Panic World - We're going independent

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

A little over a year ago, we had a big announcement — that we were adding video to the podcast with our partner Courier. Just as we go into the third year of exploring how the internet warps our minds, our culture, and eventually reality, we’ve got some more big news for you, which we’re really excited about. Speaking of, want to support the new Panic World… world? And get ad-free episodes, bonuses & exclusives, and some new wacky stuff we’re gonna be experimenting with? Sign up for a membership at https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ryan Broderick, we have some big news. We have some really big news. That's true. Yeah. So, as you may have noticed, we've had an irregular schedule this summer. We've been on a million side quests, and that's because we've been waiting to announce something really big. And all right, yeah, I'll just say it. Panic World is officially independent. I want to thank Courier for being our partner for the last year and change, but we are moving forward as a fully independent podcast, which is a little scary, but exciting. I'm excited.

We will be probably going through a bit of a midlife crisis over the next three to six months. Things will look different, sound different. We're going to be experimenting with all kinds of different things. but the major thing is that we can kind of control our own destiny in a way that is really exciting to us. Yeah, we wanted you guys to be our bosses again. And for like, you are our bosses. And that is thrilling. We want to be able to like focus on doubling down on like just the listeners and the people who have made it possible.

And so like if you're a paid subscriber, like, The way we're trading it is like we're in this to make you the happiest customer humanly possible because it is a direct connection of like what keeps the show going. Yeah. And I guess that takes us to the next part of this announcement, which is that we will be building out a pretty robust subscription offering. So we've had Patreon as our main hub for subscribers for Panic World for basically the whole time it's been running. One of the cool things that we've been talking about is kind of doing a reverse dropout, actually, which is there's a million places that let you subscribe for content. And so one idea that we've had forever was what if we just offered that everywhere?

In the same way we say, you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Very soon we'll be able to say, and you can subscribe wherever you want to subscribe. And that includes Beehive. for a long time there's been kind of a weird firewall between panic world and garbage day because of technical limitations that have ceased to exist this summer which is really exciting too so very soon you will be able to subscribe on beehive on patreon on Spotify on YouTube Apple Plus anywhere you want to do it and it supports the show which is great it will make it easier for you and only slightly more complicated uploading for us

And on top of that, we're going to be doing a lot more behind the paywall. We're going to be trying live streams, conference calls, exclusive videos. Like, we're going to throw a bunch of stuff at the wall. We want to hear from you what you like. We, as you can see, are in a studio. We'll be recording from this studio semi-regularly. As we build it out, we're sort of building the plane as we fly it. And on top of that, I should also say that we will be increasing our prices.

We're going to be doing a lot of great stuff, and we need slightly more money. So we're going to go up to $6.66 a month and $69 a year across all subscription platforms. Because we are a real business. Yeah. We are a modern media company. I think it's funny. It will also just give us a slight boost and allow us to do a few things that we've really wanted to do for a long time. I can't think of a funnier number higher than those numbers for now.

You can let us know. Lifetime guarantee of 9-11, you know, to honor the day that this show launched back in 2024 or whenever it was. Yeah, we never forget our anniversary. That's right. Never forget our anniversary. Jet fuel can't melt this podcast. So yeah, like I said, I think this is probably where our prices are going to land for a while because, like, we just can't think of a funnier number within a reasonable distance.

So yeah. Starting next week, we will be coming out with weekly episodes and some fun new announcements, but we'll be back to our regular cadence starting next week. For our existing Patreon audience, your monthly subscription will go up by $1.66 in whenever this month cycle is over for you. And for our yearly Patreon subscribers, that will go up at the end of your year cycle. So five days ago. was our anniversary and so we are going into year three

and um wow uh podcasts that are not like legacy podcasts and not just about like sports betting or hatred uh I guess you could say we're about hatred but it's a different kind of hatred

making it to a year three just doesn't really happen um when we launched I've never said this on microphone Ryan, who has a full-time job, was willing to give me days of his week that he was super happy about giving me for an extra job for zero money.

I decided this was going to be my last podcasting job. And I treated it as such. And I basically just didn't take work for the most part for the year and decided to work on the show pretty much cashed out my savings. I say this all to say, thank you guys so much. Like, this would, like,

I'm really excited for everything we're doing. We've tried to give you a professional product for each time and not be like, oh, we're just some guys doing this thing. Like, come help us. But, like, I just like, I'm really floored that this show. like has a community and that this has worked out to this point and that we get to do a year three

and like that does not um that like that has stayed with me to this point like i've made things that have you know like we're top of whatever and blah blah blah and like this is the most fun and rewarding thing i've ever done and it's because like i hear that people look forward to it week and week out and like that's fucking rare and just like seriously thank you and thank you for your extra dollar and 66 cents a month yeah i mean if i can peel back the curtain here too um you know we we spend we spend a lot of time before we launched the show talking about what we wanted the show to be like how we wanted people to engage with it and like a lot of that also just kind of got thrown out the window as you make the show and it starts to become its own thing and in the last

year, it's been hard to think about the future of the show because there are so many outside forces, both like in the entertainment industry and in the tech industry, trying to change the nature of podcasts. I'm sure some of you are watching this on a video right now. And, you know, we're barreling into a future where the word podcast just means talk show. Yeah. And it can be really hard to, prioritize a podcast and the podcast listening experience and the podcast experience, the concept of a podcast because there are, you know, short form video TV shows that only live on Instagram and win Emmys and, you know, all the rest of it. And so we, we spent the summer kind of plotting out the future of the show, plotting out the future of garbage media as a

company and what we want to do. And, and I happen to go to a journalism, conference like in the midst of all this and it was really it was really illuminating and sort of kind of lowered my blood pressure extremely quickly because I was talking to all these sort of media people and they kept saying you know things about their social channels and and streaming and the move away from cable news and all this and I kept telling them well you know we don't have a ton of pressure on us to do video or have a social media presence or any of that because garbage day and panic world both own their own distribution we we are the equivalent of a newspaper that can print its own issues we can email you we can message you and obviously there are some third party intermediaries but for the most part like we can we can reach our own audience that's really rare we don't have to fight metas or youtube's algorithm every time we want to get a video in front of you and that has made I guess like some of the arithmetic around like what we're doing different um It also means that like it's just a more enjoyable experience.

Like I'm, it's a, it's a happier experience. But yeah, this is all to say, I've spent way too much time this summer thinking about podcasts and videos and all the rest of it. And I think I've just come out of that and just thought, you know what? We have a really great deal here. Let's just have fun with it. And that's what we're going to do. And we're going to do that with an extra dollar and 66 cents a month.

from you guys. And it's this method works where we don't need to be the biggest show on YouTube or get the biggest. I mean, YouTube does not like us for whatever reason. I don't know what it is. Totally. We don't need to conform the topics to something that brands are going to feel the safest

about. And we can do all that because you guys gave a shit and continue to. And like we want to be in service of that. and having fun while driving Ryan and Stain. So more real episodes starting next week. We're back. We missed you. Let's fucking go.

Yeah.