Who Are You Podcasters Talking To?

Imagine: you settle in for your favorite political podcast.

The host’s voice crackles through your headphones:

“You MAGA maniacs are destroying this country!”

Your pulse quickens. It feels personal. But, pause for a moment: who exactly is “you?” 

There isn’t a single MAGA voter in the studio or on the line. There isn’t even a voice on the other end waiting to respond. Instead, you’re watching someone hurl a broad-brush insult as a monologue – into the void – and you, the listener, are left to decide whether to clap along, share the clip, or tuck the zinger away for your next Facebook debate.

That’s the magic – and the danger – of the phantom “you.”

Podcasters and pundits are mastering the art of audience facsimile: speaking at an imaginary foe while addressing all of us in the room. But in doing so, they distort real debate, erode nuance, and warp our expectations about how political arguments ought to work. Even when people like this end up on the same show, or in person, the dynamic of their online culture takes center stage.

Stop Fighting Invisible Opponents

When you think of a debate, you imagine two people – maybe many more – trading ideas face to face. In today’s top-down podcast monologues and cable panels, however, the “other side” is usually some kind of strawman. You hear smears aimed at “woke elites,” “radical left lunatics,” “ coastal snobs,” or “MAGA.”

Linguistics research confirms why this feels so immediate: second-person pronouns engage our affective centers more strongly than “I” or “we” statements . You don’t just hear “you”; you feel “you.” Yet because there’s no tangible person in the room to push back, that sensation of being addressed becomes a kind of theatrical illusion. It engenders echo chambers, talking point thought patterns, and meaningless arguments.

Podcasters Who Have Large Audiences, Don’t 

Once a creator’s following climbs past the low thousands into the tens or hundreds of thousands, that “you” morphs into a faceless data point. Gone are studio cues like laughter, gasps, nods, or awkward silence that tether rhetoric to real human reactions. 

Hosts calibrate their tone to watch-time spikes, click-through rates, and share counts.

They built their followers on paid bots, commenters, and engagement.

Whether these podcasters think they did or know they did that or not, they did. Their marketing team did that, because that’s how it works.

A landmark audit by Habib & Nithyanand (2019) showed that YouTube’s recommendation engine systematically escalates negative, emotion-charged content over time . Accounts that consumed mild critiques were soon fed outraged rants. The lesson for creators is clear: the broader, the angrier, the more abstract the “you,” the more the algorithm rewards you.

The Mirage of Mass Outreach Is Causing Detachment

Even the size of your audience can be an illusion. Investigations into click-farm operations have revealed that large portions of social accounts are fake accounts, bots, or abandoned profiles . When a podcaster boasts half a million subscribers, a meaningful slice of those listeners may not exist.

Whenever they say “you” as they yell into their microphone, they think they are talking to a group of thousands or millions, even though they are not.

While the analytics dashboard gleams, the true community of engaged humans, those who listen critically, share thoughtfully, and might change their minds – is far smaller.

That phantom scale emboldens hosts to double down on abstractions. After all, why bother learning a few real listeners’ names when your “you” spans an algorithmic infinity? That also means these podcasters engage with less and less meaningful argumentation. They are performers, who are viewed as well-learned opinion makers.

The Cost of Talking at You

This dynamic isn’t just a stylistic quirk; it carries real consequences for civic life:

• Civic burnout. When every episode feels like a shouting match with nobody real, listeners grow weary.
  
  
• Polarization lock-in. Caricatures of “you” make negotiation impossible. If “you” is a simplified enemy, common ground can’t exist.
  
  
• Misinformation slipstream. Oversimplification invites half-truths. When hosts rail against a phantom “you,” it’s easier to gloss over evidence and nuance.
  
  
• Trust erosion. Recycled talking points breed skepticism. When every show sounds the same – furious, condemnatory, impersonal – audiences lose faith in all expertise.
  
  

I Condemn You For All Your Condemnations

Piers Morgan and other hosts or broadcast personalities often ask their guests if they condemn acts of violence. This is seen as some kind of verification that a person is decent or humane, or on the politically correct side of a conflict. However, the definitions of condemnation include either rhetorical rebukes of things, or calls for punishment and enforcement – to the point of death.

In other words, there is no point in podcasters condemning anything.

If you fail or refuse to condemn this thing or that thing, it doesn’t have any real effect on the world, especially if you are not an active participant.

For example, if you are in a debate about the war between Israel and Palestine, you might be asked “do you condemn Hamas’ attacks on October 7th?”

If you do condemn it, you are viewed in many places like a good person.

Not condemning it, is viewed as supporting it, and supporting it is clearly viewed as a negative in most circles.

But, this rhetorical condemnation by detached parties, changes nothing.

The original meaning of condemnation relating to condemning a perpetrator to death should give you an indication as to how connected this concept is to “cancel culture.” On one level, it makes sense as a way to get clear where somebody stands on certain issues. But, too many people resort to forcing condemnation in rhetorical contexts because you aren’t actually going to do anything about it.

What Should You Do Instead?

Stop fighting imaginary enemies like “MAGA” or “the woke left.”

Those groups don’t exist.

MAGA Inc. is a real company, though. You can actually boycott their products, or investigate their financial dealings and try to get them shut down. That’s something you can really do. If you talk about MAGA but never deal with the actual company entity that exists, you are wasting your time and giving your audience a sense of false hope. There is nothing you can do about “MAGA Republicans.” They don’t actually exist. There are Republicans. Republicans who use phrases like “deep state,” or who demonstrate total irresponsible deference to Donald Trump. Those people can be spoken about as individuals, and you can make things uncomfortable for them at home wherever that is.

“The woke left” is not synonymous with the DNC, but the DNC is real target you could aim at. They can be beaten by convincing people to stop giving them money, and encouraging people to drop out of their party. Same goes for the RNC or any other political group or party that isn’t making a real impact on the world.

Instead of fighting against fake groups, take aim at real groups and determine what consequences can be levied.

Who Are You Talking To?

Next time you hit “play”on your favorite podcast, ask yourself: Who is “you”? If you make a podcast and you’re reading this, think about who you are really talking about. 

Stop yelling at ghosts. Start talking with people.

Democracy depends on it.