All right, the teaser seem to have successfully landed on Apple, Google, Spotify, Amazon, iHeartRadio, ListenNotes, and our home base at ACast, so we have a squad. Series 1 of my new podcast Stamps Aren’t Cool is GO!
Normally, this post would contain the various stamps and other stuff that we might be talking about on the episode. But because it’s Episode 1, it’s really just Celeste and me introducing ourselves and contemplating how we came to be here. If you didn’t read my previous post, Celeste is the non-collector co-host of the podcast. She also happens to be my wife, and is therefore very good at telling me when to put a sock in it to avoid embarrassing both of us at parties.
We have recorded four episodes ahead of launching the podcast. This episode happens to include one of my early favourite moments, in which Celeste revealed her true thoughts about how many listeners and viewers she thought we might get. That moment didn’t make our trailer video. Well, there was one subtle reference to it, but you would have to watch Episode 1 and look very closely to have spotted the Easter egg in the trailer.
We’d love to hear your feedback! You can add comments here at the blog, or at the YouTube link below, or via any of my social media pages at Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
I hope you enjoy listening or viewing!
Click here to listen to the podcast.
Don’t forget to subscribe!
To subscribe to the Stamps Aren’t Cool YouTube channel, click here.
And you can watch Episode 1 below!
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What is a stamp? What is a quotation or an epitaph? Does that mean anything if someone else’s quote was put on Maya Angelous stamp after she died?
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You’ve gone very philosophical there Lhea! I thought the Maya Angelou stuffup was pretty bad. It means someone missed out on the credit, and Maya missed out on having her ACTUAL work recognised.
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Is that a good thing or a bad thing. Recognized by who? Does a black writer want their work recognized?
thanks for everything!
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Stamp collecting is moribund, and I speak from experience and authority earned from over 50 years in the hobby and its business. There are far more young (age 20 and below) people taking up rock collecting and coin collecting than stamp collecting. The only young people taking up stamp collecting enthusiastically are the Chinese, and they just want to collect stamps from their own country. Apart from them, the only people who find stamps to be cool are mostly Baby Boomers–like me–and those relatively few and scattered members of subsequent generations who like to think critically and deeply, study broadly, appreciate the arts, cultures, languages, history, and enjoy learning about the world and its peoples. It’s a thinking person’s hobby. It’s not for anti-intellectuals; it’s not for people who don’t like to read; it’s not for incurious people and other dullards; and it’s definitely not for people who are “woke”, i.e. comatose. If you expect to draw more young people into stamp collecting, you are defeating that goal with a podcast titled “Stamps Aren’t Cool”. You are offering young people who already think that a shovel with which to dig stamp collecting a deeper grave. Crikey, mate!!
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What an honour to have one of history’s most esteemed collectors joining us from the grave! 🫡
I agree with you so much, Colonel. The hobby IS moribund, and the reasons for that could make a whole separate book, let alone a blog post. There has been a long-term failure to plan for a future in which the postal system itself will become an artefact. The exclusivity, the perception of the internet as a threat, the prevailing delusion that if we just keep giving schoolchildren some free stamps, then philately will one day rise to take its place again as the king of hobbies despite us now living in a world where there are so many more recreational options… I could go on. Those who are contemplating the future of exhibitions, or who’s going to run the club circuit books when Arthur dies, are missing the big picture, which is that urgent measures are needed if there are to be any collectors remaining at any level in forty years’ time. (At least in the Western Hemisphere. As you acknowledge, there is growth beyond those horizons, though not just in China.)
However, we are talking at cross-purposes regarding my podcast name. We’e on the same side. Anyone who tries to suggest that stamps are cool would only make a fool of themselves. And anyway, even if such a campaign were a success, this week’s ‘cool’ is next week’s forgotten fad. We don’t need that. The name ‘Stamps Aren’t Cool’ celebrates precisely what you’re talking about. It IS a thinking person’s hobby, a pursuit for those curious enough to seek satisfaction from diving more deeply into those areas you refer to, instead of seeking the sugar rush of instant gratification. Times have changed; geeks rule the world now, but not by being cool. Stamps also aren’t cool, and if you’re into them, then you’re one of us, and you should be proud.
Not really on board with the ‘woke’ comment, though. As originally conceived, to be ‘woke’ is to make oneself aware of those societal structures that lead to injustice; to recognise their effects and work to address them. To paraphrase a great philatelist, wokeness is for those who like to think critically and deeply, study broadly, appreciate the arts, cultures, languages, history, and enjoy learning about the world and its peoples; it’s not for anti-intellectuals; it’s not for people who don’t like to read; and it’s not for incurious people and other dullards. In this respect, fellow stamp collectors are among some of the wokest people I’ve met, whether they want to know it or not. Of course, the term ‘woke’ has now been hijacked by hack opinion writers employed by billionaire media moguls, and weaponised to invoke rage among the incurious and the impatient; to pass judgement upon that which they would prefer not to take the time to understand. It has become such a cover-all term that I often find that those who rail against wokeness struggle to define what it actually is that they’re angry about. But that’s the genius, isn’t it. They think they’re miserable because of drag queens reading books or something, when it’s REALLY because the media moguls and their hack opinion columnists have successfully distracted them from questioning the global structures that are really responsible for their apparently endless misery. Thanks for your comment!
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