When a Sleep Podcast Has an Existential Crisis (Review: Bread Week)
There is a very specific, deeply weird flavor of cognitive dissonance that hits when you're drifting off to a grown man rambling about Paul Hollywood’s cheetah-print shirt, only to realize he's quietly having a minor existential crisis about podcast monetization.
That’s the vibe of "Bread Week | Great British Bake You Off to Sleep S10/C7 Ep3."
It's an episode that does exactly what it says on the tin—it will bore you to absolute tears in the best way possible. Scoots (Drew Ackerman) is at his meandering, distractible peak here. He forgets names. He gets hung up on the definition of a "bap." He spends an inordinate amount of time narrating the proving drawer temperatures of a baking competition from years ago.
But beneath the sleepytime static, there’s something else going on. Something a lot of independent creators will recognize immediately.
The Great British Bake-Off, But Narcoleptic
If you've never listened to Sleep With Me, the premise is brilliantly stupid. Scoots takes something relatively mundane—in this case, Collection 7, Episode 3 of GBBO—and strips every ounce of dramatic tension out of it.
- The Baps: There is a solid ten minutes dedicated to veggie burger baps. What is a bap? Scoots doesn't entirely know. He just knows they require vegetarian lard.
- The Handshake: Michael gets the coveted Paul Hollywood handshake for a chili coconut star bread. Scoots narrates this monumental television event with the energy of a man reading an iOS software update changelog.
- The Showstoppers: Bread safaris. Breads shaped like African masks. A literal bread globe. All described with a dull, soothing lack of enthusiasm.
It works. It really does. Your brain just... gives up trying to hold onto the narrative. You let go.
The Creator's Conundrum
But I couldn't completely let go this time. Because bookending this delightfully tedious recap is a brutally honest peek behind the curtain.
Scoots sounds exhausted. Not the performative, put-on "sleepy" exhausted of the show's gimmick, but the bone-deep weariness of a guy who has made over 550 free, hour-long episodes and is staring down the barrel of indie podcasting economics.
He's actively polling his audience (sleepwithmepodcast.com/listen, if you're curious) trying to figure out why people don't support the Patreon. And he's doing it with this heartbreaking, tiptoeing apology—terrified that by asking for the money he needs to keep the show alive, he's going to stress out the very listeners he's trying to put to sleep.
Golden Nugget: "I'm so concerned with keeping the show going, it's almost making it impossible to keep it going. And maybe pushing people away, which I don't want to do."
Oof. Right in the gut.
We consume so much free content now that we just assume it materializes out of thin air. We hit play, we fall asleep, we wake up, and we never think about the server costs or the burnout. Scoots is literally asking the void, When I ask for help, do you just think 'someone else has it covered'?
Yes, Scoots. They probably do. That's the bystander effect of the creator economy.
It's a strange thing to review an episode designed to be ignored. But maybe don't ignore the first and last ten minutes of this one. Answer his survey. Throw a few bucks in the tip jar. He's earned it, if only for managing to make reality television sound this beautifully, wonderfully boring.
Listen to Bedtime Stories to Bore You Asleep from Sleep With Me: https://podranker.com/podcast/sleep-to-strange