This Thursday the Phil decided to embrace the literary heritage of the Bram Stoker award by presenting it to the team behind My Dad Wrote a Porno, a podcast responsible for disseminating the Belinda Blinked series to the world — a ‘literary erotica’ written by ‘Rocky Flintstone’, the father of one of the presenters.
The podcast has a cult following of people eager to hear Jamie, Alice and James read out Jamie’s father’s descriptions of Belinda’s various exploits in the Steeles Pots and Pans marketing office. With over 80 million downloads and a book published, the podcast has certainly exploded.
Invited as part of the Phi’s Momentum Series celebrating young innovators in their field, Jamie Morton, Alice Levine and James Cooper spoke to a packed room about podcasts as an emerging medium, the nature of offensive comedy, and of course, Belinda Blumenthal’s majestic pomegranates.
The room was mostly comprised of fans, but even those who had never listened to the podcast were treated to a friendly atmosphere emulated by the speakers’ laid-back relationship with the audience.
They claimed their success in podcasting stemmed from the comedic treasure trove of the eponymous porno, but it soon became clear that they did not give their ability to play off each other enough credit. What was an hour felt more like ten minutes as the trio bantered amongst themselves, providing plenty of laughs for the audience.
The speakers were ideal candidates for the Momentum Series’ philosophy, as their foray in podcasting before it was ‘mainstream’ gave them creative freedom in content and format — despite podcasts growing exponentially in recent years they feel they are still evolving and uncommercialised, in a ‘pure’ form, so to speak.
Their success was also unexpected to them, they revealed, having only done the podcast ‘for them’, and also because the books were hilarious.
It was also undeniable that the speakers held great pride in the community the podcast has formed, created by ‘word of mouth’ in their opinion, Jamie noted that he was ‘surprised by how invested people get’ in the world of the books, with people frequently cosplaying as various unmentionable body parts at festivals and conventions.
One of the final questions of the event was the future of the podcast — what will come after the books are finished? Jamie revealed his father is still writing about Belinda’s escapades, and in fact has just started a screenplay, which they are all hoping desperately will be ‘shit’.
