Podcast battle Dane Swan, Scott Cummings and Shameless podcasters intensifies

The podcast feud that erupted between Dane Swan, his co-hosts and two top-rating female podcasters has spilt into a scathing war of words between fans that’s proven costly to ratings.

The battle between former AFL footballers Dane Swan and Scott Cummings and two top-rating female podcasters has intensified, with fans exchanging insults and scathing reviews.

Events unfolded last week when Swan, Cummings and their producer Ralph Horowitz lampooned a podcast made by Shameless Media journalists Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald.

On their podcast, Humpday with Scotty and Swanny, the trio dismissed the women, who have attracted more than 2 million downloads for their podcasts, as “two chicks” who “talk about relationships for 45 minutes at a time” and “lay together”.

Andrews and McDonald objected, dubbing the trio sexist “old ignorant men” in a subsequent podcast.

“We won’t stop doing what we are doing even when we get trolled by people like Dane Swan,” the women said.

Former AFL footballer Dane Swan. Picture: Josie Hayden

Scott Cummings. Picture: Fiona Hamilton Photography/Supplied

Since then, the women’s fans have bombarded the Humpday iTunes account with negative reviews, which started on June 19, the day after the men first discussed the women’s podcast.

They have left hundreds and hundreds of scathing one-star reviews, driving the podcast’s ratings to 2.2 out of five.

Comments include “misogyny at its finest”, “sexist and disgraceful” and “outdated and disappointing”.

Until that time the men had only received overwhelmingly positive reviews and five-star ratings with comments such as “ripping”, “absolute pisser” and “best sports podcast”.

This is despite the Shameless women telling their closed Facebook followers they “don’t want to give the story any more fuel”.

In their fan newsletter the women also reiterated that they: “have no interest in pushing the drama forward” but also noted that they “don’t regret a thing”.

They did not ask their followers to leave bad reviews on the men’s show.

The issue has been hotly debated on the Humpday Instagram and Twitter pages, with Swan and Cummings noting that: “a woke echo chamber who don’t listen to us gave us one star” and called them “empty-lived dribblers”.

One commentator agreed, calling the reviewers “a group of salty feminists on the loose”.

On their Twitter account one fan suggested “all the hump dayers could sneak over and rate their production” but this was dismissed by Cummings and Swan.

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On Twitter the two men continued to attack the women, saying that as journalists they had a responsibility to report honestly and correct errors. When asked by one fan if they were going to sue, they replied “who says we won’t?” and joked about starting a GoFundMe page.

On the latest episode of their podcast yesterday, the men offered Andrews and McDonald a chance to come on their show. In subsequent tweets they appeared to soften slightly,

saying about the women: “…good on them. Just don’t make up (poo emoji) about us.” @susieob

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