Every group of friends needs its own media critic. Someone that has their finger on the pulse of everything and keeps you in the know of what's worth watching & listening to.
Mine is Laura.
She is my 2018 version of Roger Ebert - if Roger was a 5'1, cute Puerto Rican girl with an affinity for hip-hop music & murder documentaries.
Laura sends our group of girlfriends almost daily recommendations of songs, music videos, movies, documentaries, Netflix series, podcasts etc.
We all marvel at how she finds the time to keep up with all this with a husband, a baby, online college courses and a full-time job! She claims she discovers all these things while on the treadmill which is even more mind-blowing to me since the only one of those things I have is a job and yet I never seem to have 'time' to get on a treadmill.
Damn those overachievers.
But I appreciate Laura and all of her pop culture insights. They keep me young.
Just yesterday she had to spend 15 minutes explaining to my girlfriends and I what the #inmyfeelingschallenge was since we were all very confused as to who this 'Kiki' person was all the teeny-boppers have been talking about.
Sidebar: I lost two solid hours of my life watching those damn challenge videos on Instagram. They're simultaneously irritating and addictive AF.
Anywhoser, it was a few months ago that Laura insisted we all listen to the Dirty John podcast. I had not listened to any podcasts before and was reluctant to try them - For no reason other than that I was tired of constantly having to download new things.
I feel like it must be your thirties that you stop wanting to adapt to new technology. I'm already starting to understand all the parents that were refusing to exchange their flip phones for keyboard-less smart phones.
Once Laura kindly pointed out to me there were no downloads necessary, the iPhone comes with a pre-installed Podcast app (that I apparently put in the 'I'll never use these' folder along with the Garage Band and Compass apps), I figured it wouldn't kill me to give it a whirl.
I must say, Dirty John was worth listening to. It was six, 45 minute-ish episodes recounting the true life events of a beautiful and successful California woman that met a man on a dating site that turned out to be a full-fledged psycho. It was instantly and completely addictive - well, once you get past the fact that her daughter's voice is as valley girlish and painful to listen to as Kourtney Kardashian's.
As a long-time Dateline lover it was right up my alley and was perfectly timed with my work commute. I literally looked forward to getting in my car to hear how the story panned out.
Once it was over I was ready to do a deep dive into what other murder mysteries the Podcast world had to offer.
And that's when I discovered it.
That my girl, Oprah.. HAD A PODCAST CHANNEL.
Poor Laura was so thrilled to have finally succeeded in getting me to join the Podcast community and was ready to list off all her other pre-approved shows.
But I was like sorry, babe...
I am busy indefinitely because I will now be listening to nothing but Oprah in the car until I have listened to EVERY. EPISODE. EVER.
XX
A.
*UPDATE: Clearly Laura's radar for juicy podcasts is right on. She was not alone in thinking Dirty John was a must-listen podcast. It got enough attention that Bravo, that's right - my beloved Bravo, turned the story into a mini-series that was Golden Globe nominated.
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