The future of satire

By Alice Chen

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Alison Cicci’s podcast isn’t quite like anything else on the market.

With a mix of topical dark humour and disability advocacy, her podcast, The Satirically Challenged Show, features Cicci and three other on-air personalities as well as eight more cast members working behind-the-scenes.

“Everyone on the podcast has disabilities, so it’s a very inclusive podcast,” she says.

Podcasts are a format of audio shows that are typically sent and downloaded over the internet. Listeners can bring the episodes with them on their phones or tune in at home to hosts like popular stand-up comics Jim Jeffries and Bill Burr.

And, according to Matt Coggins, one of the best parts of podcasting is just how accessible it is.

“I’ve always been a fan of a community of producers being as big as possible,” the host and producer of political satire podcast Let Me Be Clear! says. “I think it’s something that art can benefit from and the more people that are out there producing, the more content there is for every person to enjoy.”

Coggins explains that even though he had a background in sound design, anyone can get a microphone and internet connection then begin uploading a show.

Cicci agrees with this sentiment, adding that this lack of barriers lets smaller groups “express their thoughts about topics they might feel passionate about.”

Still, just because the format is accessible doesn’t mean that there isn’t still work to be done winning over audiences.

Producer and host of interview-based podcast Hail Satire!, Vic Shuttee, thinks that the most engaging aspect of his episodes is the talking.

“I think conversation is the most interesting thing a podcast can do. It’s not the most ambitious but I listen to interviews all the time so I think that hearing those great stories can be inspiring.”

Shuttee also feels that podcasts let him deep dive on topics without the brevity demands of more traditional comedy, like open mics.

“The languidness is appealing to me. You can go deeper,” he says. “You can really get to interesting places when you get that kind of time.”

And his work bears him out, with his show’s longest interview running four hours.

But Coggins takes a completely different perspective on the appeal of the format, instead going for joke-laden and heavily scripted 10-minute episodes with lots of sound effects added in post-production.

He does admit that his episodes would likely run longer if he wasn’t the only one working on the writing and producing. He says that he spends each week gathering stories, and working on the script while at home and at work to get the show out and edited on time.

Coggins hopes that this work will pay off.

“Over the course of the show I’ve kind of taught myself, maybe this joke isn’t as funny as this joke,” Coggins says, explaining that he started initially to build a writing portfolio for his dream of getting on Saturday Night Live or The Daily Show.

Cicci echoes this idea and says that podcasts can be a way for people to hone their craft and be heard when other avenues are too challenging to get into.

As for whether this platform will mark the future of comedy and satire, opinions are slightly more mixed.

Cicci sees it as more of a platform for emerging artists rather than entrenched media personalities.

Coggins points out the irony in how interest has once again stepped back to the age of radio shows and audio-only mediums.

“But at the same time, we spend so much of our day staring at screens that it’s kind of nice to have something in the background while we’re looking at the real world,” he says.

Coggins expects podcasts to stick around for a while, if only because of how easy they are to begin making.

Shuttee’s outlook is more optimistic.

Acknowledging the “ease of a Netflix-style world” that gives everyone easy access to on-demand content, he believes that the style and persistence of comedy delivery on the internet will make podcasts one of the most desirable platforms.

“If you’re an artist, you can spend five minutes on an open mic or you can work on a killer Bill Burr-style podcast where you’re just sharing your thoughts and these things you can track over time,” Shuttee says. “If you like somebody, why wouldn’t you want the ability to mainline hours of them once you find [them]?”

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