USC senior chats about ‘Avatar,’ Black Lives Matter and spills the ‘quaran-tea’ in her laid-back podcast
During quarantine this summer, some people learned to bake sourdough bread while others delved into Animal Crossing. But for Cherise Cayetano, a senior majoring in law, history and culture, quarantine boredom inspired her to share her commentary on current events including the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement and casual topics such as “Avatar” with a comedic twist on her podcast “CC’Me.”
Interest in creating her own podcast piqued following an event she helped organize with the Latinx Student Assembly and the Student Assembly for Gender Empowerment in 2018. The event invited creators of the Bitter Brown Femmes podcast, a show that tackles emotional, social and political issues involving the Latinx/Chicanx community. Asking the creators about their personal inspiration — the question inspired by a tweet she saw that mentioned how “everyone is one bad day away from starting their own podcast” — the experience solidified her desire that she often mentioned to her friends.
Cayetano was recently motivated to create “CC’Me” and its first episode to share her thoughts and experiences involving BLM, particularly after noticing many of her friends on social media choosing to ignore the movement or solely posting a singular black square to show their solidarity. Following the first podcast, Cayetano decided to take a more casual approach and create more episodes about lighter subjects.
“The first episode was really serious,” Cayetano said. “Then the rest of them was just me having fun with my friends because people don’t really allow Black women to have that side of [having fun]. I don’t want everything to be about the hardships of the Black community.”
There are currently four episodes available for listeners, ranging from discussions on the free labor Black women are often expected to put toward educating individuals on anti-Blackness, to lighthearted conversations about “Avatar” and One Direction.
Senior Naomi Andrews, who participated in the first episode discussing the free labor of Black women, said Cayetano saw the podcast as a way to be productive with her time during the summer and start conversations about topics that are important to talk about.
“Just seeing all this chaos of going on about like what it meant to be Black in America… It’s kind of stressful to be constantly consuming that content,” said Andrews, who is majoring in sociology. “If [Cherise or I] would post something on Instagram, people would swipe up and ask questions. That led us into doing [the work to answer their questions] — when Google is there — because we feel obligated to answer. So we discussed, ‘Why do people feel like they deserve to be educated, when answers are typically readily available?’”
Though the first episode was more social-justice focused, Cayetano aims to have the podcast cover a variety of topics.
As a new podcast creator, Cayetano took responsibility for designing the cover art, featuring a teacup and cherries, with the concept of spilling “quaran-tea” during the pandemic. Due to social distancing measures preventing Cayetano from meeting with guests in person, she uses Zoom to record their conversations. Though internet connection issues sometimes arise, Cayetano said she uses iMovie to increase the volume and stabilize background noise to improve the listening experience.
“I’m also a bit of a perfectionist,” Cayetano said. “So, sometimes I’ll edit it, and then I’ll listen to it for a good five times before I’m like, ‘Okay, I’ve done all that I can do.”
For Cayetano, the greatest challenge with running her podcast is the planning process. In preparation for each episode, Cayetano will research the topic and watch content made by other creators on different platforms so the information will be fresh in her mind. Sometimes, she’ll frame discussion questions to keep herself and her friends on track, while still keeping an easygoing tone. Cayetano said she also prefers recording episodes with her friends as guest speakers because she believes they have more to contribute to topics as a group compared to if she were to speak alone.
“I thought I’d be nervous, but we just do it on Zoom,” said Andrews, who also participated as a guest for the “Avatar” episode. “It feels like … we’re just hanging out. There’s really not that much pressure for it to be [a certain way]. Usually the topics that we talk about are the kind of stuff that we already have experience with, so we don’t have to worry about running out of things to say, or worry about following a script.”
When researching topics for her podcast, Cayetano said she gets most of her inspiration from her conversations with her friends, which is helpful when she’s looking for guest speakers. Since she knows which of her acquaintances have knowledge on each topic, it makes it easier for her to find co-hosts who have strong opinions to contribute to the conversation.
“Sometimes, my friends will be talking about something and they bring something up, [I’ll write] a little note of just ideas that I have and the people who brought them up,” Cayetano said. “If they want to expand on it, I know who to ask.”
When she planned an episode celebrating One Direction’s 10th anniversary, she immediately knew she wanted to ask her friend and fellow Directioner Sullyari Bautista, a senior majoring in political science, to co-host the episode.
Cayetano texted Bautista, inviting her to speak on her podcast and share her memories and passion for One Direction. Though Bautista was initially nervous to speak on the podcast since she never had her voice recorded before, she was quickly able to relax when chatting with Cayetano.
“It’s very natural,” Bautista said. “We join Zoom together and … let the conversation flow to talk about our personal experiences. At times, I really did forget that we were recording, and I had to mute myself from laughing.”
For future podcast episodes, Cayetano said she has a variety of ideas lined up just waiting to be explored. Some of them include more casual episodes like listening parties and album reviews, as well as more informative episodes, such as conversations on sexual health. Recently, she’s been watching “The Legend of Korra” and planning a podcast giving her commentary on the nostalgic series. For now, Cayetano looks to keep her options open with the podcast and enjoy getting together with friends on Thursday nights to record on Zoom.
“Cherise is a very open, talkative and warm person, and she’s very funny. I think that she was probably inspired by her very funny thoughts to start a podcast and share her warm, fun energy with a bunch of other people,” Bautista said. “I think she wants to continue the podcast and hopefully make it into something more regular and bigger, to reach greater audiences.”