Cast of the Week XVII

CotW XVI
You’ll find all the nominees for this week at https://ykyz.com/c/na?faveOf=cotwxvii

And now I’m handing things over to u/Mattasher for the winners of Cast of the Week XVII:

Shoutouts
Some shoutouts this week to the people who made our week:
Shoutout to If You Were In My Shoes for her willingness to share a well-crafted and poignant personal dilemma, with episode 5. There’s no point anymore.

Shoutout to Joanie for getting a new mic and making a contest out of it. You sound great to us!

Shoutout MondragonMMA and A Brewtiful Mind for each hitting episode 100.

Shoutout to Demi Semi Quaver Note for the awesome recitation of Walt Whitman’s city of orgies, complete with spot-on sound effects. A reminder to please make sure any poetry you post to ykyz is in the public domain, as is the case with Whitman.

Shoutout to Primal Haze for the outstanding first episode, 3 Reasons Why Microcasting Is A Great Idea. We agree with all of them! A reminder, though, to all microcasters: It’s best to fade out your intro music as you begin speaking.  

And, last but not least, Shoutout to all of you for continuing to help promote the site. We’re now ranked at about 120k on Alexa, just 20k away from our April goal.  

Honorable mentions
217. Sweden food, Swedish meatballs by ThatBeardedSwede
Our favorite Swede shares the history of meatballs and his own family recipe ingredients. IKEA may have spread this tradition around the world, but when it comes to meatballs, IMO there’s nothing better than homemade.


25. Let’s Eat and eat some more by Angelibean
Angelibean shares her newfound quarantine skill, eating all the snacks. She’s definitely not the only one stress eating, though apparently, some ykyz’ers are going in the opposite direction and stress fasting. Who knew that was a thing?


250. Tomatoes Indoors by SmartMoney
Turns out, a lot of us have food on the brain during quarantine. Our final honorable mention goes to Becky of SmartMoney with this perfect explanation of how to grow tomatoes inside.  


CotW XVII winners
And now, on to this week’s winners!

Third Prize:
226. Raised And Cake Donuts by SnippetswithSophia
In this mouth-watering episode, Sophia explains the difference between the main types of donuts we consume. Spoiler alert, if it looks like a unicorn or a Pokémon, it’s a cake donut.


Second Prize:
42. “The talk” to save a life. by Doctor Irish
The good doctor gives straightforward advice for dealing with someone who might be suicidal. Never has an episode been so unfortunately timely, as one of the many, many un-considered side effects of extreme “social distancing” has been an all too predictable spike in depression and calls to suicide hotlines.


First Prize:
236. Animal Crossing Filipino textile outfits by fashionmusings
In this episode, Gem explores the intersection of fashion and gaming and describes how the Ayala museum is using in-game outfits to show off traditional Filipino textiles. In times when traveling abroad is virtually impossible, virtual fashion may be the very best thing to go viral right now.

Cast of the Week III

CotW III winners

Before we get to the winners, some general notes:
• All microcasters, paid or unpaid, are eligible, except for Prospectors (see https://ykyz.com/blog/index.php/microcaster-levels/)
• To be considered for a prize, you must have proper episode titles and have set your email and avatar. Unfortunately this week we had to exclude some wonderful nominations on that basis.
• When choosing winners, we first narrow down the field by removing casts with poor audio quality or a topic that has connection to your microcast theme.

You will find all of the nominees for this period at: https://ykyz.com/f/cotwiii

Because this was an extra long period, we’ve added more winners and runner’s up than usual. We had lots of great nominations, but a handful of them really shined.

Here’s u/mattasher with descriptions of this week’s winners. We begin with the runner’s up:

EP. 32 Skincare Emergencies by Brown Skin Pearls. This tightly crafted, interesting episode introduces us to new uses for feminine wash.


Ep. 45 Side Hustle by IAmMillennial. Jonathan perfectly captures the moment many of us find ourselves in, where trends in tech and economics have led so many of us to become gig workers of one kind or another.


EP53 VR Gaming by NerdyOldGuy. Joel drew half-a-dozen responses for his personal take on virtual reality gaming and motion sickness.


Finally, a shoutout to ykyz’s own Teresa (ThatOneGirl) for her excellent four-part series A Place called Ohio).

And now, on to the winners! Because this was a longer period, we’ve picked two second prize winners.

Second prize
EP59 The right of public access by ThatbeardedSwede. Here’s another lovely slice of life episode from or favorite Swede. This episode discusses the tradition and laws related to public access on private property, including the right to pick berries and mushrooms. We also highly recommend ThatbeardedSwedes’ other nominated episodes on Fika and The Stockholm Syndrome.


Ep13.Spicy Food by staplezz1301. This episode mixes the author’s personal relationship to spice with a view of spiciness as a metaphor for Mexico in general. As staplezz1301’s asks, “What’s life without a little bit of spice”.


Grand prize
EP06 a ruler by fashionmusings. This well researched, high effort episode focuses on a fascinating intersection of fashion, politics, and history. Who knew there used to be cops wandering around South Korea armed with scissors to give hippy scofflaws an on-the-spot trim?


Congratulations to fashionmusings and all the other winners and runners up. Keep your eye out for great episodes for next week’s contest!