We chatted with popular digital creator V Spehar about their podcast V Interesting from Lemonada Media and their viral TikTok series Under the Desk News (UTDN). We asked V Spehar about the digial media landscape and creating content for both their podcast and TikTok series. Check out our conversation below!
When did you decide that creating content was something you wanted to do?
I’ve always been a curious person with a special knack for taking complicated information and breaking it down into easy to understand common terms. Prior to my work on TikTok with Under the Desk News, I worked as an entrepreneurial coach and food equity expert.
What’s it like working in the digital content space knowing it always changes?
It’s incredible, I’m addicted to it – from the very first UTDN episode I have maintained a high level of interest in continuing to create online. Everyday is a new adventure, and a new challenge. Balancing “breaking news” with helping to make sense of long term issues folks are grappling with, to even finding little wins and funny news – that balance of content helps us take in new information, be better informed neighbors, stay motivated and up to date on the long term issues but also – ENJOY the news, we need to hear the things that are going right just as much as stay on top of what challenges we’re facing.
What can you tell us about Under The Desk News and how that came to be?
It was early pandemic time and folks were *literally* hiding in their homes. I thought.. Why not under the desk? The news that was coming out was scary, divisive, and while I still had to function above the desk at my day job (which at the time was in food supply chain and health equity programs) I could escape to UNDER my desk to chat with my TikTok community about the news in a way that felt safe, and a little more calm.
What can be expected from the podcast V Interesting?
So often we hear breaking news, but there’s very little follow up on what happens AFTER something is a trending headline. I think it’s important to make space to close the loop for folks on these stories. Often the things that scare us turn out to be handled, or more ok than our imaginations maybe would allow us to dream. That’s what the Tuesday episodes are about – catching folks up on the very interesting details of the stories we care most about. On Fridays we do a deep dive on a curious topic with some experts who really know what they’re talking about. Friday episodes are more like a hang out between me and my listeners, where we give our brain some space to be curious, hear about something very interesting and hopefully leave with a conversational education on the topic, and a curiosity that will drive the listener to reflect and seek out even more information.
What’s something you can tell us about the podcast landscape that you find interesting that people might not know about?
I think there’s podcasts that seek to inform, others that seek to entertain – and mine is different in that it seeks to keep you company. The unspoken epidemic we face right now is an abundance of loneliness… I hope that I can give people’s brains a place to rest, a hand to hold, and a friend to spend some time with, just chatting and enjoying learning in a “hmm, that’s cool to know!” kinda way. I hope arming folks with more information on curious topics inspires them to spark up conversations in their real lives about what they heard, and talk more to bring back those in real life mentally exploratory “what are the stars made of” conversations we crave.
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Listen to th V Interesting podcast here.
Check out Under The News Desk on TikTok
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