Using a Humour Podcast to Break Down Stigma Around Illness

Abstract

What is Sickboy? This excerpt from the first episode of Sickboy was initially shared via a Kickstarter page in August 2015, and it immediately attracted media attention for doing something extraordinary. Sickboy can be seen as a cross-media production with a podcast series at its centre, which is complemented by a website and social media elements, like a blog, Patreon page and Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. Sickboy is a collaboration between Canadian-based friends Brian Stever, Jeremie Saunders and Taylor Macgillivary. The three men, all of whom are in their late twenties, record funny and inspiring conversations about living with sickness, with the aim of showing illness as something that can affect people in their youth. They relate their stories to the personal experiences of being young North Americans, and while Brian and Taylor are healthy, Jeremy lives with cystic fibrosis (CF). The weekly podcast was born after 153 people contributed more than 12,000 Canadian dollars on Kickstarter. Sickboy airs every Monday on Libsyn, iTunes, Soundcloud and Google Play. At the time of writing this text, there were 111 tracks in total. The podcast has 151 donors, who contribute over a 1,000 Canadian dollars per month on the collaborative funding site Patreon. Further, they have more than 2,000 followers on Twitter, over 6.5 thousand followers on Facebook and just under 6,000 followers on Instagram.

Speaking Shame and Laughing It Off: Using Humorous Narrative to Conquer the Shame of Anorectal Illness

“…Amusing anecdotes offer authenticity different from more conventional accounts as they allow narrators to vent complaints and ridicule, which distances them from their illness-related adversity (Iannarino, 2018a). They can also serve to empower, adding normalcy to the stories of marginalized patients (Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt & Buchholtz, 2018). Incorporating humor into illness stories can indicate that the narrators have become more reflective about their experiences and have carefully designed stories that better reveal their lives, a life that sometimes even hints at flaws in our culture (Iannarino, 2018b).…”

“…Incorporating humor into illness stories can indicate that the narrators have become more reflective about their experiences and have carefully designed stories that better reveal their lives, a life that sometimes even hints at flaws in our culture (Iannarino, 2018b). When patients share narratives, humor’s intimacy makes it easier to discuss suffering, drawing the storyteller closer to their audience (Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt & Buchholtz, 2018). Humorous illness narratives can also be used as persuasive strategies to reduce illness’s public stigma (Corrigan et al, 2014).…”

“…Many young people shared their experiences honestly from illness to recovery, using humor in their anecdotes to promote discussion of shameful topics. Humorous subcultural storytelling has shown potential for reducing illness’s psychological impact while promoting public awareness of the specific problems embedded in the illness experience (Iannarino, 2018a; Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt & Buchholtz, 2018).…”

Podcasting about yourself and challenging norms: An investigation of independent women podcasters in Denmark

“…Nordicom Review,43(1), 94-110. https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2022-0006 interactions with listeners, independent podcasters share characteristics with bloggers, YouTubers, and other types of user-generated content producers (Markman, 2012). Their participatory characteristics lead to offering and receiving support on diverse issues such as disabilities and illnesses (Collins, 2018;Meserko, 2014;Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt & Buchholtz, 2018), ethnic minorities (Vrikki & Malik, 2019), Blackness (Florini, 2017;Fox et al, 2020), and queer identities (Copeland, 2018;Fox, 2008;Zehelein, 2019).…”