Over the past year I’ve been creating more short-form content than ever: YouTube Shorts, Instagram, TikTok. The content varies but I try do a few pieces on esports, gaming and the tech behind gaming. These content pieces usually sit somewhere around the two to three minute mark. Short enough to be punchy, but long enough to actually say something useful.
And then it hit me: a lot of this content works perfectly fine without the video. Which led to a pretty obvious question: why am I only putting this on social media? So I’ve decided to start experimenting.
What Flash Bang Is
Flash Bang is a series of short audio podcast episodes that drop between my longer podcast content. If you listen to Sell Me This Pro or Feed The Trolls, you know those shows go deep. Long-form conversations breaking down players, strategy, industry trends and the wider esports ecosystem. Flash Bang is the opposite of that. Think of it as a quick hit of esports and gaming insight: short, focused takes on things like the state of South African esports, gaming tech developments, industry reports, trends in competitive gaming, and explainers on topics people keep asking me about. Basically, the takes that don’t need a full episode built around them.
Why I’m Doing This
Part of it is just efficiency. If I’ve already put together a short explainer for social media, there’s no reason it shouldn’t also live in an audio format for people who prefer to listen. But the bigger reason is that this industry moves fast. Some topics are worth talking about without needing to turn them into a 60-minute podcast. Flash Bang gives me a way to do that, quickly and clearly, without the pressure of building a full show around every idea. It also keeps the podcast feeds active between longer episodes, which is a bonus.
What to Expect
Episodes are short, usually just a few minutes, and focused on one idea. I’ve already covered things like whether South African esports is actually declining, why mobile esports in SA is more complicated than people think, the potential role of high school esports in developing regions, and what the industry actually means when it throws around the term “AI gaming laptop.” If something interesting is happening in esports, gaming or gaming tech, Flash Bang is probably where I’ll talk about it first.
Still an Experiment
I’ll be honest, this is still a test. My social media audience is mostly South African gamers and tech enthusiasts. My podcast audience skews more international. There’s crossover, but I’m curious to see how much. The idea is simple: take short, focused ideas and make them available in more places. If it works, Flash Bang becomes a regular thing. If not, at least we tried.
You’ll find Flash Bang on my podcast feeds on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, dropping between episodes of my other shows. And if you’ve already listened to one, I’d love to know what you think:
