Six Podcast Episodes that Left Their Mark

You know the story. How does it go again? Someone’s having a hard time, the world seems empty, media becomes difficult to consume—until along come podcasts. It’s not that this is a boilerplate tale, but more that podcasting has come up in a time when a diversity of media is sorely needed. Diversity in the media style itself—audio versus visual storytelling—and in the content—queer voices, disabled voices, voices of people of color, mentally ill voices, poor voices—have enabled it to be a medium of the oppressed and marginalized.

Podcasting didn’t worm its way into my life until 2013, a year before I got my first smartphone. I knew about them before—Welcome to Night Vale had briefly flashed across my Facebook feed and The Moth was a favorite of one of my college friends—but it seemed pointless to listen to them while I was working, the only time I was…