linuslee

From IMDB: A rap oriented re-make of "Rebel Without a Cause," with heavy emphasis on the fact that rap star Vanilla Ice has assumed the James Dean role.

Congratulations to Totally Laime. Got to echo the sentiments of others here, this kind of felt like a foregone conclusion. No conspiracy theory here, just the sentiment that's been felt on the boards for the last few weeks. Not sure why Scott was so insistent that their decision wasn't influenced by who was a more convenient fit? I don't think anyone would have been particularly upset if it had been. Was good to see the upfront statement this week that the criteria was solely about personal preference. The lack of clarity in previous episodes has often been frustrating, so glad to see that issue addressed. Got to say, the best part of this episode was the retrospective. Informative and entertaining. Looking forward to the follow up show!

Congratulations to Totally Laime. Got to echo the sentiments of others here, this kind of felt like a foregone conclusion. No conspiracy theory here, just the sentiment that's been felt on the boards for the last few weeks. Not sure why Scott was so insistent that their decision wasn't influenced by who was a more convenient fit? I don't think anyone would have been particularly upset if it had been. Was good to see the upfront statement this week that the criteria was solely about personal preference. The lack of clarity in previous episodes has often been frustrating, so glad to see that issue addressed. Got to say, the best part of this episode was the retrospective. Informative and entertaining. Looking forward to the follow up show!

Fantastic shows. Wonderful chemistry between Andy Daly & PFT. Also loved the 3 show bundle with only 1 guest rotating. Really makes the set of 3 fit together nicely. Don't think it would have had as much appeal had it been 3 random guests on each episode. 3 hours of PFT definitely sold me on the deal. If you're on the forum reading this and you haven't bought these yet: if you can afford it, do it!

Fantastic shows. Wonderful chemistry between Andy Daly & PFT. Also loved the 3 show bundle with only 1 guest rotating. Really makes the set of 3 fit together nicely. Don't think it would have had as much appeal had it been 3 random guests on each episode. 3 hours of PFT definitely sold me on the deal. If you're on the forum reading this and you haven't bought these yet: if you can afford it, do it!

Or ... "Where's the queef?"

Or ... "Where's the queef?"

@Jeff - That's a really interesting point. That's one point of difference between the Earwolf Challenge and say, American Idol. The Idol forums may be teeming with rage, but it seems highly doubtful that the producers are reading them. Even if they sneak a peek once in a while, they would never respond. I think the podcast medium may also have a compounding effect on this. Since with TV most people will watch it at the same time, if they're upset, there will be a spike in angry comments, but the thread will eventually settle down in tone. With podcasting, because the listener can choose when to consume it, and also do so while doing other things, people can enter the thread way after the initial posting and still be coming off the emotional charge of having only just listened. I re-read my first post on this thread -- which I must admit, I wrote *as* I was listening to the latest episode. Wow. Did I need to use bold and CAPS? That was rude, I'm sorry. But it was that genuine emotional response being transcribed in real time. You can see a similar pattern with most of the feedback in the thread today. Many people who posted multiple times seemed much more passionate and angry in their first posts than further along in the discussion. It's great that you, Scott and Matt have all posted in these threads. It means a lot that you are reading our feedback, especially because it's difficult to take. Nobody expects you to take every criticism on board. But it's encouraging to feel like we all have a stake in this. That's what makes this medium more interesting than traditional 1-sided broadcasting. That there is give and take. I'd love to hear a round table on the Wolf Den about handling online criticism in general. I'm sure if it came up as an organic topic of conversation among guys at the UCB, there must be many people in the podcasting world with anecdotes and perspectives. Again -- sorry for the tone of some of my comments. I've listened to Earwolf from the 1st episode of CDR-radio over at Indie-103.1 and it's been great to see you guys grow. It's great to see people taking risks and expanding what's possible with the medium. I really encourage you to keep doing it. Even if sometimes that means facing a mini-backlash. I think it will be worthwhile.

@Jeff - That's a really interesting point. That's one point of difference between the Earwolf Challenge and say, American Idol. The Idol forums may be teeming with rage, but it seems highly doubtful that the producers are reading them. Even if they sneak a peek once in a while, they would never respond. I think the podcast medium may also have a compounding effect on this. Since with TV most people will watch it at the same time, if they're upset, there will be a spike in angry comments, but the thread will eventually settle down in tone. With podcasting, because the listener can choose when to consume it, and also do so while doing other things, people can enter the thread way after the initial posting and still be coming off the emotional charge of having only just listened. I re-read my first post on this thread -- which I must admit, I wrote *as* I was listening to the latest episode. Wow. Did I need to use bold and CAPS? That was rude, I'm sorry. But it was that genuine emotional response being transcribed in real time. You can see a similar pattern with most of the feedback in the thread today. Many people who posted multiple times seemed much more passionate and angry in their first posts than further along in the discussion. It's great that you, Scott and Matt have all posted in these threads. It means a lot that you are reading our feedback, especially because it's difficult to take. Nobody expects you to take every criticism on board. But it's encouraging to feel like we all have a stake in this. That's what makes this medium more interesting than traditional 1-sided broadcasting. That there is give and take. I'd love to hear a round table on the Wolf Den about handling online criticism in general. I'm sure if it came up as an organic topic of conversation among guys at the UCB, there must be many people in the podcasting world with anecdotes and perspectives. Again -- sorry for the tone of some of my comments. I've listened to Earwolf from the 1st episode of CDR-radio over at Indie-103.1 and it's been great to see you guys grow. It's great to see people taking risks and expanding what's possible with the medium. I really encourage you to keep doing it. Even if sometimes that means facing a mini-backlash. I think it will be worthwhile.

Not that this thread needs any more filler: but I feel I put something out into the general conversation that is being misinterpreted. When I said this week "damaged the Earwolf brand", I was taking a term from the design/advertising world and putting it an thread without proper context. I now feel I should apologize for being a pretentious douche-bag. Sorry. I didn't to mean to imply a this week was a permanent blemish or an indelible tarnishing of the Earwolf name. Brands are damaged every day. In minor ways, like this, and in major ways like the Gulf Oil Spill damaging the BP brand. What I meant is that this challenge was not up the usual standard of Earwolf, and not consistent with what we had come to expect from the challenge. I felt it was relevant because this is intrinsically part of the judgement section of the Earwolf challenge. The Challenge was to find a podcast which best fit the brand values of Earwolf, and would sit inside the Earwolf family or brand, for a 1 year contract. Who is going to do the best job of keeping up that high standard associated with Earwolf and not embarrass the Earwolf name by being unfunny, or ill-conceived, or unprofessional, or having poor audio quality, etc. That's what validated the judges' feedback. The point was, the execution of this week's challenge did feel ill-concieved or poorly executed to many of the listeners. And your audience are the ones who perceive your brand and it's associations. When your audience's initial reaction is -- this is unfair, or this is frustrating, or this is unprofessional, of course that does damage. It's only if that reaction is repeated over time, that becomes the primary association with your brand and you have a major problem. I wasn't implying this week has changed anyone's entire perception of the Earwolf brand. But I felt it was pertinent to the discussion of why people had been so incensed with this week's challenge. Again, my apologies for adding to the confusion.

Not that this thread needs any more filler: but I feel I put something out into the general conversation that is being misinterpreted. When I said this week "damaged the Earwolf brand", I was taking a term from the design/advertising world and putting it an thread without proper context. I now feel I should apologize for being a pretentious douche-bag. Sorry. I didn't to mean to imply a this week was a permanent blemish or an indelible tarnishing of the Earwolf name. Brands are damaged every day. In minor ways, like this, and in major ways like the Gulf Oil Spill damaging the BP brand. What I meant is that this challenge was not up the usual standard of Earwolf, and not consistent with what we had come to expect from the challenge. I felt it was relevant because this is intrinsically part of the judgement section of the Earwolf challenge. The Challenge was to find a podcast which best fit the brand values of Earwolf, and would sit inside the Earwolf family or brand, for a 1 year contract. Who is going to do the best job of keeping up that high standard associated with Earwolf and not embarrass the Earwolf name by being unfunny, or ill-conceived, or unprofessional, or having poor audio quality, etc. That's what validated the judges' feedback. The point was, the execution of this week's challenge did feel ill-concieved or poorly executed to many of the listeners. And your audience are the ones who perceive your brand and it's associations. When your audience's initial reaction is -- this is unfair, or this is frustrating, or this is unprofessional, of course that does damage. It's only if that reaction is repeated over time, that becomes the primary association with your brand and you have a major problem. I wasn't implying this week has changed anyone's entire perception of the Earwolf brand. But I felt it was pertinent to the discussion of why people had been so incensed with this week's challenge. Again, my apologies for adding to the confusion.

@Jeff Ha ha, sure. Non-breaking space in combination with a line break. The forum code seems to ignore empty line breaks. I'm a typographer, so it's my niche. Hold Option + Space on a Mac. Much more painful on Windows, sorry.

@Jeff Ha ha, sure. Non-breaking space in combination with a line break. The forum code seems to ignore empty line breaks. I'm a typographer, so it's my niche. Hold Option + Space on a Mac. Much more painful on Windows, sorry.

@Jeff Thank you for replying and acknowledging it didn't work. That the sum total was poorly executed. Part of what's fuelled the rancor in the forums has been the show's own format. The Challenge is all about criticizing where podcasts fall short. And when the Challenge fell short of our expectations, it felt necessary to many listeners to make their critiques heard. If Who Charted or Sklarbro Country had a bad week, no one would feel like injustice had been done. Because those shows aren't about saying what is and is not a good podcast. Yes. This week hurt the Earwolf brand. But it didn't put a "pox" on it. Each good show builds your brand. And when you reply to fan feedback, you're helping to fix that damage. We want to feel like we've been heard. It would be great if not on this show, but perhaps on the Wolfden, you could discuss the feedback you got from the forums, particularly in the suggestions thread, and regarding this controversial week, and how you would plan to address that feedback in a Season 2. Most of us are on here giving feedback because we want the show to be better too. It was a success. We got down to the final 3 and people were passionate about the results. Ignore the conspiracy theorists, they're an in-built bug in every online forum. But for many of us, this week was the tipping point where the enjoyment of the podcast was overwhelmed by feeling of frustration with how the challenge was run, how judges were briefed, for the 8th week in a row, not understanding the challenge parameters, unclear/conflicting judging criteria, etc, plus the uncharacteristic callousness of pranking the contestants and then immediately asking them to address a challenge after revealing they'd been duped. The Earwolf Challenge is new ground for podcasting and for that, we thank you for being willing to take the risk of screwing it up. We realise you're going to do some learning by trial and error. This week pushed people's buttons. We gave harsh feedback. But we gave it so you could take it on board and avoid those mistakes again.

@Jeff Thank you for replying and acknowledging it didn't work. That the sum total was poorly executed. Part of what's fuelled the rancor in the forums has been the show's own format. The Challenge is all about criticizing where podcasts fall short. And when the Challenge fell short of our expectations, it felt necessary to many listeners to make their critiques heard. If Who Charted or Sklarbro Country had a bad week, no one would feel like injustice had been done. Because those shows aren't about saying what is and is not a good podcast. Yes. This week hurt the Earwolf brand. But it didn't put a "pox" on it. Each good show builds your brand. And when you reply to fan feedback, you're helping to fix that damage. We want to feel like we've been heard. It would be great if not on this show, but perhaps on the Wolfden, you could discuss the feedback you got from the forums, particularly in the suggestions thread, and regarding this controversial week, and how you would plan to address that feedback in a Season 2. Most of us are on here giving feedback because we want the show to be better too. It was a success. We got down to the final 3 and people were passionate about the results. Ignore the conspiracy theorists, they're an in-built bug in every online forum. But for many of us, this week was the tipping point where the enjoyment of the podcast was overwhelmed by feeling of frustration with how the challenge was run, how judges were briefed, for the 8th week in a row, not understanding the challenge parameters, unclear/conflicting judging criteria, etc, plus the uncharacteristic callousness of pranking the contestants and then immediately asking them to address a challenge after revealing they'd been duped. The Earwolf Challenge is new ground for podcasting and for that, we thank you for being willing to take the risk of screwing it up. We realise you're going to do some learning by trial and error. This week pushed people's buttons. We gave harsh feedback. But we gave it so you could take it on board and avoid those mistakes again.