The other day I posted a New Years resolutions post of a sort, and one of the topics addressed is how I really miss the existence of a thing that I once did called “Bel Folks Stuff”. The idea was simple, that I get together with some people that I interested in and have a sit down to talk about various topics. There really wasn’t much of a format other than that, and this idea of starting it up again has been something rolling around in my brain for the last year. The original series run released starting in October of 2014 and the last episode ever produced was released in May of 2015 with a new episode releasing almost every month during that time.
I really enjoyed the series but I allowed myself to get hung up on the fact that it seemed like no one was actually listening to them. They were in theory a labor of love, with me talking to a bunch of my friends rather than seeking out industry names and trying to wrangle them for a conversation that would ultimately feel more interview that honest discourse. In theory I have reached the point where I am just not watching stats in the way I once was, and if this ends up being listened to only by a handful of people then honestly I am fine with this. I went back and listened to a few of the episodes yesterday and it was a fun trip down memory lane with me talking to some of my friends for an hour and some change each time.
In the years since 2014 I have maybe figured out how I want to proceed in this whole podcasting thing. This past weekend we recorded our 282nd episode of AggroChat and that show has shifted a bunch since the super cringe-worthy first episodes. Weirdly however I think that Bel Folks Stuff more or less still holds up so I have decided to start re-releasing them. The show is going to live as part of this blog and I will configure a section for it. The goal is going to be to start re-releasing them on Saturday since I don’t generally make a post then. I will be doing the whole show card treatment like I do with AggroChat as well as starting to upload them to YouTube.
I am going to kick the process off by recording an episode zero, that is just me talking about the goals of the show. While the early episodes didn’t have much of a structure they did have several questions that I asked pretty much all of my guests, and in similar fashion I am going to be setting up a new set of questions going forward for episodes past what has been recorded to date. In episode zero I will be essentially laying out the sales pitch for the show and answering the questions about myself.
Moving forward I am going to be sitting down and having an hour long conversation with people as often as I can seem to manage it. Then I will file these recordings away and release them as I need fresh content. I’ve cobbled together a list of about thirty people that I am going to seek out and I am sure I will be adding more people to that list as I go forward. I’m being all responsible like and using Trello for this much like how we use Trello to keep track of topics for AggroChat so I guess I legitimately mean business now about this nonsense. As I see it I have a few months before I run out of the original show run and have to start producing real content. The first series of interviews are likely going to be me sitting down with the folks from AggroChat and using them as guinea pigs before branching out into a new batch of folks.
At the end of the day this talk show of sorts was a labor of love, and as I post the old episodes I am going to try my best to do a sort of “where are they now” update in the post as to what they are up to these days. The challenge as always is going to be finding the time to sit down and talk to all of the people who are in time zones diametrically opposed to my own. I am trying to focus on doing things this year that bring me joy and this show absolutely did. I mean 2014/2015 was a better time over all in our gaming community, and maybe naively I can think I will recapture some of that magic by travelling back down this path. The other secret hope is this will be a sort of long form method of introducing the consumers of my nonsense a whole list of new people to care about.
Just for the record, this guy listened to them, but I think not on release but after I discovered AggroChat, so probably a year later than ’14/’15.
Go for it!
I’ve thought of doing the same since I first started podcast, Bel, so I get the allure of the concept. Good luck with it, and you’ll have a regular listener in me.
I love the idea. Can’t wait to see who’re on your list 🙂