2024 End of Year Update. What's Next for the Fandom Portals Podcast in 2025?

FANDOM SHORTS: This episode balances Aaron's personal reflections with exciting announcements for the future of Fandom Portals, including the introduction of a new co-host and engaging Fandom Shorts episodes. 

It emphasises the importance of family, community interaction, and the impact of fandoms on personal growth, encouraging listener participation through social media and movie challenges. 

• Aaron shares reflections on gratitude and family time 
• Introduction of the Fandom Shorts episodes for 2025 
• Announcement of a new co-host
• Encouragement to engage with Letterboxd and community activities 
• Insights into upcoming monthly movie challenges 

Contact Us:

Instagram: instagram.com/fandomportals/?locale=en
Threads: threads.net/@fandomportals
Email: fandomportals@gmail.com
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/fandomportals/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Fandom Portals podcast. This is the podcast that explores how fandoms can help you learn and grow. I'm your host, aaron Davies, and guys. It has been a while. I haven't released any episodes, basically because I got pretty badly injured playing my favorite game, which is Gridiron. I'm't released any episodes basically because I got pretty badly injured playing my favorite game, which is Gridiron. I'm an Australian Gridiron player and I hurt my head pretty bad. So I've been offline for a little while. But I thought I'd give you a little bit of a show update while we're in that little bit of a gray area between the days of Christmas and New Year of 2024. So in this fandom short episode, I hope to give you some podcast announcements and to tell you what is on the horizon for 2025. So, if you're listening to this podcast, thank you so much for sticking around. Thank you so much for being part of the fandom portals community. You guys are still a big and amazing part of this show.

Speaker 1: 1:00

So, before we get any further along, I want to start off by saying some gratitudes and growths. So it is the season around this time of the year where people start to reflect, and one of the things that I've been really grateful for lately is just time to be with family. Christmas is a time where that should be foregrounded, and it's just been a really great time for me to be present with my kids I work away a little bit sometimes and being able to spend some time with them and do some things with them and see the happiness on their face during this time because all they really ask for is our time it's been really heartwarming to me and it's really good for recharging and it's great for me to really just sort of connect with them and be present for them and see them grow and change, because it's time that you'll you'll never get back. So for me, my gratitude for this week is that I am extremely grateful to have, uh, present time with with my kids. So, with that being said, moving on to our podcast announcements announcements, all right.

Speaker 1: 2:07

So this is a new sort of format of episode that we're going to be doing sporadically throughout our run in 2025, called the Fandom Shorts. So if you see a short episode running through your podcast feed, as a person who follows the Fandom Portals podcast, then you can expect that we're going to be here to talk about our monthly Letterboxd challenges and wrap-ups. You might also hear a little bit about the 2025 Hall of Fame that we're going to be doing for the Fandom Portals podcast, which involves myself and our co-host, which I'll go on to a little bit later talking about some of the movies that we will be discussing this year and then also ranking them in a system that allows us to pick out the best movie of 2025. This time next year. You also might be listening to a fandom shorts episode that talks about a like a what are we watching? Sort of segment, where me and my co-host just sort of talk and discuss the things that we're watching and how we're feeling about those and what we're enjoying and what we're not, and that is just a really good way for you to connect and get to know myself and the new co-host as well. You might also see, through these fandom shorts, some movie reviews. You might see some solo hosted episodes where I'm answering some community questions. Just like the previous 15 episodes of the Fandom Portals podcast, I still really enjoy deep diving and researching into some of those amazing topics that the community gives us and also some of the topics that are just really burning in my mind. So if you ever see on your feed one of those Fandom Shorts episodes, then that's what you can expect from us there. So that's one of the big announcements coming in 2025 is that we're going to be dropping, in an irregular fashion, some Fandom Shorts episodes, just as a little bonus, just as a little thank you, and whenever we have the time to give you some more content, we definitely will here at Fandom Portals.

Speaker 1: 3:57

The next thing that I wanted to talk to you guys about is that we are getting a new co-host. So the co-host that is going to be joining is I won't reveal it yet, I'll leave it for the first episode that we'll be releasing with them, but I figured it was time to get one, because I really like the social aspect of fandoms, as you can tell by the community engagement focus that we have here at the podcast, and I thought what better way than to talk with a really good friend about the media that we're sort of consuming and the way that it kind of helps us learn and helps us grow as people? As a focus for the Fandom Portals podcast episode, the co-host and I will be talking about those things and we'll be encouraging the community to get involved behind those things as well. Basically, each episode we will release weekly and we'll take a piece of media and find out what lessons we can apply to our life from that media, or we'll answer some burning questions, or we might even go behind the scenes and go into a bit of a deep dive research on some of the favorite fandoms or moments on that piece of media. As well as always, those pieces of media are up for discussion.

Speaker 1: 5:10

If you wanted to contribute or you wanted us to talk about something in particular, you can definitely go and suggest or recommend something by going and connecting with us on our social media. So that is threads, or Instagram is what we're most active on, but we're also active on the email as well. Those addresses will be in the show notes below, but we're basically at fandom portals on everything. So if you go and find us there and connect with us and you give us a recommendation for something that you want us to watch, then we can definitely make an episode about that as per your request. When will those episodes be drawn? The 8th of January, and we'll be dropping them every Wednesday after that. So that is a weekly drop schedule. On Wednesday it's also Australian Eastern Standard Time that that is going to be dropping. So if you're US listeners, that's going to be a Thursday for you guys, and we can't wait to hear from you guys after those episodes as well. So on a Thursday or a Friday, if you're a US person, jump on those social medias after you hear the episode and we are ready to discuss them there.

Speaker 1: 6:05

The next big announcement that I can let you guys know about for the fandom portals podcast is we have started to be really big on letterboxd. If you're not familiar with letterboxd, it's a movie rating and review app and it's really awesome for giving those five-star reviews engaging with community. It's like imd, but with the social media aspect. So if that interests you, definitely go and connect with us on there. Create your own account. It is free. They do have some paid tiers for it as well, but the very base one is absolutely free. You can use all the functionalities of it for free there and come and follow us and we'll follow you back, and it's basically where we will be posting a lot of our reviews, a lot of our different sort of watching habits as well.

Speaker 1: 6:42

My co-host and I will also create some lists or challenges that we'd like our fans to do and that we will be participating in ourselves. So when I talked before about the shorts episodes and we'll be talking about some of those letterbox challenges and wrap-ups, basically what's going to happen is, each month, we'll select eight to 12 movies, depending on how busy we are and our job is going to be to watch them, and at the end of every month, we'll post a short episode about the movies that we found that was the best, the worst, the most surprising and also the ones that probably taught us the most. So that's going to be a little bit of a shorts episode in relation to our letterboxd challenges, and we invite you to go on those challenges with us as well. So it's 8 8 to 12 movies. We picked this because both myself and the co-host we work full time and movies is something that we do as part of our recreation time, so we don't want to burden ourselves by making this challenge something that is going to be arduous or something that's going to detract from the fun of actually sitting down and enjoying a piece of content instead of using it for what it's meant to be used for as well. All right, so that's all the announcements that we have here.

Speaker 1: 7:46

I just thought I'd touch in quickly with the Fandom Portals podcast to tell you guys exactly what is coming up in 2025. You're going to hear from us very, very soon and stay posted. We're going to drop the identity of our new co-host very, very shortly. We're very excited for them to join. All right, the final segment of the fandom portals podcast from now on will always be a portals pick, and this is where I will tell you guys my recommendation for you guys for the week or until you hear from me again.

Speaker 1: 8:18

So, as I said at the start of this podcast, this is the bermuda triangle week, as some millennials call it. It's the week where christmas has ended and new year's is something that we're waiting for and time doesn't exist and a lot of people are off work. So everybody has time and with that amount of time, I think there is no better thing for you to watch than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the extended edition. If you're in a place that is experiencing winter right now, then it's definitely got some feels and some comfort vibes for that. But if you're also experiencing somewhere like Australia that has summer, then you definitely want to spend some time in the air conditioning out of the heat as well.

Speaker 1: 8:54

So the Lord of the Rings trilogy, peter Jackson, it is timeless. Those movies came out almost 25 years ago and the CGI and all of them still hold up to this day. Award-winning movies, fantastic cast, emotional tugs throughout the entire saga, extended edition or nothing. And if you can see it in 4K HD, do that. They've recently released those for physical media as well, and if not, I do believe they are also available on Prime in Australia. I may be mistaken by that, but you can find it on a lot of streaming services as well. So go and watch Lord of the Rings. Appreciate some fantasy culture, guys. And that is Aaron signing off. We hope that you guys are excited as we are for the 2025 run of the Fandom Portals podcast, and if you are as excited as we are, make sure you share our episodes or join us on our social media. As I said before, we're everywhere at Fandam Portals and we look forward to seeing you guys in the new year. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.