In this episode, we unpack what happens when the holidays stop feeling magical and start feeling heavy. From childhood nostalgia and midnight Christmases to fractured families, financial pressure, and the erosion of tradition. This conversation traces how adulthood, trauma, and economic reality reshape the way we experience the holidays. We talk about why tradition isn’t neutral, how obligation replaces joy, and why so many of us feel indifferent rather than festive. We hope you enjoy listening as much as we got to share our perspectives!

In this episode we revisit our most played early release and use it as a jumping off point to talk honestly about what being “chronically online” actually means now. We trace the evolution from channel surfing and MySpace to modern algorithms designed to capture attention, shape behavior, and profit from addiction. We reflect on growth, validation, and why this podcast exists in the first place: not to perform, monetize, or chase approval, but to document thought, perspective, and change in real time. The internet can be powerful. Without balance and real-life community, it can also hollow you out.

We hit play on our past selves and perform a full audio autopsy of year one. We revisit an unreleased pilot and a long early episode filled with Domino’s tracker updates, local Chinese takeout with a surprise fly, free food ethics, POS loopholes that hand out free coffee, and our sincere belief that everyone should steal from corporations, not small businesses. Then things escalate into fake meat discourse, plant feelings, cats, dolphins, gooning apes, Black history, privilege, and the way our school books trained us not to feel the weight of it. Thank you for one year!

In this solo episode, I talk about shedding the pressure to deliver a polished year end character arc and why real growth rarely waits for a calendar to give permission. I get into the psychology of “temporal landmarks,” why New Year momentum fails most people, and what it means to choose your own turning points instead of performing them for an audience. This is an invitation to let December be a hinge instead of a finish line and to honor the shifts that never made it into a highlight reel. If you have been feeling behind, scattered, unfinished, or simply human this one is for you.

Sources:

• Milkman, K., et al. (2014). The Fresh Start Effect: Behavioral Science Explains Why “Temporal Landmarks” Motivate Change. Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

• Norcross, J. C., et al. (2002). Auld Lang Syne: Success Predictors, Change Processes, and Self Report Outcomes of New Year Resolvers and Nonresolvers. Journal of Clinical Psychology.

• University of Scranton. (2014). Study on New Year’s Resolutions and goal abandonment rates.

We're taking a week break to be with our friends and family, but in the meantime...Kirbs is breaking down the mess and meaning of Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and the retail blackout because nothing exposes our relationship with gratitude and capitalism quite like this week does.

We go from “be thankful” to “panic-buy everything” in under 12 hours, and we're pretty over it.
What does gratitude look like when life is complicated? How does Black Friday trap us in manufactured urgency and why is choosing not to participate actually a form of protest?

We dig into intentional spending, opting out of the noise, and redirecting our support toward actual people and local communities, not corporations built on scarcity and chaos.

If you’re tired of feeling guilty for what you buy, guilty for what you don’t buy, or just ready to reclaim some peace this holiday season, then this one’s for you.

What happens when the internet flattens every subculture into an “aesthetic”? And what does it mean to build identity through music when the dance floor is no longer neutral if it ever was?

In this episode, we sit down with ZAKU.86, an LA DJ, record collector, city pop obsessive, and former punk kid who somehow became a cultural bridge between Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Chinese, and Southeast Asian sounds. We talk about growing up feeling uncool while everyone else had Mustangs and perfect high school lives, buying turntables with stimulus checks, digging through crates like it’s religion, and accidentally becoming the guy who shifts energy in rooms people don’t expect.

We get into the collapse of real subculture, the myth of “apolitical art”, nostalgia as survival, and why city pop isn’t just cute music, but a whole archive of memory, migration, and longing.

If you care about music history, identity, third spaces, or what happens when cultural obsession becomes community, this episode is for you.

This week, I’m sitting down with a guest whose life looks nothing like the script most of us were handed.
Melanie AyLin (_melanie.aylin) first gen kid, fulltime nomad, community builder, festival worker, and desert sunrise chaser joins me to talk about what it really costs to choose yourself when everyone expects you to play it safe.

At 19, she dropped out of college, converted multiple vehicles into homes, and hit the road with nothing but instinct and stubborn courage. Since then she’s lived everywhere and nowhere: national parks, parking lots, Burning Man, Joshua Tree, and more concerts and festivals than most people see in a decade.

In this episode, Melanie and I dig into:

• the immigrant roots that shaped her fire

• turning loneliness into chosen solitude

• sustainability and off-grid living

• how rejection becomes redirection

• building real community in spaces built to be temporary

• the moment she realized she didn’t want to wait to “feel ready” for her own life

If you’ve been craving freedom or feeling stuck in your routine, Melanie’s story is going to challenge you in the best way because she’s proof you can build a whole life out of courage and curiosity.

When artist and writer Eva (@birdlets) asked their therapist for help, they ended up locked in a psych ward. In this one-year anniversary episode, we talk about surviving childhood abuse, an eating disorder that nearly killed them, a $130K porn lawsuit pinned on an ex, and the long climb back to self-trust.

⚠️ CW: sexual assault, eating disorders, psychiatric abuse, self-harm.

Why are this year’s costumes mid while horror cafés and niche coffee shops are thriving? We get into men flopping photo poses (sorry, Travis), Eric André winning, Sabrina-core, the Xbox → Sega pipeline, and how third spaces beat corporate beige. The nerds won, the vibes are local, and Halloween doesn’t end on Oct 31 it just moves to your favorite spooky café.

In this solo episode, I break down why we need monsters and why we keep making new ones. Drawing from Frankenstein, queer horror, and modern psychology, “The Myth of the Monster” explores what happens when difference gets mistaken for danger.

We talk dehumanization bias, cultural fear, and the instinct to exile whatever reminds us we’re not as healed as we pretend.

Sources:

• Shelley, M. (1818). Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.

• Allport, G. (1954). The Nature of Prejudice. Addison-Wesley.

• Haslam, N. (2006). “Dehumanization: An Integrative Review.” Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(3), 252–264.

• Benshoff, H. M. (1997). Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film. Manchester University Press.

• Farrimond, K. (2020). “Horror as a Safe Space for Queer Identity.” Feminist Media Studies.

• Cohen, J. J. (1996). “Monster Culture (Seven Theses).” In Monster Theory.

• Tufekci, Z. (2018). Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. Yale University Press.

Eva (@birdlets) is back to talk spooky with us! In this episode, we map the spectrum of October: from pumpkin-patch cozy to slasher-movie chaos. We talk why Jennifer’s Body sits weirdly (and importantly) in the queer canon, and how horror can be cathartic when you feel physically safe, mentally detached, and in control. We trade childhood Halloween stories, Bloody Mary bathroom lore, and a couple UFO tales that had the jets circling (yes, really). It’s anxiety, nostalgia, and autumn aesthetics in one place with a tease for next time: the micro-revival of horror culture in everyday spaces.

Cold fronts, rain-memory, and Horror Nights chainsaws. Salem plans, pumpkin pie beef, Sonic nostalgia, VR ethics and a real talk pit stop on SAD, sleep, and why your October mood isn’t just “in your head.” Press play cause we’re carving deeper.

Spooky season used to start on October 1. Now it rolls in with a PSL in late August. In pt. 1 of this spooky series, we ask why Halloween keeps creeping earlier, how retail turned September into Spirit Month, and why Thanksgiving got ghosted. We swap school-parade nostalgia, Cartoon Network Blair Witch memories, and debate whimsical-cozy vs. gore-for-sport horror. Also on the table: climate change, capitalism, and the seasonal identity crisis.

In this episode, we break down what real hope looks like when life’s falling apart: not blind optimism, not “good vibes only,” but psychological grounding, micro-rituals, and the small ways we keep going. We’ll talk about the science behind hope (Snyder’s Hope Theory), how to rebuild it through agency and action, and what it means to treat hope as resistance instead of denial.

If you’ve been running on empty, this one’s for you.

Sources:

1. Snyder, C. R. (1994). The Psychology of Hope: You Can Get There from Here.
Foundational text on Hope Theory, defining hope as a cognitive process made of three components: goals, pathways, and agency.

2. Berkeley Well-Being Institute. “What Is Hope and How to Cultivate It.”
Explains hope as a measurable mindset, outlines Snyder’s Hope Theory, and links to practical exercises for building it.

3. Psychology Today. “How to Build Hope in Troubled Times.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-personal-renaissance/202504/how-to-build-hope-in-troubled-times
4. EAP at The University of Texas at Austin. “The Science and Power of Hope.”
https://eap.utexas.edu/news/lessons-science-and-power-hope

5. Our Mental Health. “Unlock Success with Hope Theory: Achieve Goals and Enhance Well-being.”
https://www.ourmental.health/positive-psychology/unlock-success-with-hope-theory-achieve-goals-and-enhance-well-being

6. Brown, Brené. (2010). The Gifts of Imperfection.

7. Solnit, Rebecca. (2004). Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities.

We start with a simple question “How old were you when you discovered sparkling water?” and end up everywhere: LaCroix slander, Topo Chico devotion, why block cheese > pre-shredded, and how pineapple on pizza became a personality quiz. Along the way, we talk about depression turning soda cravings into seltzer habits, being a “food freak” vs. “food cautious,” sushi redemption arcs, and Thai home-cooking love. Then it gets real: an Uber Eats drop off that turned dangerous, three kids yelling “ICE” for laughs, and the case for calling out your friends before the cops do. We close with a story about breaking up with a childhood best friend over weed, losing religion, finding our voices, and the weird way taste buds and beliefs mature together.

Eva is back for this episode, and what starts as lighthearted banter quickly unravels into something deeper. We drift from MySpace nostalgia and high school what-ifs to stories of secret crushes, masking, and the strange ways memory rewrites our past. Along the way we reflect on missed chances, adolescent anxieties, and how the digital spaces we grew up in shaped who we are now. It’s messy, funny, vulnerable, and like high school itself, equal parts cringe and unforgettable.

We start with a scientific (read: chaotic) burger debrief. Skechers’ burger sits at a respectable 7/10 while Sonic takes the walk of shame, then spiral into a ramen taxonomy masterclass: Hokkaidō miso broth vs. Hakata, thin-firm vs. thick-chewy noodles, spice levels that flirt with danger and why “cheap chicken broth” isn’t always a red flag.

Then I blindfold my co-host for a field trip to a Maid Café, where we cast moi moi kyun to open the door, order blue Oreo potions, get Sonic and Kirby latte art, and request Slipknot. Our maid (self-proclaimed “metal maid”) absolutely growls, the room blinks, and we all achieve post-burger, post-ramen, post-scream clarity. It’s theme park energy in a cafeteria layout, culture shock with great service and yes, a polaroid with demon horns.

Maid Cafe | Asayoru Maid Cafe

Welcome to a chaotic little game we’re called Hot or Not where the takes are absolute, the rules are fake, and commitment is allegedly 100%. We run three rapid-fire rounds Everyday Life, Culture & Internet, and Relationships & Self and decide whether common trends deserve hype or a hard pass.

Expect spicy disagreements (Crocs, self-checkout lanes), a feral rant about vegan “cheese,” and a surprisingly thoughtful detour on minimalism (the art movement vs. the beige lifestyle brand). We also argue about sticker-bombed cars as community finding and admit that cold showers are just legal torture. In the Relationships round, we get honest about ghosting (context matters), the joy of having your partner as your lock screen, soft-launching on IG, and why sharing phone passcodes can feel either intimate or invasive, depending on the scars you’ve collected.

Hit play if you like big opinions, fast laughs, and zero fence sitting. Then tell us your own Hot/Not list. Bonus points if you can beat our 5-in-a-row streak without catching feelings.

Charlie Kirk was killed while answering a question about transgender mass shooters on the first stop of his “American Comeback Tour.” In those final moments, he repeated a lie, that trans people are a major driver of mass shootings even though they account for just 0.11% of such incidents over the past decade. Seconds later, gun violence. The very epidemic he defended claimed his life.

In this episode of So I Was Told, we cut through the selective outrage, the hypocrisy, and the pearl-clutching over “political violence.” This isn’t just politics. This is about mental health. PTSD, trauma, grief, fear — gun violence is a public health crisis. And when retribution comes, it won’t land first on the powerful, it will land, as always, on the margins: Black, brown, queer, and trans people.

Neutrality is a myth. Silence is consent. Which side are you on?

Sources for Show Notes

• Pew Research Center. What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S. (March 5, 2025).

• Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Guns remain leading cause of death for children and teens. (March 2024).

• The Daily Beast. Charlie Kirk was asked about mass shootings moments before assassination. (Sept 2025).

• People Magazine. Charlie Kirk was answering a question about gun violence when he was fatally shot. (Sept 2025).

• Wikipedia. List of mass shootings in the United States in 2025. (Accessed Sept 2025).

• The Times. Charlie Kirk: Who was he? (Sept 2025).

So I was told freedom is doing whatever you want, whenever you want. But what if that’s the biggest lie we’ve bought into?

In this episode, I break down how indulging in every craving doesn’t liberate us, it enslaves us. We’ll talk dopamine, addiction, and the “hedonic treadmill” that keeps our brains hooked. We’ll look at how capitalism profits from keeping us dissatisfied, why discipline is actually the key to agency, and how tying identity to desire leaves us emptier than ever.

I’ll weave in philosophy, modern neuroscience, and real-world stats from America’s trillion-dollar credit card debt to studies linking heavy social media use with anxiety and depression. And I’ll leave you with one question: if you can’t say no, are you really free?

Because indulgence feels like liberation in the moment, but long-term? It’s just a prettier set of chains.

Sources:

• Epictetus. Discourses. (c. 108 CE). — Stoic philosophy on freedom and self-mastery.

• Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Rodriguez, M. (1972). “Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. — The original Stanford marshmallow experiment.

• Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Peake, P. (1988). “The nature of adolescent competencies predicted by preschool delay of gratification.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. — Long-term outcomes of delayed gratification.

• Schultz, W. (2018). “Reward prediction error.” Nature Neuroscience, 21(2). — Research on dopamine, tolerance, and addiction cycles.

• Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2009). The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. Free Press. — On indulgence, consumption, and mental health decline.

• Baudrillard, J. (1998). The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. Sage. — On consumption and identity.

• Twenge, J. M., Haidt, J., & Campbell, W. K. (2023). “Trends in adolescent mental health and social media use.” JAMA Psychiatry. — Correlation between indulgence in social media and rising anxiety/depression.

• Federal Reserve Bank of New York. (2025). Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. — U.S. credit card debt surpassing $1.13 trillion.