Threadlines: The Rise of the TikTok Podcast

Over this past year, my social media feeds have been dominated by a new kind of content that is simultaneously refreshing in its approach and also just a rehash of things we've seen before...
Let's talk about it.

One of the biggest media trends of the 2010s was the exponential growth in popularity of podcasts, with them now existing as one of the most significant and impactful forms of media.

From their humble beginnings as a niche form of audio entertainment, podcasts exploded in popularity over the past decade. As reported by Rumble Studio, "In 2016, only 21% of the population were podcast listeners. And now in 2021, it's reported that 41% of the U.S. population aged 12 and over listen to podcasts monthly." Moreover, it's predicted that the "amount of monthly American podcast listeners are expected to grow... to about 100 million listeners by 2024."

The rise of smartphones and other mobile devices has made it easier than ever for people to discover and consume podcasts on a wide range of topics, from news and politics to sports, entertainment, and beyond.

Part of this is podcasts' low barrier to entry for creators and listeners alike - they're easy to create, you just need a mic and a halfway decent personality, and they're even easier to consume, just pop one on while you're cleaning or on a road trip.

And through all this, as podcasts grow their audience, they've begun to rely on TikToks and Reels as their de-facto way to grow. You've likely seen the millions of short-form clips of moments pulled from podcasts. Shows like Call Her Daddy, The Basement Yard, and Tiny Meat Gang, use these short-form video platforms to generate new eyes and ears for their shows, and these clips perform consistently well.
After a new episode of Impaulsive is released, you can expect that one episode to result in 10-15 short-form clips showcasing dramatic, noteworthy, or just clickbait-y clips from the show... for better or for worse.

People love consuming the bite-size clips of their favorite podcast creators, as it can ensure they can watch the best moments, without the investment of listening to the entire podcast.

Even for shows like Joe Rogan who don't have a channel they post short-form videos on, there have been plenty of fan-made channels dedicated to these clips.

But some channels recently asked the question... what if we just skipped the podcast step?
These clips of folks talking to each other do well, and clearly, people enjoy them, so why not just dedicate our channel to making those clips from scratch?

As reported by podcasting blog, The Podcast Host, "If you’re like more than half of all other podcasters, it’s likely your episodes last between 30-60 minutes. But when you think about it, most of the common daily tasks we perform while listening to podcasts take less than the duration of an episode to complete; walking the dog, doing the daily commute, eating breakfast, or getting ready for work in the morning. So why do we feel the need to stay loyal to long-form audio content?"

So... podcasts can take the approach of cutting out the fluff. There's no need to film an hour-long podcast, go back and clip the notable parts, and then post those short videos. Let's just film short videos that are dedicated to being short videos, but film them in a podcast style - two people, talking to each other, chatting, that same podcast vibe, but just fewer steps.

And I've been eating this up.

Two of the most notable examples of taking this approach by the horns are the Breadbasket guys and the Makeshift Project.

Both of these channels feature two dudes doing all things from 20-question battles, blindly ranking things, and drafting items of a certain topic in the style of a professional sports draft, would you rather questions, and more.

It presents almost exactly like clips from a podcast, complete with the podcast setup, two mics, two dudes, etc. It has all the elements that makes those podcast clips watchable and enjoyable... Except they're just filming them as dedicated short videos.

Reflecting on their journey to get to this content style, Zach Guarino, one of the hosts of the Breadbasket, said “Yeah, it’s just awesome... we just will film for 20 minutes and chat for 40 every night. It’s fun. I love it.”

Creating shorter videos allows the duo to shoot their productivity to the moon, as Danny, the other brother and host of the Breadbasket, notes that "when we find something that works, we get every ounce of it that we can. Instead of just doing, like, a draft, and being like, 'Oh, that’s cool, maybe we do, like, one a week,' we’ve probably done 150 drafts at this point. We just see something that works and capitalize."

The duo’s focus on the short-form enables this insane level of production. If they were doing hour-long, full podcast drafts, it would probably take 2-3 years to hit 150 podcasts.
Instead, with this approach, they can pump videos out, cover a bunch of topics, and grow the channel rapidly.

Looking at some of the fan reactions, folks enjoy this focus.

To learn more about this trend, I sat down with one of the hosts of the GOATCast podcast, Chris Rossi.

GOATCast is a self-described "comedy, pop-culture-ish" podcast that features Chris alongside his co-hosts Clark Marshall and Luke Gasque. They discuss several topics, many similar to the aforementioned segments such as drafts, trivia, top 10 lists, etc.

Chris describes that in his day job's office pre-COVID, there was always a weekly top 10 list in the office to prompt discussion and debate. The topics included everything under the sun, from the top 10 cereals, jerseys, Star Wars characters etc. After COVID and beginning work from home, Chris found himself still wanting to have those types of discussions, but having no place to do it.
So, GOATCast was born. The name is derived from the idea of... let's discuss and find the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) of certain topics.
This quickly evolved to the drafting format they use regularly now where each member drafts a team and then the audience votes on Instagram on which team is better.

Thinking about short-form content and the video podcast, Chris notes that GOATCast is admittedly behind the curve on this important trend. Chris predicts, "Short-form content is definitely the future."

Typically GOATCast records hour-long podcasts discussing their planned segments, and then chops them up into shorts afterwards - the standard approach. However, they have started experimenting in the purely short-form segments recently.
For instance, the guys have started solving the NYT game Connections together and posting that as a short-form segment. Chris notes that as the public’s attention spans continue to shrink, content similar to this will be critical for the channel. "As growth becomes more and more important for us, short-form content will also become more and more important."

And it's not just podcasts that are seeing this trend of TikTok-ification increase, with channels like PublicOpinionNYC, Game Changer Shorts, and Bebida.Tailgate taking the game show format to the world of the short video. Publicopinionnyc quizzes people on guessing the song artist and edits them into short, 60-second clips, Game Changer shortens the comedy improv game show, and Bebida.Tailgate takes a mic to big sporting events and quizzes fans on the road about tough sports trivia, all within that 60-second time limit.

As time goes on, these short-form focused channels continue to evolve their content - Breadbasket has been completing some of the sports challenges they like to debate about, and MakeShift Project has taken to the streets for some of the public, impromptu interviews similar to the aforementioned channels. Nevertheless, their micro-podcast clips continue to be the dominant way they create content and interact with their audience.

It’s worth noting that this TikTok-Podcast trend has been primarily followed by podcasts that are more geared towards young men as their audience, with many of the examples I’ve referenced being focused on sports and other dude-ish topics. However, I’d bet it won’t be long before you see podcasts of all kinds and topics adopting this short-form, video-based structure.

I think this content is both addictingly fun to watch and innovative, and I wish all of these creators the best as they continue to grow their podcast audience and channels.

A special thanks to GOATCast’s Chris Rossi for sitting down with me to discuss this topic. If you haven’t already, give them a follow and listen.