Review: I Feel That Way Too

I feel like we’ve been talking a lot about loneliness, and how tech interacts with that emotion. As we sink deeper into the world of online community, polarization, and the tension that brings into the real world — it feels so heavy and difficult. It feels like an issue that is particularly American, but all of this is more than that. It’s incredibly human.

As I sit here and watch people shout on and off of the internet, I wonder what would happen if we just…didn’t? What if we didn’t shout? What if we talked?

Tension and conflict are a part of the human experience. The United States is a powder keg of potential because that which makes us great, a country of acceptance and curiosity, also brings forward the opposite. We are also a country of extreme suspicion and xenophobia.

It is probably mostly just my personality, but when I think about conflict, I always wish people would just sit down and eat a meal together. It sounds wild, but food is one of my favorite bridges. It’s one of the best things about living in a global world. Over time, you learn that every culture has a dumpling. Everywhere figured out how to wrap food in dough - and it’s a great place to start learning a new cuisine, and then a new place, or maybe even new people.

What sharing a meal does is open a door to conversation. This leads to shared experience, and less loneliness. It leads to connection, hopefully empathy, and a better world. We can’t all meet up for a dinner, so why don’t we try podcasts that feel like the warmest, most comforting dinner conversation ever?

The podcast I Feel That Way Too is this podcast. It is building bridges of humanity and understanding. At first, I thought the podcast was going to lean Asian American in experience, and that I wouldn’t feel like it was a podcast that I would connect with. I was incredibly wrong about this.

Even the moments and topics that sit around cultural identity, they are framed in the way that is so accessible. A lot of people have to navigate external perceptions when dating, and partners won’t always understand what it’s like to come from where you did. Children not being able to navigate their sexuality with their parents, or even knowing how to offer their parents support, is also one of the most universal experiences ever. Are you having some tension around friendship in this isolating, overwhelming world? I Feel That Way covers that too.

Each episode is a personal story that makes you feel less alone, and also gives you an outline to search for answers to a problem. Is it therapy? Is it trial and error? Is it a heartfelt conversation? There are options for everyone. I don’t suggest picking and choosing episodes with this podcast, they will all bring you to a better place you didn’t know you needed.

This podcast is an open journal of hard conversations, important realizations, and the reminder that we are all figuring this out. Across each 35 minute episode, Michelle MiJung Kim brings us on a narrative journey that you won’t want to get off of when the episode ends. Each episode is produced as comfort podcast perfection, warm, round sound allows the topics to be taken on with more nuance. We are given the time to consider what it means for us, what it could mean for us, or what it means for others around us.

Storytelling and connection manifest in so many different ways. I Feel That Way Too leverages podcasting to bring us a better world, a softer world — one that I want to be a part of. It brings me hope, joy, and a little bit of wonder. Even when things get hard, we will figure out to navigate them if we just take the time to talk about it, and consider them.

Thank you to Tink Media for bringing me this podcast. I Feel That Way Too is hosted by Michelle MiJung Kim, and is brought to us by Asian American Futures.

Listen below.

I Feel That Way Too
Listen to I Feel That Way Too wherever you get your podcasts!

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