Eulogy for a Podcast
Internet Picnic has died. Again.
This is its eulogy.
FIRST LIFE: THE WEBSITE
InternetPicnic.com as it looked in January, 2017
Internet Picnic was born during the early-morning Starbucks work sessions I shared with my buddy and co-creator, Jeremiah Berkheimer. He’d come up with the name years before, bought the domain on a whim, and sat on it. A while later we were both in need of a project to sink our teeth into, and the idea of a pop-culture website seemed to fit our skills: I could write, he could design. Together, we could make something. The equation was simple, if far from easy.
So the mornings started: Up before the sun, banging out an article and a banner graphic together before clocking in at the day job we also shared. We launched the site to little fanfare, but watched as it slowly grew and found its audience. A small, committed group of people who quickly went from readers to collaborators, fans to friends.
Our numbers were never impressive, but it didn’t matter to us. Because beyond the website and articles and the bear mascots and the silliness, Internet Picnic was our attempt to answer a question: Could well-crafted, positively-toned content actually find an audience in the click-bait negativity hellscape of today’s Internet?
The answer was yes, but you couldn’t make any money on it.
Or at least, we couldn’t. If we quit our jobs and committed every second of our lives to the project, maybe it would’ve worked. But that wasn’t an option, and after about a year of pushing IP through the red, it was obvious the site couldn’t continue to exist as it was. To his credit, Jeremiah realized this first. My head was still in the clouds on the whole thing, as is my way, but he was able to pull me back to earth, as is his. (This left brain / right brain relationship with Jeremiah is, I suspect, why Internet Picnic ever worked in the first place and why much of our best work has been done together).
Thus, Internet Picnic quietly passed away, not with a bang but a bittersweet whimper. It was buried in the great digital graveyard, never, we thought, to be seen again.
ENTER: BRAD HENNIGAN
I met Brad my first night in improv comedy class. I’d signed up on a whim, and shortly thereafter found myself in a roomful of strangers blinking at each other and trying to remember how to be funny. The class was lead by Vinny Valdivia, who remains one of the best teachers I’ve ever had, be it in comedy or college, and while I found the craft fascinating I quickly realized it wasn’t for me (a solipsistic introvert and notorious rewriter going onstage to make up jokes on the fly, what could possibly go wrong?!). But that was okay, because here again my goal in trying improv wasn’t really about the thing itself, it was another experiment phrased as a question: Could I take the lessons of a form whose practices were worlds different from my own and use them to improve my work?
(The answer, it turned out, was a book called Dreams 4 Sale, which just so happens to be available now in paperback on Amazon. Buy one. Or thirty. It’s Christmastime, y’know.)
So narrow was my focus that I was blissfully, perhaps perfectly, unprepared for how the impact that class would actually have on me. Namely, in the form of Brad.
At a glance, I never would’ve predicted Brad and I would even be friends, forget creative partners on a years-long comedy show. Perhaps my superficialness is shameful, but, well, Brad didn’t exactly look like someone I would spend hours talking to about Batman and Tarantino movies. He was bigger than me – the build of a somebody who spent their high school years playing sports, not Playstation. He was older too, married. Owned a house. Dressed well. Meanwhile I was scraping by with a freelance career, a one-bedroom apartment, and two pairs of jeans. Socially, we were on different planes.
Laughter, though, is a hell of an equalizer. We did a lot of laughing in that class, and throughout dozens of episodes of the show. But more on that in a minute.
Walking back to our cars a few weeks into the class, Brad and I found ourselves alone in the parking lot, still yammering on about some nerdy thing or another after everyone else had gone. We were engaging in a friendship courting ritual well known to the geeks: Riffing on various topics as much to make each other laugh as to test the other’s knowledge. The trick is, you want to make sure the other guy knows his shit, but he can’t know your shit better than you do. It’s a test of will and dominance that has less in common with gladiatorial combat than it does canine ass sniffing.
Again, shameful. But c'est la vie.
It was then one of us – I think it was Brad, but it might’ve been me – said all this banter would make a good podcast, and the fuse was lit.
A few months later we met to talk about ideas. With no designs to bring it back, I told Brad about Internet Picnic, what its goal had been, and how what we were thinking of doing in a podcast was similar. It was Brad who had the idea to use the (limited, but existing) brand equity we had with IP to help ease the lift of launching the show – after all, we already had social accounts, logos, and a mascot. Jeremiah gave his blessing (and a slew of priceless design files and assets we would need), and soon it appeared the reports of Internet Picnic’s death had been greatly exaggerated.
We were back.
SECOND LIFE: THE PODCAST
Our first episode of Internet Picnic: The Podcast aired on April 17th, 2018. The last aired July 2nd, 2019. In between, IP’s second life mirrored its first to an almost eerie degree. Like the site, the show launched quietly and began to build, finding an audience – many of them the same folks who had followed us the first time around and were gracious enough to give us a second try – and connecting us to a network of hilarious, passionate people who showed us kindness and devotion to a level we could never have expected nor earned. Again I found myself collaborating with a sharp, funny, creative person and fostering a great friendship outside of the project, and again I was warmed by the idea that competent, positive content could be found and appreciated. Late in life people often ask, “If you could do it all over again, would you?” I was lucky enough to actually get that chance with Internet Picnic, and my answer was fuck yes.
But there’s always a but. If the show’s success was an echo of its past life, it only stands to reason its failure would be too. Again the cancer of sustainability began to eat at the podcast – which when you factored in gear and hosting fees and the like, was even more expensive to produce than the website had been – and the changing winds of life blew away much of the time we had to commit to our little engine that couldn’t propel itself. We pulled back, vowing to find a way to make the show work within our budgets and schedules. Maybe this time we were both in the clouds, but I think we did really believe we would bring the show back.
Last month, Brad announced he and his wife Marilee and their daughter are moving back up north to be closer to family and pursue new job opportunities. It kills me to see them go, but knowing what a positive change it will be for their family means not even my cynical ass can make a joke out of it. I love my friends and want what’s best for them, even if it means they have poor taste in geography. (Okay, so I can make one joke out of it.)
And so, Internet Picnic returns to the graveyard once more. Perhaps it’s naive of me as I’ve been proven wrong in the past, but I think it’ll stay there this time. Not because it’s a bad idea (I still happen to think it’s a rather good one) or couldn’t be made to work, but because it has fulfilled its purpose.
THE TREASURE
Twice in my life Internet Picnic has given me something to focus on when I needed it most, something to bleed into, something to share. It has introduced me to friends, gotten me jobs, and made possible so much of what I have done personally and professionally over the last almost four years. It helped me meet my girlfriend; allowed me to be there the moment Brad learned his child was about to be born; helped create an audience for my books. Without ever turning a dime, Internet Picnic has made my life better in more ways than I even realized when I sat down to write this. And if it sounds like I’m saying “the real treasure was the friendships we made along the way,” then fuck it, I am.
I am a better person / writer / creator / friend / weirdo because of the years I spent alongside my collaborators chasing this silly whimsy together, and if you ever read an article, listened to an episode, said hi at comicon, or played any part big or small: I say, thank you.
So then, here lies Internet Picnic, February, 2016 – November, 2019.
May it finally rest in peace.