A Boomer and GenXer Walk into a Bar
Wit and wisdom, some smart assery, and a Mother and Daughter questioning “Are we even related?”
A Boomer and GenXer Walk into a Bar
The Mystery of True Crime S1:E10
Ever wondered why true crime podcasts captivate millions and why some people can't seem to get enough of them? Join Jane and her, the podcast aficionado Bobbi Joy, as we unwrap the reasons behind this intriguing genre's grip on our imaginations. Bobbi shares her astonishing habit of keeping up with a staggering number of podcasts, with true crime holding a special place in her heart. Our lively chat is peppered with laughter and insights into the thrill of unraveling mysteries while revealing the dark psychological aspects lurking beneath our fascination with real-life crime stories.
email: boomerandgenxer@gmail.com
welcome everyone to today's show. Boomer and jim x are walking to a bar, coming to you from where the rabbit hole studio, where you, as our listener, will experience, ah, some wit and wisdom, some smart assery between the two of us and this mother and that daughter questioning. Are we even related? My name is jane burt. My co-host is my daughter, bobby joy. Thank you for tuning into us, for downloading us, for subscribing and for liking us. We really appreciate it. We appreciate the support and we appreciate you sharing the information with your friends and family on your other networking, um networking systems.
Speaker 2:I guess I will say yeah and I will say I'll interrupt you here now by the time that they get this podcast, we'll have had about probably six or seven episodes out. So we the way that we record, is we kind of rapid fire with our schedules. So, at this recording, our second podcast comes out tomorrow.
Speaker 1:For us, yeah, but for you guys, you should probably have a library of them, yeah yeah, that's a good point, because we are kind of in a different schedule, right, absolutely, and so, um, this is kind of funny when we were talking about a topic for today and Bobby and I, you know, we were talking about podcasts, because we listened to some podcasts, you know, and we've got some other folks that some some. We listened to some folks that you know, we know, and people we don't know. Some are political, some are nonpolitical, some are just funny. And anyway, how many podcasts do you think you listen to on a regular basis, bobby?
Speaker 2:Now we did start this discussion before we started recording and I think that I kind of blew my mom's mind because I listen to now this is regularly, so I'm actually. I listen to the new episodes as they come out, which is usually once a week. Sometimes it's not till once a month. I listen to between 50 and 55 podcasts. I don't believe it for a minute.
Speaker 1:I mean mean, honest to goodness, because you work, you got kids. Really where, where do you get that kind of time?
Speaker 2:You'll. You'll always see me with an earbud in my ear.
Speaker 1:That is true.
Speaker 2:When I'm at work. I thankfully have a job where I don't have to listen to people, so earbuds in my ear, I can go through, you know, and on my shift I can easily go through between four and eight podcasts right there on one shift of work.
Speaker 1:That's crazy because I I lose focus. I have to really be paying attention and I otherwise I'm constantly rewinding, going what did?
Speaker 2:they just say, and that helps me focus, because I have to have something going on in the background to focus on.
Speaker 1:in order to focus on what I'm doing, I just I think that's a lot and that is just so unbelievable.
Speaker 2:I, I, I question it, but you know out of those, I will say, at least 35 of them are true crime related.
Speaker 1:Oh, true crime which is just. I love true crime shows.
Speaker 2:And it's.
Speaker 1:I mean there have been a huge amount of podcast listeners that love true crime, as well, there are a lot of podcasts for true crime or murder mysteries or something that happened in a small town or something that happened in a big city or wherever now let me ask you this why do you think true crime has risen to the top of?
Speaker 2:well, not to the top. I think they're number four right now. Um, on the, on the podcast, um, why do you think that they have risen to where they are and why do you think there are so many of them? Because I do have an answer for this. Actually, I do, but why do you think? Why do?
Speaker 1:I think, I think psychologically it kind of helps people to, um, not be involved but yet get engaged okay, so like the nosy neighbor type thing, the nosy neighbor and kind of the fear factor.
Speaker 1:But I don't have to be fearful because I'm not really involved, but it's kind of scaring me anyway, right, okay. So the other thing is is I think people like to solve things before they get the actual answer, because I know when I watch my crime shows on tv I am constantly yelling out, I mean at the very beginning I know who it is. I know who it is and somebody will look at me like what they aren. They aren't even involved.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they are.
Speaker 1:And so I think people like to solve those issues on their own and then find out if they're right.
Speaker 2:Okay, All right. So do you want to know the real answer? I do, the real answer or the answer that you found? The answer that I found is the fact that true crime writes itself. So the only thing you really need to make a true Crime podcast is to be able to tell a story. Ah, the research has all been done for you. That is a good point. It's either solved or unsolved, but you have all the information you need. You just have to make a story out of it and you have to make it interesting. Yes, and entertainment was the top.
Speaker 1:Reason that people listen to true crime podcasts was to be entertained yeah, not only to be entertained but to kind of question how unbelievable some of the situations are oh, absolutely, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:That really does make sense, I guess. So, um, one of the things that I looked at because my degrees are in psychology and social science and I'm always interested in the psychological effects of the true crime side of it and one of the things that I took a look at was some of the negative effects, psychological effects of listening to true crime podcasts all the time, or watching the shows all the time, or really not just watching them once a week, but becoming addicted.
Speaker 2:Okay, this might be a personal attack on me, just just no, because I watch them all the time.
Speaker 1:I watch them all, I watch them to go to sleep.
Speaker 1:So you are really a sicko but I've always said you have psychological issues and you need to get that taken care of. Go talk to somebody, but one of the things that true crime can have a negative effect on is your hypervigilance, and that would be people becoming overly aware of their surroundings and constantly looking for issues or thinking that you know there's a white van and there's a killer in it and he's going to jump out and get me type thing, Check. Are thinking that you know there's a white van and there's a killer in it and he's going to jump out and get me type thing, Check. And.
Speaker 1:So that's why you're always looking around every time. You even get out of your car in my driveway and you come in and you're like surveying the scene. Hey, they ain't going to get me. Okay, they ain't going to get me. Trust me, bobby, they would take you for five minutes. Bring you back, probably sooner than that and go oh dear Lord, don't let us take her again.
Speaker 1:But that's one of them is hypervigilance. You know, as it pertains to you, know situations around you and what could be a killer and who could be a killer and what looks suspicious and and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:So that is one of the issues I don't know that I see that as all that bad though I don't think it's bad either, because you know, when I was working I was, I told you I was in the. You know this, I didn't have to tell you, but you knew I was in the energy business and we did a lot of training on security and, um, our own personal security, and then and then, of course, the pipeline security. And one of the things that we were taught very early in my career was to constantly teach your kids to look up when they're walking, look up when they're traveling, know your surroundings when you walk into a building, know where your exits are. I mean, I told you kids we'd go to a movie theater and I'd go where's the exits?
Speaker 2:You know where are we going to get out of here how many people do. I got to climb over to get to it Exactly.
Speaker 1:Who looks. Who looks kind of sketchy in here, and let's kind of keep our eye on them. You know, they might have candy under that coat or they might have something else, I'm not really sure. But we were taught from a very early time in my career that you had to be very, very vigilant about your own personal safety, and so that kind of fell into my investigative side of my business too, because we had to investigate incidents, and so I think it was beneficial. So you're right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean you look at it now and you know things going on and everything that's happened lately and it's I think that it's a tool that can be used properly you know hypervigilance in order to keep you safe.
Speaker 1:So you had indicated that it's one of the top podcast types.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, so we've got. So number one. Now. This is by oh, this is by Edison, and they do research on various different things. This one was on podcasts, so this is based on the US listeners, ages 13 and up, for weekly podcast listeners for the first quarter of 2024.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So number one is comedy.
Speaker 1:Which makes sense.
Speaker 2:We all want a good laugh, right? Absolutely. Number two is society and comedy, which makes sense. We all want a good laugh, right? Absolutely. Number two is society and culture.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, number three is news of course, yeah, well, if you ever get any of the truth out of that, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:Number four is true crime and number five is sports.
Speaker 1:I can't believe that true crime rates over sports, because sports seems to be so big in our society today. But true crime is number four.
Speaker 2:Well and get this. History is number 13. I listen to a lot of history podcasts.
Speaker 1:I love historical things. I love going to places where I can learn the history of the location, the building, the town, whatever. Yeah, I love that and it's 13, it's 13. Huh, oh, that's disappointing.
Speaker 2:That is it really is. I mean it. You know, fiction is all the way up down at 15. So when it comes down to it, I guess we just want the real stories. At this point we're not looking for. I don't think this world can do any better than you know, or fiction can't do any better than the world is right now, because yeah, it's, it's quite the uh yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:It's interesting, though, that when you're watching the shows or you're listening to a podcast maybe not a podcast as much, but when you're watching the true crime shows they do it in a manner to lead you down a certain path with the information.
Speaker 1:Now if I was just reading the information as it was gathered, totally different, I would have a totally different perspective on it. But because you have a narrator and people who are being interviewed that lead you down a certain path, you know, you're kind of setting up a hypothesis on who you think it was and that's part of the storytelling, sure it is.
Speaker 2:It's how good they can tell that story and keep you captivated and and move you along how they want to, in order to keep you all the way till the end well, one of the other um negative psychological effects that I found was desensitization.
Speaker 1:Uh, that would be the repeated exposure to explicit content, um, and that can make people feel less sensitive to it. So if you are exposed to death a lot, if you are exposed to killing, if you're exposed to you know spouses cheating on each other and having a you know love triangle and somebody dies in that, I can see how you could become desensitized to some of that in your life. So it is a psychological factor.
Speaker 2:Another one that, or you could just watch the news. I mean, they, they got the same stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, that's true. I have become desensitized to our news a long time ago. One of the other things that was listed was isolation, and this was kind of interesting because it indicated that people may become overly wary of others, even people they've known for long periods of time their lifetime and that leads to feelings of isolation because they now do not trust these people. These people may show some characteristics or some behaviors that they saw on a show and now they're like wait a minute, he could be a serial killer well, I didn't need a show for that.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was doing that way before podcasting became popular.
Speaker 1:We get the family together and we get into corners and go.
Speaker 2:She's acting a little sketchy.
Speaker 1:She's acting really weird, I think she's, she's thinking.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I see it kind of differently because you know, as you know, I did go to school for forensic sciences, I did go to college and so it's never. I don't think that it's desensitized me only because I mean I studied it for three and a half years and I guess I just I see it a little different. Um, because, like I said before podcasts, I was wary of everybody.
Speaker 1:I didn't like people anyways but I could see how it could desensitize people. You know the killing, the murders, you know at some point you come to expect it right. Oh, their wife or their husband is cheating on them.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you're listening to a true crime podcast, I'm expecting some crime. Yeah, some type of crime.
Speaker 1:And so I can see how people could have a skewed perception of reality. You know they people could have trouble sleeping. Um, they're going to avoid certain places. You know, potentially uh, if, if they're afraid of you know certain certain uh series of shows that they've watched right, like certain scenarios that they would get themselves into Right right. And so you know, I could see how that could happen, and pretty soon you're thinking there's criminals everywhere. Now I came to that conclusion a long, long time ago.
Speaker 1:I trust no one, anytime, anywhere. There is no one other than Jesus that I trust. So you know, and I don't trust myself.
Speaker 2:So so where, where do you think your age range falls in the percentage of podcast listeners? Because we do have it broke down by age here in front of us. So where do you think that your age?
Speaker 1:you mean for?
Speaker 2:true crime. For for podcasts period, let's for listening to podcasts, for listening to podcasts. What do you think the percentage of podcast listeners are that are over 55?
Speaker 1:now I don't think that the older crowd like me are as isolated as, say your grandmother was right, my mom right, they were a little bit more isolated.
Speaker 2:they got the original podcast, which was Jesus Radio. Jesus Radio, it was on 24-7.
Speaker 1:That's all she needed, that's it. And that's all any of us need. But she did, you're absolutely right. But I think that that generation prior to me, prior to the boomers 55.
Speaker 1:Let's go 55 and over, I think that they were isolated more than we are today. I let's go 55 and over. I think that they were isolated more than we are today. I think we get out and about. I think we're more active. I think we're much more healthy. I think you know, there's just a lot going on with us. I think had you asked me about that generation, I would have said they're probably listening at home a lot, yeah home a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say in my generation. Um, I would say probably 50, not even close. Really, 27 are 55 and older. Wow so very low percentage, very low percentage that's because we're out and about playing pickleball. We're riding our bikes inventing games, apparently games, that's right yeah, and we're riding motorcycles now. Now my age range, um which they put, is 35 to 54, uh-huh wow, you got quite, I know right we make up 55 percent of listeners.
Speaker 2:Okay, not bad, yeah, but the top percentage of listeners are 59 percent, which is aged 12 to 34 wow yeah that's interesting. So hmm, I mean, I get it.
Speaker 1:You know, podcasts are cool, they are I mean, they're interesting and you don't have to go anywhere. They don't cost Anything, right other than the price of your phone.
Speaker 2:You can do anything while you're doing it.
Speaker 1:You know clean house.
Speaker 2:Do your work, go for a jog, sit in the car, sit in a waiting room you can feel connected, yeah, and you know, and disconnected. At the same time, because I'll put my earbuds In a waiting room because I don't want to talk to people like don't ask me why I'm there so let me ask you this, as it relates to just true crime in general, not just podcasts, but true crime shows.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, books, uh podcasts, would you say. Men or women are more likely to be drawn to true crime stories?
Speaker 2:women, why entertainment?
Speaker 1:really yep, because one theory is that women use true crime as a way to gain information so they don't, so they don't end up on, so they don't end up on 48 hours yes and they can, but seriously, so that they can use it to protect themselves from violent attacks from date, rape from you know, taking somebody home, being aware of their surroundings, to get inside the mind of somebody before it happens.
Speaker 2:So you know what to look out for, you know what red flags to look out for, you know what to do in that situation and I think that makes sense, I mean you I've heard some of my friends, and you probably have too.
Speaker 1:You know we'll be talking about something and something will happen to us and we'll go. We saw an episode on 48 Hours. We're on Dateline. They did that same thing and he killed her. Get away from him. And so I think that we do gain knowledge, and rightly, you know. Right or wrong or indifferent, we do gain knowledge and it's just how we use it.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be paranoid about it, I don't want to go overboard with it, but on the other hand, I want to be vigilant. I want my security and I want to make sure that I'm taking all the action necessary for me, my kids, anybody around me, to make sure that they're secure too, and on that topic, one of the podcasts I listened to is called cult leader like leader of Cola, not like leader type.
Speaker 2:So he actually goes into the ins and outs of cults and how they you know got people, how they suck these people in. You know things like that. And I think it's great because you can see the warning signs before you're sucked completely into a cult and all of a sudden you got 56 kids and you got to run away and you can only take one and it's Sophie's choice back at the end.
Speaker 1:I got 56 kids. I'm going to take Brian the rest of your stay, Good luck everybody else.
Speaker 2:But it is you know and it it does it can you know everything from you know cults to true crime to you know even some of the history stuff where we actually get the true history, like um bailey sarian does a great you know. She talks about murder but she also talks about dark history, things they don't teach you in school, right you?
Speaker 1:know, and I think that's great and, and let's face it, we'd all be naive. I know, you know people call us theorists because we believe certain things that are going on well, you know my joke about conspiracy theory, right? Yeah, conspiracy theories. You know, when somebody says, hey, that's a conspiracy theory, what do you say? I say.
Speaker 2:Well, what I say is, hey, what's the difference between the conspiracy theory and the actual facts? And they go, what? And I say about six months or two weeks depending on how you look at it anymore.
Speaker 1:And you know you can call us conspiracy theorists because we question so many things, we connect the dots and people don't like that. No, you know, oh, you're just. You must be a conspiracy theorist if you're saying that. No, I'm just questioning everything and you know, I just I like to bring it out and say you know what if this is going on, or what if Right, and I think that's okay. So anyway, wow, that was a good topic today, bobbi. That was. It was a good topic today, bobby. It was a podcast on podcast, podcast on podcast. I loved it alright.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's all the insanity we have for today, are you sure I think so. Yeah, sorry, you'll have to wait until our next episode to see what we have going on, but we appreciate you joining us here at the Rabbit Hole Studio. Be sure to follow us, because we look forward to spending time with you each and every week. Please like us. If you have positive feedback for us or if there's a topic you'd like us to talk about, drop us a short email at boomer and gen XR at gmailcom. If you have hate mail, well, you know where you can put that.
Speaker 1:So, until next week, I'm Bobby joy and I'm Jane Bird and you're stuck with us Peace out Later.