Fighting the Manosphere One Interview at a Time
A short piece about working on my podcast Rough Drafts, new media and long-form content.
Maurice and I had joked about a shared desire to debate Charlie Kirk. Or at least trying to do what Charlie Kirk was doing on campuses but we’d be talking about bringing back the Republic of New Afrika as opposed to banning DEI. We had been thinking a lot about how it seemed like masculinity was being captured by the Right. Our podcast Rough Drafts was an attempt to push back on the right wing politics of the podcast space. In recent years prior to us starting the podcast, there had been a rise in the Black Manosphere (FD Signifier has a great video) so a big part of our project was providing a space in real life and on the digital front for men and anyone really to engage with ideas and cultivate a sense of intellectualism. The craziest part was that our project around masculinity had begun before the Trump 2024 election. Our first episode deals with these themes directly. Throughout the podcast, we’ve engaged with a variety of topics that we’re interested in such as Amtrak, para-social relationships, boxing, the Black bourgeoisie, jazz and other things. Neither Maurice or I are podcasters by trade though I dunno anyone who is. We’re both in our hearts, readers and writers. But we decided it would be necessary for us to develop a podcast as long form media seemed to be the thing that everyone was doing and the best way to reach young men especially young Black men and other men of color (everyone is our audience, forreal tho). And we could use the podcast to talk about all of the books we were reading, music we were bumping and art we were enjoying. We liked to think of it as a modern day salon.
We started the podcast originally as we were working at a physical cafe space in Philadelphia. When we had disagreements with the owner over ethics, we decided to do our own thing. Coming up with the idea of what that thing looked like has been difficult. We initially approached the show with the intention of doing a show that examined work that was unfinished and while we’ve done that we’ve also found ourselves exploring a more interview based model that engages with different artists, writers, musicians and academics.
One of the biggest challenges off the bat continues to be the money. People like Ezra Klein always talk about how people like Charlie Kirk were doing a better job than liberals at convincing people but the reality was that someone like Charlie Kirk was funded by countless millionaires to repeat adages that have been popular in America for centuries like “Black people are inferior” or whatever else is popular amongst the far right. In contrast, it’s more difficult to create stuff that punches up while remaining interesting and not falling into the often self satisfied tenor of the Left. Furthermore, often individuals like Kirk because of their use of social media are understood as somehow authentic when in fact they are not. Conservative personalities on the Daily Wire like Brett Cooper literally have sets designed that are meant to make viewers believe that she’s really just a young woman in her bedroom making content when in fact, it’s a fully funded studio. There’s often this belief that new media is somehow more genuine and it’s just not true. Like anything, podcasts require time and money to be produced well. The idea that it’s as simple as getting a mic together is just ridiculous.
Despite this, there is something about long form media that is engaging and meaningful. In contrast to short form media, I do think that long form media has some value for people as it is our equivalent of radio or talk shows. I think that whatever our issues with folks like Rogan, that model is where young men are these days. While I think Maurice and I have a good show, we’ve still been struggling to figure it out. One of the things that’s becoming increasingly clear is that popular podcasts have a video component. The video component while not impossible to do by any stretch of the imagination, does engage more people. I never really listened to podcasts but within the past two or three years, I’ve been completely immersed in the world of long-form interview media based content. I watch a variety of stuff from Aaaron Bastani on Novara Media to Tucker Carlson to Ross Douthat’s NyTimes podcast. When I was making this list, despite the fact that I am completely communist-pilled, I found that there was more right wing stuff in that landscape. So while we can complain about the outsized right wing perspectives, we gotta build our own perspectives so hopefully Maurice and I will be bringing you some Rough Drafts video content in the next year.
The other part I’ve thought a lot about is how to make content that doesn’t engage in outrage culture that seems so common in our short-form dominated landscape. I think that this is quite possible. There are countless projects that engage in real long-form discussions about politics, sports, books and trains that are popular. While some stuff I’ve read has indicated that the most popular long-form content is not in actuality the higher quality stuff, I do believe that long-form media can have intellectual value in ways that the short form stuff cannot. I think a part of this has to do with our show more than just Maurice and I as personalities, the goal is for Rough Drafts to exist closer to an institution on the Left from a Black perspective. I’m not sure what else to say about the podcast other than it’s been an incredible journey. While we’ve released sixteen episodes up to this point with more coming soon, there’s been countless other recordings and other b-sides that we’ve yet to release. We’ve also done several in-person events in Philly with a local community organization. I think our biggest goals for the next year include more guests and video. We also want to take the podcast on the road. If you have topic suggestions, please feel free to comment and let me know. If you have guest suggestions, please let me know. If you want to help get us funded, PLEASE let me know. You can check us out where you listen to podcasts and follow us on Instagram at @roughdrafts215. Thanks so much for reading.
photo from our first episode with a guest, our friend Seth. We talked about jazz.