Immigrantly Media Presents Banterly Podcast Dissecting Gen Z Pop Culture

When people converse about starting a podcast, they usually begin with "who will be in the podcast." That decision takes up the bulk of their planning process. Others -- perhaps those with a more acute sense of a game plan -- decide to reverse engineer the process and begin with a clear definition of their audience. In effect, "Who the hell is going to listen to our podcast and listen to us talk?"

After listening to the premiere episode of Banterly, I strongly suspect that the producers and hosts clearly delineated their audience. That target audience is Gen-Z.

The creators of the award-winning podcast Immigrantly have launched a new show for an under-served market: Gen-Z listeners who want to hear complex and critical conversations about pop culture. 

Perhaps the folks at Immigrantly Media have inspected the data I've reviewed numerous times. That listener data from PodTrac and others reveals that podcast growth is strongest among Millennials and Gen-Z listeners. The weakest demographic for podcast listening is people over 65. Technology challenges and ingrained media habits limit podcasts among older listeners.

The folks at Immigrantly Media note: "We know that Gen-Z podcast listeners are on the rise, but where can they get an analysis of the latest TikTok trends, contemporary films, and TV shows from people their own age? Enter Banterly."

Hosted by Aditi Misra, a Gen-Z comedian, and Aidan Taylor, a recent journalism grad, these two "banter" about pop culture and media analysis from "an unfiltered and socially conscious Gen-Z perspective."

Aditi Misra is a recent graduate from Barnard College, originally from Tampa, Florida. She does stand up around New York City and is part of a sketch group called Dem We Boys with her dearest friends (notably, the Boys). Her obsessions are lengthy, including John Mulaney, the NYC Ferry, and labor unions. Her biggest fear? Losing her Mort impression. And also bugs.

Aidan Taylor is a journalism graduate from NYU, hailing from St. Louis, Missouri. When he’s not writing, sleeping, or eating, you can find him watching every single Real Housewives show (besides Jersey), or rewatching the best show of all time, Glee. While he’s not a huge movie buff, The Goonies, Pitch Perfect, and Shiva Baby are his top three (in no particular order). His favorite dessert is chocolate chip cookies.

“Immigrantly’s focus on the importance of uplifting underrepresented voices inspired me to join their team as a co-host for Banterly,” said co-host Aditi Misra. “Our generation is constantly engaging with TV, movies, and trends, and we hope to do it in a way that brings diverse identities into the conversation. While I can’t wait to give my hot takes on these topics, I am mainly looking forward to what our listeners think. Banterly will ultimately be a two-way conversation, and I hope we all learn something new from it.”

Co-host Aidan Taylor shares, “I was drawn to Banterly and Immigrantly Media because of their mission of telling stories from often silenced communities. This new podcast is an exciting way
to engage with a younger generation, my generation, on pop-culture, something I have always been interested in, while also having those deep and important conversations tying back to our society as a whole. It’ll hopefully be a fun weekly escape for listeners from the craziness of the world, and they’ll end up laughing with us and maybe step away with a different perspective.”

I listened to the premiere episode that debuted on January 10th and genuinely enjoyed it. The co-hosts have solid chemistry, evident even after the first episode. Both hosts don't try to be funny, but instead allow the flow of conversation to dictate the humor. Their discussions on Taylor's Zillow Stalking, and Misra's ASMR dental devices are delightfully strange, yet so poignantly sincere. 

Their initial critique on the TV show Sex Education was comprehensive, incisive, yet casual and conversational.

The debut episode had superb sound design with simple yet effective intro music, rich, deeply resonant co-host voices and a clean sound throughout the episode.

Banterly is brought to you by Immigrantly Media, creators of the Immigrantly podcast and Invisible Hate. Funding for Banterly is supported by American Public Media Group (APMG). 

 Finally, just because Banterly is designed for Gen-Z listeners, that doesn't preclude other generations dialing in. I'm a Baby Boomer and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We all benefit when we reach out to other generations, races, people with different lifestyles, and those with disagree with.

At the end of the episode, the co-hosts do the typical "we want your feedback and here's how to do it" speech. Then Taylor made me laugh when he admitted, "Yeah, I don't handle negative feedback well." 

Oh, the honesty. It's refreshing.