I Don't Speak German - Podcast Rankings and reviews

Contrary to some of the rather disingenuous jibes here, this is maybe one of the best informed podcasts on the far-right internet ecosystem around. While Jack and Daniel are unapologetically opinionated in ways which may rankle some (myself included at times), and the conversations that they have do occasionally feel rambling and unfocused, the informational core and overall bead on how the extreme right thinks and operates are potent; what's more, I personally quite enjoy the wry humour and deeply nerdy asides as a relief from the often very grim subject matter, so even the potential barriers to entry are often benefits in their own right.

That said, they do call this a 201 course, and they mean it: If you don't know what "TRS" or "the IDW" stand for, this will be a crash course. And, again, this show gets dark. If you have the stomach for it, Episode 52 is essential, but it is also nauseating. On the other hand, you will learn to love the words "Cantwell News!" Trust me.

this podcast has gotten me through some dark times and has also armed me with the knowledge to operate in the world today. their well deserved hiatus is slowly coming to an end and it was such an absolute joy to hear a “traditional” episode (as much as I appreciate the bonus content!)

it’s also very rad to have folks who are modeling taking time away from projects in order to heal/take care of yourself. we can’t operate like machines and shouldn’t expect that of anyone, including those we have parasocial podcast friendships with.

… For some premium coping. Fantastic comedy. They’re DEFINITELY not triggered, not threatened, not seething. Absolutely hilarious. You guys could do pompous dramatic readings of these reviews for bonus content.

On a more serious note, for the podcasters:

The strongest episode you did, to me, was the one where Daniel simply played the actual content of that Nazi podcast, explained the context and the blatant bigotry and hatred of their “jokes.”

That episode was EXCEPTIONALLY helpful in cutting through the more mainstream dogwhistling the normals of my life think I’m insane for pointing out. Just being able to play the uncensored, unfiltered GARBAGE straight out of their safe spaces was huge. It’s been a while since I needed that episode, and I imagine it was hugely taxing to have to make, but it sticks with me, because I don’t know how to find these “safe spaces” and collect this stuff to bolster my arguments myself.

And honestly, most of us out here don’t know HOW to really find these people. And I think it should stay that way. So, I really appreciate you guys. Thank you for your hard work.

Just finished ep 114, I am a relatively new listener so appreciated what the hosts thought was going “back” to some stories and characters but to me were new. The toxicity and danger of this fascist ideology is all too real - meaning the work of building a better world that doesn’t have room for this to catch on is even more important. Knowing a bit about what’s going on behind their curtains helps me get my head around what I can do next to help be an answer to the problem they present. Take care of yourselves, thanks again.

I’m super interested in learning about the big figures of the Intellectual Dark Web or IDW as it’s sometimes called. But this podcast hardly provides any evidence for anything! They’ll talk about James Lindsay or Sam Harris and say over and over again “that is TOTALLY false!” “He is TOTALLY wrong on that!” and won’t say why the statements are wrong or why they are false! It’s almost comical how smug and sure of themselves they are without backing up any of their assertions. Skip this one, folks.

I’m 95% in line with the politics of the hosts, and even I find them to be insufferably smug and arrogant. And it’s for that reason I stopped listening a while ago.

They also make brazen remarks and predictions that aren’t true, go off-topic for long segments, and assume a level of knowledge/agreement from their audience that isn’t close to reasonable. There are times that I’ve been genuinely interested in an episode, but had to turn it off halfway through because they’d lost me or said something that was infuriatingly stupid.

It’s unfortunate because they DO have some interesting things to say about their subject, buried in all the pablum. If they had a decent producer on board then there’d really be something worthwhile here.