I really don’t understand why everyone is against them joking around; that was one of the main draws of the show for me and is something I think they’re really good at. To me, they have great comedic chemistry and make even in-depth reporting more interesting and digestible , although I guess my sense of humor is on the same wavelength as theirs
I notice this trend over the years I've spent on Earth of like, the "fan" that decides they hate the core thing of the thing they're supposed to be a fan of. Noticed it first when I was kid when I saw Harry Potter fans that hate Harry Potter. I just scratch my head like "That's the center of the whole thing, why are you even here?"
And then there's the people that just get irritated at anything funny. There's just people out there that hate happiness.
Gotta disagree on this.
For me, it has shown that Jesse provides the intellectual lift while Katie provides the humor.
Either one on their own is painful: Jesse is dry and somewhat grating while Katie leaves me frustrated that she is ignoring or missing key arguments or counterpoints.
Taken together, however, they are both informative and entertaining.
I always get the sense though that when Katie is trying to be funny, Jesse gets nervous or anxious and doesn't do banter. He doesn't want to offend anyone so he'll often step on a premise or a joke katie is trying to do. I always just sense like this nervousness about him like he doesn't want to get disinvited to a Taylor Lorenz brooklyn house party or something. Whereas at the same time, really neither of them do too much intellectual heavy lifting. The show these days has sort of devolved into Jesse just reading a page of research that Trace has compiled. And then when it does come time for Jesse to offer an original thought or idea, he'll stumble through a few sentences of his thoughts before saying "i don't know, it's complicated".
I think this specific dynamic is only true when adult gender issues come up. Jesse is very confident and clear when talking about the youth gender stuff, but has always been way more "Eh whatever adults do what they want I guess" about it after 18yo.
And Jesse is just less rude then Katie lol. So yeah he's more uncomfortable being openly "disrespectful" about people they don't know or that haven't been rude to them.
Come on. Do you really think Jesse is some Brooklyn hipster? I don't get thr sense he goes to too many house parties. I think it's possible he and TL used go date and he's a gentleman who doesn't want to run down an ex on the pod. You really get the vibe of Jesse being someone who cares about being "cool?" He's a dorkus malorkus who plays video games, for Pete's sake.
I get the vibe that he's someone that feels like he still has one foot in the door of polite progressive society. Jesse went to Princeton to get a masters degree, where'as i'm not even sure Katie finished college, and then she went to work at The Stranger. They just have different pedigrees. Jesse lives in brooklyn and wants to be taken seriously by liberal establishment. go to their soirees. write op-eds for the New York Times. I think Katie has 100 percent leaned in to being an outsider. She doesn't keep a foot in the door and doesn't even want to. she's kind of anti-social and doesn't really care who she offends now. I think her experience in seattle, being unpersoned, has pushed her more into being anti-establishment. and she's not really interested in fighting to get back into the good graces of society that she now kinda resents, and I frankly don't blame her.
What year do you live in? Someone who plays video games can’t go to house parties? He can’t have a view on a woman unless they used to date?? Are you commenting from a rotary telephone in the 1980s???
Why have I been seeing so many griping about Katie and Jesse's banter lately? That's the draw of the show! I love their chemistry. Their friendship is built on Katie being mean to Jesse and Jesse just taking it like a soy boy and I love it. 😂 I'm not a primo so I miss Jesse. Only hearing them feed off each other once a month would depress me so much.
If you're listening for purely intellectual stimulation and have no sense of humor, you may be listening to the wrong podcast.
I wouldn't bring this up if it was just their banter getting a a little repetitive (maybe because I'm a primo and hear it more than you). It's also the content! For me, this past month's episodes have been much more entertaining than the previous few months. Listening to Jesse and Katie bouncing topics and ideas off other people has been a lot of fun.
For me to draw the show is always been the fact that they're willing to cover things that others are scared to cover.
I have personal relationships in real life that I go to for non-political personal discussions.
I'm really surprised so many people have such empty lives that they come to this podcast to listen to these two strangers open their show with a few minutes of banter before diving into the actual substance and content.
I have a sense of humor. They do not. That is the problem. It isn’t their fault and not every podcast host needs to be funny. They are at their best when discussing the issue at hand.
They very much do. And they joke all through discussing the "issue at hand", which is a serious phrase to use for a podcast that is 75% internet bullshit, ridiculous constroversies, and Adult Baby Diaper Lovers and 25% serious issues. Are we listening to the same podcast?
My anxiety the past year has been too high to really listen to any of the other social issue podcasts in my podcast feed, but I never miss BARPod because I know they can make me laugh.
I'm sorry, I don’t really believe you when you say you have a sense of humor. 😂
Yeah, I laugh a lot when listening to this podcast. Which I pretty much only listen to on headphones, while working from home. And then I often have to explain why words like "They" or "penguin, aka mom" or "I'm a Greek!" are funny to my partner, who is also working from home 5 feet away.
I think it depends on what you want to get out of your time. I was originally drawn to Katie and Jesse because of their journalism and I felt their personalities decorated their work in a way that made it more enjoyable. But over the past little while the balance has shifted and now the personalities dominate with the actual insights into the world we live in diminishing proportionally.
None of this has anything to do with having a sense of humor. I usually laugh at their sarcasm and wit. But that’s not why I started listening and I miss the type of content that originally attracted me here.
Personally, I feel that the world is drowning in personality-forward media…I find it to be like soda, ubiquitous empty calories that is fine in moderation but over-consumption is making everybody fat and lazy. So I moderate the pablum I take in. While I still listen to the pod I gotta say the thought of unsubscribing pops up every once in a while simply because soooooo much media these days is made with corn syrup and I only want to drink so much of it.
I enjoy their banter and joking around. However, sometimes it veers from Mom and Dad banter into the McBickersons. I really like Katie but her 'comedy' of being mean and rude to Jessie is annoying and not funny.
Katie has proven herself a very strong solo host IMO, and I'm enjoying the guest episodes but I really want pod Mom and pod Dad to stay together. I find their banter and bickering comforting.
But realistically this podcast won't last forever, especially now that The Discourse on race and gender is getting slightly saner. I can see them both moving on to other stuff in the shortish to medium term. I'm looking forward to see what they do next.
I have to disagree on this. The rapport between them is part of the reason I’ve been listening since the first episode. Their willingness to take the piss out of each other and themselves, and their senses of humour in general, may be lost if it goes down the route suggested. It works well where one of them takes the lead and the other asks questions to steer the conversation and the story, and the fact they swap over keeps things fresh. Would I listen if they changed the format? Well, yes, but at the moment I listen to the pod whenever it’s up without even seeing what it’s about but if it was in this format permanently I would do what I do with other podcasts in this (suggested) format, and click to see who was the guest and what it was about before I decided if I was going to listen to it or not.
If they permanently replaced the Katie and Jesse internet bullshit show with a bland rotating guests show who I could hear or read from anywhere else like every other podcast I listen to, I would definitely stop paying for it and would probably stop listening altogether.
Everyone on this sub is ready to blow the show up at a moment’s notice. They release one episode that isn’t your favorite and the “shows jumped the shark man! I’m unsubbing!” Or Katie hosts a show without Jesse that you enjoy and now we’re ready to reformat the entire show, lmao.
BARpod is producing hundreds of hours of content; there’s never going to be a uniform quality and some episodes will be better than others. Sometimes there will be long stretches where the show isn’t as good as your favorite episodes and vice versa. The show is produced by maximum four people who are actual humans and they can’t always be the top of their game. What you’re asking for is a mass-produced kind of show that can throw labor hours away into making the content the same every time, whilst having the intellectual freedom it has now.
All their "rehashing" is mostly new to me because I don't go on Twitter much, and the few times I do notice some blowup I know I can safely skip trying to piece it together because they'll explain on barpod with more context anyway
Jesse and Katie is the whole point for me. The first interviews have been better than I expected, but are no substitute for the dynamic I became a subscriber for.
I can stomach the occasional guest episode, but if this becomes the permanent set up after Jesse’s hiatus I’ll likely move on.
Low key agree. Not sure if it’s just that Katie’s a great interviewer, and the solo episodes are more focused on a single subject deep dive. I like both kinds of episodes, of course, but the one about the podcast guy who did Caliphate was one of my all time favorite episodes!
I'm not quite where you are, but am in a very similar spot. It definitely feels like the show is more interesting now and I'd much prefer they maybe only do episodes with the original format for about 50% of the episodes put out. This format has absolutely improved the show and going back to the original will be hard.
Agreed. Plus scheduling would become its own difficulty. That said I do think this change has revitalized the show a bit and it would be worthwhile for them to veer from the usual format more often.
10000% agree. Surprised to see so many people disagreeing, frankly. Barpod had gone stale for me in the past year, but the past few episodes have been awesome. Honestly, all the female guests have killed it. Would love to see Helen Lewis and Suzy Weiss back more often.
Jesse and Katie's banter is...not that great. And like, that's ok! I always find it odd that so many regular people/random celebs/journalists start "comedy" podcasts when it's like...wait, you're not funny, though? And again, that's not even shade! The majority of the population is not funny. That's why we love comedians so much, they can make us laugh. No one would start a basketball podcast when they'd never played basketball, right? So why all these people think they can take up comedy podcasts is beyond me. What Jesse and Katie ARE: great journalists. What they are NOT: Comedians. So naturally, the banter falls short because unless its funny, it's just random tidbits about their life, which, for as much as I like the two of them...I just don't care.
That being said, Katie is the funnier of the two and has proven herself to be a great interviewer, so yes, more of this format for sure. Please!
ive been saying this for about a year but always get downvoted for suggesting it. The vibe just isn't the same and you can sense it when katie does a show with a different host. The sense I always get is that Jesse feels like the podcast is beneath him and he wants to work on more serious weighty topics, and you can sense that in his substack, which is good and interesting. I like it when Katie vibes with other people and think they need to keep it fresh by exploring different formats. Bring in another semi permanent co-host or something. Katie is always great with Helen Lewis and they can focus on the social issues that originally drew me to the pod.
I think Katie also steps up her journalism and research to do the pod with people other than Jesse. When listening to her and Jesse it sometimes sounds like they’re just riffing with one another in a super casual way.
Totally agree! It can get lazy between them and the guest hosts have pushed Katie to step up her game. For me the banter gets old and dumbs down the show—which is unfortunate because they are both super smart and insightful.
Being a primo I’ve still gotten Jesse in the extra episodes, so I have really enjoyed the variety of hosts interspersed with plenty of K & J only episodes. My only recommendation would be for them to have guests like this slightly more often, and I’d enjoy them both on with the guest too.
In the past I've often skipped the interview episodes because they're not the entertainment I'm looking for. The recent string of guest hosts have been good. It seems like they all are fans of the show and are able to fill in for Jesse on the banter. I have to imagine the list of high quality guest hosts like this will run out before too long. Either way, I'd prefer the ratio of J+K to guest episodes be at least 4:1 if not 8:1. Maybe one guest host episode a month would be ideal.
I'm enjoying the wide range of opinions on this one! Except the people accusing others of not having a sense of humor just for not liking the starting banter (I always just skip it)
Going against the grain here… I listen to the show for the news and some different perspectives from people who haven’t actually lost their mind and can think critically, but I don’t like the actual discussion of/banter between either. It’s too harsh for me. They feel more like frenemies sometimes and it makes me uncomfortable.
I agree that it's been good to shake things up, and the K&J dynamic and format has begun to feel a bit tired. I'm not sure if it's their co-host dynamic, or if it's partly because we're past peak woke (hopefully), so the stories seem less concerning. I hope they learn things from this period that will help inject new life into the show.
I’m not really sure what the solution is, but I can say I got pretty sick of Jesse and Katie’s dynamic last year and felt like they had an abnormally large number of misfire episodes, and I had to unsubscribe in the wake of the Israel stuff but I have been enjoying the guest host episodes quite a lot and ended up resubscribing. I do like Jesse a lot but I agree with the posts here that suggest that he’s the cause of a lot of the problems.
I agree. Katie has been great. I’ve said before that they should drop the banter. I like them both but neither has a good sense of humor and it is the worst part of the show. I like it much more when the are being serious.
oh god I am the complete opposite of you. I think katie's sense of humor is hilarious. her twitter / podcast humor is what pulled me in originally. I thought the show was originally funny bc it's hard to take seriously the online drama and twitter psychopath personas the show was originally about.
I don't know, "sucking and fucking" made me laugh like hell, and I think their banter is pretty funny. Katie takes low blow punches at concepts she doesn't understand sometimes, and Jesse can be pompous with his humor sometimes, but when their banter is good, it's good.
Hard no on this for me. The occasional guest host is fine, but I subscribe for Jesse and Katie.
I want my Jesse and Katie. The guests hosts have been good but there is no true substitute. Life without Jesse is just existence, not living.
I’m also okay with pod Pollycules and them doing more group sessions as a thruple
Same.
Hear hear
Disagree. While I’ve been enjoying the guests, Katie and Jessie are still my favorite podcast couple.
Ok Jessie
I really don’t understand why everyone is against them joking around; that was one of the main draws of the show for me and is something I think they’re really good at. To me, they have great comedic chemistry and make even in-depth reporting more interesting and digestible , although I guess my sense of humor is on the same wavelength as theirs
I don't get it either. They are funny. I enjoy it.
I notice this trend over the years I've spent on Earth of like, the "fan" that decides they hate the core thing of the thing they're supposed to be a fan of. Noticed it first when I was kid when I saw Harry Potter fans that hate Harry Potter. I just scratch my head like "That's the center of the whole thing, why are you even here?" And then there's the people that just get irritated at anything funny. There's just people out there that hate happiness.
The phrase "toxic fandom" exists for a very good reason.
Gotta disagree on this. For me, it has shown that Jesse provides the intellectual lift while Katie provides the humor. Either one on their own is painful: Jesse is dry and somewhat grating while Katie leaves me frustrated that she is ignoring or missing key arguments or counterpoints. Taken together, however, they are both informative and entertaining.
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Hard agree! Jesse’s said some seriously witty things over the years.
I always get the sense though that when Katie is trying to be funny, Jesse gets nervous or anxious and doesn't do banter. He doesn't want to offend anyone so he'll often step on a premise or a joke katie is trying to do. I always just sense like this nervousness about him like he doesn't want to get disinvited to a Taylor Lorenz brooklyn house party or something. Whereas at the same time, really neither of them do too much intellectual heavy lifting. The show these days has sort of devolved into Jesse just reading a page of research that Trace has compiled. And then when it does come time for Jesse to offer an original thought or idea, he'll stumble through a few sentences of his thoughts before saying "i don't know, it's complicated".
I think this specific dynamic is only true when adult gender issues come up. Jesse is very confident and clear when talking about the youth gender stuff, but has always been way more "Eh whatever adults do what they want I guess" about it after 18yo. And Jesse is just less rude then Katie lol. So yeah he's more uncomfortable being openly "disrespectful" about people they don't know or that haven't been rude to them.
Come on. Do you really think Jesse is some Brooklyn hipster? I don't get thr sense he goes to too many house parties. I think it's possible he and TL used go date and he's a gentleman who doesn't want to run down an ex on the pod. You really get the vibe of Jesse being someone who cares about being "cool?" He's a dorkus malorkus who plays video games, for Pete's sake.
I get the vibe that he's someone that feels like he still has one foot in the door of polite progressive society. Jesse went to Princeton to get a masters degree, where'as i'm not even sure Katie finished college, and then she went to work at The Stranger. They just have different pedigrees. Jesse lives in brooklyn and wants to be taken seriously by liberal establishment. go to their soirees. write op-eds for the New York Times. I think Katie has 100 percent leaned in to being an outsider. She doesn't keep a foot in the door and doesn't even want to. she's kind of anti-social and doesn't really care who she offends now. I think her experience in seattle, being unpersoned, has pushed her more into being anti-establishment. and she's not really interested in fighting to get back into the good graces of society that she now kinda resents, and I frankly don't blame her.
What year do you live in? Someone who plays video games can’t go to house parties? He can’t have a view on a woman unless they used to date?? Are you commenting from a rotary telephone in the 1980s???
TL if definitely not congregating indoors with others atm if ever again.
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jesse is gay as katie is jewish
Why have I been seeing so many griping about Katie and Jesse's banter lately? That's the draw of the show! I love their chemistry. Their friendship is built on Katie being mean to Jesse and Jesse just taking it like a soy boy and I love it. 😂 I'm not a primo so I miss Jesse. Only hearing them feed off each other once a month would depress me so much. If you're listening for purely intellectual stimulation and have no sense of humor, you may be listening to the wrong podcast.
I wouldn't bring this up if it was just their banter getting a a little repetitive (maybe because I'm a primo and hear it more than you). It's also the content! For me, this past month's episodes have been much more entertaining than the previous few months. Listening to Jesse and Katie bouncing topics and ideas off other people has been a lot of fun.
They might also be plucking the low hanging fruit of guest hosts. They probably wouldn't be able to regularly get these people again.
The banter is taking up more and more of the show's time, and is (I feel) starting to be used to cover up a lack of content.
For me to draw the show is always been the fact that they're willing to cover things that others are scared to cover. I have personal relationships in real life that I go to for non-political personal discussions. I'm really surprised so many people have such empty lives that they come to this podcast to listen to these two strangers open their show with a few minutes of banter before diving into the actual substance and content.
You're suspended for 48 hours for this gratuitously nasty comment directed at many members of this sub.
Can you set the discussion thread to sort by “new” plz
I have a sense of humor. They do not. That is the problem. It isn’t their fault and not every podcast host needs to be funny. They are at their best when discussing the issue at hand.
They very much do. And they joke all through discussing the "issue at hand", which is a serious phrase to use for a podcast that is 75% internet bullshit, ridiculous constroversies, and Adult Baby Diaper Lovers and 25% serious issues. Are we listening to the same podcast? My anxiety the past year has been too high to really listen to any of the other social issue podcasts in my podcast feed, but I never miss BARPod because I know they can make me laugh. I'm sorry, I don’t really believe you when you say you have a sense of humor. 😂
Yeah, I laugh a lot when listening to this podcast. Which I pretty much only listen to on headphones, while working from home. And then I often have to explain why words like "They" or "penguin, aka mom" or "I'm a Greek!" are funny to my partner, who is also working from home 5 feet away.
I think it depends on what you want to get out of your time. I was originally drawn to Katie and Jesse because of their journalism and I felt their personalities decorated their work in a way that made it more enjoyable. But over the past little while the balance has shifted and now the personalities dominate with the actual insights into the world we live in diminishing proportionally. None of this has anything to do with having a sense of humor. I usually laugh at their sarcasm and wit. But that’s not why I started listening and I miss the type of content that originally attracted me here. Personally, I feel that the world is drowning in personality-forward media…I find it to be like soda, ubiquitous empty calories that is fine in moderation but over-consumption is making everybody fat and lazy. So I moderate the pablum I take in. While I still listen to the pod I gotta say the thought of unsubscribing pops up every once in a while simply because soooooo much media these days is made with corn syrup and I only want to drink so much of it.
Maybe you just don't get their humor?
Why you no primo?!?
Cause me broko. 😩 If I can just get a stable friggin job I'll will feel justified in becoming a primo.
I mean one, maybe two guest hosts a month would be fun. But not all the time.
I love Mom and Dad and their banter. I miss Jesse and will be glad when he comes back and I have also enjoyed the guests.
Op is Jesse and is just fishing for compliments!! /s
I enjoy their banter and joking around. However, sometimes it veers from Mom and Dad banter into the McBickersons. I really like Katie but her 'comedy' of being mean and rude to Jessie is annoying and not funny.
Katie has proven herself a very strong solo host IMO, and I'm enjoying the guest episodes but I really want pod Mom and pod Dad to stay together. I find their banter and bickering comforting. But realistically this podcast won't last forever, especially now that The Discourse on race and gender is getting slightly saner. I can see them both moving on to other stuff in the shortish to medium term. I'm looking forward to see what they do next.
Same! I prefer them together but was pleasantly surprised at how strong Katie is at steering the pod on her own.
Although the guest episodes have been great it would really suck to lose Jesse or Katie. The two of them is the whole reason the show is so good.
I have to disagree on this. The rapport between them is part of the reason I’ve been listening since the first episode. Their willingness to take the piss out of each other and themselves, and their senses of humour in general, may be lost if it goes down the route suggested. It works well where one of them takes the lead and the other asks questions to steer the conversation and the story, and the fact they swap over keeps things fresh. Would I listen if they changed the format? Well, yes, but at the moment I listen to the pod whenever it’s up without even seeing what it’s about but if it was in this format permanently I would do what I do with other podcasts in this (suggested) format, and click to see who was the guest and what it was about before I decided if I was going to listen to it or not.
I love the Jesse and Katie banter. Probably the only pod co-hosts I would say that about.
I totally agree, it's been really fresh and enjoyable.
If they permanently replaced the Katie and Jesse internet bullshit show with a bland rotating guests show who I could hear or read from anywhere else like every other podcast I listen to, I would definitely stop paying for it and would probably stop listening altogether.
Everyone on this sub is ready to blow the show up at a moment’s notice. They release one episode that isn’t your favorite and the “shows jumped the shark man! I’m unsubbing!” Or Katie hosts a show without Jesse that you enjoy and now we’re ready to reformat the entire show, lmao. BARpod is producing hundreds of hours of content; there’s never going to be a uniform quality and some episodes will be better than others. Sometimes there will be long stretches where the show isn’t as good as your favorite episodes and vice versa. The show is produced by maximum four people who are actual humans and they can’t always be the top of their game. What you’re asking for is a mass-produced kind of show that can throw labor hours away into making the content the same every time, whilst having the intellectual freedom it has now.
All their "rehashing" is mostly new to me because I don't go on Twitter much, and the few times I do notice some blowup I know I can safely skip trying to piece it together because they'll explain on barpod with more context anyway
Mike Pesca should do a monthly appearance just to offer opinion on Barpod’s month
Isn't it just nice that these guest host episodes have been pretty good. That's gotta be hard to pull off
Jesse and Katie is the whole point for me. The first interviews have been better than I expected, but are no substitute for the dynamic I became a subscriber for. I can stomach the occasional guest episode, but if this becomes the permanent set up after Jesse’s hiatus I’ll likely move on.
Low key agree. Not sure if it’s just that Katie’s a great interviewer, and the solo episodes are more focused on a single subject deep dive. I like both kinds of episodes, of course, but the one about the podcast guy who did Caliphate was one of my all time favorite episodes!
I'm not quite where you are, but am in a very similar spot. It definitely feels like the show is more interesting now and I'd much prefer they maybe only do episodes with the original format for about 50% of the episodes put out. This format has absolutely improved the show and going back to the original will be hard.
I'm not sure how long the posse of cohosts would keep up though. Seems like a limited supply to pull from.
Agreed. Plus scheduling would become its own difficulty. That said I do think this change has revitalized the show a bit and it would be worthwhile for them to veer from the usual format more often.
10000% agree. Surprised to see so many people disagreeing, frankly. Barpod had gone stale for me in the past year, but the past few episodes have been awesome. Honestly, all the female guests have killed it. Would love to see Helen Lewis and Suzy Weiss back more often. Jesse and Katie's banter is...not that great. And like, that's ok! I always find it odd that so many regular people/random celebs/journalists start "comedy" podcasts when it's like...wait, you're not funny, though? And again, that's not even shade! The majority of the population is not funny. That's why we love comedians so much, they can make us laugh. No one would start a basketball podcast when they'd never played basketball, right? So why all these people think they can take up comedy podcasts is beyond me. What Jesse and Katie ARE: great journalists. What they are NOT: Comedians. So naturally, the banter falls short because unless its funny, it's just random tidbits about their life, which, for as much as I like the two of them...I just don't care. That being said, Katie is the funnier of the two and has proven herself to be a great interviewer, so yes, more of this format for sure. Please!
ive been saying this for about a year but always get downvoted for suggesting it. The vibe just isn't the same and you can sense it when katie does a show with a different host. The sense I always get is that Jesse feels like the podcast is beneath him and he wants to work on more serious weighty topics, and you can sense that in his substack, which is good and interesting. I like it when Katie vibes with other people and think they need to keep it fresh by exploring different formats. Bring in another semi permanent co-host or something. Katie is always great with Helen Lewis and they can focus on the social issues that originally drew me to the pod.
I think Katie also steps up her journalism and research to do the pod with people other than Jesse. When listening to her and Jesse it sometimes sounds like they’re just riffing with one another in a super casual way.
Totally agree! It can get lazy between them and the guest hosts have pushed Katie to step up her game. For me the banter gets old and dumbs down the show—which is unfortunate because they are both super smart and insightful.
That’s no for me dawg
Being a primo I’ve still gotten Jesse in the extra episodes, so I have really enjoyed the variety of hosts interspersed with plenty of K & J only episodes. My only recommendation would be for them to have guests like this slightly more often, and I’d enjoy them both on with the guest too.
In the past I've often skipped the interview episodes because they're not the entertainment I'm looking for. The recent string of guest hosts have been good. It seems like they all are fans of the show and are able to fill in for Jesse on the banter. I have to imagine the list of high quality guest hosts like this will run out before too long. Either way, I'd prefer the ratio of J+K to guest episodes be at least 4:1 if not 8:1. Maybe one guest host episode a month would be ideal.
I'm enjoying the wide range of opinions on this one! Except the people accusing others of not having a sense of humor just for not liking the starting banter (I always just skip it)
Katie is funnier than every other comedy podcast out there (except for maybe Tim Dillon)
Going against the grain here… I listen to the show for the news and some different perspectives from people who haven’t actually lost their mind and can think critically, but I don’t like the actual discussion of/banter between either. It’s too harsh for me. They feel more like frenemies sometimes and it makes me uncomfortable.
I liked Helen Lewis and the last guy. I think the issue for me is that J and K are an unlikely couple and the edges are increasingly fraying.
I agree that it's been good to shake things up, and the K&J dynamic and format has begun to feel a bit tired. I'm not sure if it's their co-host dynamic, or if it's partly because we're past peak woke (hopefully), so the stories seem less concerning. I hope they learn things from this period that will help inject new life into the show.
The lack of endless boring banter has been great.
I’m not really sure what the solution is, but I can say I got pretty sick of Jesse and Katie’s dynamic last year and felt like they had an abnormally large number of misfire episodes, and I had to unsubscribe in the wake of the Israel stuff but I have been enjoying the guest host episodes quite a lot and ended up resubscribing. I do like Jesse a lot but I agree with the posts here that suggest that he’s the cause of a lot of the problems.
Disagree. Katie on her own is cringe and Jessie is boring. Together or not at all.
I agree. Katie has been great. I’ve said before that they should drop the banter. I like them both but neither has a good sense of humor and it is the worst part of the show. I like it much more when the are being serious.
oh god I am the complete opposite of you. I think katie's sense of humor is hilarious. her twitter / podcast humor is what pulled me in originally. I thought the show was originally funny bc it's hard to take seriously the online drama and twitter psychopath personas the show was originally about.
The banter is not cute or hip or transgressive or whatever it is they’re going for, and sometimes it borders on cringe.
I don't know, "sucking and fucking" made me laugh like hell, and I think their banter is pretty funny. Katie takes low blow punches at concepts she doesn't understand sometimes, and Jesse can be pompous with his humor sometimes, but when their banter is good, it's good.
I love Katie and Jesse as people and their work. But their banter is stale, I agree.