- "How Did We Get Here? The audio roadtrip that has no breaks."— Tagline
How Did We Get Here? is a podcast created and hosted by YouTubers Zak Zeeks, aka CONEY
, and Jacob Rabon IV, aka Alpharad. Described as an "audio roadtrip with no breaks", the podcast is made up of Jacob and Zak discussing a specific topic each episode. Their discussions usually quickly go off topic and take them on various strange tangents. The first episode premiered in October, 2021 and the series generally updates weekly. It can be found here on Spotify.
On December 31, 2022, they released the finale of the first season, "The End of the Road (Trip)", putting the series on an indefinite hiatus.
This podcast provides examples of:
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: The podcast is based upon this idea, as they constantly get off topic and don't stay on any given topic for much time. Jacob has stated that he has ADHD and joked that this podcast was based on it.
- Bait-and-Switch: The title of "The Capitalist Sovereignty of an Eternal Rat" makes it sound like the episode is about Mickey Mouse, when the actual topic is Chuck E. Cheese.
- Blatant Lies: In some of the early episodes, Jacob and Zak would advertise the podcast's Twitter account, yet this account did not exist.
- Car Fu: In "The Divine Multitude of Vehicular Manslaughter", Jacob discusses having taken part in a demolition derby. It was a painful experience.
- Celeb Crush: "The Banal Melancholy of Celebrity Crushes" features a discussion of Jacob and Zak's celebrity crushes.
- The Gambling Addict: Jacob loves gambling, which led to him spending hundreds of dollars on Pokémon cards to find the rarest cards.
- Kids Are Cruel: Discussed in "The Intrinsic Mendacity of Prepubescence". They talk about how often children lie or say rude things for no reason.
- My Beloved Smother: Jacob describes his own mother as this, saying that she was overly strict and protective.
- Non-Indicative Name: Many episodes have little to do with their title because the discussion veers in a wildly different direction than what was intended.
- Odd Name Out: Every episode has a Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness title, except for one just titled "Smash Bros"
- Running Gag:
- Any time someone says the word topic, a a robotic sounding filter is placed on their voice.
- Advertising their nonexistent Twitter account.
- The hosts almost always say the tagline wrong at the start of each episode.
- Seinfeldian Conversation: Jacob and Zak often have long conversations or rants about random topics.
- Self-Deprecation: The hosts often make jokes about how the podcast rarely stays on schedule.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The titles use difficult vocabulary and scientific language to describe what the central topic of every episode is.
- Sexbot: Much of "The Divine Multitude of Vehicular Manslaughter" is a discussion of sex robots and their technological potential.
- Shout-Out: Zak and Jacob constantly discuss and reference other media. Some episodes are centered on specific works. For instance, "The Law-Abiding Technicality of Remote Execution (Anime)" is about Death Note and "The Lucrative Miracle of the Fortnite Zeitgeist" is about Fortnite.
- Surf Rock: The main theme of the podcast is in the style of surf rock.
- Tagline: "How Did We Get Here? The audio roadtrip that has no breaks." Jacob or Zak are supposed to start every episode with this, although they almost always get it wrong.
- Toilet Humor: The hosts hate toilet humor and find it childish and unfunny.
- Unexpectedly Dark Episode: While the podcast has touched on dark subject matter in the past, "The Scintillating Romantics of Hollywood Conspiracies" has a much darker focus than most, touching on topics such as pedophilia, bestiality, and sexual abuse. While there are jokes in the episode, the discussion is less humorous and more serious. Jacob and Zak lampshade how bleak the episode is at the end.
