2014: The year podcast listening parties became a thing. Serial, the mega-hit podcast from the producers of This American Life, has legions of fans sitting at home listening to the voice of Sarah Koening as we try to figure out the big mysteries: Was Adnan’s defense boned because his attorney was so annoying? How did so many 17-year-olds have cell phones in 1999? WHAT THE CRAP ARE YOU HIDING, JAY?? Well you don’t have to sit around thinking this over by yourself any more more. Williamsburg’s Videology has started holding free listening parties every Thursday until the show ends, featuring drink specials and group discussions. Sounds better than a shrimp sale at the Crab Shack.
The parties start at 5:30 p.m. on this Thursday, and on Dec. 18, which is supposed to be the show’s finale.
The event includes a Serial-themed slideshow, and a drink special: $5 old fashioneds.
“The audience seems really excited to get together with their fellow Serial listeners to have a communal experience,” co-owner Wendy Chamberlain told us of the inaugural party, which happened last week.
What you do with yourself while sitting in a screening room listening to an audio-only podcast, I do not know. But if you need a benchmark that Serial is a cultural phenomenon unlike no other, it’s here: the first podcast made for the era of binge-consuming gets its own dedicated party at a bar otherwise dedicated to screening films and shows like Game of Thrones. Now if only bars would host binge-reading parties for newspapers and magazines, print journalists would be set too.