There's something intimate about a podcast that breeds a special kind of obsessive fan. One that can imagine themselves in the room, laughing along with the hosts. Maybe it's the earbuds that block out the world around us, or that audio encourages a listener to fill in the gaps, forging a closer bond between listener and host.

"Podcast fans seem way more obsessive than normal comedy or radio fans," says Karl Chandler, one half of the Australian comedy podcast The Little Dum Dum Club. "They listen to the show where and when they want, with the option of bingeing hundreds of hours whenever they want."

"We've got fans who discovered us then listened to 300 episodes in four weeks. Crazy! We certainly feel that heaps of them see us as their mates, even though we've never met them."

Chandler is an accidental expert in super-fans, having convinced his listeners to come to Thailand two years running for a series of live podcasts.

"One of the running jokes I copped on our podcast is my frequent trips to Thailand, and in particular, Koh Samui."