Terms Governing Audio Topic Fatigue
A podcast that covered one subject well begins covering it in every episode. The subject has not expanded. The coverage has.
Audio topic fatigue is the condition of having encountered a topic in enough episodes that additional episodes on the same topic produce diminishing return, then negative return, then active avoidance. It is distinct from simply not being interested in a topic. It applies to topics that were, at some prior point, of genuine interest, and which have been attended to in sufficient volume that additional attendance feels like cost rather than benefit.
The topic, in the period under observation, is the pandemic, but the mechanism predates the pandemic and will outlast it. It has been observed for cryptocurrency, productivity, meditation, mindfulness, and whatever the term is currently being used for the general category of optimization applied to human beings.
The Accumulation
A podcast episode on a topic is welcome. Three episodes on the topic, spread across three months, are informative. Eight episodes in two weeks on the same topic, from eight different shows the listener subscribes to for reasons unrelated to the topic, constitute a saturation event.
The feed fills with the topic. The topic has not grown larger. The coverage has grown larger around the same topic, because the topic has become culturally legible to a wide range of producers who previously covered different subjects and now have reason to address this one. The coverage is not coordinated. It converges anyway.
Three Consequences
First, episodes go unplayed. The listener pauses before opening an episode on the fatigued topic and does not open it. The episode remains in the queue. The queue grows. The queue begins to feel like a debt.
Second, the shows producing the topic coverage are assessed differently from how they were assessed before the fatigue. A show valued for a specific subject is now producing content on a different subject. The relationship between the listener and the show has changed without either party acknowledging it.
Third, the listener is now behind on the show's actual content, because the episodes skipped included episodes on the primary subject that followed the episodes on the fatigued topic. The listener does not know which episodes were skipped for fatigue and which should have been listened to.
The Governing Rule
Any topic that becomes sufficiently prominent to justify coverage from sources that do not ordinarily cover it has already received more coverage than most listeners require. The coverage arrives after the listener has learned what the topic contains, not before.
The Contradiction
Audio topic fatigue is reported most frequently by listeners who describe themselves as highly informed. The fatigue is, in part, a consequence of being highly informed. The person who listened to many episodes early, when the topic was less saturated, is the person most likely to be fatigued by it later. Breadth of consumption produces the condition that makes further consumption aversive.
The fully informed listener and the fatigued listener are the same person. This is administrative and not a complaint.