As The Raven Dreams Podcast - Podcast Updates - RE: Advertising, Topics, AI, and Other Stuff Because I Talk Too Much

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

Today I wanted to talk to you lovely folks about a few things that I've seen in my comments- things that have been mentioned that, maybe, I should give a broad response to. Will those people making those comments see this? Maybe, maybe not. What matters is that I tried 🙂 Today's Topics... Ads Are Loud and Obnoxious Too many Ads Ads Are Inappropriate Don't Mix Topics More AI Accusations I Suck At Narrating/Just Read Posts From The Internet Creepypasta? Ask Me Anything/Postcard Swap Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Publié. Savoy. Admirate. And profite. Villaray, the voice that we love that we love. Hello there, friends. Hope you are doing well on whatever day of the week it is you happen to be listening to this. I'm doing okay overall. Kind of feeling a little under the weather, but that's kind of what happens. Spent some time in public recently, and that's always tends to make me not feel my best, but it'll be okay.

I said, hopefully you're doing well. So it feels like I just did one of these. I'm not going to go look up when I did it, because I've done a lot of episodes since then, posting every three days, previously two to three times a week, is, it kind of starts to build up the number of episodes you do. I guess I could go look.

Hang on, let me go check. All right, went and checked. Last time I did one of these was August 27th of last year. so almost a year and a month exactly. And maybe I'm going to have to do these updates every once in a while as people come in that are new or start to comment or things go wrong. I don't know.

So what is this episode? This is me addressing a few things that I've noticed in my comments, as well as a few other things, that I feel like me commenting on them one at a time is not accomplishing what I wanted to accomplish. So I've made a very short list.

I say short with stress there because last time I did one of these it was 10 minutes long and this one probably will be too and no one will listen to it but that's okay or they'll listen to it and we'll pay attention to it. Maybe some of you guys will actually listen and understand what I'm saying and it'll

mean something but I don't know. Who knows? What am I saying things stuff? Off the cusp just talking and explaining some things like I said that I've been noticing in my comments. So let me start by addressing one thing specifically. Advertising. There are three specific things I want to cover an advertising on this. Advertising on my podcast is how I make money from my work. Okay. That money

helps me pay my bills, puts gas in my car for whenever I have to go somewhere, buys food at the grocery store, allows me to be a participant in my local economy, if you will. I do not live a lavish lifestyle. I try to live within lower means. I always have. I've never had money. And that has instilled a sense of don't spend too much in my brain. And I have student loans. So my point is, advertising on my podcast, putting adverts in my podcast episodes, is how I make money. That is how I pay my bills. And some of you may say it's not a real job. And that's fine. You are welcome and entitled to that opinion, but it is a real job. It is entertainment for people who listen. I make money. I pay taxes. I pay a good amount of taxes, actually, because I'm technically

self-employed. I pay a not insignificant amount in taxes every quarter. So my point is, it's a real job and this is how I make my money. Okay. That's just kind of the way I need to start that. The next part of this is people coming in and complaining that the ads on my podcast are loud or obnoxious. This is not the first time this has been reported to me. This is reported back in August. This is what actually got that episode, that update that I made going. So if you encounter an ad that is significantly louder than the podcast, you need to report it to Spotify. I, Raven, this one-man team here,

I do not control the volume that adds play on my podcast. I have increased the volume of my content a lot. My Dark Dreams episodes are significantly louder. I amplify those by over four decibels, which whenever I'm listening to it on my side, almost clips past zero. My normal content, I have set up to, or my new content, my newer stories,

I have set those up to be amplified and normalized at, I think, negative two or negative three. My point is, I'm almost clipping pass zero. There is nothing more I can do on my end to make my content louder and not make it explode in your ears and give you a headache. So my point is, if you encounter an advertisement that is louder than my content, significantly, mind you, slightly louder, I can't do much about that.

Significantly, you need to report it to your podcast platform. in this case for the most part that's Spotify. Please report it to Spotify. Um, yeah. I don't control the volume of the ads at play. Yeah. The second thing I've gotten comments about recently, which is really something that I guess I need to address further,

is that people have gotten ads that are, in their opinion, inappropriate. There was one person in particular who left a comment about an ad that got that I won't discuss specifically, I'll just say it was political, and I think a few people have gotten this advertisement. I do not choose which advertisements play in my podcast. And if you have this mindset that I can click a button and say, play this political ad, play gambling ad, play adult content ad, then you are incredibly incorrect. I do not choose what ads play on a podcast. The only thing that I can do is clicking the timeline on my studio. and hit insert advertisement.

That's it. It's a timeline. I choose the time they play. I don't choose what plays, what topics, what specific things. So, if you have an advertisement

that you find to be inappropriate, you know what I'm going to say, report it to the platform. Because I don't control that. If I had a say in that, I would not play political ads on my podcast. I'm not a political podcast. I do not talk politics on this podcast.

And I won't. I don't for a reason. This podcast is, for some people, an escape from reality. And I accept that that is my part in this entertainment industry, I suppose, that I'm now a part of. I do not talk politics because, again, I accept that escapism is necessary for some people, and I would like to give that to them, even if it's through scary stories. So, just, I don't choose if you get a political ad. advertisements are completely algorithmic.

For instance, myself, being a white male in the Midwest, in my 30s, I get political ads on YouTube if I'm not logged into my account. I get political ads on random websites because I'm a white male in my 30s that lives in the Midwest. That's easily targetable for political advertising. I don't like them. If I could choose to never have them play again, I would. but just understand I don't do that. It's not me doing that. Another thing with advertising.

For some reason, and I don't understand this whatsoever, I'm getting comments that I play too many advertisements. Okay. Or let me phrase that. Too many advertisements or that I shouldn't play advertisements in my episodes at all. Again, I would like to go back to where I said, this is how I make my money and pay for food, bills, you know, my place to live, student loans that I don't want to default on because, you know, I

trying to pay them. Um, so I'm going to continue to put advertisements in my episodes. Um, but the other part of that is, I keep my advertisements to a minimum. In the Dark Dreams episodes, I put one ad after the first story. I've done that for a while. Just like, first story, no matter where it is, it's usually between five and 12 minutes. Click right there in little dead air, insert advertisement. That's what I do. On my normal episodes, I typically put two ads, one after the first story and one close to the middle

or close to the middle or after two thirds of the video have, or two thirds of the episode have played. I try to keep that those separated as best as possible. But again, I do one to two like per episode. The other thing is I put the times for my advertisements in the descriptions.

I've done that for a long time because someone started asking me for timestamps. I'm like, if I'm going to timestamp the stories, I may as well just put, hey, add after story one and story five. You know, I've tried to do that for your sake, so you're not surprised whenever five stories I've played and there's another advertisement.

You can at least see it coming to some extent. So I don't understand how people are saying I play too many ads. that one's weird to me. And maybe somebody can help explain in the comments. If you want to leave a comment and help explain what you mean by that, I would love to hear you out

because I just don't see that. Moving on from advertisements. Another thing I've gotten to comment about is how I mix topics in the stories and how people for some reason don't like that. Unfortunately, that's not going to change. If I were to not mix topics and just do it like I do in my YouTube channel

where it's one topic per video, and make it one topic per episode, my episodes would be 30, 45 minutes long at most. I prefer the hour and a half, or sorry, hour to hour and a half long episodes. And I know that longer form content works better for you guys. Like, I have been told by people since I started doing that

and since comments became a thing over here, that they prefer and appreciate the longer form content. So it's, you know, two YouTube videos per one episode of podcast. which makes it an hour to an hour and 20 hour and a half somewhere in there. I guess I could see how mixing topics can make people a little unhappy, I guess. But again, I don't see why it's a big deal. I guess maybe it's a little weird to get like, oh, theme park stories and paranormal encounters. That could be a little jarring, maybe, but again, I don't mix things that are like super opposites.

like I'm not out here doing like past life stories and Jim stalker stories at the same time. That would be weird, right? I try to, I try to keep the videos, the episodes, the two videos per episode, like kind of theme to some extent. Not always. Sometimes it just doesn't work out. But I don't know. I've been trying to be better about that. But also, I don't know.

Is this really a problem? I guess I have to ask. If not, or if so, let me know. I don't know how I'll fix it. but the only solution I can come up with is make them shorter and make them one topic of time. Is that what you guys want? Do you all want shorter episodes, half hour episodes

instead of my hour long to hour and a half? I don't think that's what you want, but maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Next subject is one I've talked about before. And I always make, or poke jabs at people to make these comments about me being an AI generated voice, Again, still not AI generated.

Still me. Still the same dude I've been for five years. I don't understand how people can listen to my content and think that if I were to do an AI generated voice, that I would use this voice to do it. It is what it is. It's just, I wanted to address that because it's always so funny to me that. People just screech that everything is AI. I understand that AI generated content is a big problem. I don't know how big of a problem it is over here on Spotify on YouTube.

It's a disgustingly huge issue for us narrators. Like those channels just pop up by the hundreds nonstop. And maybe that's the thing over here too. I don't know. But if you're going to accuse someone of being AI, like scroll back through the episodes. And if you can see they've been doing this for five years, don't.

And listen to like their first episodes. If they sound the same or similar, maybe don't think their AI. That's just silly to me. Um... There's something else here now. Something new. From.

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From, binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. Besides, if I was AI, I would sound like Mr. Nightmare or Let's Read or, you know, someone like that with a deeper, more masculine voice. Yeah, let's go Dr. Creepin. Let's do the British accent. Is he British? I don't remember if he's British or not. I think he's British. I literally talked to the man in, like, not in person, but one to one on Discord.

And I don't remember if he's British. I am a horrible person. Anyway, another comment I've got that I want to address because, okay. um is that i suck at narrating and that i just read post from the internet and i'm not good at it and uh you're right i suck at this so tusha um people are silly guys i don't know okay so i've gone on long enough i don't have any of the topics i just guess i have two things i want to address not not addressed two things i want to like mention and ask about and if you've listened to this point wow what are you doing with your day i'm joking i'm joking thank you um one thing i want to ask about is

I am considering doing more fiction stories, a few more creepypasta stories. I've done them in the past. I've written them. I mean, I am an author. I don't if you guys know that. I have a book out. It's called The Insomniacs Experiment.

I pushed it in my description in my podcast for a while. But anyway, I'm thinking about doing some more creepypastas. If I were to do these, and this is to tell you, they would be one clearly marked as creepy pasta, as fiction.

they will be clearly marked as fiction and two they will not take place of other content so my every three days content would continue being what it is and if I did them this would happen like on day two or day one in between regular episodes I guess I just want to ask if that's something you guys would be interested in I don't want to start a whole new channel

or whole new podcast just for fiction but if enough of you guys have a problem with me doing fiction over here I will if that makes sense I don't want to intermingle them if it will be a problem for people. And then the last thing I want to discuss or mention, a few years ago, I didn't ask me anything, which is basically you submit a question to me. I answer the question.

My audience has grown on this side and on YouTube quite a bit since then. So I was wondering, is that something you guys have been interested? Do you guys care about, like, me as a person? and to know things about me as a person. Obviously, I'm not going to be throwing out like my first last name, my, you know, social security number, birth date, home address.

I'm not going to be giving you all. I'm not going to docks myself. But if you guys wanted to ask me something like a personal question or things about just life, I'd probably answer it. So if you're interested in the ask, in doing an ask me anything again, like I said, it's been two years.

So if you're interested, let me know. I'll set up the Google form again for you guys to submit questions. If not, totally cool. The other part of that is two years ago I also did a postcard swap. I had a PO box, and I don't think I mentioned it over here much, but on YouTube I did. Basically, if you send a postcard to my PO box and I get it, that's kind of a big problem. I have to get it.

There were a few where informed delivery told me I was getting them, and then I never did. Because USPS is great. Um, anyways, would you guys be interested in doing a postcard swap near the end or beginning of the year? If so, let me know. I have some postcards that I've made. They're prints, the little photo prints. I have photo prints that I made that I will send as postcards to people who are interested. I don't mind paying for the postage.

That's fine by me. I have a PO box here now in Minnesota, so I'll do that. I'll set that up, too. That was a lot. Almost 20 minutes, which is too long for me to be talking. Anyway, hopefully you guys can let me know. Let me know in the comments if you're on a platform where there is comments. Spotify.

If you're not on Spotify and you want to answer these questions or want to respond to anything, email me. As the Raven Dreams at gmail.com. I will get your email. I will read it and I will respond if I feel like it's worthy of response. If your email is just you suck your AI, I might respond to that one too. Who knows? My point is, let me know. I look to you guys for guidance because without you, I wouldn't be where I am. So it's important to understand in my head that while this is my job, my content, my creative outlet, it's you guys that allow me to do it full time. So I want

your input. Does that make sense? Hopefully so. Anyway, hope you're all having a great week. Hope I see you again here very soon. Next podcast episode is actually on Saturday the 27th, so we won't see it for two more days. But until then, my friends, just remember that you're loved, you're valid, and you are important, and the world's a better place with you in it.

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