The Anthropocene Reviewed reviewed

Many people know of John Green as a prolific author, YouTuber, and podcaster. His biggest podcast, Dear Hank and John, is a respectable advice-giving show hosted by John and his brother, who has an equally impressive resume. The Anthropocene Reviewed is more of a solo venture. 

The Anthropocene is the semi-official name for the current geologic age, on which humans have a huge impact. This is what John Green is reviewing in this podcast — an aspect of history which humans have impacted, out of five stars, two per episode, starting with ‘Canada Geese and Diet Dr Pepper’. The episode was pretty interesting, and I certainly know a lot more about both of these phenomena than I did when I started. Who knew that Canada Geese have bounced back from near extinction in the 1960s to be considered a pest in some parts of the USA today, or that Dr Pepper is the only soft drink not based on a pre-existing flavour?

He manages to make inane-seeming topics vaguely entertaining

While not truly John Green’s goal, I have long loved the idea of rating every single thing. On an episode of The Unmade Podcast, Brady Haran and Tim Hein do a similar task one episode, rating things and compiling a list from best to worst. A single list ranking the country of Australia in the same competition as vitamin D supplements or the stickers you get at a polling booth is hilarious, at least to me, but this humour doesn’t detract from the fact that I’m actually very interested by how closely these completely unrelated things are ranked. 

Single-person podcasts are a rarity, and this is probably for good reason, but I don’t hate them. I am not a great podcaster by any stretch of the imagination, but I think I would be an especially poor solo podcaster. The types of people who actually commit to making this kind of content however, at least those successful enough that I hear of them, are obviously pretty good at it. The Blindboy Podcast and So… Alright are the only other shows like this I’ve experienced, although they are both much more personal and less educational than this show. John Green speaks in the third person, but with such confidence and humour that he manages to make inane-seeming topics (I don’t even like geese or Dr Pepper) vaguely entertaining, at least for 20 minutes or so.

Limited series podcasts are far more commonplace than they used to be

This podcast ran for 36 episodes — not many for four years of podcasting by such an accomplished professional. It was popular but John Green decided to turn the idea into a book instead. The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centred Planet came out in 2021. It is John Green’s first non-fiction book and is now very near the top of my Want to Read list. Apparently, the book is more personal than the podcast, with first-person narration (due to John Green’s wife pointing out he does not exist outside the Anthropocene) and some tales from his own life. If the podcast was hundreds of episodes long, I think I would jump ship and skip to the book, but as there are so few (and they’re all nice and short), I think I’ll stick with it. Limited series podcasts are far more commonplace than they used to be, so I would happily recommend this show and I suspect the fact that it ended two years ago would not bother the majority of modern podcast listeners.