Antidoters Podcast

About Antidoters Podcast

The opposite of a doomsayer; positive inspirers; curious thinkers-out-loud who don’t self-censor; those who trigger curiosity, surprise and challenge perceptions; ideas-catalysts for positive change. antidoters.substack.com (https://antidoters.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Jess Butcher

Category

society & culture · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

8 Mar 2024

Latest episode

22 Aug 2025

Latest episodes

28 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   22 Aug 2025

   Building a More Soul Society

   Hey! It’s been a while. Sorry. I’ve been hustling, business-developing, Zoom-ing, moutain walking; web-designing, product-testing, conference-speaking, making 100s of packed-lunches; business-planning, ad-testing, trade-marking, veruca-treating; podcast-appearing, pitching, AI-training, picking up socks; you get the idea… As a result ScrollAware (http://www.scrollaware.com) is gathering exciting momentum and appears to have hit a serious nerve, with *big* brands and 🤞some high profile ambassador conversations in play. But my own nerves are frazzled. So much for a slow Summer. I’ve felt like a priest at times, unwittingly eliciting countless confessions around bad habits and screen time fears. It can be depressing - horror stories abound - but it’s all validation that something’s gone seriously wrong and that we need more reminders to stop, pause and smell the roses. In moments of overwhelm, it can feel futile and like pushing water uphill. Am I staking my reputation and using up all my network’s goodwill on trying to push against the gravity of global-trends and cultural change? Is this a business, or is it a ‘movement’? Can it be both? There are certainly enough awesome antidote products, and services to support more intentional living - the returns from which could fuel the movement - but equally, I’m increasingly realising that much of this is simply a life philosophy to focus on how much of the good stuff in life is actually free. I feel like I’m trying to package and market an amalgam of personal philosophy (as revealed here) and old-world wisdom into something suitable for this age of overwhelm. To turn the clock back in many ways, but leveraging the modern tools of promotion that I find so icky: personal brand and the cult of celebrity, the primacy of social content and data optimisation, with the intensifying earthquake of AI-opportunity/ threat rumbling underfoot. The ‘More Soul Society (https://moresoulsociety.substack.com/)’ has launched this week in response. It seeks to offer the simple reminders that I need in order to to practice what I preach, packaged into a short, weekly, free missive. A ‘slowletter’ if you will, rather than a newsletter. It’s the start of the audience-building side of the movement to create a home for all the More-Soulers whose confessions I’m privy to. Fancy it? Yes, it’s another substack… but a shorter, pithier one. Fewer elipses, semi-colons and rambling-Jess. And one that might trigger a mass ‘unsubscribe’ to so much other superfluous noise and out of which a movement could emerge to shift the pendulum back a little. It’s certainly a ‘could’ worth aiming for. More mature Antidoters may find some of the contents obvious or trite (Hi Mum), but trust me when I say that much of this stuff will be depressingly new to many under 30s and/or partially forgotten by the generation above them. The prospect of sitting on a bench for 5 minutes to people-watch, sending a physical postcard or going out of your way to give a stranger a compliment can be hugely novel, unnerving concepts. Idleness, reverie, pondering and boredom are close to extinct states of being. So I’m keeping this as short as I can(‘t!) as I’d rather you checked the below out than spent more valuable minutes reading this. (And Antidoters will continue in the same vein, as freewheeling as ever. As and when I have some spleen to vent). Please subscribe and share. PS- I was tempted to auto-subscribe you all as the sales-funnel gurus would advocate - but I figured that would be counter to the philosophy. This has to be opted-in to by those that feel this and find it a breath of fresh air in over-optimised lives. But bribery’s ok, right? I’ll send a handwritten postcard to anyone that gets 10 Soul Society sign-ups. A Smaart Pocket (https://www.scrollaware.com/shop/p/the-smaart-pocket) if you can get 50… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit antidoters.substack.com (https://antidoters.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   11 Jun 2025

   Less Scroll, More Soul... in 5,4,3,2...

   The Antidoters Podcast discusses the Less Scroll, More Soul movement and its potential to reclaim technology for real-life experiences, promoting happiness through people, place, and perspective.

3. 

   14 Mar 2025

   The Idle Way: Flirting with Anti-Consumerism

   Something in me is shifting. It struck me as I walked out of security last month at the departures terminal and into the walkway that snakes through duty free. Every sense was immediately assaulted. Glossy images of A-listers, neon lights, huge point-of-sale booze-deals and an overwhelming scent of perfume. Three children tugged me in the directions of giant M&Ms, tech accessories and overpriced body-sprays respectively, whilst my own eyes were involuntarily drawn to the rows of sunglasses and Swatch watches I don’t need, (but feel a nostalgic 80s love for). It took every ounce of willpower to stay in-lane, snaking my carry-on through whilst shaking my head sternly ‘absolutely not’. I felt a bit nauseous. Thanks for reading Antidoters! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. It struck me at that moment how gross and exploitative this omnipresent consumerism has become. Stuff, stuff and more stuff. Stuff to make us prettier, less-inhibited, more organised, more noticed, more… more. Happiness in the form of retail therapy and the dopamine of a shiny new thing. We’re all susceptible. Brands wouldn’t exist if we weren’t, but how happy does any of this really make us? My husband and I often play the Marie Kondo game. What ‘stuff’ do we own that actually ‘brings us joy’? The answers are odd and have zero correlation to price: his (ugly) gilet; my thermos coffee cup (to which i’m surgically attached prior to 11am); our ceiling-projecting bedside clock; my mud-boots for dog-walking; our dry robes for saturday-soccer; my thrice-yearly photo books; the Eastpak rucksack I picked up at the village-fete for 50p that is now my handbag; our crocs (oh, spare me your judgement)... and er..? It’s a pathetically small list when I think of all the money we spend on crap. Crap that ends up causing a huge amount of stress in a house of three children as it’s never bloody returned where it’s supposed to go. Another exercise: ask a kid what they got for past Christmases (even the last one!) and depressingly, they rarely remember. They recall what they did around that time, who visited, any festive outings and which games were played, but rarely the gifts themselves, despite the huge expense, time, worry (and midnight assembly hours) ‘Santa’ invested in them. The most played-with toys are *never* the ones you expect. I’ve spent the best part of my career in the world of brands: building tech to harness attention; selling loyalty schemes and honing marketing messaging. I enjoy brand-building and message-massaging around the behavioural science of what people need or think they need. And I’ve believed in the value delivered by the brands I’ve worked on. Through choosing them as consumers we make a statement about who we are. They can be aspirational and provide identity, status, comfort or convenience. Branding is the way to make our (uniquely brilliant, obviously) product stand out in a crowded marketplace. And it’s no coincidence that many of the biggest social movements of the last few decades… Pride, Extinction Rebellion, BLM, LiveAid etc have succeeded by harnessing the branding playbook… logos and merch included. Purchases do produce ‘highs’.. but they’re short-lived, so desire for them is now insatiable. These thoughts have intersected with the work I’m doing at the moment on antidotes to tech addiction. I have a few exciting product ideas of my own (on which, more to follow) and (with thanks to Jonathan Haidt’s team), have been chatting to a number of talented, energising entrepreneurs working on solutions. Given the growing demand for solutions, I suspect some of these products and services may end up being very lucrative indeed. But actually, the best solutions to this issue are free… education, willpower, socialising, reading, walks, nature, more pondering, community engagement etc. But therein lies the problem…. as if they’re free, it’s no one’s real incentive to market them well and make them seem ‘cool’ or aspirational. No VCs to back the social-media marketing campaign or SEO. Feeling sad or overwhelmed? Here’s a premium app subscription to master the act of mindfulness. Much cooler than 10 minutes of watching clouds drift across the sky or half an hour spent on an old puzzle from the back of the cupboard- despite them having a very similar effect. Maybe, where lifestyle brands are concerned, paying for something provides a placebo effect in itself though? Maybe if you pay, you’re more committed to change. This psychology certainly works for me where my gym membership is concerned. Anyway, the other event that prompted me to flirt further with my growing anti-capitalist inclination was opportunistically reaching out to the hero-author of a book I loved recently and landing a lunch with him. Tom Hodgkinson wrote ‘The Idle Parent (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Idle-Parent-Less-Means-Raising/dp/0141030356)’ and has, for the last 20 years been running ‘The Idler (https://www.idler.co.uk/)’- a wonderful counter-cultural publication dedicated to ‘slow living’ and our lunch was fabulous. It was like meeting another version of myself in a parallel world, someone who’s spent most of his professional life promoting free life-additives through a lens I feel like I'm only just rediscovering. As readers will know from my ‘what I can’t see I can’t overparent (https://antidoters.substack.com/p/what-i-cant-see-i-cant-over-parent?r=1iqd3)’ post, I was immediately inclined to his book from its title and it did not disappoint. In turn, laugh-out-loud funny and ridiculously annoying, as I wished I’d written it. In essence, a tract on why parenting less is good for both parent and child. Why a slower, less ‘proactive’ family life is a more fulfilling, richer life. Why possessions - especially plastic ones - are less important than experiences. Why you should never take your child to a theme park (https://slate.com/human-interest/2009/04/the-idle-parent-2.html) and how the best family days are the ones where parents drink together in a tent on one side of a field and the kids run feral on the other. I’m in. I highly recommend that everyone sign up to his newsletter for the opportunity to receive a free download of ‘The Idler’s Manual’ - a quick-read charter for life that is a funny, poignant reminder of so many of the ‘boring’, unmarketed things that make life worth living: messing around on water; wondering a city aimlessly, riding a bike for fun, staring at walls, afternoon naps, playing old games and lolling by a fire - to name just a few examples. The Idler mag itself is gorgeous escapism, full of brief journeys into the fascinating worlds of philophers, historians, art and ukelele playing… worlds that few on the ‘productivity’ treadmill ever make time for. It’s annoying when people articulate your thoughts better than you can, but herewith, the Idler Manifesto: The religion of industry has turned human beings into robots. The imposition of work-discipline on free-wheeling dreamers enslaves us all. Joy and wisdom has been replaced by work and worry. We must defend our right to be lazy. It is in our idleness that we become who we are. It is when lazy that we achieve self-mastery. Jobs rob our time. Productivity and progress have led to anxiety and unease. Technology imprisons as it promises to liberate. Careers are phatasms. Money is mind forg’d. We can create our own paradise. Nothing must be done. With freedom comes responsibility. Stay in bed. Be good to yourself. Inaction is the wellspring of creation. Art, people, life. Bread, bacon, beer. Live first, work later. Time is not money. Stop spending. Quit your job. Study the art of living. Live slow, die old. Embrace nothing. Know nothing. Do nothing. Be idle. What a breath of fresh air. Am I in danger of dying my hair blue? Thanks for reading Antidoters! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit antidoters.substack.com (https://antidoters.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

Podcast Authority Score: 28 / 100

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55

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