Why won’t you date me? This is the question at the heart of Nicole Byers podcast, which bears the same name. Nicole Byer is a comedian, actor, and perpetually single resident of Las Angeles. Never having had a real romantic relationship, she explores topics related to the dating scene with her guests.
This podcast is very NSFW due to it’s sexually explicit content. Normally, that does not bother me as long as the sexual content serves a use beyond shock value. Unfortunately, I found some parts of Why Won’t You Date Me to be overindulgent in it’s sexual nature solely to produce shock value. This is best illustrated during the segments where Nicole reads her fan mail out loud, messages detailing outlandish sexual acts her fans would like to preform on her. Nicole encourages this behavior, and delights in the most ludicrous ones. I could argue that this does serve a purpose, that being entertainment, but I wonder who exactly the target audience for this kind of comedy.
The podcast as a whole is entertaining, some of the episodes are even preformed in front of a live audience. This answers my question of who Nicole’s target audience is, because her live shows are successful with loud applause and laughter, mostly containing women and gay men. Nicole actually does a bit in her live episode titled Running Into Past Flings where she locates the only straight, single male in her audience, and asks him if he will date her. His response is muffled, and Nicole interprets it as an unenthusiastic no.
While the podcast aims to discover the underlying reasons for Nicole’s maidenhood, topics vary from dating a man while he’s in prison, to therapy, navigating life as an actor/comedian, losing both of her parents, bad dates, dating apps, pornography, basketball, and being body positive. It is humorous, and Nicole has great chemistry with her guests, who offer a wide variety of insights behind dating and sex. I would classify the humor as self indulgent due to the ridiculous nature of the subject matter, which usually pokes fun at old flames or awkward sexual encounters. Ironically, for being a body positive activist, Nicole semi-regularly brings up flaws in other people’s appearance, such as men being short and bald and women looking “busted” when she sees them in person and not Instagram.
The original question of Nicole’s singleness takes the background in the most of the episodes, and it becomes apparent that the answer lies in her intimacy issues, not the lack of available partners interested in perusing a relationship with her. Because the content is so NSFW, I would only recommend this podcast for people who like hearing about explicit sexual encounters, though not all of them are the kind she receives in her fan mail. There is an aim at sexual education and liberation in a lot of the content they cover, specifically when her guests are part of the LGBTQ+ community, as they often are. This is one reason I would continue to listen to this podcast in the future. The upfront and non-apologetic take on sexuality is refreshing, and in regards to sexuality, this podcast is a zero judgement zone.
I liked this a lot! This is my first time reading one of your blog posts, and your topic for your passion blog seems really interesting. I like that you gave your true reaction to the podcast, and gave some criticism or expressed some parts you do not particularly care for. That makes it a lot more interesting than only writing about how great as a whole the podcast was. Awesome job! I am excited to read more of your posts in the future(: