What Podcast Made You Fall in Love With Podcasts?

What I’m saying is, I know a lot about podcasts, and I’ve listened to a ton of them. But there are more than three million podcasts out there, and one girl can only cover so much. I try to experiment with everything—indies, news, fiction, true-crime, comedy, sex, movies, food, and podcasts about digital security, bats, magicians, and even more niche podcasts (a few of which I wrote about here). I have written Lifehacker about podcasts that cover mental health, television, secrets, game shows, D&D, books, scams, and more.

My question for you, then, is what have I missed? What’s the show that made you fall in love with podcasts? (Also: What’s your favorite show right now? What podcast does everyone love that you can’t stand?) Let me know in the comments—and to get the conversation going, here are three of my favorites.

Lizzy Cooperman’s In Your Hands 

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On Lizzy Cooperman’s In Your Hands, Lizzy gives her listeners two options for what she will do next in her life. They vote their choice on her Instagram, and she does whatever wins. It’s a literal choose-Lizzy’s-own-adventure. Lizzy is hilarious and brings on comedians and experts to help her listeners make a decision. Her life is literally in our hands, and our choices have been dictating some of her wildest adventures ever. Because of the show, Lizzy has gotten multiple piercings, become an L.A. tour guide for the TV show This Is Us, burned her journals, and created a workout that she does every day. Lizzy’s on pause for now, which means you have plenty of time to catch up on her wild adventures.

The Daily Zeitgeist

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Every Monday through Friday on The Daily Zeitgeist, Jack O’Brien and Miles Gray invite a comedian (or other cool person) onto the show to review whatever is in the zeitgeist that day—anything from the abortion ban to the newest Taco Bell menu item. The guys kick off the conversation with user-submitted comments and ask the guest to name something that is underrated, overrated, and something revealing from their Google search history before running through the week’s updates in politics, the coal gas study, UFOs, and more. Even on those dark days when the headlines make you want to crawl back into bed, Jack and Miles’ progressive takes will make you feel a little bit better about the state of the world. Plus, mini episodes come out in the evening to cover what’s trending on Twitter, in case you still can’t get enough. (I never can.)

Straightiolab

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Comedians George Civeris and Sam Taggart are unpacking straight culture one piece at a time with the aid of funny guests. Their conversations, which are about 75% wild tangents, are so off the wall that they go right past weird to totally genius. Whatever outrageous, tenuous ties they find between the topic of the day and queerness inevitably segue into quasi-philosophical conversations about gender. Think of it as academic comedy. Each show starts with a silly game segment that makes no sense (and nobody is allowed to ask questions about it), and George, Sam, and the guests end each episode with TRL-esque shoutouts. To steal from George and Sam, “if this writeup doesn’t make you want to listen to the show, then congratulations, you are probably gay.”

What podcast made you love podcasts?

Okay now it’s your turn to tell us: What podcasts do you love to listen to? Leave a comment below, and if we get enough recommendations, we’ll round it up in a future Lifehacker post.