im seeing a lot of (good) posts regarding specific fiction podcasts and problems with race - both from creators and fandom - and while this isnt mean to generalize the different problems between each Popular Tumblr Podcast(tm) into one big issue, i think the fact that these patterns keep repeating themselves is due to the people podcasts tend to attract, as well as the medium itself
almost everything ive heard so far thats left a big enough fandom footprint often has majority white (and if not, frequently non-black/brown) creators, artists, and usually vas, producing narratives through a medium that is devoid of visuals, thereby allowing their (again, majority white and if not, again frequently non-black/brown!) audience to piece together their own representations that are influenced by their implicit racist biases. if race is ever made apparent (which it rarely is) its either fumbled by creators through ‘official’ representations, their approach to word-of-god appearances to allow for fan whitewashing, or blind (at best) and blatantly inconsiderate voice casting - all of which is almost always taken by a white audience that further bastardizes the content with racist stereotypes
im by no means completely able, or perhaps the best person, to further this conversation, but this is a trend that specifically cycles through podcast fandoms to an insidious degree, and its honestly disheartening to see people get buried for discussing these issues to the point we cant recognize where these patterns are coming from
