The Demise of Fallout Central
I once had an email correspondence with Will of Better Asian Man. I told him how I enjoyed the Fallout Central podcasts and that I was sad to see Fallout Central go.
For those of you who don't know, Fallout Central was a site that featured podcasts on Asian American issues, current events and interviews with AA celebs and activists. They were a crew of four that came out with a professional and informative series of podcasts during their site's 2-3 year period. Here's what Will had to say about the demise of Fallout:
I hear what you're saying regarding the void on the internet, and I believe that this has to do with the CNN-style of news reporting that we did with regards to Asian American news. We have an assortment of blogs that report on what each respective blog author thinks is important, but none of them have quite the same edge.
For example, Angry Asian Man doesn't really report on news, his take is basically "here's something that happened ..." and every now and then he'll say "that's racist!" Then there's 8Asians, which provides a similar vibe. Between the two of them, there are also a number of things that aren't really news, such as recent sightings of random Asian people in Microsoft Windows 7 advertisements. Plus, they don't do podcasts, they don't actively go out and research the incidents (the people surrounding the given incident, the neighborhood, and other pertinent background), and they don't do it in a live talk show format with multiple commentators. Being that that's what we were doing, you could imagine how much work that was. And I gotta tell you, that was exhausting work. I'm glad we did it, because I really learned a lot of things about research, reporting, and radio show production (I also gained extensive knowledge on audio recording equipment).
But for all that effort, I gotta tell you that the reach was minuscule compared to the reach that I have now with the Better Asian Man podcast. I posted some statistics on my website yesterday, and they are unbelievable. The first year of operation, 2008, was actually only 7/12 of a year, but even if you doubled those numbers, it's not even close to the number of podcast downloads in 2009, which was over 26,500 downloads. It's insane. The fallout central podcast was downloaded about 10 times per week, and usually less.
If there ever was a way to reach a captive audience of Asian American men, ages 18 - 35, I would find it hard to believe that any other website is can do it more effectively than me. Now, I am sure that Angry Asian Man has more than 10 times the website visitors than I do, but considering that it actually takes 100% of a person's attention span to listen to a podcast talk show, and considering that there were so many downloads in this past year, there is no question that the Better Asian Man podcast has a MUCH wider reach into the Asian American community than the Fallout Central podcast ever did in the time that it was running, which I think was 2.5 years-- maybe 3 years.
That said, if you know anyone who wants to spend the time to do interviews, or do Asian American news reporting, feel free to give them my contact information (email, cell phone, Facebook), and I'd be happy to let them run the "Asian American Stuff" podcast segment. 'cuz pickup or no pickup, social stigma or no social stigma, the Better Asian Man podcast is the definitive means of reaching a captive Asian American male audience in a live talk show format that provides for live listener dial-in participation.
Identity politics is good, but when it comes right down to it, if you want to help people, then you have to address and fulfill a need, whether perceived or real. This applies to business and to activism.
Comments
I don't get too militant, I'm not much of an activist, getting down in the dirt where all the hard work is. I tend to think that identity politics is good in giving one a sense of self and a sense of being grounded in belonging to something. With the rise of social media in today's world as opposed to when I was growing up, there is a greater amount of self expression via blogs or just information in general out there. For those who want it, they can find it.
just because a site is popular or gets lots of hits, does it mean it's necessarily substantive or informative about Asian American issues? Maybe, maybe not. perhaps it's the quality or the depth of meaning behind the site or posts that is more important than hits or popularity. Even if you're a tree falling in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, the fact remains that the lone cry in the wilderness is out there. The lingering echo of the voice does not die out, it's reverberating thru the universe. It cannot be ignored once you put it out there. For those who want to find it, they can.