MTV was the greatest thing to happen to an entire generation of music fans.
In 2010, Bay Area electronica band The Limousines released what felt like a spiritual sequel to The Buggles’ hit, called “Internet Killed the Video Star.” That version even borrowed lyrics from the original: “We can’t rewind / we’ve gone too far.”
By the time The Limousines’ song dropped, MTV already shifted its programming almost exclusively to reality television; music videos were exclusively premiering on the internet, at the discretion of the artists. Listeners could now curate their own playlists and experiences using the vastness of the internet. VJs, once curators of culture, were left in a nebulous space, and were effectively rendered useless without a monocultural platform for people to listen to them.
So, when podcaster and Xenia resident Daniel Hood, aka Super Diesel, had the idea to revitalize the VJ for the modern era — coining the name streaming jockey — he felt that he should premiere his new music video platform with a prescient song about technology from this generation, just as MTV famously did in 1981.
As a child of the 1990s, Hood channel-surfed through the music TV offerings of the time: VH1, BET, CMT and the vestiges that remained on MTV, including “Total Request Live.” Through his teen years in the 2000s, he dreamed of being a showrunner, like Ed Sullivan, presenting the next big thing in music. But by the time he went to college at Wright State University, where he first got on the mic, the way people discovered music was changing. Everything was seemingly available, whenever somebody wanted it. People were having their own separate experiences.
Gone, too, was the importance of a unifying tastemaker — the music host, the VJ, the guide.
In response to that, Hood launched “Pod-Shirt Network” earlier this year.
“Pod-Shirt Network” — which oversees both a Spotify podcast and a music video series on YouTube — merges the DJ and the VJ on an internet-based platform. The “Pod-Shirt Music Videos” concept turns a playlist into an episodic experience. Like a modern-day VJ, Hood breaks up his curated playlists with short, podcast-style audio segments, commentary where he reflects on what just played and sets up what’s coming next.
Each playlist is a thematic showcase, with the inaugural episode focusing on the San Francisco music scene. Called “We’ve Gone Too Far In The Bay,” “Pod-Shirt Network,” again, appropriately kicked off with “Internet Killed The Video Star” in January. Other playlists have explored Las Vegas, the Grammys, and Coachella.
With being a streaming jockey, Hood is bringing back the human aspect of the music curator, as opposed to relying on algorithm suggestions. Naturally, algorithms play a role in helping viewers discover “Pod-Shirt,” just as they do with nearly everything online. Hood uses the internet to once again uplift the “video star.”
Alanis Morissette may or may not consider that ironic.
Hood is no stranger to the DJ role. His alt-radio show “OhioIsOnFire” aired on WWSU 106.9FM before transitioning into a podcast. That’s when he adopted the name Daniel Diesel — which, over time, evolved into Super Diesel.
While taking a hiatus from his previous venture, Hood launched a landing page for “Pod-Shirt Network” in summer 2024, originally thinking it’d be a clothing brand to sell funny T-shirts. But as his discontentment with fractured entertainment grew, his idea to bring back the VJ was born — in the form of a DJ, on the internet and renamed an SJ.
“I want this to grow as big as it possibly can be,” Hood told me on a Zoom call. “What I’m doing this year is the first step of a big, long-term goal to make this a global powerhouse. I’m not going to quit. I’m going to work until that happens.”
“Pod-Shirt Network” grew to 1,000 subscribers in less than four months — and currently sits at 1.9K.
Hood talks not only about expanding his viewership, but expanding to support a stable of SJs under the “Pod-Shirt Network” name — ones in Canada, Mexico, Europe, and all over the world. He also hopes to add a video element to the streaming jockey, furthering the human component, instead of the AI-generated artwork he currently uses for his interstitial audio bumpers. The “Pod-Shirt Man,” a sarcastic host with a computer-generated voice, will eventually be replaced by a human, too.
Like the heyday of MTV, “Pod-Shirt Network” gives viewers a chance to discover — or rediscover, in many cases — music videos, in a way that feels both revolutionary and familiar. Hood has created an avenue to escape from a mainstream experiential paradigm while also existing within it.
“Back when music videos were more prevalent in the ‘80s,” Hood said, “they made people happy. I think they still can. They bring people together like you couldn’t believe, and I love that. So I’m trying to bring it back.”
Brandon Berry covers the music and arts scene in Dayton and Southwest Ohio, spotlighting local musicians, underground and touring bands, cultural events, fringe phenomena and creative spaces. He buys duplicate copies of every Chuck Klosterman book, and sometimes makes music. Reach him at branberry100@gmail.com.
MORE INFO
New episodes and playlists from “Pod-Shirt Network” can be found at youtube.com/@podshirtnetwork. Listen to the “Pod-Shirt Network” podcast on Spotify.
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