Write some ideas down. Call some friends. Host a casual conversation. Record. Edit. Post. This process has been part of junior Charlie Speck’s routine for the past three months as he started his own podcast “Speck Speaks” with a couple of friends.

“Before I started this, I’ve always been mainly a sports person. I played a lot of baseball,” Speck said. “In terms of creative outlets, the podcast is probably like my very first creative project that I’ve invested time into.”

Speck always found podcasts fun, but it wasn’t until this summer that he decided that he needed something to do during quarantine, so he started his own.

“I listen to podcasts almost every day,” Speck said. “They’re a big part of my daily routine. Podcasts that I listen to are more like talk shows than anything, that’s kind of what inspired the one that I made, they just get me through the school day.”

Speck is a frequent listener to podcasts such as “Smartless,” “Beyond the Pine”, and ‘The Rooster Teeth,” so the decision to start his own was very natural and spontaneous. 

“I needed something to do and as I said earlier I listen to a lot of podcasts,” Speck said. “I was coming home from, I think we were in Florida during the summer,  and I was like ‘I’m gonna start a podcast’, and that was it.”

Speck uses a platform called Discord to call his co-hosts and guests, and in the spirit of talk shows, his podcast doesn’t require much planning. 

“It’s just me and a couple of my friends just having a conversation,” Speck said. “It used to be a lot more topic-driven, but now we’ve gotten more with the flow and just starting a conversation and keep going.”

In order to allow the podcast host life and the school life to coexist, Speck records the episodes every other week on a Friday night, so they don’t have school the next day and are able to edit everything during the weekend.

“I’m able to take a bit of time off school to do that,” Speck said. “I don’t think it really interferes much with school.”

Speck has an Instagram with the same name as the podcast to share the news on the episodes. Having a public podcast brings many rewarding moments that keeps him wanting to do more. 

“The most exciting part is seeing people spreading it around,” Speck said. “I like to see people spread the word about it and I like to see that people enjoy what we talked about, like YouTube comments saying ‘That’s a nice podcast’. I just like to see that kind of stuff.”