Listen To This | He Who Gets The Most Attention Wins
A Podcast Rec for Friday January 17
Welcome to Listen to This, a new feature within Welcome Wanderer. Each day, I share a favorite podcast episode or audiobook —something that moved me, challenged me, or simply made life a little brighter.
Podcast of The Day: The Ezra Klein Show | Attention is Power | Jan 17 2025 | 1 hr 13 min
You can also watch on YouTube here
Why To Listen:
This rousing discussion between Ezra Klein and Chris Hayes (MSNBC podcast host and author) completely sucked me in! They dive right into the absurdity of American politics, media, and culture, and how they’ve become competitive attention markets, turning people into their most reactionary selves.Favorite Quote:
“What Trump figured out is that in the attention age, in this sort of war of all against all, that actually just getting attention matters more than whatever comes after it. And one way reliably to get people’s attention is negative attention.”
-Chris Hayes
Related Recommendation:
I’m looking forward to reading Chris Hayes’ new book due out January 28th!
Book: The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource
From the back cover: Hayes writes, “Now our deepest neurological structures, human evolutionary inheritances, and social impulses are in a habitat designed to prey upon, to cultivate, distort, or destroy that which most fundamentally makes us human.”
I’ll be back tomorrow with one more nourishing treat for your ears! Then, on Sunday you’ll get a magical podcast potion, full of my top 7 listens from the week.
-Charissa
PS: I hope you enjoy this new experiment and that you look forward to a little note from me every day in your inbox!