After 16 years and almost 1,700 episodes, Maron is ending his show – which changed the face of podcasting. No wonder it’s sparking an outpouring of sadness
W
hen I discovered Marc Maron’s influential podcast WTF, I was working in a pub. It was a weird time for me. I had just left university and had absolutely no idea what I was doing with my life, so I moved back home and took on shifts as a waitress and chamber maid.
Podcasts became an escape from my reality of changing sheets on king-sized beds, folding hospital corners and rearranging tiny bottles of shampoo – and none more so than Marc Maron’s WTF.
I don’t know how I found it, or why. I don’t think I’d ever even heard of Marc Maron – a grumpy middle-aged standup comedian – before I found the podcast, let alone half the people he interviewed; comedians, musicians, actors in indie films. But its long-form interview format taught me things and made me laugh. And the podcast became – on my long walks to and from shifts, stinking of bleach and the pub’s deep fat fryer, wondering what on earth I was going to do next – a friend to me.
