Full Cow: Edge Talks Leather and Kink
Join Edge as he shares his 30+ years of experience in leather, kink, and BDSM. Each episode centers around a theme, explored through several segments. In the first, Edge shares his leather journey in relation to that theme in order to draw some larger lessons about the leather community. In the second segment, the focus is on practical knowledge and history. Then, we speak with another member of the community who shares their knowledge and experience in relation to the theme. Occasionally, there will also be bonus segments, like erotic story time or kink centered meditation. Come learn more about leather, kink, and BDSM with Edge.
Full Cow: Edge Talks Leather and Kink
Season 3 Finale
Curious about which episode unexpectedly captivated listeners this season? Join me as we wrap up the third season of Full Cow with exciting revelations and stats that highlight our journey. From Chicago leading the way in listener numbers to our podcast reaching 88 countries, it's been a year of impressive growth. Discover why "Chastity and Milking" and "Mentors" topped the charts, and how personal teaching anecdotes tie into these themes. With a 36% increase in listeners and a 73% boost in Spotify followers, it’s clear that our audience is expanding, especially among those aged 35-44. Reflecting on how this podcast evolved from a post-breakup project to a globally recognized show, I am filled with gratitude for your support.
Get a sneak peek into what season four has in store, with a focus on dominant chastity and a brand new mini-segment called "Makers," inspired by my encounter with Chris from Steelworks. This segment will shine a light on creators within the kink community, starting with Steelworks and potentially featuring others like Fetish Daddy. We'll revisit popular episodes like "Origins" and "Leather" with fresh perspectives, and you can expect new theme music and cover art. As we prepare for a season launch around April, I'm energized by your stories and feedback. Your engagement fuels this podcast, and I can't wait to bring these exciting new elements to life.
Ask Edge! Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/LTHREDGE to leave ask a question or leave feedback. Find Edge's other content on Instagram and Twitter. Also visit his archive of educational videos, Tchick-Tchick.
Let's talk about the season finale. This podcast contains material intended for a mature audience. Before proceeding, please check your local laws and confirm that you are an adult. Welcome to Full Cow, a podcast about leather, kink and BDSM. My name is Edge, my pronouns are he, him, and I am your host. And welcome to the season finale for season three.
Speaker 1:In this episode, I'll give you some of the significant stats of the past season, as well as some of the highlights I'd like to share with you before looking forward to the possibilities that may come with a possible season four. It's a great way to wrap up the year, and I'm grateful for all of you for joining me on this journey in 2024. So let's get started. So let's start with the numbers, and I'm pulling these from two sources. The first is Buzzsprout, and Buzzsprout is the host for my podcast. Their servers have the actual MP3 files of every episode that I create and I'm pretty sure they just send out a kind of RSS link to the different directories. So I think anytime anyone listens to an episode, it is ultimately being pulled from Buzzsprout's servers and therefore I think that this is the most collectively accurate data there is. The other source I use is Spotify, because they do a whole wrapped for creators, just like they do a wrapped if you're a Spotify listener. So those are our two main sources of data and we're going to start with Buzzsprout and according to Buzzsprout, the number one city for listeners this year was Chicago. Thank you, chicago. And then it gets interesting. Followed by New York not surprising, melbourne, australia hey Melbourne, how are you doing? Los Angeles and Edmonton. And Edmonton surprised me because it was a couple hundred downloads in Edmonton and who knew there were so many kinky listeners, or so few but highly obsessed kinky listeners in Edmonton? So big shout out to Edmonton for listening in. According to Buzzsprout, the podcast was listened in 88 countries this past year.
Speaker 1:I'm still not sure I have been listened to in Antarctica. I can confirm that I hit every other continent except Antarctica. I am hopeful for a kinky polar researcher who is going to download a couple episodes from the South Pole. Or perhaps, if you are an adventure traveler and you're doing a cruise to the South Pole, you may want to just download while you're at the South Pole. Download a couple of episodes.
Speaker 1:But seriously, not surprisingly, the top countries were the United States, united Kingdom and Canada. I'm obviously pretty big in the English-speaking Western world. Following that was Germany and then Australia. So I don't know, edmonton, I mean you repped Canada pretty damn hard. I cannot believe you did not pull Canada into the top five. Come on, canada. Oh, never mind, what am I seeing? You absolutely did. This is what happens when I record live and don't actually plan things out. Good job, edmonton. You brought Canada to the number three listener.
Speaker 1:So, according to Buzzsprout, the top episodes the number one was the interlude on chastity and milking, and I will have much more to say about this in a little bit. The second most popular episode was Mentors, followed by Digital Kink. All together in 2024, between January 1st 2024 and December 27th 2024, which is when I am recording this there were 25,739 downloads of the podcast, and that sort of blows my mind. I am so grateful to all of you for your support and your listenership, because it means a lot to me. I mean, I talk about why all the time, so I'm not going to rehearse that. So let's go to my Spotify wrapped. Great data from Spotify, sort of great data, hopeful data from Spotify. I had a 36% increase in listeners and a 73% increase in followers. So thank you, spotify-ers. 67% of my Spotify listeners discovered me this year. Fantastic Welcome Spotify-ers to Full Cow. And according to Spotify, the top episode was Mentors, which I don't think that makes sense, but okay, it was streamed 143% more than the average episode.
Speaker 1:Now what's interesting is some of the demographic data that I got from Spotify and if you've listened, in fact I have a whole interlude on my key demo, which is usually like 25 to 34, right, my peak demographic has shifted. I think it's like 29% it was the highest percent. My highest demographic right now is 35 to 44. Now I think what this means is that some of y'all are growing up with me. Some of y'all have moved from the 25 to 34 demographic into the 35 to 44 demographic, and that makes me feel like I don't know, super special, like I'm part of your leather upbringing. I don't know, but it's also kind of nice to know that I am attracting listeners who are a little closer to my age. In fact, according to Spotify listeners 55 and over grew by 141%. So yay for leather people of a certain age as I am. According to Spotify, I was only listened to in 56 countries. We don't like that. We're going to go with the Buzzsprout 88 countries data instead and not surprising, not shocking at all.
Speaker 1:What music do you listen to? Spotify podcast listeners who listen to Full Cow, pop, lo-fi and Broadway Maybe something a little stereotypical there. On Spotify, I was a top 10 podcast for 521 fans, top 5 for 340, and for 106 very special listeners. I was your number one podcast and thank you for that. Thank you a lot. Now, according to Spotify I don't know where they're getting this my creator style is quote the storyteller. I have no idea what that means, but there you go and that's the bulk of the data that we got from this year and I think it's fantastic. You know this podcast started as a way to fill time and space after a breakup and to see it grow into something that has its own standing is really beautiful. Look at the individual numbers. You know it's fascinating because I was reviewing top episodes and when I look it's like, oh God, none of the episodes this year are doing as good as, say, the episodes from last year. Well, that's because the episodes from last year had all their listeners from last year, plus more listens this year. So I have to remember that listens grow over time and I should probably at some point do some point in time kind of data of like after 30 days, what does an episode do? And I can probably pull that data from somewhere.
Speaker 1:This is a passion project, more than any of my other media, and what I mean by that is I have a very, very clear like. All the metrics on the rest of my media are just super available to me. I know exactly how many people liked a video, how many people watched it, how long they watched it, how many times they re-watched it. I know how many viewers I reached. I know how many people viewed my profile. I know how old they were, I know where they're from, I know what time of day they're on.
Speaker 1:A wealth of data and I don't use it a lot, but it's interesting. But it gives me a much better sense of impact of anything I do on the rest of my social media. So, for example, you know I do a lot of educational video. I do might have, let's say, 800 views, and then I'm getting ready for the bar and I put on some gear and I do a nine-second video of me doing a little twirl in leather. 10,000 views, 20,000 views. It's really fascinating. It's really fascinating what sells on the rest of social media.
Speaker 1:But what's beautiful about the podcast is because I don't have quite the same depth or granularity of data for the impact of the podcast at my fingertips that it allows me to just sort of do it because I love doing it. I'm saying that with a slight lilt to my voice because I love doing it. It is a lot of work, but I love doing it. But it is a lot of work and it'll be interesting to see how that plays out in the next season is a lot of work and it'll be interesting to see how that plays out in the next season, if there is a next season. We'll talk about that more in a bit. So that's the data from season three of Full Cow and it's great Actually. You know what I should have done? I should have listened to last season's season finale and done some comparison of the data. But again, I'm not really. This is a passion project. I'm not really driven by data here.
Speaker 1:But in the next segment I'm going to talk a little bit about some of my personal experience of recording this past season and episodes I really loved and things that I think people should be paying attention to. So let's go do that. You know it's not always about the numbers, and so part of what I like to do in the season finale is reflect on some episodes that I think are really kind of under-listened. They are under-appreciated, and perhaps if you've not given them a listen, I would recommend that you do so, and I would recommend that you do so. But first of all, it is utterly fascinating to me that the number one episode of this past season was the interlude on chastity and milking, which on Buzzsprout had 200 more downloads than the next popular episode Mentors, than the next popular episode mentors. This is interesting to me for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1:First of all, interludes never do as well as full episodes. Why, I don't know. People don't like the creaking, they're too short, people don't listen to them, I don't know. But I know statistically that an episode will always have more listens than an interlude. But I love doing the interludes because they're so easy. I don't have to plan a whole topic, I just have to really put on my langlet, sit down, start recording and talk about what's going on in my life. And that's why I love doing the interludes and why they will remain a feature of this podcast for as long as this podcast lasts, whether that's three seasons or more, but it's always been really interesting. So to see an interlude trounce every other episode of the season is fascinating, though, because the single most popular episode across all three seasons of the podcast is the Chastity episode and in fact, all of the Chastity episodes. I think I have two interludes, I have an episode, I think I have this interlude right. They're all extremely, extremely popular, so are extremely, extremely popular. So you people love chastity. That's what this is about. You people love chastity.
Speaker 1:All of this is really interesting to me as well, because I've now taught my class on chastity twice, and it was sort of like a complete dud both times. The first time I did it was at CLAW in LA, and there was one person who showed up for the class and three of my friends who were there to kind of support me. It was deeply demoralizing, because when you put a lot of energy into a class teaching to essentially one person, the energetic dynamics there are destructive and erosive. The second time I did the chastity class was, you know, the Eagle and Wilton Manners did the street fair for Florida Leather Weekend and they were doing classes, and I'm like I don't think this is a good idea. You shouldn't be doing classes in the middle of a street fair, but whatever.
Speaker 1:And I did my chastity class and it was later in the day and it was in one of the rooms of the bar and people started just sort of filling up in the bar and were talking as one does in a bar, but it was so loud that I had to shout, shout, scream at the top of my lungs to be heard. It had a smaller attendance than my class earlier in the day, which was on protocol, and so I was in the room and I this is like bizarrely interesting to me because I can see like the only data that is abundantly clear from this podcast is people go wild for chastity, chastity, chastity, chastity, chastity, chastity. So I'm like, oh, I'll do the class on chastity, I'm going to take everything I've done from the different podcasts, from the video series, and I'm going to do a class. But every time I do the class it's a total effing disaster. So I don't know what to make of that. People, maybe you only like to listen about chastity, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I will say there are a couple other circumstances. You know, at CLAW this was CLAW LA last year CLAW has a tendency to sometimes, I think, overdo education. I think I was one of like four or five chastity classes. There were multiple chastity classes and that obviously then sort of really dilutes the attendance. So that was part of the factor there. And this street fair thing, man, I just don't know. I knew it was a bad idea. I knew it was a bad idea, so I've not given up on the Chastity class, nor have I given up on Chastity episodes, should there be another season of Full Cow. But this is a remarkable year will go down in full cow history as the season where an interlude trounced every actual episode of the season.
Speaker 1:So let me turn my attention to, I think, the episode that is really underrated, that people have probably not listened to, just based on its standing. You know, mentors was the number one and that makes sense because it was the season premiere and because it had guests and I think people like it when I have guests on and it's a great topic and it's an important topic. The problem with guests is they're a logistical nightmare. I tried to have guests on a couple other episodes this season and it just it really didn't work out. It's really hard to coordinate and I don't know if there are going to be guests in any future season of Full Cow, but you know so it's not surprising. Mentors did well First season. It had guests. It's a popular topic and yay, yay for mentors.
Speaker 1:But I really thought the episode on covers was really good and I looked back at all the episodes. This season was a middling season. The topics were not my favorite topics between you and me, sorry. It was a hard year. It was a long year. This podcast is a lot of work.
Speaker 1:I don't know that these were the best topics, but I do think covers is an important episode. I was just with a budding leather person recently someone I really respect, who I think is going to become a really fantastic leather person who thought Muir was what the cover was. It's not a cover, it's a Muir cap. No, no, no. Muir is a brand, much like Kleenex is a brand, much like Band-Aid is a brand, much like Xerox is a brand, and I cover that in a covers episode. I think there's so much misinformation about covers that I'm like, wow, that is the episode. That is the episode everyone needs to listen to. So after you have finished listening to the interlude on Chastity and Milking for the umpteenth time, I would like to recommend that you go check out the episode on covers, because I think it's not well-performed I mean it's middle of the road for the season as a whole but I think it was a good episode and I think it deserves more listenership. So please give it a little bit more listenership.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so that was season three. We've looked at the stats and I've given you my personal insights on what I liked about the season, and so next let's talk about what could be coming for another season. So let's talk about season four. I think the first thing to know is that I do expect there to be a season four of Full Cow, and I've been thinking about what that looks like. So first of all, I need a break, so do not expect a full episode until April. I might pop in and do an interlude here or there, just sort of bonus stuff, but if and I just cannot commit to this, but I'm expecting to do a season four and it should be coming out in April. So here's some of the things I expect for season four.
Speaker 1:The first thing is that I'm going to revisit the most popular episodes of the first three seasons, and that means that should and when season four, episode one, launches, it will be on drumroll, big surprise chastity. Not only have I had a lot more experience through my journeys with devotion and now with steelworks, but I've been really being a lot more thoughtful about the intersection of dominance and chastity, what it's like to be dominant and locked in chastity, how that can feed into your dominance. So I'm pretty sure the opening episode of the season is going to be about dominant chastity, essentially, with more updates and more lessons learned about exploring chastity, living in chastity, doing runs of chastity, all the chastity, all the chastity stuff. Because what we've learned is that you people, you people love chastity. So that will then initiate a series of throughout the season revisits of other popular episodes I think, for example, the Origins episode. Not surprisingly, it was the first episode that I think is the example. The Origins episode not surprisingly, it was the first episode. That I think is the second most popular episode. I think the third most popular episode is Leather. So doing an updated episode on where to buy gear, what gear to buy, where are good sources, how to take care of it.
Speaker 1:So we're going to be doing updates, we're going to be doing revisits of the most popular episodes of the first three seasons and then I'll do some new topics as well and, of course, interludes, because the interludes are easy and fun and enjoyable to share those parts of my life with all of you. I'm also planning a couple of new segments. We do already have Ask Edge, which I love and would encourage everyone to keep sending questions, and now on Buzzsprout there's something called Fan Mail, which actually I think you can actually text me, you can text me comments or things, and I think there's something similar on Spotify. So I really want to lean into interaction and engagement, particularly since I don't expect to have a lot of interviews in season four given the logistical challenges. So, hearing from more of all of you and inviting you all to participate through your questions and comments I expect a lot more of that in season four.
Speaker 1:The next thing I'm expecting is a new mini segment that I'm calling Makers, and this was really inspired by my time with Chris of Steelworks. You know, I guess I don't know if this is in any of the podcasts I just recently got a Steelworks cage. If you don't know Steelworks, steelworks Extreme is in some ways a kind of the top of the line maker for ball capture chastity devices. They are quite bespoke. They are handmade, kind of crafted from a solid chunk of either stainless steel or titanium, cnc milled and then hand milled and hand finished and hand polished and extremely comfortable, extremely beautiful, extremely expensive and extremely effective. So I just recently was able to move to Steelworks and as part of that I happened to be in Montreal for American Thanksgiving, which is just November in Montreal, and so I was able to meet with Chris and get measured for the ring, which is obviously always the key measurement for any sort of ball capture device, and I got to spend time talking with him and learning about his story of how steelworks kind of came into being and I thought, wow, this is really fascinating. And so I would hope my plan is for season four, throughout the season, to have these little segments where I tell the story of makers leather makers, chastity device makers, whip makers I don't know event makers, people in the community who make things, who have the human touch on items that come into our gear and king practice and learning their stories of how they came into making, what they think about making. And so I know I will start with Chris of Steelworks. I might then hopefully do Fetish Daddy. I'm lining up a couple other people that I've got my sights on who hopefully I can talk to them a little bit and then tell their story for them, with their approval. So that'll be sort of the big innovation of season four and that's sort of what we're planning.
Speaker 1:I have yet to choose the cover art for season four, so I need to work on that and I would not be opposed to new theme music. No, no, thank you. This was actually custom written for me and I've always kind of loved it, kind of didn't. Kind of loved it, kind of didn't. I really got used to it. I will say, obviously I've had it for three seasons, but I don't know that it would be bad to have a new theme song, new transition music, new intros, new outros to sort of freshen up the podcast. So that might come as well.
Speaker 1:But I'm saying please expect an episode in April, because that gives me all of January to breathe, all of February to breathe, and then March to panic and get an episode out, and get it out for April. In fact it may not even come till late April or May, I don't know. It would be really nice to have. You know this is a nine-month season If there's three months of hiatus. It'd be really nice to actually have three months of hiatus, and so if I could be able to take off January, february and March to rest and recharge, I might do that and that's the plan. I think there are a couple of reasons why you should expect a new season to come First continually.
Speaker 1:The those of you who reach out to me either through social media, direct messages, or you see me at an event or you send me a message through the Ask Edge thing I've had so many people really share very to me impactful stories of what this podcast has meant to them to me, impactful stories of what this podcast has meant to them, and it just makes me feel special and honored and useful and it makes me feel all the things, and so all of you who have ever taken the time to give me any feedback on this podcast, it's just priceless to me and it is the primary reason why this podcast will move forward. Beyond that, I'm excited to kind of play with the podcast to revisit topics, because I got to say, one of the hard things about doing the podcast is thinking up topics and there are actually a couple glaring holes in the topics list I need to fill as well. I really need to have a rubber episode and you know, pussycat lives in Fort Lauderdale. I should be able to sort of get that topic nailed down. But that requires logistics of reaching out to someone and scheduling and asking them to join the podcast, and that's often very complicated. So there are a couple of glaring holes that need to be filled. But I'm also very excited about this sort of revisiting topics that people have already really loved and really sort of expanding and going deeper and moving into new directions and seeing how that resonates for people. So, and then I'm excited about sort of new segments, and this is, you know, these are all, these are the makers. Series will be one new segment. Who knows what else I might think of? You know, maybe it'll be product reviews, maybe it'll be more story time, more meditations, right, like? I had a lot of ideas of how I was going to sort of diversify the podcast and they didn't all manifest. So maybe it's time for all of them to then manifest. We shall see, we shall see.
Speaker 1:For now it is the end of 2024 and I am ready for some rest, some rest. I am just ready for some rest, and so I'm going to wish all of you a peaceful ending to 2024 and a hopeful beginning to 2025. And one way or another, you will certainly see me in this podcast at some point in 2025. Let's just pretend it's going to be April. Probably not before, maybe a little bit later, but let's pretend I'm going to come back and one day you're going to open up your podcast listening device and it'll be like oh, new episode of Full Cow Hooray I hope it's hooray.
Speaker 1:In the meantime, as always, I just hope that your leather journey is really good, and that doesn't always mean really easy and that doesn't always mean really happy. Sometimes it means it's challenging, but challenging in ways that I hope. Help you to grow and don't wear you down, because there's enough in this world wearing us down, and I do think that there's something very special about a kink leather journey. And help. Yours is very special and I will see you all. No, obviously I won't see you, because this is a podcast. I will hear you all. No, I won't hear any of you. You will hear from me in a few months. Have a beautiful, beautiful new year and that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for joining me. Please consider subscribing or you can send feedback to edge at full cow dot show as always. May your leather journey be blessed.