I'M THE VILLAIN

Kenny knew he was gay pretty much all his life, and has lived in Fayetteville, North Caroline, and then Raleigh North Carolina for the last 11 years. He talks to us about what his experience has been being gay in the South, especially given that a lot of the rest of the US considers the South a lost cause from a gay rights standpoint. When he first came out at the beginning of high school, the fir...

In this episode, we sit down with Hannah De Groot, one of Isabel's old friends from high school, to talk about how her experience in political organizing turned into a job in political consulting. We've been wanting to talk to someone on the "inside" of politics for a long time, because much of this podcast is spent decrying the futility of trying to engage with American politics, when in reality,...

Becca Wood is a business coach and Squarespace website designer. She is also the host of the "Probably Bothered" podcast where she breaks down all of the things that bother her about her industry. In this episode, we talk about how so many people who go into business do into it because there is something that bothers them about working as an employee, but then when they go into business there's a...

Ayana Major Bey had a major reckoning when the pandemic hit. Ayana has been a musical theater actor, a "straight play" actor (which is what they call non-musical theater plays in the theater world), and is now a voice actor. She talks us through the process of figuring out her career: she got a masters, has worked on cruise ships for up to 10 months at a time where she had to be in Barcelona every...

As a follow-up to the dating coach episode, where our longtime guest Shreye spoke to us about what he learned from going to a dating coach (Episode 125 if you missed it), he is now back on the show to talk to us about his experience with a style coach named Patrick, who Shreye flew to Scottsdale, Arizona to meet in person with his entire wardrobe in tow. Shreye got Patrick's most extensive package...

Since we have been on a series of pretty heavy episodes recently, we decided it would be a good idea to lighten the mood a little bit and talk about the NYT's 36 Questions to Make You Fall in Love, or as they have recently backtracked it to, perhaps because they thought their original headline was too much, the "36 Questions that Lead to Love." If you haven't heard of this article before, when it...

Trigger warning: This episode contains discussion of early childhood rape, sexual assault, and incest. This is a continuation of our conversation last week with Sunshine, so if you missed last week's episode, listen to that before listening to this. Even more so that last week's episode, this conversation is HEAVY. Sunshine talks about her experience coping with sexual trauma, and how her therapis...

Trigger Warning: This episode mentions rape and sexual assault.  This is a heavy episode, and next week's episode will be even heavier. We sit down with Isabel's friend Sunshine to talk about being an artist and the ways in which art can help you process trauma, in this case sexual trauma, and how that very personal expression of self interfaces with the consumers of your art and the outside...

Well, it happened: Roe got overturned. Just like we knew it would. We have talked a lot about our revolutionary thinking on this show, and used this platform to document the major points of political radicalization we have had since the show started: for Isabel, it was when RBG died, for Deondre' it is now. We talk about what we think needs to change in American politics, mainly about the Supreme...

We feel like more and more people have been talking bout introversion vs. extroversion as a paradigm for categorizing people now, which probably started out because of the popularity of the Myers-Briggs, but also has been redefined more recently, or perhaps this definition has simply made it more into the mainstream: many people are resonating with the idea of introversion as deriving your energy...

Isabel got invited to an astrology party and so in this episode we talk about the rise in popularity of astrology and why we think it has been so trendy even though we think it is kind of bullshit and also why it might be useful in your life even if you think it is kind of bullshit. We also talk about the general category of similar personality categorizers such as enneagram, Myers-Briggs, DISC, a...

Sara Alepin is back in this exciting episode about the wedding industry, as she has been a wedding photographer for over 10 years. She has ALL the stories, from wedding SNAFU's (one major tip she had to share: Shout wipes are better than Tide pens at removing stains right before the wedding photos!) to all the beautiful celebrations she has attended.  Her hot take on weddings is that while yo...

Do you know the moment when you feel as if you don't understand something, and then something just clicks? What do you do when the thing you are confused about is dating? Is it possible to help coach someone who hasn't had a lot of success at dating to get something as complex as flirting to "click"? That's exactly what Shreye Saxena wanted to figure out when he went to a dating coach recently. He...

Get some water before you listen to this episode: I had to remind myself to drink multiple times during this episode. In this episode, we talk to health coach and host of the podcast "Salad with a Side of Fries," Jenn Trepeck. She talks with us about all of the complexities of the health and food systems that we are a part of (she makes a point of not talking about the healthcare system because in...

Sara Alepin was really passionate about being a teacher - and still is! But one day she was forced to quit her job teaching when she became permanently disabled from breaking up a fight at her school where a student stomped on a foot and crushed one of her nerves, making it difficult for her to walk, especially on the linoleum floors that usually line the floors of classrooms. Ever since then, she...

The real estate market is bananas right now. You may have seen the headlines about around-the-block lines for open houses in San Francisco, or watched houses in your neighborhood go on and off the market the same day on Zillow. A lot of that has to do with the current low interest rates but it also has a lot to do with land being increasingly bought up by private equity and big developers trying t...

Wes Willison lives on a block with 100 houses on it. That is a very long block by most urban planning standards and he starts off telling us a bit about what that kind of built environment affords you: safety, because you have a lot more eyes on all the people going up and down the street but also, because his block is nestled in an otherwise high-crime part of Port Richmond, which is a neighborho...

There's a pretty fundamental shift in our near future and the median AI scientist says it is coming by about the year 2040: the rise of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Right now, the types of AI that power TikTok and Facebook and Spotify and Netflix and any number of other major tech companies in the world currently are examples of Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) which may be superhuma...

You know the game 2 truths and a lie? Well we are switching it up and making it 2 breakups and a marriage proposal: in the last 2 weeks, we have had 1 proposal and 2 breakups between the 2 co-hosts. So we take a minute to talk about what we have learned from those experiences and why it's weird when when you go through a breakup and a proposal at the same time. We also cover: why we should put mor...

Is soaking really a thing? Bubble porn? That thing where you get on a top bunk and have your friends jump around on the bottom bunk as a way to simulate sex? These are all things that people on Tiktok say the Mormon Youth do to get around the Mormon requirement not to have sex before marriage. In part 2 of this episode series, we continue our conversation with Cody Crabb from last week, and he deb...

Cody Crabb knows how this sounds. In today's increasingly secular environment, saying you are religious sounds like you are saying you believe in aliens. Saying you are a progressive Mormon sounds like you either don't know what progressivism is or you don't know what Mormons believe. The Mormon church (they're actually moving away from the term "Mormon" and towards the "Church of the Latter-Day S...

In this episode, we discuss a recent 2-part series by The Daily discussing the next phase of Covid-19 and how we are going to get there, including whether or not we are going to have to rely on the unvaccinated to get vaccinated. In the second part of their series, they interview Dr. Fauci, where he talks about the bizarre politics of the pandemic, in which "the cautious are being cautious on beha...

Have you ever felt like you don't know what to do with your life? You know we have to solve just about 101 existential crises in our lifetime, and you want to pick a career that does some good for the world and helps us solve these problems, but at the same time, you have so many friends who have had a terrible time working at nonprofits and social impact orgs, either because they are poorly run o...

When was the last time you decided to go live in another country with no plans to return? In this episode, we talk to Isabel's friend Elaine, who has spent much of her post-college life traveling around the world and is currently teaching English in Shanghai. Prior to the pandemic, she had plans to travel around Asia during this time but China's Covid policies threw a wrench in those plans as you...

If you have seen "Inside," you know that it is pretty unique as far as comedy specials go. It was shot entirely by Bo during the course of the pandemic inside of his LA guest house and touches on very millennial themes, such as the effects of the internet and social media on our collective mental health and his mental health specifically, anti-capitalism, turning 30 and thinking about what you hav...