Why I’m obsessed with this podcast’s merciless little romps: Browned Off reviewed

Everything is too long these days, isn’t it? Every series is at least two episodes too long, podcasts go on for hours, you have to scroll through pages of someone’s barely disguised eating disorder mania to get to the recipe on their blog, and every documentary on Netflix is four hours long, forcing me to go to Wikipedia halfway through just to finally find out what happened — and I cannot even slightly deal with Adam Curtis any more.

Podcasts also now have these excruciating intros before they start talking about actual things. No, I don’t care about how surprised you are to find that the thing you miss most during the pandemic is your favourite Panera order, you said this podcast was about how we Americans can finally get some healthcare, please get to the point! I am begging you! It’s not like I have anything better to do, but please don’t insult me while I’m lying here in the same clothes as the previous four days; at least let me pretend I have vitally important things to attend to instead of listening to you yammer on, thank you.

This is why I was so surprisingly charmed by Browned Off — it literally only has two episodes so far, but I am hooked — a new podcast about ‘diversity in the arts’, which yes, not only sounds a bit dull but also overdone at this point.