Hope students create original podcast

DEFINITELY FUNNY — Arnoult and Peecher show off their
improvisation skills in their own original podcasts. (Abbey Peecher)

Hope College students Ashley Arnoult (’19) and Abbey Peecher (’18) may seem like typical funny college friends, but recently they’ve taken their funniness to a whole new level by recording themselves for the entire world to hear. The pair has created a podcast, entitled “This Is Definitely A Podcast,” which can be listened to for free on SoundCloud and iTunes.

The pair begins each podcast by saying, “This started as a goof, and now it’s real.” However, plans for the podcast were actually more thought out, as Arnoult and Peecher started organizing the project back in November of last year.

“There are things that you talk to friends about doing, but no friend actually says, ‘Let’s make that happen!,’” Arnoult said.

“We both have ideas like that that we want to start with friends, but it never follows through,” Peecher said. “We came up with this idea and said, ‘But we actually have to do it.’”

Arnoult and Peecher’s podcast now consists of seven episodes, and listeners can see that they are in for belly laughter just by reading each title. For example, “NASA: Not Anybody’s Ski Association,” “Funky Cannibal Hamster Boy” and “The Bachelor But With Puppies” are a few of the episodes listeners have to choose from.

“We inform, we advise, but mostly we goof,” is the podcast’s mantra, but the pair’s goofing does take a while to prepare. The pair creates a loose outline for each episode before recording and improving.

In the outline, they have to plan different “bits” that will appear in the show. These original bits range from “Hey, Listen!,” where the two take a silly Buzzfeed headline and guess what the entire article is about, to “Give It A Rest!,” they over-analyze song lyrics.

In past episodes, Arnoult and Peecher have examined various songs, including Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” and the Jonas Brothers’ throwback “Year 3000.”

The duo also ends each episode with a funny informative bit, reading aloud scientific and historical facts with absolutely no context. For example, at the end of their episode called “Peep the Rantween,” Peecher informed listeners, “Did you know that the human body contains enough bones to make an entire skeleton?”

“That’s awesome,” Arnoult replies seriously before playing their outro music.

This signature farewell allows listeners to expand their knowledge on a wide array of subjects. Short snippets of information are easier to remember, too.

Their silliness is gaining serious popularity as well. For example, the pair’s first podcast episode, entitled “Amateur Hour,” which premiered a month ago already has over 250 views on SoundCloud.

“When we initially put it out there, it was more just for us to do something fun,” Arnoult said.

“Yeah, I thought that maybe 20 people would listen to it,” Peecher said. “That was very optimistic in our eyes. Then around 100 people listened to it within the first two days.”

With their newfound success, the pair isn’t stopping. “Podcasts are like hanging out with people for introverts,” Peecher said. “We just want to make people laugh.”

Hope students who want to check out “This Is Definitely A Podcast” can look up episodes on SoundCloud and iTunes. The pair is on social media as well; they can be found on Twitter under the username @TIDAPodcast and on Instagram under the username @tidapodcast.

Also, listeners are encouraged to send in random headlines to be analyzed for “Hey, Listen!” at tidapodcast@gmail.com.