Podcast Dissection Part 2

Madison Hample

The episode I will be dissecting today is episode 245, “Time is becoming a serious
problem.” The podcast starts with Karen and Georgia introducing each other and discussing how
after five years, they still don’t have a standard structure of how they want to start episodes or
plan anything ahead of time. Sometimes they’ll do a short summary of what the podcast is, but
often they just start talking to you like old friends. That’s one thing that is so alluring about
listening to this podcast, it always seems like they’re talking with you instead of just at you.
They usually do about 20 minutes of banter and catching up on odd ends and pieces. Usually,
each host takes half an episode to tell their story, but this week just Karen did a story because it
was very long and in depth, so Georgia will have her own individual time during the following
week. The subject of this episode is about a murder that happened in Tucson, Arizona in 1964.
Karen finishes the story by talking about the sad ending, and then they always do what is referred
to as, “Fucking Hooray!” They take the last 10-15 minutes of an episode to discuss their own
highlights in the past week and read listeners celebrations that they had submitted as well. There
aren’t usually guests on the show, but on the few occasions that there have been, they talk to
them just as casual and friendly as they do one another. They are both just very funny, witty, and
down to earth women. Karen and Georgia just have a way of making you feel like you’re with a
couple friends just hanging in a room and chatting, it makes me feel less anxious and lonely at
times when I am stressed. I think for this episode, Karen was trying to shed light on how often
the police force fail to believe that some troubled teenagers go missing and aren’t always running
away. That was the main point of the story she told, and how the murder could’ve been
prevented if the police in Tucson had taken the report seriously. The tone of the podcast is very
heavy for the story telling, but some jokes are told at the beginning and the end, and they hit
some lighter notes in between to make it less daunting. I think this podcast is very education in
the way that it reminds the public that psychopaths and killers or abusers can be hiding just as a
normal person that you would never suspect. Listening to this podcast makes me more conscious
of my surroundings and what information I share with other people.