Podcast: The Reflection

Podcasts! Personally, I think they’re great. It’s a medium of entertainment that can really present a wide range of information. I never thought I’d ever be creating a podcast, but I was thrilled to hear that the opportunity had presented itself. When thinking of a topic, my default is always mental health. I’ve struggled with mine for such a long time, why not discuss it? For this podcast, I wanted to step out of that comfort zone a bit and talk about something else. Then came the long process of trying to figure out what my interests were. After creating a long list, I decided on the very first thing I had wrote: Video games.

I’ve been playing video games for a very long time, starting at approximately age 4. My father would let me play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on his PlayStation. My parents were divorced by that time, so my mom didn’t know I was controlling a virtual felon at such a young age, and I kept it that way. She eventually did find out when I accidentally told on myself. Kids, am I right?

So, I’ve had a love for video games for a long time, and I was trying to figure out how to incorporate them into a podcast. Having a mother that believes I’m addicted to video games gave me the perfect idea: Gaming Disorder. To clarify, I’m not addicted to video games. Now that the semester is in full swing, I average playing about 3 hours per week, specifically for stress relief and some much needed “me time.”

Unfortunately, my podcast didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. I struggled through technical difficulty after technical difficulty. My hope was to discuss what society perceives the effects of Gaming Disorder are, and then inserting clips of myself playing and illustrating them. None of that worked. I could have gotten it to work if I had a heftier machine, but the program would crash every time and I couldn’t find a way to fix it. I wish I could have found a better device to record the audio on, but that shit is pricey, so the built-in microphone on my laptop had to do.

Through all of my disappointment with the final product, I did have fun researching all of the information and being able to sit down with some friends and have a pretty constructive conversation. I also really liked the whole creative process. I was able to mix some sounds from the public domain to make intro music that felt like my own. That was probably my biggest artistic choice throughout this whole process.

This whole process seemed super unique to me because I had to provide information without the use of a visual aid. Within a storytelling process, I’ve always used some sort of visual aid, whether it was actual photos or vivid imagery to help the readers understand the story more. With a podcast, there is no sort of visual aid. You’re creating something that has to appeal to a completely different sense. This is also what the most difficult part was also. I’m used to writing vivid imagery in a piece, or inserting images into a word document or PowerPoint presentation, so not having that aid difficult.

All in all, I did enjoy this project, even though I wasn’t happy with my finished product.

To listen to my podcast, Game Over! Click here!