Following Your Curiosity with Ex-Journalism Major Ryley

[MUSIC] Hello everyone and welcome to Dary Evan X English Major, the show that discusses literature and media like in your favorite English seminar course. I'm your host, Deja, a blogger at cityofdasia.com, and in today's episode I interviewed Riley, an ex-journalism major by way of an English department. We discussed the process of following your curiosity and creativity, the character building that's yielded from studying the humanities, and questionable book talk recommendations. Happy listening. [MUSIC] Riley, thank you so much for being on the show today. Of course. So this interview is just for me to learn more about your academic background, studying English, and also a little bit about your reading life and, you know, like your life as a bookworm. So the first question for you is, what was the name of your major or concentration that you studied? Yes. So I studied English journalism was technically my degree. So I got my degree in journalism, sorry, through the English department. Oh, cool. So that's how UNH did it. Most schools do it through the communications department. So my degree was just like very bright and focused in the journalism department. Okay. Yeah, that's actually really cool. So I was initially going to be a journalism major at my first college, and it was, yeah, it was in the communications department. And actually one of the reasons I decided not to really go through with that was when I realized that it was going to be under the communications umbrella. So it wasn't going to be very writing focused at all. So for you, most of your major classes were like journalistic writing, like writing styles, or can you tell me about it? Yeah. So we did a lot of just like journalism, like journalism 101, like advanced journalism, editing, like creative writing, all that stuff kind of fell under my degree. I honestly, in retrospect, wish that my degree had been through the communications department, but I just because like, it would have been a little bit easier for me to kind of transition because what I want to do is broadcast or media. So, but I honestly feel like at the end of the day, I got what I needed out of my degree, so I'm not that worried about it. Okay. Yeah. That's interesting. So I guess going off of that, like how do you think or what was that thing that you think you mainly got out of studying English journalism? Yeah. I've always been someone who's better at writing than anything else, and I like following my own curiosity and creativity and stuff like that. So I think being able to do research projects in my English classes, but also in my journalism classes, I feel like that honestly was what I was meant to do. So even if I had gotten my degree through the communications department, I'm not actually sure if I would have been able to, you know, do like, do all the research projects and do all the writing projects that I'd gotten to do. And I also don't think I would have been able to do like creative writing courses or I took a poetry course and those went into my degree, but and I loved them. And that was like my senior year, I took a poetry class that was like my favorite course that I had taken. Well, one of the one of my favorite courses I had taken. And I don't think I would have been able to do that if I hadn't been part of the English department. So that's I, I loved that about it because I've always been a very curious person. And I like to research things on my own will like I don't like always being like told. And I think that's why I think I'm not going to be able to do that. I think that's why I think I'm going to be able to do that. And I think that's why I think I'm going to be able to do that. a paper like it's all you like yes even if you're talking about like a subject that's given to you or you have to do a lot of research with other academic journals and you know like see what people are saying about your topic but like the words and the ideas are all yours like it's it's coming from up here and that's something that I don't feel like you can really get out of a lot of other majors and I mean what you said about the communications thing was really spot on because that's kind of why I decided to deviate a little bit when I realized that it was going to be probably like yeah a good amount of writing and like that kind of fun stuff that I love for English but it was also going to be a lot of like media and doing like the video packages and all that and for a while I was really interested in that but then I was like I don't want to study that in college I don't know like for me I wasn't it didn't feel like exciting or like daunting or it didn't it didn't really check those boxes for me so that's why I decided to shift but when did you know that you wanted to study English or did it or did you want to study journalism first and it just so happened that at your college it fell under that umbrella so this is kind of a long story oh it's really not that long but basically I in high school spent two years my junior and senior year doing like a pre-nursing course and so I thought I was going to go to nursing school okay yeah I applied to nursing school I joined this like the high school thing I applied to join it in my sophomore year so at that point I was like I don't know what I want to do a lot of my friends were applying to it so I was like yeah like I had watched grades that I mean I was like yeah nursing school I could do that and so I did that for two years honestly I I wasn't that good at it I didn't enjoy it I I wasn't like good at studying for it I wasn't good at mem like I didn't remember anything really I was just kind of like going to the motions of it it was like all I knew it was like everyone like all my friends were doing it I'd been doing it for two years and my the summer that I graduated I was like oh darn I was like I don't think I want to go to nursing school because it had been like drilled into us for two years when you go to nursing school when you go to nursing school blah blah so I just had that in my head and then so I my I went to I also transferred I know we bond about this so I'm for life transfer kids um I went to Hudson University in Maine and I did my first semester as a nursing student and I hated it which I knew but when when I was going to college I kind of had like this a breakdown with my sister where I was like I don't think I want to do nursing school but Hudson had a good communications department so I was like I'm going to give myself a semester of nursing school because I was like maybe I'm just like having like jitters about it yeah yeah so I was like I'll give myself a semester and if I still feel this way I'll just transfer to the communications department or or english or whatever like I didn't actually really know I just knew that it had a good communications department okay so my that first semester the only class that I enjoyed was my English course and it was like a it was like freshman English researcher or something like that on it for remember yeah so we had like this big project where we had to like interview people or something I honestly don't remember I just know that I interviewed people um for it mine was about hockey which I know you know I I love hockey life for those listening for those listening Riley's background um shows this uh Bruins flag uh which for the uninitiated is a hockey team um so yes she's a big thing the Boston Bruins are my team they unfortunately are not in the playoffs anymore but we won't get into it the down stars are wait off topic aren't they no no they just got eliminated no no but they know you're fine they they went farther than the Bruins did they just got eliminated so for anybody who cares I'm sure you don't um this daily cup finals are so this Saturday which will this is gonna be a while past when you're putting this out but um yeah Vegas versus Florida Panthers so it should be interesting not that it matters at all hey we don't know what our listeners are into but continue I don't think for what I was saying oh sorry I was like I got so offshack and remember okay so I did my project about hockey couldn't I that's all I remember and I interviewed the coach from humane red gendrick who read gendrinjee's who unfortunately He passed away two years ago, very sad. Yeah, he was a very nice man. And he let me interview him for my project. And I had never really interviewed anyone before. At this point, I still didn't really know what I was gonna do. I just knew that I hated doing nursing. And so after this project, I was kinda like, you know what, this is good. I enjoy talking to people. I enjoy like having this creative blow that I can follow. And so I went when I was gonna go change my major. I went and was like, hey, this is like what I like. And they were like, you should join the journalism department. And I was like, you know what, that's a really good idea. So I changed my major to journalism when I was at Hussain. And then after a year there, I decided that I wanted to change schools because I wasn't that far from home, but I was pretty far from home. And I wanted to be closer to a big city that I would have internship opportunities. - Oh, okay. - So I wanted to be closer to Boston or well, that's like where I ended up closer to Boston. But I had a couple other schools that I had looked at in some bigger cities, but I ended up going to UNH University of New Hampshire for the people that I think I might have gone to the New Haven one, which I didn't. And yeah, so it just so happens that the journalism department was through the English degree. I know this is like a long story that probably nobody cares about. - Oh, people care, people care, really. Keep it going. - Okay. So yeah, that's how I got into my major. I thought I was gonna be a nursing student and that did not work out at all. I changed my major and here we are. Taylor's all this time. - Yes, but man, I think that's, I really do find that fascinating because you really did the 180, you know, you were like, - Oh, absolutely. - And the, well, I don't know if they say nursing is STEM what science, I don't really know, but I know that that's just-- - I feel like yeah. - It's not the humanities at all. - At all. - This is the stuff, this is the anatomy. You know, it's completely different. And so I find it really cool that you kind of follow, you know, what your interests were and it kind of just so happens that, I mean, everything kind of happens for a reason. Like you not only ended up with English, but you were able to still get that kind of journalism aspect from it too. - Yeah. - I actually do relate a lot to that because I talked about this briefly in the pilot episode. I did a journalism kind of pre-college program. And after I did that, I was like, that's it. I'm gonna be a journalist. I'm gonna do journalism in college. I loved it so much. And we did a little bit of the video stuff, but we also had to like write these articles that we produce at the end of the two weeks. And it was just really cool. We had to interview people. So I got to work on my interview skills. It was kind of like this mentor program in that the people who were like the counselors were current college students. So they got to talk to us and they were journalism students. So they called it J-Camp for short. And they would like, you know, kind of teach us about what they were learning at the time. And I mean, I loved it. I thought it was really cool. I eventually, you know, kind of found my way mostly to writing only, but I still do love interviewing. And I mean, I personally took some classes where I took like a creative nonfiction class and I'm blanking on what the actual name of it was. But, you know, one of the assignments was to interview someone and we had to like write it out. So, you know, I think that English is such a catch all because it really dips its toes into some of those other things. But I would love to know more about like your dream career. You briefly talked about it earlier. What is your dream career and how's that going for you? - Yeah. So I know on the list of your questions was when did you graduate? So I graduated in 2022. So I've been out of school for just over a year now, which is terrifying when you think about it. But I want to work in sports. So my goal would be either sports, broadcaster sports media, like they kind of fall under a similar umbrella. - Okay. - But sports is a really hard thing to break into, originally, and I feel like, right, retrospect is always 20 or hindsight is 20, 20, whatever that's saying is that I would have done a lot of things differently in college. I would have definitely done like a different internships than I did and stuff, but whatever. So it's, you can't go back. So I, so I work, I'm working three jobs right now and I have an internship. I, I know, I, so I work in the promotion, like I work for the promo team with the Boston Bruins. I work in fan and youth engagement with the Red Sox, and then I work in promotions on their promotional street team for I Heart Media. - Wow. - And then my internship. Yeah, and then my, it's all part time. So it's like, it sounds like a lot, but it's kind of bad, but. - It kind of bad, it's just stuff out. - Yeah. But and then my internship is with a social media group called Girls Club. So basically it's like women who want to work in sports and like a way for them to get connected and stuff like that. And I'm posting as a reporter on their TikTok. So follow me. - Oh, follow me. - Yeah, shout it out. So what is it? - Yeah. - Girls Club. - So it's at Sports Girls Club on TikTok and Instagram and Twitter, I think. - Okay. - But yeah, follow the TikTok from me. - Yeah. I will link it in the show notes. So listeners, make sure you go out and check out some of Raleigh's TikTok that she's producing for them. That's pretty cool. - Yeah. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. I've only been doing it for a couple of weeks. I worked for the Bruins all season. That was like mainly what I was doing. But. Yeah. So I'm just kind of trying to get my foot in the door with sports. I'm with the Girls Club internship. I'm kind of creating like a. Portfolio, I guess, where I'm kind of sports reporting and kind of putting myself online. - Yeah, yeah. - Because like we were kind of saying earlier with the journalism degree being through the English department, I didn't have an opportunity to like create a reel or be behind the camera or do anything like that because it was through the English department. - Make way. - Which is kind of why I was saying that. - They had everything. - There were some droppings. - Yeah. - Yeah. But, you know, I loved it. So it doesn't matter. But yeah, just kind of trying to break into a field that is pretty difficult to break into. But where I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to rush anything. I'm young. Everything's fine. - Yeah, everything is fine. And it really will. Like when you're in it, I just graduated in December of last year. So the end of 2022 and even like two months out of graduating, I was like, I don't know what my life is going to be, you know, until I landed my first job. And so it feels like in the moment everything is not going to work out. But it really does in the end. I love what you talked about with, you know, how everything is so much clearer when you're just like looking back at it from the present because that's, you know, true. To give some context to our listeners, Riley and I met in Washington, DC with like this internship program that a lot of colleges do. And then everyone from those respective colleges kind of gathers in DC to do internships in the DC area. And we lived across the hall from each other. - And we did. That is an important thing we did. (laughing) So, you know, that at the time, before I ever did that, I had, you know, such a cookie cutter idea on what I thought my, you know, college I was going to look like, what I thought my post-grad life was going to look like, specifically like kind of, I don't know, just going from one box to another. So I was going to do like college internship, law school. And like, you know, like when you're in school, it does make it seem like that's just the way it's going to go. But it's not. And really it's more interesting. And it builds a lot of character when it doesn't kind of fall into place like that because you learn a lot about, you know, yourself and your work ethic. Like, I mean, you just talked about how you're doing three different, you know, part-time opportunities right now. That's still a lot to juggle. But it's like, you know, if you weren't in the, if you had some other like one full-time job, you wouldn't be able to go after those opportunities, like you can right now. And, you know, for me, if I were, if I had just kind of rushed into post-grad law school or something like that, I know my head would be spinning because I still don't know exactly, you know, what I want to do with that sector. So I'm working in the field now to figure it out. So a lot of things, you know, you learn really just by doing. No one wants to hear that, but it's true. You just learn by doing. So my, my next question for you is, what's like a skill, I, we kind of briefly touched on it, but what is like one skill or lesson or moment that you really learned from studying English and Journalism that is stuck with you the most? Yeah. I just think that one thing that I really learned is to follow every opportunity and that kind of goes into the journalism thing where you're like, "You've got to follow the lead." But to take that out of just a school situational sort of thing, it can very much be applied to your life, like, following me. If you have an idea that you want to pursue or you have something that you're like, "I feel like I could make this into my life somehow." Follow that. Make that a part of your life that way, you're not going to regret anything because I feel there are so many people that have all these ideas or have these passions and they just, they fall to the waistside because they're doing other things, they're prioritizing other things and, you know, they just like regret it in the end. I don't want to have any regrets. Yeah. So I feel like that's like one major thing that like journalism taught me was just like, follow my passions, follow my curiosity, follow the lead, don't, you know, nothing is, less important than anything else. I don't know. I feel like I'm just rambling, but. No, I really got something from that. And I agree, you know, that you do just kind of have to jump into stuff and it's like almost that tenacity that journalism, you know, kind of has. As someone who didn't study it, you know, I know that vibe. But as you were talking, I was thinking about Gilmore Girls. Have you seen Gilmore Girls? No. No. I've seen enough of it on I know. Yeah. No, I forgot. I forgot. I was, I was genuinely asking you to go ahead though and see it. But hopefully, you know, whenever I listen to his head, I was thinking about Gilmore Girls because worry that she wants to do journalism and she eventually tries to become a journalist and she lets so many things just like stop her and like just kind of make her follow these paths in life. She basically gets one really hard know from someone. She's trying to get this job, I think, or something like that. And the guy basically tells her, I mean, well, it's a little bit more complicated than that because it's her boyfriend's dad who tells her like, you're not good enough to be a journalist there, whatever. And she just regresses. She lets that just like completely veer her off of the path. She leaves school like, like takes a gap. You're like, does all this stuff and I was just like, man, like that, you know, that tenacity wasn't there for worry. I know that wasn't very inspiring. No, but to me, get a little more inspiring is from someone who's gotten a lot of nose, a boatload of nose. Like, you just have to keep going. If you're passionate about something, that is what's going to drive you. Like, don't let a no stop you from the dream that you are eventually going to accomplish because if that's what's feeling, you that you'll get there. Yes, yes, it's that's true. Don't be worried. Don't be worried. No, but don't be worried for those who have seen it. Y'all know, don't be worried. You know, like let your passions fuel you. Seriously, I think that really that relates to, you know, something that I just personally got out of studying English, you know, because there are no wrong answers. If I can make an argument and I can back it up and I can write, well, I can convince anybody you have anything when I'm writing an essay. Period. It's so true. Yeah. And that's not something that I think a lot of people understand about the major about writing in general, because that's where the goal is being able to just like really stick to your guns all the time. I find myself or I found myself when I was writing papers like sometimes I would want a backtrack and like not, I'd be like, oh, is this like two bold to say? And then I would catch myself and be like, no, I'm just going to say it. And then I'm just going to find ways to like really hone my point in and to make it super, you know, supported. So anyway, guys, that's all of that is to say, you know, keep on doing what you want to do. I mean, this podcast is kind of that for me. I was like, I really want to do a podcast. I've been wanting to do a podcast for years. And I decided that I wanted to do it around shedding a light on those who study English. And it's the misunderstood major. So let's make it less misunderstood. Yeah. I feel like people think that English majors are just like people who either enjoy reading, enjoy writing like this, not a little bookworms, but it's like the English department is genuinely full of dreamers. Yes. Like people who are their own number one fans, people who are self starters, self thinkers, people who have a goal and are going to accomplish it. That's what the English major is made for because there's so many different avenues that you can take. Like you can go into media. Exactly. You can go into media. You can go into TV. You can go into writing. You can do something very traditional. You can do something non-traditional with it. Take us, for example, both of us are kind of doing non-traditional things with our degrees. Yep. But wouldn't like change our degrees. Yeah. I feel like we both learned so much about what we want to do in the future and like about ourselves just through college. Yeah. And through what we were learning. And I feel like people just don't see the humanities in general as like a very opportunistic major when it really is. Yes. Yes, all of that. I mean, it builds character. It does. I feel like that sounds like such a grandiose statement, but it really does. Think about the concept of constantly having to advocate for yourself and be your own foot in the door and all these things because when someone sees English on your resume, they immediately want to count you out. But you're like, no, you're not going to be able to count me out because look at all these other things that I've done or look at the way that I can or rate to you or look at the way that I can write. And stuff is important in anything that you want to do. I mean, it's important right now with me in this podcast. I wouldn't have done this if I didn't study what I did because those characters in that way. I love the way that that conversation just went, but I would like to talk about your reading life. Yeah, yeah, because I have to ask all the guests on the podcast, you know, the big question is what are you currently reading right now? You're going to hate me. I know we kind of had a conversation about this, but how bad I've been about reading this year. I'm not actually reading anything right now. The most recent thing that I read was a couple of weeks ago. So I read Happy Place in genuinely a day. Me and my friends, Sunny, we went to Target and we were like, we both wanted to buy it and we went back to her house and I literally, we were like talking and I just like started reading and I couldn't help myself. Yeah. It's like, I just, I love Emile Henry. I know we talked about this that you don't really like her writing, which is fair enough, but yeah. Yeah. I literally, this was at like 7 p.m. I was like reading on her bed and then I left to eat dinner and then just picked it right back up at like, I don't know, nine and then just read to the night. Oh my gosh. Wow. I couldn't help myself. Oh my goodness. Like that. I mean, honestly, though, the fact that you're not reading anything doesn't, you know, that's whatever compared to the fact that you, you know, binge that book in less than a day, seemingly. No, I mean, it's true. I'm not a huge Emily Henry fan, but so many are and I'm sure definitely some of our listeners are too. Yeah. People were always about, yes. My people were out there. They, they're in their listening and their listening. They are. So on that vein, like, do you rate the books that you, that you read, do you review them? What's your process like if you have one? I write them in my mind. I go, that was really good. And then I put it down and then never think about it again. No, I really, no, I, you know that I don't like, I don't, no, I don't, you know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, no, I sometimes I think about, um, creating like a good reads, but I feel like I don't read. I, okay, I read a lot. Don't say you don't read enough. Is that what you want to say? No, I was going to say, I don't, I don't read a lot of traditional media. I read a lot of fan picks too. So when I'm not like, when I'm not always just reading like traditionally published stuff, I'm, I'm always reading. I'm just not always reading traditionally published stuff. So obviously you can't really review that. I mean, people do, but, um, yeah, I feel like I just don't read like a constant pace to be posting all the time. And at that point, it just like doesn't really seem worth it. And also, I'm sure people can tell by my rambling that this is how I would speak in a review. And I feel like people would either really love that or really hate that. I mean, I, yeah, I think about it, but then I just, I didn't ever do it. I feel like the reviews can be, you know, for you. Like, my reviews are outward facing now. And that's just because of like the. years of that I've had good reads in these things, but a lot of the reviews are just because, you know, I can't remember what the 15th book was, you know, that I read in 2020. So I can look back and be like, oh my gosh, like I liked it or I didn't like it or, you know, so I think that that's something to think about. I like sometimes not being able to remember stuff because then you read it and you're like, yeah, oh yeah, this is so good. I'm like, oh my god, this is so sad. Yeah, it's a cry part too. Because it's just like not in there anymore. Yeah, it's just gone. I read it and it's just gone. Don't know. I mean, hey, that's a good point too. So that's fair. I won't, I won't push. But where do you get your reading recommendations? How do you choose what you want to read next? I am very big on wandering around Target and picking up any book that looks interesting. I mean, or Barnes and Noble, whatever. I've meant Barnes and Noble, but I said Target, but both. Yeah, both. The honestly, the book selection and Target isn't even that good. So I don't know why I said that. But I like doing that. I do really think that TikTok is really great for book. Like, okay, after I said it, I feel like I'm going to end up walking that back. Explain it is really good. It is really good for recommendations. But I also do think sometimes things get overhyped on TikTok and you read it nearly. That was not as good as TikTok made it out to be. So I, there's like a, you got to take, I feel like some TikTok reviews with like a grain of salt, because somebody would be like, this was amazing. And you read it and you're like, what is this? This is self published. And I found it two mistakes already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like, this is like a perfect example of this. The very first review I saw of Emily Henry's new book, Happy Place was someone who got an advanced copy. So like a big like book, uh, book talker. Yeah, or yeah. Yeah. And um, she said that it was nothing like the rest of Emily Henry's books doesn't fall into like the same categories at all. Isn't a love story. It's all about grief. And I read this book, like waiting for that, like waiting for all these things that she was talking about. And I was, it never came. I was like, I feel like I know you won't know because you haven't read all of her stuff, but for the people that have and have read Happy Place, um, I felt like it went along with her other three books, like perfectly. It has the same tone. It has like, it is an Emily Henry book. And it's not something that she was like, I'm taking a leap of faith and like doing this totally out of pocket book that I've never read or I've never written something like it before. I was like, no, this works very well with her other writing. It makes very, it makes sense. Yeah, yeah. And like, I'm not going to spoil anything, but it is about grief, but it's like in a way that it's for the character's motivation. It's not like this isn't like some like sad book that you're literally depressed the whole time reading. It's like, it was like, okay, this, this needed to happen for this to happen, which makes sense for this characterization. It's like one of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So people saying that I was like, no, I disagree. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, what's so, what I find so interesting about the kind of quick pitch, like TikTok recommendations is that it, it doesn't always leave room, I guess, for discussion. Yeah. And I get it because it's, you know, like it's that person's opinion, so like they're posting it or whatever, but it's like, when at least this is the way that I've kind of approached doing arch reviews, which I don't really do them very often. I rather just get something like when it comes out, but if I've ever done one, which have I very few, like I kind of leave it up to, you know, the person reading it or watching it or whatever, like I want that person to still make up their own mind. And, you know, and I'll just be like, oh, you know, this is kind of what I thought, but I could totally see this aspect too. But I think, I mean, I get it on like a quick pitch TikTok. There's not really, I guess, room for that. So a lot of the times, you know, a recommendation will, it'll be a video and they're saying, oh, like this is this and this and that. And then all the comments are agreeing. You're like, wait, do we read the same book? Like I did this for exactly at all. Yeah. You very much have to form your own opinion, even though, but it's like some people will be like, this was the best book I ever read, like the love story and like the guy, like whatever, whoever this character, I love this character so much. And I'm like, they were like, not a good person or whatever. Yeah. Are they were on two pages? Yeah. Yeah. Like, everyone's gonna have their own opinion. So like it, it's kind of annoying. Sometimes when you go into a book expecting something like so grand and it just doesn't, it just falls so flat for you. Yeah. But it's, it is like again, it is nice. It's a way to like maybe you're new to a certain genre or whatever you want to start reading x, y, z. It is nice to be like fantasy recommendations and then like you can kind of pick through it yourself. Right. It is nice at the end of the day, like that we have, you know, the ability to like post stuff online and it reaches such a broad audience. But yeah, it is annoying when it's not, not when you thought it was going to be. When it lets you down, you know, I, yeah. I really, I'm not on book talk. I did give it the the year old college try I did. But I'm just more of an Instagram book to kind of like girly. And what I found so interesting about book talk was it is great to be able to just like look at tons of videos and like, you know, kind of get recommendations of. But when I started to read them and then like multiple kept falling flat, I was like, well, I'm just gonna, you know, for my, for me and for my taste, I'm not gonna take recommendations kind of willy-milly anymore. But at first, yeah, I told you get the appeal and I see why it impacts book sales so much. Because if this ticked off is viewed by, I don't know, half a million people or a million people. Yeah. Who thought that those tropes or whatever were so interesting. Yeah, we're all gonna run to the books or are run to Kendall or the library and read it ASAP because we want to see what it's about, you know. So that the excitement of it, I really do get. But I think that excitement and then like when you pair it with the disappointment you feel afterwards, it's like, why did I waste my time on this? Yeah. Well, that reminds me of, do you see all like the hype about, I think it's called like Everlark or something, which kind of sounds like a catnissed infixion sort of deal. But it was like like yes, that's yes, yes, yes, I do see all of that. Like how she was, she, it got popular when she was writing it and it had this like cool idea. And then when it got published, I, all I saw about it was that it was bad. Yes, there was like no characterization or anything. But I still sometimes see tick tops that pop up about the book like being the number one bestseller. And apparently now it's getting like a movie or something. I don't know. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. I saw like, I saw something about it, but I'm like, all I've seen from reviews is that it wasn't good. So it's funny. The way media can like, give you something that it's like, but I don't know what I'm trying to say. But you know, yeah, that it's like, I mean, we got that we got the product, right? Like, which, I mean, just for the listeners, I haven't read it. I probably won't. But I did see, you know, all the way about it. Is Everlark the ship name of Katniss and Peta? And that's why I thought that. I think so because I was like, what's that familiar? I've heard it before. It's a pity. Katniss the Slashvik. Now that I'm now really thinking about it, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I was like, wait, is it okay? Yes. Okay, continue. Lightlark makes so much more sense. Yeah, so like it's, we got the product and then the product was received how it was. But I guess maybe it's the fact, I mean, I really don't know how the New York Times like best seller kind of stuff's work. I think it would be interesting to do some, I don't know, like research on that, but I don't really have a contact on someone who could talk about it like with more knowledge than I can. But yeah, like, I guess it's just because it sold so well. And like, it didn't even matter that most people didn't like it or what happened with that, that it still just kept rising through the ranks and, you know, then the producers got their hands on it and boom. Yeah, because it's not even sales don't like take into consideration if people finished the book. Right. Like you read it at all. Yeah, look, like people could have it like two pages and be like, this writing is not good. It gave up, but it's the sales are still there because you bought it. You see all in it. Yes. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know either. I wish I did, but I mean, that's, hey, like you said before, I'm about to follow my curiosity with that one because I do want to know more and I think it'll be interesting to kind of shed some light on that, you know, in whatever way I can as a lay person. But that's all the questions that I have for you, Riley. Thank you so much for your thoughtful responses. And just for being on the show, it's been, it's been really fun. Thanks. I'm so happy to have been here. I love you, deja. Wish I was half as eloquent as you are. You were so well spoken. When you told me you're making a podcast, I was like, I've never met anyone who is going to like is more suited for a lot of you. Thank you. Thank you. But dude, when you, when I don't know if I saw you post about it or just saw that you told me or however I found out about your podcast, but I literally was like that makes so much sense. Wow. It needs a podcast. That is what I want to hear. Thank you so much, Riley. I'm seriously just so confident. So hopefully, you know, I can have you on a game. Maybe we can do some more things about, you know, deconstructing book talk from the outside looking in or whatever. I have a lot of ideas. But thank you again. I love to. And thank you to our listeners. I'll add some of the things that we mentioned, like the TikTok that Riley runs in the show notes. And we'll see you all in the next episode. And that was our interview. I love chatting with Riley in hearing from her perspective as someone who majored in journalism, but through the length of English, I think it really showed just how pervasive the ideals of writing and all of that character building and life stuff that I'm always talking about on the podcast that you get from studying English and how they apply themselves to literally whatever you want to do. So a huge thank you to Riley for being on the show. Thanks for listening to Dari of an X English major. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you follow the show on your chosen podcast listening platform, leave a review on Apple podcast, and follow the podcast Instagram at Dari of an X English major. That's ENG. And I'll see you all soon.