Shows
I'M THE VILLAIN162. The Code Switch Episode: Or Why Deondre' Can't Catch a BreakIf you haven't heard of the podcast Code Switch, it is an NPR podcast that talks about race in America, and a person that Deondre' dated texted him to let him know that she called into the show to ask a question about their relationship. Immediately Deondre's interest was piqued, and it turns out that she went onto the show to ask about "race and dating preferences." The episode of that podcast has since come out, so we can tell you exactly what she asked:"I've been casually seeing a guy for a few months now. For...
2025-03-051h 16I'M THE VILLAIN161. The Climbing Episode: The Japanese Have the Crabby Patty Recipe!If you share our politics you might be a nervous wreck right now, but one thing that both Deondre and Isabel like to do for our physical and mental health is go rock climbing. So we have on a super fascinating guest, David Liu, who works at a popular rock gym chain called Movement. He talks to us about how rock climbing has ballooned massively in popularity, and is now an Olympic sport. But the thing is, when rock climbing was introduced to the Olympics in 2020, they combined a number of different types of rock climbing that are pretty...
2025-01-291h 02I'M THE VILLAIN161. The Game Master Episode: "It's Just a Game!" ...Or Is It??This Christmas as some of you go home to your families, we expect one of the things many of you will do is play some games. In this (actually fairly lighthearted) episode (especially compared to the last one), we give you an opportunity to reflect a little bit on what role that play has in your life and in the larger context of society. Do games need to be decolonizing spaces? Or is it actually OK that many of the games we like to play explore violent themes that may be on the wrong side of history from a...
2024-12-251h 12I'M THE VILLAIN160. The Election Episode: #RippedforTrumpWe do a little processing of what the hell happened with the election, including where we think the Democrats fucked up, and where we go from here. We are joined by our very important, insightful, and charismatic friend Ronald Young Jr, of Oh Its Big Ron Studios. It's his 4th time appearing on this show, we ran the receipts.
Our assessment basically boils down to this: the Democrats did not find a way to speak to working people, using language that appeals to elites but is not accessible to working people, despite championing wildly popular policies...
2024-11-201h 36I'M THE VILLAIN159. The Courts System: What Does Prison Abolition Really Mean?Reflecting on the previous episode, where Deondre' tells us about his experience of jury duty back in February, we talk about what we think the ideal system should be given that Deondre' has now had this experience. Isabel also had a friend of a friend go through a high-profile trial recently, and we grapple with what it really means to be a prison abolitionist, and the many contradictions that come with it. For example, despite identifying as a prison abolitionist, Deondre' also admits that if the defendant had committed first degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt, we should separate...
2024-07-3142 minI'M THE VILLAIN158. The Jury Duty Episode: Jail for Life or NothingPrepare yourselves for a Cuckoo Bananas episode because Deondre' got called for jury duty and not only was Deondre' worried that he was going to be the alternate juror and not get to weigh in on the case at all, he actually got to be the foreman, which is the person who reads the verdict. This was an emotional job because the case was a murder case. We talk about the details of the case, and in the next episode we will continue our conversation by reflecting on what it means to be a prison abolitionist through the lens...
2024-07-241h 11I'M THE VILLAIN156. The Wedding Episode: I Was Playing the Game Of Love to Not Lose and Now I Am Playing to WinFriends we are BACK ON OUR BULLSHIT. This episode is long overdue because Deondre' got married back in October and we recorded it back in November and now it is June. But fear not, we still have evergreen content for you all in the form of being messy and talking about our ex's, talking about the vision that we have for our romantic lives and what happens when straight boys read bell hooks. There has been a lot of evolution in Deondre's life in particular; when I (Isabel) first met him, I thought there was no way he was...
2024-06-061h 18I'M THE VILLAIN155. The Camp Episode: If You Can't Find the Community You Want, You Need to Build It YourselfIt has been an actually ridiculous amount of time since we last posted an episode, but we are back! And we are back with another installment of Millennials Lust After Their College Walkable Community!
We recorded this episode back in October 2023 about a camp what Mike Wheeler and Stephanie Logan put together called Camp Logwheel that Isabel attended in Septemer, and now that are already planning their next one for May, in a few short months. We talk to Mike and Stephanie about what their community-building goals were for this camp, and the main thesis is that...
2024-01-251h 04I'M THE VILLAIN154. The Chaos Demon Episode: Sometimes You Really Are Just VibingThis is a continuation of the previous episode from last week, and in this part of the conversation we UNPACK some SHIT. We talk about what happens when you are happily in an undefined relationship, and then eventually society comes along and peers in the window and asks you WHAT YOU ARE. This has been a particular frustration for Isabel recently, and so a lot of this episode is shooting the shit about our relationships and what is important about them to us. We also continue talking about the importance of the middle tier friend, which is a friend...
2023-09-0643 minI'M THE VILLAIN153. The People Theory Episode: The Knight-Jones Personality TestIn this episode we talk about what we personally value when meeting another human being, and if there are particular factors that we find particularly revealing when it comes to a new person's personality, whether it be a potential lover or a new friend. Deondre' is all vibes. Can they talk about something interesting at length, do they laugh? Isabel really things birth order effects (whether you are the first child if you have siblings, or whether you are an only child) can be a really big part of determining one's personality as well. We also talk a lot...
2023-08-3037 minI'M THE VILLAIN151: The New York City Episode: What Would Isabella Chiu Do?What factors do you think about when you are deciding where you want to live? This is another one of those life design episodes where we discuss the factors we think about when trying to design how we want to live.When I was at South by Southwest in March, I ran into my friend Eric from high school, who I haven't talked to in like a decade, and his partner Isabella Chiu. She came on the show to talk about how they recently moved to New York after being nomadic for most of the pandemic and living...
2023-07-051h 06I'M THE VILLAIN150. The 150th Episode(!): I Have a Hard Time Trusting Anybody to Do Anything Good Enough for a Long TimeIn this episode Deondre and I (Isabel) talk about this book that Isabel has been reading with her book group called My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem, which talks about how trauma physically manifests itself in the body, and how human beings can try to deal with that trauma using somatic methods like humming together, dancing, and physically settling the body by focusing on breathing.
In this book, there is a section that talks about how racism was actually conceived of fairly recently in human history, when white landowners in Virginia were trying to...
2023-06-2345 minI'M THE VILLAIN144. The Girl Moss Episode: The Girl Boss is DeadWe have probably all seen the late stage capitalism memes by now: "Stop glamorizing the grind and start glamorizing whatever this is" is a famous one, though there are many more. In this episode we talk about the societal shift towards glamorizing doing nothing. We talk with Winx Vestrit, a friend who works with Isabel on the board of the National Home Funeral Alliance, about a tweet that really resonated with them which goes: "The girl boss is dead, long live the girl moss (lying on the floor of the forest and being absorbed back into nature)".
...
2023-01-261h 01I'M THE VILLAIN141. The Pivot Episode: Grieving the Alternate Paths You Life Could Have TakenThere's a lot of episodes we've had about major life pivots: Andy Reinhold (Episode 78) talked about how he started in consulting, quit his job to follow his passion and work in gaming, and then went back to consulting to support his baby. Sara Alepin (Episode 123) wanted to be a teacher, but after a student stomped on her foot and left her permanently unable to walk more than a few hours a day without pain, she pivoted to being a wedding photographer, podcaster, and running a businesses community. Ayana Major Bey (Episode 134) wanted to be an actor in plays and...
2022-11-0754 minI'M THE VILLAIN139. The True Crime Episode: Virtuous Police Accountability or Gratuitous Violence Spectacle?As some of you may know, Deondre' LOVES listening to true crime podcasts and so was very excited to have today's guest, Joy Scaglione, the host of the Bite-Sized Crime Podcast, on our show.
We cover a lot in this episode:
How does true crime reflect the broader inequalities in our society and spur a conversation around how to avoid these dangerous or deadly situations by raising our children to have better awarenesses of mental health and emotional regulation?
How does true crime interact with the carceral system?
If we funded...
2022-10-0654 minI'M THE VILLAIN137. The Being Gay in the South Episode: When You Always Knew You Had a Little Sugar in the TankKenny 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 first people he came out to were his nerd friends on Gaia Online, an online community for anime fans where you could dress up...
2022-09-1455 minI'M THE VILLAIN136. The Political Consultant Episode: Why Establishment Politics is ImportantIn 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, when you talk to people who actually work in this space, it doesn't seem futile at all. It can definitely seem challenging, but when you are working with other...
2022-09-0850 minI'M THE VILLAIN132. The 36 Questions Episode: Email Us and Tell Us Whether You Are in Love With Us After Listening to This EpisodeSince 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 came out back in 2015, everyone was asking these questions to their dates, though we discuss on this episode whether we think a lot of these questions...
2022-07-3049 minI'M THE VILLAIN130. The Art Episode: How Art Can Help Heal Sexual TraumaTrigger 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 world. Sunshine displays her art in many different types of venues: she will display her art in the park on the weekends, but she has also had art a...
2022-07-1349 min
I'M THE VILLAIN129. The Roe Episode: Well, Here We AreWell, 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 Court, and we discuss how our thinking has evolved on what strategies might be most effective in producing change going forward. We are still working through how we a...
2022-06-3054 minI'M THE VILLAIN127: The Astrology Episode: You Can't Snap You Fingers and Achieve Inner Peace, but You Can Get Into AstrologyIsabel 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, and other random personality paradigms that people use and why they might be useful or not. Deondre's favorite is enneagram, and says he is a...
2022-06-2053 minI'M THE VILLAIN126. The Wedding Episode: Are Weddings Just For the Couple?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 you might think that the day is all about you, and nobody else, that mentality can really backfire on you because it often is a celebration you are throwing t...
2022-06-0957 minI'M THE VILLAIN125. The Dating Coach Episode: Figuring Out the "Click"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. Her class was appealing to the specific niche of cis-het men trying to figure out how to date women, and she has a...
2022-05-181h 03I'M THE VILLAIN120. The AI Episode: Immortality and Endless Wealth or Human Extinction?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 superhuman, like the ANI's that can beat the best humans in the world at games like chess and Go, but they are only superhuman at one thing. An AGI is an algorithm that...
2022-03-1753 minI'M THE VILLAIN114. The Digital Nomad Episode: When There's No Return TicketWhen 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 are required to quarantine for 2 weeks whenever you return to the country, so for right now she has to settle for traveling around China. At the beginning...
2022-01-2846 minI'M THE VILLAIN111. The Expanding Polyamory Episode: Expanding Our Conception of What A Romantic Relationship IsIn this solo episode, Isabel and Deondre' talk through our relationship shit. Both of us have been going through some pretty serious transitions, that have pushed us to expand our understandings of what a romantic relationship can and should encompass. We already both identify as polyamorous, which is a form of ethical non-monogamy in which you allow yourself to love and date multiple people romantically. But it gets tricky when you start getting into the actual nuts and bolts of designing a life in a way that runs so counter to the societal norm. For example, there is the...
2021-11-1057 minI'M THE VILLAIN104. The Evil Episode: Can We Save Our Nation By Talking To One Another?We have a lot of conversations on this podcast about issues which are often moral in nature, such as the Israeli occupation of Palestine and defunding the police but often we aren't talking about the specific moral framework behind our positions on those issues, and so in this episode, we are going to have a more explicitly moral conversation than usual.
We sit down with Luke Phillips, who has appeared on the show before in the Patriotism Episode (13) and the Loneliness Episode (41), and Randy Lioz, both of whom work at Braver Angels, a nonprofit organization Isabel has...
2021-08-1858 minI'M THE VILLAIN100. The 100th Episode: What the Revolution Will Look LikeIn this episode, we sit down and do some processing about what the past 100 episodes have taught us, and what larger narrative has come out of these conversations we have been having with millennials from across the country during this pandemic.
Broadly, Isabel has definitely become more radical over the course of this show, and she talks about how the conversations we have had here have informed that, from our conversation with Yolanda about decolonizing parenting, to our talk about defunding the police, all the way through our more recent conversations on the Israeli occupation of Palestine...
2021-07-1139 minI'M THE VILLAIN98. The Play Episode: Why You Don't Have to Monetize and Compare Everything You Do As An AdultThis episode is a smorgasboard. We get the change to sit down with Lauren DeVera, a life coach, dancer, and fellow podcaster. We met her because Isabel will be speaking on a panel with her this summer at a podcast conference called Podcast Movement to speak about the Asian American podcasting experience, and she just so happened to live close by, in Alexandria, Virginia.
She also runs a dance studio called The Lion's Den, and a few weeks ago, she hosted her first in-person event since the beginning of the pandemic, which Isabel attended, and it was...
2021-06-2651 minI'M THE VILLAIN93. The TikTok Episode: Does TikTok Know You Better Than You Know Yourself?So TikTok is low-key the first big manifestation of AI taking over the world. Many of us (though now all, because Deondre' seems to have avoided the TikTok trap) have had those moments during the pandemic when we went down a TikTok wormhole and the next thing you know, it's 4 in the morning.
We talk with our friend Andy Reinhold about why TikTok is so effective, and here is what he thinks: TikTok has nailed the discoverability problem that plagues a lot of new users on other types of platforms like Twitch or any platform where you n...
2021-05-1947 minI'M THE VILLAIN92. The Overcorrection Episode: How Much is Too Much of a Good Thing?On this show we talk a lot about problems that need to be solved and not a lot about how to solve them, which is a criticism my mom brought up to me recently. So in this solo episode, Deondre' and I talk about some of the problems we have talked about on the show and whether the counterculture is overcorrecting for them.
For example, cancel culture is trying to solve the problem of harmful rhetoric, like when people are publicly racist, misogynist, ableist, homophobic, etc.
But then you quickly run into this problem: you can't shame the shameless. It's...
2021-05-1237 minI'M THE VILLAIN88. The Apprenticeship Episode: Why Aren't There More Apprentices?Apprenticeships and trade schools have a marketing problem. Sal, the host of the Fresh Apprentice podcast and a plumbing apprentice, told us that when he was first starting his apprenticeship, he got some flak from his family: "You're going to school to plunge toilets and everything? That's so sad." But it turns out that apprenticeships and trade school are actually a pretty sweet gig! He's getting an almost free education: He only has to pay $300 for textbooks, and even those are pretty heavily subsidized. At some trade schools, such as the one close by Isabel's college, Williamson, are fully...
2021-04-1434 minI'M THE VILLAIN72. The Bloopers Episode: I'M THE VILLAIN UNCENSOREDAs a special holiday treat for you all, we have created a special, never-before-seen supercut of bloopers from previous episodes that we had cut out of the show. Some prominent features are: a pre-covid hot wings party, breakups, finding out the name you came up with for your brand comes up with porn when you Google it, conference hookups, and being so type A that you might need to go to therapy.
AND, as a holiday promo, if you send your address to imthevillainpod@gmail.com, we will send you a free sticker! And maybe some other...
2020-12-2430 minI'M THE VILLAIN67. The Autism Episode: I've Always Felt A Little Odd....Turns Out I Was Autistic The Whole TimeIn our second international guest on this podcast, we talk to Uddhuv, who describes himself as "the only neuro atypical comedian on the Mumbai circuit," about how he was recently diagnosed with autism. He reflects on the ways in which not knowing he had autism affected past relationships, his school years, and the ways in which he could have been supported if he had just known he was neuro-atypical. With children today being born with a phone in their hand that is literally changing their brain chemistry, and almost 10% of school-age children being diagnosed with ADHD, do we even h...
2020-11-1235 minI'M THE VILLAIN66. The 2020 Election Episode: Get Your Ass to the Polls!6 days until Election Day. I'm sure you may be sick of hearing this from the 5+ texts and calls a day you're probably receiving, but there's a lot at stake in this election, and we break down what we think matters, whether this is really "the most important election of our lifetimes" as news outlets like to say every election year, and talk about why we are more activated this year than we have been in the past.
We probably won't know the results for a while after Election Day, and it is sure to be a dissatisfying an...
2020-10-2941 minI'M THE VILLAIN65. The Social Dilemma Episode: Is Social Media Making Us More Polarized?We try a completely different format for this episode, where we watch a documentary called The Social Dilemma, and respond to it with our friend and former guest for the Suffering Episode, Hanyu Chwe. Hanyu is a graduate student who studies network sciences. The documentary covers social media's insidious effects on our brains, interviewing a number of former Silicon Valley executives about the ways in which social media has led to an increased rate of teen suicide in girls, increased political polarization around the world, and the massive spread of fake news and misinformation. It draws a direct connection...
2020-10-221h 02I'M THE VILLAIN64. The Local Politics Episode: Streetcars, Paid Family Leave, and GentrificationIn this episode, we talk DC politics with our friend David Lazere, who, full disclosure, is the son of one of the frontrunners for the DC At-Large Candidate, Ed Lazere. We talk about the big topics on the ballot, as well as the topics that are notably missing - we also have a conversation about who the frontrunners are and the importance of local politics in general.
Links:
DC At-Large Candidate Debate 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osq4cGp0L_E
DC At-Large Candidate Debate 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khvOp7...
2020-10-0936 minI'M THE VILLAIN63. The Radicalization Episode: At Some Point, You Run Out of Boomers to Sell Houses ToThe question is this: how can you look around, at the economy, at the presidential debates, at your social media feed, and not be radicalized? How can you live in a system that has never prioritized any kind of long term vision without feeling a sense of impending doom?
In this episode, we talk with Rowan Emslie, a podcaster based in Brussels, about the global forces that are causing young people to move to the left: Endless debt. Work. Housing. Elite indifference, opportunism, and inaction. We discuss how so much in politics has moved to the right...
2020-10-0258 minI'M THE VILLAIN62. The Privacy Episode: Do We Need to Sacrifice Privacy for Security?Trigger Warning: At about 2 minutes in, Deondre' gives a graphic description of the Golden State Killer's violent attacks on victims in California.
You might have heard the story of how police used the DNA of a relative of the Golden State Killer to catch him back in April 2018. Since that case, many true crime fans (people who follow shows about real-life crime cases, both solved and unsolved) have advocated for 23 and Me and other biotech companies that collect genetic data to share more of their data with the authorities so they can perform more familial genetic matching...
2020-09-2343 minI'M THE VILLAIN61. The Gaming Episode: How Our Virtual Worlds and Reality are Getting Increasingly IntertwinedAlmost everyone is a gamer now in some form, especially now that the pandemic has left many with way more free time than usual. In this episode, we sit down with Tom Derr, a socio-cultural historian who studies the history of games. He tells us about why pinball was banned for 30 years in New York City and how games came to be associated with skill, the first RPGs, and how morality started getting folded into gaming, which has huge implications as games become more and more realistic with Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) and a shrinking workforce...
2020-09-1044 minI'M THE VILLAIN60. The Generational Trauma Episode: Simply Existing in America is Giving the Average Black Person PTSDIn this episode, we sit down with DeWayne Anderson, host of the Instagram Live show, Wine Down Sunday. He talks about his experiences with mental health, why it is so stigmatized for black men to pursue self care, and how it is almost inescapable for the average Black person in America to have PTSD with all of the gruesome depictions of Black death and brutalization in the media and our history classes.
He goes into the many things that we need more education about: we need stories of Black flourishing prior to being enslaved, in addition to...
2020-09-0356 minI'M THE VILLAIN59. The Billionaire Philanthropy Episode: Can We Save Lives Without Turning Over Our Democratic Institutions to the Capitalists?In this episode, we really engage in The Discourse™ - there is a larger Internet conversation going on about whether billionaires should be lauded for giving money to charitable causes or if we should be skeptical that they are doing so to preserve a fundamentally exploitative status quo that ultimately harms more people than it helps. And we (as Phil DeFranco, one of Deondre's favorite YouTube stars would say) dive right into it.
On the one hand, there is no doubt that philanthropy involves a fair bit of whitewashing, where rich people can use their charitable giving to...
2020-08-2849 minI'M THE VILLAIN58. The Toxic Workplaces Episode: Respect and Paychecks Don't Always Go TogetherHave you ever had to work overtime without getting paid for it? Had an abusive boss, or just a boss who didn't know how to manage? We talk about how so many workplaces, especially nonprofits an social mission-driven organizations wind up being toxic and what we can do to make workplaces more humane. So much of the time, bad bosses don't wind up getting fired because they have the trust of the higher-ups (which is why they were promoted in the first place) and their loss would be so much more disruptive than letting the employees they abuse leave...
2020-08-2053 minI'M THE VILLAIN57. The Liquid Death Episode: What Does Stepping Back Mean?In a time and place when our generation has come to terms with the fact that the society we live in is not working for huge swathes of the population, and is in fact actively working against them in many cases, how to we move closer to a more equal society? In the case of gender equality, should you bridge the gap between men and women by asking women to be more masculine, or by asking men to be more feminine and society as a whole to value feminine-coded behaviors and professions more.
Like with so many...
2020-08-1349 minI'M THE VILLAIN56. The Death Doula Episode: Helping People Have a Good Death During a PandemicWe try to talk to people who are doing good and having an impact on our show, but rarely do we get to talk to someone who is truly doing as much as today's guest is. On this episode, we talk to Ashley Johnson, who is a death doula and nurse working at a hospital in Central Florida, one of the areas that is getting hit the hardest by the coronavirus pandemic right now. A death/end of life doula is a person who advocates for those who are dying and walks them and their family through the end...
2020-08-0646 minI'M THE VILLAIN55. The Queerness Episode: Nonbinary, Nonprofit, NonconformingIn their previous job, B. Pagels-Minor had a senior female leader tell them they wouldn't go far in their industry because they were nonbinary despite also using them as a symbol of diversity for their company. B. is here to tell you that does not fly. (Also, we will note, that lady was wrong: B. is thriving.)
In this episode, we talk to B. Pagels-Minor, who is a Black, nonbinary product manager based out of Silicon Valley who also serves on the board of Howard Brown Health, a nonprofit health organization serving the LGBTQ+ community. They are...
2020-07-311h 12I'M THE VILLAIN54. The Side Hustle Episode: Is the Gig Economy Financial Freedom?In this episode, we talk with Alieshia Nunally, host of the podcast Millennial Thoughts, about gig work and the financial freedom she gets from being able to work multiple jobs. She believes everyone ought to have at least 2 streams of income as a form of insurance, because as we are seeing with this pandemic, you never know when one of your jobs might tank unexpectedly. We talk about whether or not you should tell your boss you have a side hustle, whether gig work is empowering and lets you experiment with a number of different interests at the same...
2020-07-2327 minI'M THE VILLAIN53. The Climate Action Episode: Which Actions Really Matter (Like Always, the Answer is Voting)If you are an environmentally-minded person, it can be really difficult to compare which actions are going to have the greatest effect on the planet if you're going by the public awareness campaigns. Is it recycling? Going vegan? Using metal straws? Turns out that not taking ONE Transatlantic flight actually saves more than all of those things combined. And not flying isn't even number one or number two on the chart. The answer: not having kids. But you don't see many public awareness campaigns pushing THAT, do you? For this conversation, we sat down with Elijah Innes-Wimsatt, who has...
2020-07-1648 minI'M THE VILLAIN52. The Hamilton Episode: Everything You Love Comes from ImperialismSPOILER ALERT: This episode contains spoilers for Hamilton: An American Musical.
So this past July 4th weekend, 'Hamilton,' the Broadway musical about Alexander Hamilton that everyone is so crazy about, hit Disney+. It re-sparked some controversy around whether or not the writer of the play, Lin Manuel-Miranda, should have included more mention of slaves in a time when many of the main characters in the play were notorious slaveowners, such as Thomas Jefferson. We talk about the standards we hold academics and media producers to, as well as work in some conversation on how the new...
2020-07-0941 minI'M THE VILLAIN51. The Current Events Episode: We Know That We Don't Like the Police State, Now On to Building a Positive Vision of the FutureIn case you were concerned that this podcast has too much structure, we tried experimenting with even less structure in this episode, and just went where the wind blew us. If you are curious where it blew us, we started off at Mount Rushmore, where we talked about the Native American leaders who are calling for the removal of Mount Rushmore, and then moved on to Minneapolis, where we followed up on some of our conversation from the Defunding Police Episode and talked about the pivot among many activists away from calling for Breonna Taylor's killers to be locked...
2020-07-0243 minI'M THE VILLAIN50. The Diversity Episode: What Does True Diversity Really Mean?It's a worthwhile question to ask from the jump: why do we really care about diversity? Is it because it makes businesses more profitable? Is it because it makes our schools more intellectually because more perspectives are represented? Or is it because there are vast swathes of the population that have been historically oppressed and placing value on diversity is one way to try to counteract that oppression in our modern institutions?
In this episode, we sit down with our friend Christen who was previously on the podcast in the Grief Episode, and we talk about diversity in the workplace...
2020-06-2654 minI'M THE VILLAIN49. The Fatness Episode: 'We Don't Know Shit About Weight!'Think about the last time you heard someone casually talk about losing weight in the workplace. Did you think about how it could affect the self-image of your fat co-workers? Or if your fat coworkers weren't listening, how it would affect you if you were fat? It is so normalized to talk about weight in our society that it's often hard to recognize internalized fatphobia, and rarely do we think of the affects that fatphobia has on fat people, which is why this week we sat down with Cheyenne Davis, host of the Weighted Words podcast. We talk about...
2020-06-1837 minI'M THE VILLAIN48. The Defunding Police Episode: What If We Treated Violent Crimes as a Public Health Problem?Defunding the police seems like something that was completely unimaginable even 3 weeks ago. Now it's being talked about in most major media sources.
Not only was this the result of the protests in honor of George Floyd, but also the result of a huge public awareness and education campaign which has largely happened on Instagram.
In this episode, we use the resources from MPD150 and Cure Violence to talk about what a world without police could look like, particularly with respect to violent crimes. This was the main sticking point where both of us were...
2020-06-1158 minI'M THE VILLAIN47. The Financial Inclusion Episode: Is Credit a Scam?Did you know 7% of Americans don't have a bank account? Having a bank account is probably something every person reading this takes for granted, but is a huge problem for around 23 million Americans. To add to the problem, many banks around the country are removing their low-cost offerings like accounts with no annual fees. But can fintech come to the rescue? Find out in this exciting new episode of I'M THE VILLAIN!
The main article we reference throughout the episode: https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/financial-inclusion-in-the-u-s-are-we-making-progress
FlexPay, the app that is trying provide an ethical alternative...
2020-06-0442 minI'M THE VILLAIN46. The Reciprocity Episode: How to Overcomplicate Your Relationship and Have Fun Doing it!In another solo ep, Deondre' and Isabel discuss whether it is healthy to expect reciprocity in a romantic relationship. Reciprocity is often touted as the hallmark of a healthy relationship, but how do you aspire to something that is so hard to quantify, especially when different people value everything differently? How much should doing the dishes when you don't want to count vs. calling your partner when they are on a trip? How should the calculation change when you don't mind doing dishes? Obviously it is impossible to quantify these things but we go deeper into whether even aspiring...
2020-05-2853 minI'M THE VILLAIN45. The Group House Episode: Should You Be Allowed to See Your Significant Other?What have your house policies been around coronavirus? In this episode, we get into the governance structures of various group houses during coronavirus, since most of our friends live in group living situations, and we thought it has been interesting to see the differences in response to this pandemic, because it has varied widely. We also talk about how being nonmonogamous has been for us (hint: not good) as we navigate the pandemic and how so much of individual responses to lockdown have further solidified romantic primacy in our society (ie. many houses are only allowing romantic partners in...
2020-05-2138 minI'M THE VILLAIN44. The Effective Altruism Episode: Why We Need to STOP Throwing Babies in Rivers and Pull Them Out AT THE SAME TIMEIf you haven't heard of effective altruism (EA), it is a utilitarian philosophy where a bunch of academics and researchers try to calculate what you should do with your career if you are trying to have the highest social impact. The effective altruists came up with the notion that one very ethical option is actively trying to make as much money as possible and giving as much as you can away, which gave rise to the "Giving What We Can Pledge," which states that you promise to give at least 10% of your income away.
One big effective...
2020-05-1452 minI'M THE VILLAIN43. The Representation Episode: Modern Muslims in the MediaDo you see people who look like you on TV? Do you think it matters? In this episode, we talk to Freeni Reza, host of the Musings of a Modern Muslim podcast, about representation of Muslims and other minorities in the media. We discuss how Muslims were portrayed in the aftermath of 9/11, and how things have progressed to today with more mainstream Muslims getting the spotlight like Hasan Minaj, both in movies and in the news, and why it is important to have Muslims working behind the scenes as well, not just in public-facing roles.
Freeni's podcast, M...
2020-05-0736 minI'M THE VILLAIN42. The Navigating Class Episode: How to Code-Switch Your Way to Fame and GloryWhat happens when you graduate college and start making more money than your parents ever made in their whole careers? A lot of guilt and code-switching, that's what.
In this episode, we talk with Nichole Hill, a fundraiser and podcast producer about the dynamics of moving up in class: even though it seems like that was the goal your parents were pushing you towards all along, once you get there, everything seems weird. You realize it becomes harder to relate to your family. You might find yourself in situations where people ask you for money. You might g...
2020-04-3050 minI'M THE VILLAIN41. The Loneliness Episode: The Epidemic People Aren't Talking AboutAmerica was already facing an epidemic of loneliness before this pandemic hit, and now everyone is just in the shitter now that we have to be stuck in inside. But on this episode we go a step farther and talk about the people on the very end of the loneliness spectrum. Incels, or involuntary celibates, are a radical internet hate group that finds its roots in a desire for sex, intimacy, and love. While we don't condone or identify with this group, we use this extreme example as a frame to talk about how harmful a lack of intimacy...
2020-04-2346 minI'M THE VILLAIN40. The Financial Literacy Episode: What to Do With $1,200When you get your $1,200 stimulus check from the government, what are you going to do with it? Pay off debt? Put it in the bank? Pay your rent? Invest? We talk to a financial adviser and fellow podcaster Mykail James, aka the Boujie Budgeter, co-host of the Code and Coin podcast about the kinds of financial decisions millennials are making today an how we can improve overall levels of financial literacy in this country. She also talks about how she was inspired by the Budgetnista, one of the first prominent black woman financial advisers, to build her own brand...
2020-04-1553 minI'M THE VILLAIN39. The Live Show Episode: Bad Friends, Bad LoversWe had a live show on February 28th and wanted to share it with you! We had a full house at the DC Podcast Garage, so thank you to everyone who attended. We had Ronald Young Jr. (host of 2 podcasts: Time Well Spent and Leaving the Theater) and Carlyn Crawley (host of The Femtourage podcast) on as guests and they are low-key two of the funniest people we know so bit shout out to them. In this episode, we talk about how terrible millennials are at being friends, what metrics we would use to gauge who is a good...
2020-04-081h 16I'M THE VILLAIN38. The Rona Episode: Don't Blame Millennials, Blame Gen ZAs we watch this global pandemic unfold from the safety of our homes wondering what the future is going to look like, the youths are on the beaches partying. But make no mistake, these youths are not millennials. They're the newest gang of troublemakers: Gen Z. You'll find us millennials cowering on our couches teleworking and playing Animal Crossing, having fights with our partners and housemates about who should be let in the house, and contemplating our own mortality.
In this episode, we sit down with Big Ron from Oh, It's Big Ron Studios and talk about...
2020-04-0155 minI'M THE VILLAIN37. The Religion Episode: Have Faith, But Get the ReceiptsIt's difficult at any time to figure out what you truly believe, and who to trust, and what information sounds reputable. Right now, as much of America sits at home on our computers waiting to hear from the front lines in this invisible war against COVID-19 we have going on, we are going through an especially confusing period, where it feels like there is conflicting information everywhere, and this is about a very specific problem with an associated set of verifiable facts. But what about the questions where there is no obvious answer, questions of purpose, how to treat...
2020-03-2554 minI'M THE VILLAIN36. The Childbirth Episode: The Many Problems With Reproductive HealthAs we collectively sit inside waiting for coronavirus to pass, we've been seeing a lot of memes about the "coronababies" that will likely be born in approximately 9 months. This is probably at least to some degree true, and so it might be worthwhile to take a minute to consider: what really is the state of reproductive medicine in America right now? The answer is: not very good. We talk to Hannah Davidson, a birth doula and aspiring mother, about the state of childbirth in America and the various ways the system could improve, including the shockingly high maternal mortality...
2020-03-1854 minI'M THE VILLAIN35. The Water Infrastructure Episode: We Built This City on Wood Pipes and Rubber Bands!!DUDE before you listen to this episode, read this ABSOLUTELY BATSHIT CRAZY article linked below from the New Yorker about the water tunnels that supply New York City. They talk about the 2 main tunnels that supply all the water and how one of them is on the verge of collapse.
Notable quotes include:
> “No one wants to talk about it, but we’re flirting with disaster.” (!! wtf?!)
> "He wiped some mud from his eyes. “Look,” he said. “If one of those tunnels goes, this city will be completely shut down. In some places there won’t be...
2020-03-1145 minI'M THE VILLAIN34. The Community Building Episode: How to Win Friends and Value PeopleChances are, if you graduated from college, you had a really rough time transitioning from your thriving college social life to the post-college social life of constant happy hours and otherwise planned events. It just takes so much more TIME and ENERGY and MONEY. SO in this episode we talk with Leslie Bozoian, the woman who co-founded Free Association, one of the biggest meetups in DC, about what it takes to cultivate community in an era when you would think technology would have made it easier than ever to coordinate and yet somehow we feel lonelier than ever. She...
2020-03-0442 minI'M THE VILLAIN33. The Caretaking Episode: The Difference Between Caregiving and CaretakingMany millennials in America have gone through the experience of giving care for a loved one, but it's not something that's talked about very much in the mainstream media. In this episode, we talk with Tyler McLeod about having to be a caretaker for his father from the age of 10 after his father suffered a serious stroke. Deondre' also had to take care of his grandparents in his childhood as they were suffering from cancer. The experience of needing to sacrifice this much to care for another person, can be seen through the lens of careTAKING, where one sees...
2020-02-2646 minI'M THE VILLAIN32. The American Dream Episode: Myth, Accident, or a Genuine Ideal?Is the American Dream a real thing or was it just propaganda created to appease the masses? Or was it just a form of social optimism that came out of a nation going through the throes of massive technological change that reshaped the economy in ways that gave more people access to the middle class than ever before? Maybe the reason millennials don't buy it anymore is simply because we have normalized to the notion of meritocracy and our expectations are higher. We no longer think it's cool to have most people struggling to get by as long as some...
2020-02-1933 minI'M THE VILLAIN31. The Feedback Episode: The Listeners RespondWelcome to the end of Season 3! We are henceforth getting rid of seasons, we have too many episodes in our backlog and we realize it might be killing our momentum. In this episode, we talk about the feedback we have gotten on the podcast and self-reflect on how the podcast has gone so far. We would love to hear from our listeners: Do you want more disagreements? Experts? Specificity in our episode topics? Let us know by sending us an email at imthevillainpod@gmail.com.
Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.
2020-02-1238 minI'M THE VILLAIN30. The Socialism Episode: The Hot New Construct All the Kids Are Talking AboutMerry Capitalism Day everyone! Due to today being Christmas, we have a very special holly jolly socialism episode for you where we talk to Kevin Gustafson, host of the Sensible Socialist podcast, about all things socialist, from worker cooperatives to Bernie Sanders to whether it is possible for the United States to transition to socialism without a violent revolution.
Look, identity politics may get you down sometimes by driving us farther and farther away from each other by highlighting our differences, but at least we are all united in being exploited by capitalism!
Kevin's Sensible S...
2020-02-1151 minI'M THE VILLAIN29. The Beauty Episode: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who Has the Hairiest Armpits Of All?Let's talk about BODY IMAGE. Is the modern cosmetic industry a scam? Or is it a genuine outlet of self-expression? Or...both? We talk with Elizabeth Lee, an Asian-American millennial, about beauty standards, exercise, and how social media compounds the crazy notions we have about beauty because now EVERYONE can Photoshop and filter themselves, not just models in popular magazines like Vogue. And it doesn't just effect women, either. We talk about male body image, the "dad bod" phenomenon, and whether the expectation of men going to the gym for hours is the equivalent of women spending hours on...
2020-02-0543 minI'M THE VILLAIN28. The Entrepreneurship Episode: How to Succeed in Business When You Don't Believe in CapitalismWe get very candid in this episode. We sit down with Selomé Welday, Isabel's former coworker and have a general idea that we want to talk about entrepreneurship but then we get into all kinds of offshoots, talking about why we feel the need to be entrepreneurs (it's hard to parent a child when you work a 9-5 job), the changing norms around what we are willing to pay for as we look into the void of our dystopian future of social alienation, and whether or not Deondre' would make a good professional cuddler.
If you want to...
2020-01-2955 minI'M THE VILLAIN27. The Depolarization Episode: How to Meme Your way to a Less Polarized SocietyHello fellow memelords and memestresses, we had a chat with James Coan this week on how you can not ONLY can you use memes for fun and profit, you can also use them to try to create a better society!
As has been an ongoing theme this season, we wanted to focus on not just the problems our generation is identifying in our society, but also the possible solutions, and like our housing episode, James actually has some really innovative solutions to how we should lessen the vitriol in America, from creating targeted Heineken ads to changing...
2020-01-2241 minI'M THE VILLAIN26. The Social Media Episode: The Road to Hell is Paved in Likes and CommentsNormally on this show we don't talk to guests with a particular expertise in anything, we just talk to people on their everyday opinions on things. But for this episode, we actually talked to a millennial who is a professor aka someone who actually knows what he is talking about. His name is Jeff Bowen, and he teaches a class on social media at the Johns Hopkins Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
In this episode, we talk about social media's effect on how we behave, and what kind of changes you read about in the media (D...
2020-01-1538 minI'M THE VILLAIN25. The Housing Episode: A Socialist and a Slumlord Walk Into a CourtroomFor a lot of the issues we talk about on this podcast, we all agree that there is a problem but when we talk about what to do about them, we wind up scratching our heads. With such huge and pervasive issues as the environment or the military-industrial complex, it feels like there is not a lot we can do outside of vote for the right people to make the right legislation. But this episode is one where we talk to someone who is really showing up and doing effective work in the housing space.
We talk...
2020-01-0840 minI'M THE VILLAIN24. The Success Episode: New Year, New StandardsOn this, the first day of the new year, let's talk about success. How to get more of it, how to redefine it, and how to stop thinking about it. Following on last week's socialism episode, we talk with Ashley Jones more about how our generation feels like our current model of capitalism is increasingly unsustainable, the ways in which the traditional definitions of success have been antithetical to true human prospering, and how we can move away from seeing success as purely financial success. How will you succeed this year?
Music is The Beauty of Maths...
2020-01-0149 minI'M THE VILLAIN23. The Communication Episode: How Screen Culture is Changing the Way We InteractDo you talk to your friends more now that you can text them at any time? There are a lot of ways in which technology has made communication easier but in this episode we talk about whether that convenience has really led to more frequent interactions and stronger friendships. We live in both a more connected and more isolated time, when we are less likely to know our neighbors but also more likely to see personal Facebook posts from middle school friends we haven't spoken with in decades. Should we aspire to a world where we can just drop...
2019-12-1831 minI'M THE VILLAIN22. The Cancel Culture Episode: Cancel the Behavior, not the PeopleIt seems like people are getting cancelled left an right these days. Did you boycott SoulCycle when you learned the CEO was a Trump supporter? Did you support Kevin Hart when he stepped down from hosting the Oscars last year? In this episode, we talk to Carlyn Crawley, a fellow podcaster who runs her own podcast called the Femtourage (tagline: "Bad bitches on the road less traveled"), about her thoughts on cancel culture and where celebrities and politicians cross the line. We discuss whether it is effective to cancel regular people without a platform like friends and family, the...
2019-12-1153 minI'M THE VILLAIN21. The Politics Episode: Hate Doesn't Have a Political AffiliationThis season is about to get political.
We hadn't planned it this way: it just sort of happened. Almost all the guests we invited this season wanted to talk about socialism, local politics, call-out culture, etc.
So with the media inundating us with political headlines for the next 11 months, we figured it was a good time to record an episode on our political stances as a backdrop for this season. Being generally liberal (though less liberal than some of the guests you'll see this season), we talk about why Trump won in 2016, what we think D...
2019-12-0558 minI'M THE VILLAIN20. The Non-Monogamy Episode: 50 Ways to Stay with Your LoverNot only do you get to stay with your lover, you also get to have sex and romantic relationships with other people! Including your ex! In the last episode of this season, we talk about how restrictive the classic script on romance is and why we think breaking down those rigid barriers actually can create an even more stable and communicative relationship. In short, there's no one way your relationship has to be for it to be valid and healthy.
This episode has been a long time coming because it's the main way in which both co-hosts r...
2019-11-061h 00I'M THE VILLAIN19. The Science Episode: P-Hacking, the Banality of Replication Studies, and other Perverse Incentives in the Scientific CommunityIf you are a scientist, you know that the frenzy for funding can be fierce, which is why, as with any system where people are competing for a pool of money, there can be perverse incentives to fudge the numbers, or select your variables to give you the most significant result. This practice, known as "p-hacking," is rampant, as argued by a mathematician known as Jordan Ellenberg, whose book Deondre' read recently, and whose talk on the subject is linked below. (There's a great explanatory interactive that explains p-hacking made by 538 linked below as well.)
In this e...
2019-10-3040 minI'M THE VILLAIN18. The Military Industrial Complex Episode: The United States of RaytheonWAR. Good god y'all. What is it good for? Making a FUCK TON of money for defense contractors like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. The US currently spends $649 billion dollars on our military, which is more than the next 7 countries combined. And to justify that expenditure, we are constantly at war. Every single child living in America today has lived in a country that has been at war their entire lives, and for the most part, they couldn't even tell you who we are fighting. In this episode, we sit down with Rahul Kulkarni, a nonviolence advocate who tells...
2019-10-2336 minI'M THE VILLAIN17. The Environmentalism Episode: Why Beer and Twitter May Save Our SoulsIf you care about climate change, things might look a little bleak right now. It is so easy to listen to the news of the Amazon rainforest fires, see the ever-climbing emissions statistics, and watch Greta Thunberg admonishing the United Nations and get overwhelmed with the sheer scope of the issue and the collective action it would take to solve it.
In this episode, Spencer Schecht talks to us about his organization, Green Drinks DC, and how he believes one solution to the problem is to have conversations about environmentalism to reach an understanding about what values w...
2019-10-1635 minI'M THE VILLAIN16. The Grief Episode: Life is Lived in the TransitionsStrap in, we are taking you on an emotional rollercoaster this season. In a swift departure from the upbeat mood of the last episode, on this episode, Isabel talks with her friend Christen about what it's like to grieve a sick family member who is in and out of the hospital and how to cope with those emotions. Even if you have friends to support you, it can be really tough to even figure out how you want to be supported. Sometimes you need to post on social media, sometimes you need to make art, sometimes you just need...
2019-10-0953 minI'M THE VILLAIN15. The Dating App Episode: You Up?Look, it is tough out here. Especially in the rough-and-tumble world of dating apps, where the Super Likes are few and far between, ghosting is imminent, and the zaddies are on the prowl. According to Greek myth, it was a golden apple labelled "for the fairest" that set off the Trojan War over whether Hera, Athena, or Aphrodite was the hottest goddess. In today's world, not much has changed. Now the golden apple is called "Tinder" and you get 50 swipes a day instead of one apple, but both still cause roughly the same amount of social mayhem. (As an...
2019-10-0241 minI'M THE VILLAIN14. The Veganism Episode: Why Don't We Care Enough to Be Vegan?Let's get it out in the open: it's 2019. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that the meat industry is morally bankrupt and also terrible for the planet. And yet, as of 2015, only 3.4% of the population said they were vegetarian and 0.4% said they were vegan. At the same time, Beyond Meat had the largest IPO of any company in 2 decades when it went public in May 2019. This means lots of people are betting big money that we are on the cusp of a huge change in the way we eat, especially along millennials, with the Economist predicting...
2019-09-2544 minI'M THE VILLAIN13. The Patriotism Episode: What Does it Mean to Love Your Country?This is where things start to get uncomfortable. We are trying actively push ourselves out of our comfort zones on this podcast, and to do that, we are inviting more guests onto the show and letting them pick the topic. Our first real guest of the second season is named Luke Phillips and he identifies as a social conservative and economic liberal, and he suggested for this episode that we talk about patriotism. Things get deep: we talk about what it means to be an American, how patriotism differs from nationalism, whether you can be a patriot and still...
2019-09-1856 minI'M THE VILLAIN12. The Suffering Episode: Do You Need to Suffer to Live Fully?I bet you don't really like suffering—that's kind of the definition. But Deondre' thinks it is an integral part of living a full life and relating to others. Hanyu vehemently disagrees and tried to avoid suffering at all cost. Isabel has lived an utterly undeserved life devoid of suffering, failure, or otherwise negative consequences. Except for that one time that has been conveniently edited out of her memory. Tune in to find out if her life is actually vapid and superficial and incapable of appreciating true happiness because she has never experienced true loss.
Invisibilia epis...
2019-09-1240 minI'M THE VILLAIN11. The Rachel Dolezal Episode: Is Trans-racial a Thing?Welcome to the second season! So...we didn't mean to make this a clickbaity episode to kick off the second season. We really just wanted to have a discussion about transracialism - honestly when we were brainstorming for this episode, we were just trying to come up with the one thing we disagreed most on. And this notion of transracialism seemed to be the thing. In this first episode with new co-host Deondre' Jones, we go in deep on what race really means, who gets to define your identity, and why being able to define yourself is an integral...
2019-09-0457 minI'M THE VILLAIN10. The Death Episode: YOLOThinking about death is one of the best ways to appreciate life. As we round out season 1 with this last episode, we want to leave you with some thoughts on mortality. Isabel has been attending death cafes in the DC area and Meronne has been attending a number of funerals and these have helped us both think about life and the funeral industry and how we commemorate people's lives. There is a saying in Bhutanese culture that goes: to be a happy person, one must contemplate death five times daily. We agree.
Find a Death Cafe near y...
2019-08-0834 minI'M THE VILLAIN9. The Growth Episode: Do We Ever Grow Up?We associate a lot of things with growing up: becoming more mature, more independent, more wise. But does living more life actually promote these qualities in people? Do you need to have suffered to achieve the elusive state of "wisdom" or can you live a perfectly charmed life and still end up wise? In a society that glorifies youth and youth culture, are these traits we even aspire to have anymore? There are so many ways in which the natural, linear narratives we build for ourselves are false, and we delve into them in this episode.
Music i...
2019-08-0140 minI'M THE VILLAIN8. The Education Episode: School Isn't EnoughRaise your hand if you learned the things you really needed to know in school. There's so many things that didn't make it into a class that should have been required reading. How to do your taxes and how to understand other cultures are two examples. And yet here we are in 2019 still taking swim tests and learning math. How can education stay relevant in an age when the job market changes drastically every couple of years? The fact that the jobs of tomorrow haven't been invented yet has given rise to the need for lifelong learning and in...
2019-07-2339 minI'M THE VILLAIN7. The Parenting Episode: Where Do You Draw the Line?Did your parents ever make you play an instrument growing up? Our parents both did, and it got us talking about how much parents should push their kids to do the things they associate with success and happiness, even if their child doesn't like it. At what point is it pushing them to have self-discipline, and at what point are you just making your kid suffer for no reason?
Obviously we are not parents, but we have a lot of opinions on parenting dynamics, going off how we were parented, our observations of other parents around...
2019-07-1036 minI'M THE VILLAIN6. The Money Episode: What Is It For?What the heck do we need money for? Is being rich ethical? At what point does saving money stop becoming a prudent decision to support yourself and becomes greed? We discuss America's culture of money, philanthropy vs. taxes, the way we were raised to think about money, the classic "what would you do with a million dollars?" question, and whether working hard really has anything to do with what economic class you wind up in. If you have thoughts about this episode, let us know! Tweet us at @imthevillainpod.
Meronne mentioned in this episode an anecdote about G...
2019-07-0352 minI'M THE VILLAIN5. The Work Episode: Kill the 40 Hour Work WeekKeynes predicted by now we would have a 15 hour work week. What happened? Why are we even using an archaic time-based system for intellectual labor? What's the alternative? Is the workforce of the future going to be dominated by women because they dominate the fields that are hardest to automate, like teaching and caregiving? We talk about all this and other things that are fucked up about the workforce and work culture that Americans just seem to take for granted.
Link to Statestarcodex article on taking adderal just to keep yourself focused at work: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/a...
2019-06-2732 minI'M THE VILLAIN4. The Happiness Episode: Be Bigger Than YourselfAre you happy? In America, we uphold the values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But then why are we so incapable of attaining, despite our relentless pursuit? We read countless articles and listen to countless podcast episodes trying to guide people in how to be happy, and yet we live in a society that does so little to promote the lifestyles that we know are scientifically proven to make people happy: we live in isolation, don't have the kinds of public spaces other countries have to promote a sense of community and trust in strangers, and...
2019-06-2033 minI'M THE VILLAIN3. The Relationship Episode: When shit hits the fan, who's ready to pull up?In this episode, we GO IN. We shit on marriage, we shit on romance, we shit on apologizing. We talk about why you should shit on your friends more. Basically we shit on everything that likable people typically like, so if you hate us after this episode, we understand. Just kidding, we actually offer up some nuanced commentary on why people should criticize their friends more, the unreasonable expectations in modern romance, the differences in group dynamics vs. one-on-one dynamics, and whether we should expect reciprocity in our relationships.
A Note on the Marriage...
2019-06-1251 minI'M THE VILLAIN2. Good Vs. Evil and the Pressures of Levelling UpIn this episode we talk about leaving college diploma in hand, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, only to find a lot of the assumptions we had about what was "good" and "evil" were totally oversimplified. Then you go through the emotional roller coaster of trying to derive core principles of what actually matters to you when you want to have a positive impact but also need to balance your quality of life. How can you be happy when the very act of turning what you love into a career sucks out of the joy out of it? How can you live...
2019-06-0533 min
I'M THE VILLAIN1. How to be a Villain The show is a conversational podcast where we talk about all the things that are fucked up about the status quo in America, with the perspective of the villain (Isabel) and hero (Meronne). In our first episode, we talk about the hero-villain complex, what making an impact means when you were brainwashed to have a very narrow definition of "doing good" in college, and why the world we are moving towards is going to be increasingly built by teams instead of gloried individuals, whether heroes or villains.
Note: A loyal listener of the podcast, Josh Palay, pointed ou...
2019-05-2929 min