- Joined
- Sep 26, 2019
Podcasts become a part of your routine when you've been listening for years, and The Dick Show is very much structured in a way that it's hard for newcomers to get into unless they're willing to listen to the back catalogs of both BPitU and TDS. It's hard to just up and quit listening without filling the gap with something not just of the same length, but the same energy. Plus, there just aren't that many right-leaning comedy podcasts out there where politics aren't the central focus. So I'm sure his audience has a fairly high threshold for bullshit.
There was another show I listened to for years, where I put up with tons and tons of small things for a long time before finally giving up out of frustration: Mega64. I posted an extensive rundown on their many problems, and I even talked to a couple of people about how Mega64's downturn was such a death-by-1000-cuts ordeal. Long story short, it comes down to how Rocco Botte has no respect for his audience and milks them as much as possible. Sizable chunks of the podcast are live ad reads and advertisements for new shirts, merchandise, their Patreon, whatever they can make bank with. Rocco puts forth a slightly aggressive tone with them, and due to the nature of the ads being live reads (not pre-recorded cuts), it's a little hard to know when exactly they end, while you're skipping through. There were also a lot of small, shitty things the group would do, like screaming into the microphones just to be funny (making this the one podcast where you really can't wear headphones), and another where they'd take Skype calls, pick up, and hang up immediately on tons of people who've been waiting for hours.
I could go on; so I did, in this giant post in the Obscure Laughingstocks thread. Rocco's a manipulative asshole, but internet savvy enough to keep his bullshit on the down-low, and has a dedicated number of simps that'll defend him. Since nothing ever explosive came out of him, nor did he ever say anything that ruffled too many feathers of any large group, his shit never really hit the fan. He's well deserving of a thread, but it'd be one of those where you'd have to write a lot about the group's history, and piece together screenshots and stories about Rocco's misdeeds that his audience flat-out doesn't know about, and refuses to believe. Like, there's a 4chan thread from a couple of years ago with discussion and a screenshot from his girlfriend, Ashley V.'s, blog about how Rocco flew some random fan out to San Diego to meet him for sex while they were in a relationship, he lied about it for ages, and didn't care about hurting her.
The thing is, he just... got away with it. I never knew about it when I listened, because I didn't keep up with the community at all.
Dick's fanbase seems to be going the same way. They don't care about Jamie Lynn Hughes, as she couldn't make a big deal on the air about it. Dick wouldn't have anyone on that has any risk of calling him out for what he did between her and 80's, and seems to just stick to his Discord cucks, because they're loyal and safe. His most ridiculous takes are on Twitter, so if you only ever listen to the show and know nothing else, Dick wouldn't seem as fervently defensive of Cuties, and other such topics. To Dick's credit, The Dick Show doesn't have the same sort of tiny shitty things Mega64 Podcast has: Dick has never read an ad on TDS, doesn't shove new shirts down your throat, and doesn't trash his fans unprovoked. A lot of the problems with him and the show are his obnoxiously obstinate opinions on objectively outrageous ordeals, overbearingly overplayed on oodles of odes of one's own opulence.
As for audience growth, Mega64's is glacial - they're currently at 554k subscribers, up from 515k in November 2019. That's pretty damn bad for a gaming channel that's been around since the very beginning of YouTube, let alone one that was releasing videos online as far back as 2004. Considering both The Dick Show and Mega64 are primarily podcasts, the casual chat kind that are basically like friend simulators, they'll always have their dedicated simps that'll listen and defend no matter what the hosts say, because their one-sided parasocial bond is that strong, and they'll do anything to get their senpai's attention. But, that doesn't grow a podcast, as the in-jokes and references keep piling up over time, making the shows more and more inaccessible to newcomers.
Much like his dick after his average night of drinking lately, the show just ain't gonna grow.
Last edited:
