I was thrilled when my friend Kelsey Dundon who writes The Waited invited me onto her podcast to chat about our shared love of bringing people together and how (and why) we started our respective book clubs. Immediate yes!

The loneliness epidemic and lack of connection generally speaking is something that regularly bums me out. I spend a lot of time thinking about how we used to move around as a village, and now it feels like a silo. I’ve also spent plenty of time on the internet (and off), thinking about influencers and our parasocial relationship to them. Does having these parasocial relationships substitute for our real life friends and family at times? How much online connection is taking up the bandwidth for actual, real life community? These are BIG questions. If you too have pondered the state of where this is all headed (especially with AI!), and want to build more irl connections, this podcast episode is for you. And as a very type B person who lives by the rule, ‘good enough!,’ I’m here to tell you that you don’t need perfect tablescapes and dreamy pinterest fueled aesthetics to host your very own book club (or any club for that matter).

Follow Kelsey Dundon:
Watch our episode on YouTube
On Substack: The Waited, which is all about creativity amidst chaos and Kelsey Dundon
On Instagram: @KelseyDundon

If you enjoy the podcast, you will most definitely love my Substack 'we need to unpack this'. It's free to subscribe and breaks down current cultural obsessions. If you like the show, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you really like it, consider leaving a 5 star review and sharing with your fellow culture stans. If you have a culture beat topic you’d like the show or Substack to explore, DM on Instagram where we also share cool links, form show ideas, and generally gossip @haveyouheardpodcast

So excited to continue the trad wife conversation with writer and content creator Caro Claire Burke. I first stumbled across her hot takes on my TikTok fyp and she quickly became one of my favourites. Caro has a book coming out next year that I absolutely can’t wait to get my hands on. Her fictional novel Yesteryear was born from her fascination with the trad wife discourse and follows a Trad Wife influencer who suddenly finds herself stuck in the past; it has so much buzz that Anne Hathaway has already signed on to produce and star in the movie adaptation. I can’t wait to read this!
I loved getting deeper into trad wives with Caro as we discuss the intersection of trad wives and politics, religion, motherhood, and empathy; she is such a big picture thinker, and l learned so much from her. Find more of Caro on TikTok and Instagram, and listen to her podcast Diabolical Lies.
If you enjoy the podcast, you will most definitely love my new Substack 'we need to unpack this'. It's free to subscribe and breaks down current cultural obsessions. If you like the show, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you really like it, consider leaving a 5 star review and sharing with your fellow culture stans. If you have a culture beat topic you’d like the show or Substack to explore, DM on Instagram where we also share cool links, form show ideas, and generally gossip @haveyouheardpodcast
Helpful References & Links:
How Mormonism Churns Out the Most Influential Tradwives (Caro Claire Burke)
Meet the Queen of the Trad Wives (The Times, Megan Agnew)
The Edenic Allure of Ballerina Farm (Anne Helen Petersen)
Blonde Highlights are Gender Affirming Care (Diabolical Lies podcast)
Gender was Made for White People (Substack, Anna Marie, PHD)
Amazon MGM Wins Auction for Hot Book Yesteryear (Deadline)

When I first read Jen Sookfong Lee's thoughtful memoir 'Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart,' I knew I'd have to have her on the show. A fellow Vancouverite, Jen's memoir explores what it was like growing up in a Chinese-Canadian household, cleverly set against the lens of pop culture.
We chat about what it was like growing up wanting to see more of yourself on screen, how kids of immigrants can use pop culture as a tool to navigate the world around them, why we should be paying more attention to the culture that informs us, and so much more.
If you enjoy the podcast, you will most definitely love my new Substack 'we need to unpack this'. It's free to subscribe and breaks down all the cultural beats I've been thinking about. If you like the show, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you really like us, consider leaving a 5 star review and sharing with your fellow culture stans. If you have a culture beat topic you’d like the show or Substack to explore, follow along or DM on Instagram where we share cool links, form show ideas, and generally gossip @haveyouheardpodcast
Find more of Jen here and follow her on Instagram