates and acquaintances we made along the way.
The Barcast, as most know, started originally as The Good HiE Podcast in roughly late 2015. Many of the early episodes are lost to time, but over enough time, we began posting them online. And on top of it being a somewhat personal challenge to myself, we found how to syndicate the podcast over many different platforms in as cheap of a format as we possibly could.
When we got started, there was no shortage of pony podcasts and interview groups. JHaller, Saberspark, PonyTonite, Seattle’s Angels, The Royal Canterlot Library and more all had their own interview formats and ways of highlighting popular individuals in the fandom. However, Once I caught up with Mikesnipe, who we will affectionately call Milk for the rest of the blog, the rest became history. This group had something special, and I felt that I could help. Anonpencil saw the same potential, and as we were dating, helped Milk allure bigger names from our circles onto the cast, accruing a base and building from there.
It's been a hell of a ride. And to think that our time would outlast many of the previous groups, but give us opportunities to help sponsor and act as press at conventions was amazing. To be joining the ranks of Horse News and Equestria Daily was a unique experience that I would never give up lightly.
In a way, the pandemic did a really good job at avoiding bringing this down even quicker. After Bronycon 2019, most of the Brony world agreed to do a quiet shuttering of the fandom’s doors. And the lack of quality content from Hasbro after that point certainly hasn’t helped things. Finding great guests has been harder. Finding time in our own personal schedules has been harder. Financial struggles to reach conventions has been harder. And in reality? The passion is just gone. We did everything we could to make our last few episodes as fun as possible. We brought on heavily vetted guests that we knew would be fun episodes and enjoyable to listen to.
There’s a degree where the podcast didn’t fully begin as just the six of us. Milk and Ravvij ended up adopting the 4 of us, and we lost some other podcasters along the way. But since we found our core, it’s been more about our friendships. And from what I see? Friendships are just more important.
The nights we’ve spent recently playing video games has been our most natural and fun experiences. And you may think im talking about the videos we’ve put on our channel, but not at all. There’s a degree where you don’t want every aspect of your friendships to be The Truman Show. Sure, its really cool when you have awesome excerpts that you can look back on and be like “yeah. That was a great time” and it’s an awesome memory, crystallized on youtube. But to filter all aspects of a friendship through the lens of “content?”
That’s honestly kind of hollow.
Frankly, I’m relieved for the end of the Podcast. The ability to just hang out with my friends, not have to worry about twitch guidelines, or question if I’m creating a parasocial environment for listeners as we shill for charity money, the literal money out of our own pockets as we didn’t take money for our own expenses. It’s just a major drain off of all of us.
There’s gonna be a reaction from folks for “the last bastion of fandom interviews” has fallen, and naturally some folks in the realm are going to want to fill that void. Given we aren’t giving out the Barcast name, and certainly don’t want to allow people to pick up where we left off, I would love to give some simple tips and even some cast secrets that I think would be valuable for anyone who wants to pick up the mantle of interviews.
Flutterpriest’s big dumb tips to making your own interview podcast.
1. You have to have dedication and an open schedule.
A good number of imitators showed up over the years. Some lasted 3 months or so. Some lasted 3 episodes. If you want to keep this up at any sort of regular interval or keep a fanbase, you need to be able to keep a “streamer like” schedule of when and how long you do interviews.
2. You cannot just ask the same boilerplate questions.
You MUST tailor your questions to your quest. There was a degree of this built into the Barcast formula. By allowing followers/readers to ask questions to the guest, they can get specifics on exact stories, styles, and interests for a particular interviewee. There’s a struggle there where many folks on fimfiction just try to become friends with the people whose stories they read.
3. Your guest must participate in sharing the word of the interview.
Especially if you’re just getting started, your guest has to advertise their interview time and date. If they don’t, all you’re going to get is your regulars and diehards. Which, if you’re getting started, is limited to your existing fanbase. Your friends aren’t gonna be able to come to them forever.
4. Podcasting is not Easy.
Yeah, you can get a blue-yeti, OBS, crop your image well and then call it good. Towards the end, I got lazy and just began posting full Vods. Which does technically work. But if you’re going to try and play the algorithm today, you need to be able to make shorts of your best/funniest bits. That means familiarity with Davinci Studio or a similar video editor. I used sony vegas for years, but I think Davinci is better. Thumbnails that make your clips and videos pop are essential to getting traffic from bigger youtubers/platforms – and its really REALLY worth investing in interviewing people from the platforms that your content actually goes on. On Fimfiction, it’s genuinely hard to get traction outside of a story post or a site-wide blog, which are reserved for the most special occasions. Investing in interviewing narrators and animators is a great start. Keep in mind that many folks are trying to branch out their brand away from pony, so if you pigeonhole yourself into horse, you might struggle to convince those trying to distance themselves from their past content. (I.E. Saberspark, Vannamelon.etc)
5. Popular does not mean Good.
In the span of recording interviews, there’s a strong importance in vetting your guests. Some guests want a 2 hour long advertising session. Some guests could not care less about your interview and may do other things while talking to you. Some people will jump on with the sheer intent of getting you banned from twitch. The bad interviews will take 10 times more effort and will to keep going than the rest of them. Have a bailout plan if your interview isn’t going the way you expected. A popular person you interview, does not mean they are good content.
6. Roll with the punches
I genuinely went to a public speaking class and took some basic improv classes to learn how to roll in conversation and to keep the content interesting. Barcast had a great upside in having so many interviewers in that we had varied interests and if I, say, have no interest in art/artists, we had Ravvij as an artist expert to talk and geek about their craft. It’s weird to ask a professional in a particular field to an interview but only ever get surface level deep. Their followers are going to want more specific and refined answers than just the basics. It’s like asking an actor about their indie stage work rather than their newest popular blockbuster.
7. It will be bad.
Every time you start, it’s not gonna turn out perfect or the way you want it. It’s like learning to write. Start by doing your best, and then tweak and change the parts that don’t work well. Most importantly, have fun doing it. The audience can tell when you aren’t enjoying it.
8. How do Legitimate?
Having a Soundcloud Pro account gives you access to an RSS Feed that’s hosted on a publicly available format. You can use this account to upload your content, and it automatically hosts the soundbites and updates the RSS Feed. At that point you can hook up with Spotify Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and you get Youtube Podcasts essentially for free if you upload the content in video form to Youtube.
You can make a fan wiki at wikia exceptionally easily
Basic google accounts gives you an email and youtube.
If you can read basic HTML, you can set up your own website for Pennies on the Dollar with AWS and a One page template.
AWS How to make a static website - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/WebsiteHosting.html
One Page Website templates you can tweak - https://www.free-css.com/template-categories/one-page
Following these steps gives you your own website you can use to look like a legitimate press outlet. Maybe 2 afternoons worth of work.
9. Your Guests are Not Your Friends
Phew. This is a tough one. And the closest I stray into revealing more about myself. It’s really cool to have cool guests to interview and interact with, but keep in mind that if you finally get your big hype sempai on to interview, that their life doesn’t change or immediately become your friend because you interviewed them. I admit I had some problems with this earlier on as we would interview folks that seemed to really, really gel with us and our vibe, but for every one or two that keeps in contact and becomes your buddy, there are 10 that will think it’s odd that you wanna just hang out after the fact. I wanna apologize to the people that I got parasocial to over the years, and I actively cringe at my past self.
10. Your fans are not your friends.
It’s an awesome feeling to go to a convention and people will want to meet you and be your buddy cause they like your content or think you are cool. However, there’s a limit here. And the minute you ingest something that was NOT what they said it was, you will need to set hard boundaries really quick. (I’m not talking about durian fruit.) Vet who you trust.
In the same way I stepped away from Jinglemas, my life is moving in a direction that I’m simply happier with. I’m excited to play stupid games with Milk, Fight with Ravvij about his trash taste in anime, tell Enigma he’s a shit, and Share history memes with Flam. Just not in the public eye.
As for Screaming Closet with Anonpencil? Well. Stay tuned. We reserve the right to still stream horror games and shiz. Even if it’s just for us :3
While I still want to finish Office Love, there’s also a very real possibility that this is my last blog post for anything non-Screaming Closet. So, I suppose on that note, I suppose I should talk about endings.
My creative endeavors in my real life have been going swimmingly. And it would be a lie to say that the idea of writing an ending to a story where the first half is terribly written felt exciting to tackle. I still intend to. It’s just hard to find the time to do it well.
I hope I gave more to this fandom more than I took over the years. I hope I can be remembered as a positive force, rather than a negative. That I wrote some good things and not just complete trite.
Thank you
media4.giphy.com/media/0SG2VHcjKGYXgZhC0b/giphy.gif
You guys had a good run, something to be proud of.
It was an honor to be a part of things. Thank you for all the effort and the entertainment!
You were an inspiration for me, just want yoy to know that.
I had a blast when y'all invited me. Truly and end of an era. Stay awesome, Barcast.
I feel as though I found you all too late in the game, gave too little, and missed out on so much. I hated missing out on your live events for one reason or another.
I'm going to miss having your shows to look forward to, but I wish you all the best.
You were all lovely from beginning to end and I'm delighted to have been even a small part of it. I'm glad you're choosing to end it on your own terms and happy things are going well for you. n_n
While sad to see it go, I understand completely that all things must end. I wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors and hope to see you at some cons in the future.
Yeeeah we'll still def do some Screaming Closet at some point...
Thanks so much for everything over the years - the Barcast had an amazing run, and to be honest I'm glad you're retiring on your own terms rather than letting it slowly decline. Hopefully I'll still be able to catch you and Pencil on Twitch.
I still kick myself for panicking and blowing off your "other hobbies" question during my own interview. I could have serenaded you all!
Ah well. Memories...
I suppose I'll have to keep a closer eye out for when you and Anonpencil may pop up in my Twitch notifications. May you all continue being awesome!
Yo, I had the honor of being interviewed by you all once, years ago, and to this day it's still a cherished and treasured memory of mine. Thank you (and all of the lovely Barcast folks) for all that you've done! You deserve to rest and to be proud of it all. I'm so grateful for what you've all made.
Hey I wanted to post this HERE because you've been my main connection to the Barcast and a lot of Pony in General. I know I'm not active in the community anymore, but you're one of the reasons I was able to write so many fics and stay connected to this place.
It's been a hell of a ride for the Barcast, and I've been extremely honoured to have been able to see you grow from your first few podcasts to you guys growing to hold panels at conventions. Your growth has been nothing short of inspirational, literally.
I would not have kept up my own shitty little streams if it wasn't for the Barcast having weekly podcasts. I have gone through terrible zero-view streams knowing you guys have been able to plow through awful guests that you navigated. I've tried new and exciting things knowing that places like the Barcast and Screaming Closet wouldn't exist if you guys didn't. I started raising money for BC Children's Hospital because you guys were able to have your own charity running. I've edited videos knowing you guys have put more work into bigger projects, so that means I could too.
So thank you. Thank you for the friendship, thank you for writing with me for years, thank you for bringing me on the Barcast for a few episodes, and thank you for doing such an amazing job with everyone on the Barcast. I'm always available on Discord of course, but I wanted to at least make a post on the place that brought us together.
We all know the ride never ends though. The podcast maybe, but the ride never ends.
Thank you for everything.
5775156