The Ballad of the Bearded Ladies
How “men with microphones” have become menaces to society
According to Wrapped on Spotify, I exist amongst a niche group of listeners who consume over a thousand hours of podcasts a year. And, while I listen to many genres of podcasts from creators all around the world, very few of the podcasts I listen to are created by men. Which is why it surprised me that whenever people would talk about podcasts they would always reference the popularity of certain male hosts. Following in the footsteps of earlier generations of talk-radio commentators, there is an entire genre of podcasts that include groups of men giving their hot takes on women, dating, and the performance of gender and sexuality. Utilizing the techniques of yellow journalism, these podcasters tend to center sociocultural beliefs about the logic and rationality of men in order to push forward their unfounded opinions as truth.
These takes are so bad, in fact, that they have sparked some hilarious trends within the more feminist niches of the TikTok app. My favorite thus far is what I call “The Ballad of the Bearded Ladies”, in which women use the beard filter on TikTok to mimic these podcasters and call out the misogyny and bullying that they spew online. By calling out this podcast genre, and the most popular hosts, these videos shed light on a culture that…
