It is perhaps an understatement to say that 2020 has been a weird year. The world was turned upside down by a global health pandemic, everything at one point was made out of cake, and maybe, just maybe, you turned into a podcast person. And who could blame you? This year, podcasts became one of our few connections to the outside world. Keeping up with the best podcasts of 2020 is like having a weekly standing appointment, or a regular get together with friends (you know, if you and your friends like to talk about celebrities and internet culture wars).
The year's great podcasts made us laugh, made us think, and a few of them even left us reeling—in disbelief and anger. Some are old favorites, while others are tightly told narratives that burned bright and fast over the course of a finite number of episodes. But they all made our days a bit more bearable. From unearthing the complete life story of a Hollywood legend, to re-examining one of the greatest disasters in American history, to listening to YouTube's most prolific oversharer, well, share her thoughts and feelings on just about anything, these podcasts had everything. Even Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Without further ado, here are the best podcasts of 2020:
Keep It!
Some media companies try to justify that audiences can, and do, care about entertainment and politics at the same time with overt programming that's created more for advertisers than for actual human beings. But Keep It! hosts Ira Madison III, Louis Virtel, and Aida Osman simply cannot be bothered to be anything other than themselves: three smart, funny writers who break down the week's biggest news stories and contextualize them through a cultural lens. Part of the Crooked Media show's charm is their easy chemistry—Ira with his signature shrewd takes (he coined the titular phrase on his prolific Twitter account); Louis and his encyclopedic knowledge of Hollywood actors and The Carpenters' entire discography; and Aida's sharp humor and grounded sensibility.
It's kind of like gossiping over celebs and politicians at brunch every week with your best friends, and in 2020, a year that has made intimate in-person gatherings all but impossible, we need more of that energy. (And if you're going out to brunch with friends in 2020, then I have two words for you: keep it.)
Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain
YouTuber Emma Chamberlain branched back into podcasting this year with the debut of Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain, a show that's as wonderfully rambling as the 19 year old herself. On this podcast, anything really does go, and she prides herself on having no real structure. From talking about her complicated relationship with fame (spoiler alert: she's not that into being "famous") to opening up about her struggles with self-worth and confidence to getting real about money and finances, Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain evokes the candid spirit of the teen's early vlogs—of a young woman working through her thoughts and feelings in real-time.
It's a more comfortable format for Emma, who also regularly fields questions from listeners, helping them navigate their crushes and friendships. She talks about her anxiety the way you'd talk about breakfast; it's casual and brazenly normal. Sure, she's a bit of an oversharer, but that's why more than 9 million people follow her.
You Must Remember This: “Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman”
If you're interested in Hollywood history, then journalist Karina Longworth's insightful podcast You Must Remember This is an essential listen. This season, she brought prodigious producer Polly Platt's forgotten legacy to light in stunning and intimate detail with "Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman." Told over the course of 10 episodes, Karina combines interviews with Polly's daughters, friends, and creative collaborators with the producer, writer, and costume designer's own words (as documented meticulously in her unfinished memoir, which she penned long before her death in 2011). The result paints a much fuller and far more detailed portrait of a woman who, up until now, had mostly been remembered as filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich's ex-wife (whom he left for actress Cybill Shepherd while they were making the 1971 film, and Polly's passion project, The Last Picture Show).
You know the saying: Behind every man there's a brilliant woman. And thanks to this podcast, Polly's vital contributions to the cinema of the late 20th century are no longer invisible.
Code Switch
A spinoff from a blog of the same name, NPR’s Code Switch tackles the intersection of race, identity, and broader culture. Hosted by journalists Gene Demby and Shereen Marisol Meraji, the weekly podcast is a space for nuanced, thought-provoking conversations about sociopolitical issues and how race impacts just about everything. And this year, those ever-timely conversations gained national prominence amid months of protests and social unrest following the death of George Floyd in May and a presidential election season that just won't end. But Code Switch hasn't changed just because it's gotten more attention. It's still a destination for difficult discussions. The complexities of interracial friendships. Unpacking Vice President-elect Kamala Harris's multicultural identity. Defining the cultural significance of a "Karen." Recontextualizing racism in the Trump era. Code Switch isn't afraid to go there.
Teenager Therapy
Here's a concept: real teens talking about their very real thoughts, concerns, and daily lives. Sound compelling? That's the idea behind Teenager Therapy, a weekly podcast hosted by a roundtable of "stressed, sleep-deprived, yet energetic" high schoolers. In an era where most stories about teenhood are being told by adults, Teenager Therapy is a fresh look at the coming-of-age experience in 2020, an undeniably weird-as-hell year for young people. These teens have had their lives upended by a global health pandemic, and they've also had to navigate a crucial presidential election from the sidelines. And this conversational podcast goes into all of that and more. (Not to mention, they scored a coveted interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, in which they talked about mental health stigma and mental burnout.)
A recent episode finds the teens lamenting virtual school and breaking down why cheating is a necessary tool in an American public school system that values test scores more than actual learning. Other episodes include conversations about activism, overnight TikTok fame, and feeling like a burden to your friends. Adolescence is a universal experience, but each generation has their own issues. And Teenager Therapy ("because we have problems too") is an empathetic exploration into Gen Z—for teens and curious adults, too.
Floodlines
We mostly remember Hurricane Katrina as a national tragedy; a massive, maddening failure of local and national government; and a staggering reminder of the racism and anti-Blackness at the heart of our country. And in listening to The Atlantic's Floodlines, those things still remain true. But the eight-episode series, hosted by journalist Vann R. Newkirk II, re-examines Katrina and its devastating aftermath in great personal detail, citing the White House's mismanagement of the events and putting the focus back on the residents of New Orleans—most of them Black—whose stories have been misreported and misunderstood. By contextualizing the events of the past through a 2020 lens, it's an unsettling meditation on how a government can fail its citizens, which feels woefully prescient as COVID-19 continues to ravage families and communities in the United States.
Criminalia
A true-crime podcast that examines the intersection of history, crime, and gender, the first season of Criminalia spotlights lady killers—no, not men who've killed women (there's enough of those podcasts), but rather women who have been accused of murder, specifically women whose method of choice was poison. Poison has often been called a woman's weapon, but how and why did that distinction come to be? And is it even accurate? Hosts Holly Frey and Maria Trimarchi set out to set the record straight, detailing how women have been marginalized and vilified throughout history by unpacking their unique stories. From Chicago’s most prolific female serial killer Tillie Klimek to Bermudian folklore hero Sally Bassett, an enslaved woman who was executed in 1730 for poisoning her granddaughter's enslaver, Criminalia goes behind the crime to talk about its historical and cultural implications.
The podcast is historical and analytical, but it's not dry. Holly and Maria (who met while working at HowStuffWorks) are pros when it comes to articulating dense information in a quick, conversational way. While it never trivializes the murderous events, it does emphasize that for some women—women who have been ignored and victimized—a slip of arsenic was their only option.
Staying in with Emily & Kumail
A time capsule of a surreal couple of months in 2020, Staying In with Emily & Kumail started as a way for actor-writer Kumail Nanjiani and his screenwriter wife Emily V. Gordon to document their time in quarantine. As self-described indoor kids (Emily has a chronic illness that compromises her immune system, as depicted in their 2017 film The Big Sick) the couple give tips on how to live at home comfortably, how to cut your partner's hair, what movies to stream, and, importantly, how to manage coronavirus-induced anxiety. It's a frank, funny exploration of marriage, isolation, and of a very specific place and time—making it a "limited series podcast" that will one day feel like a relic of history.
The concept of celebrity has radically shifted in the COVID-19 era, as public figures have taken to Zoom and Instagram Live to broadcast from their living rooms in an effort to seem "just like us" (while others have forgone optics and safety protocols altogether). But Emily and Kumail's podcast endeavor was a way for them to use their privilege to spread helpful information and positivity amid endless uncertainty and dread, while also making the quarantine experience a little less lonely for all of us. And they also donated every cent they earned from ad revenue directly to charity organizations.
Rabbit Hole
How do young people become radicalized online? New York Times columnist Kevin Roose seeks to answer that question with Rabbit Hole, an eight-episode series based on his 2019 article "The Making of a YouTube Radical." Rabbit Hole chronicles how one aimless young man was pulled into the far-right universe through the YouTube algorithm, which served him thousands of recommended videos filled with conspiracy theories, misogyny, and racist ideology. Caleb's story is all too common, and the podcast traces everything from Gamergate to the rise of YouTuber PewDiePie and how he grapples (or doesn't) with his influence to the online origins of QAnon, a pro-Trump conspiracy theory. At times, Rabbit Hole is an unsettling listen, but as anyone who's been at the receiving end of racist, misogynistic, or homophobic rhetoric online already knows—the internet has long been weaponized by white extremists. So the questions now become: What can these tech companies do about it? And why aren't they making their platforms safer?
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