Edgy (but like make it) Gay

In the back of my head, there is this looming fear that I'd end up ordinary, because I thought that I should strive to be extraordinary. Dreading the very real fact that I might brand my own self as a failure, I've used the image of an ordinary person as a negative example to push me forward in life. Using fear as motivation is never a great choice, so I talked about it this episode. Photo description: Me in my school uniform, proudly posing with two trophies I had snagged earlier that day.

Thousands of languages in the world, yet not enough time to learn them all. This episode, I'm joined by my favorite polyglot, Ramil, to talk about languages, slang, and accents among other things. Photo description: 8-year-old me at my first speech competition.

Just because women can wear jeans now, doesn't mean that the story of feminism is over. In fact, it is far away from it. In this rather dense episode, Swati is back again to talk about the image, alongside our perception and views, on feminism. Photo description: A photograph of a random girl with a NERF gun, not a TERF gun.

Is talking about poop unhinged? Maybe. What about butt-stuff? Wouldn't the world be a better place if we're just a little bit more honest, deranged, and poop-tolerant? Kevin is back to have a chat with me about poop and but-stuff. Photo description: It was the year of my poop incident and I was sitting in front of the infamous desktop computer.

Blue for boys and pink for girls? Pfft. That's not just outdated, that's lazy and tired. Here, we talked about gender identity, pronouns, and, just generally speaking, being people who are just a tad more mindful. Photo description: Indonesian is a genderless language, the word for he/she/it/they (singular) is "dia".

Sometimes, the hardest thing for us to do is to admit the things that we do alone behind closed doors, when the only witness that we have to the things we do alone is ourself. Let's reflect upon that. This episode, a confession of the things that I do alone. Photo description: Me digitally attempting to perform a Chidori in secrecy.

I used to be addicted to not just the gaming aspect of World of Warcraft but also its sense of community. Some may even say that I was not a player, I was played. I invited Damiano this time around to talk about the seen and unseen layers of (mostly video) games. Photo description: Tyrande (top) and Sylvanas (bottom), Damiano's and my favorite WoW characters respectively.

I've always thought being anti-religion is edgy, but the more I think about it, it's not edgy at all. If anything, rejecting religion is sane and it makes sense. Mike is here with me again to discuss/bash religion. Photo description: Little Andy during a bible-reading competition.

There's always this great divide, at least in my mind, when thinking about straight boys. So I challenged myself to talk to presumably the only straight boy who'll ever appear on this podcast about masculinity and straight sex. It's gonna be so fetch, bro. Photo description: I love swords since they're so cool and manly.

My grandmother passed away earlier this year which got me thinking a lot, again, about death, loneliness, and idleness. It's sometimes way too easy to constantly ask myself, "Why are we living when we will all ultimately die?", so let's talk about that. Photo description: My grandmother's hand when she was hospitalized in 2017.

tw // abuse, self-harm, r*pe. On the final episode this season, I will share this story with you about being in an abusive relationship. Listen to it with caution because it can be a lot. I will also be taking a break for some time and I will be back in October. Stay safe, my edgelings! Photo description: Andy, enjoying the ocean breeze at a beach in Sekinchan, Malaysia.

It has been evident for quite some time that despite the janky relationship that I have with my parents, that isn't quite the case with my brother. This episode, we talked about the house that we grew up in and the shared experiences we had growing up together. Photo description: Wilson and I looking adorable in a relative's house ca. 2000.

I used to be in a relationship with this boy called Skyler. I watched him grow up as I noticed how different yet similar we were. Despite our rather eventful break up, we've never stopped talking to each other. We discussed about confidence, a bit of our relationship, and his coming out experience. Photo description: Skyler wearing my shirt and biting on a flower during some random photoshoot.

Girl 5 and I love organizing events so we talked about that on this episode. Most of these events were culture nights, a monthly event that students from our master's program organize and attend in the spirit of cultural and alcohol appreciation. We also went to Croatia together and things were explosive at first because in the end, everything comes down to control. Photo description: From left to right - Girl 5's boyfriend, lanky German boy, Girl 5, blonde German girl, me, and Mike - in Plitvice lakes.

Growing up in a superstitious family, I was once really into astrology, but now, not so much. Ever since I started thinking that zodiacs are mostly BS, I've been wondering why a lot of people are so drawn to what is a very visible display of the Barnum effect. I rekindled my fascination towards horoscopes, superstition, and Indonesian ghosts with Jordan this episode. Photo description: This cool atomic art piece on display in the German Museum in Munich.

Coming from an Asian household with obscenely high expectations, my younger years were filled with abuse and trauma, mostly coming from my parents. "The opposite of love is note hate, it's indifference," Tyra Banks once said, and that is honestly what I feel when talking about my parents, but sure, you can say that it's edgy of me to feel that way after listening to this episode. Photo description: A 3-year-old Andy in snowy Boston.

When I came out to a friend of mine in high school, she outright told me to get electroconvulsive conversion therapy. Growing up gay in Indonesia means that you constantly have to hide your sexual orientation and you just have to be satisfied with living under the radar. I brought Kevin along to talk about growing up and living as a gay person in a homophobic Indonesia. Photo description: I was having a bowl of popcorn and G&T in some bar in Jakarta.

Ever since I was in high school, I've been writing very pretentious poems to convey what I'm feeling or what I'm going through. Call me young, call me dumb, but whenever I revisit these poems, I always feel like I have to pat my past self on the back for being so friggin' cool. Swati is joining me this episode to talk about writing our feelings down and we're going to read some of these infamous poems of mine to cringe up your life. Photo description: I was pushed into a swimming pool by a couple of my girlfriends.

My parents used to tell me that white people are the best kind of people and that I should strive to be just as good as they are. Obviously, that sparked a storm of internalized racism within me, which I'm still trying to get out of. This episode, I brought my boyfriend, Mike, along to talk about racially charged topics, colorism, digital blackface, and racism within the gay community. Khadija Mbowe's channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/KhadijaMbowe Photo description: Seven-year-old me in one of the many drawing competitions I participated in.

Once upon a time, there was this boy who thought that an anime boy hairstyle could solve most of his problems during high school without realizing that it was just some edgy crap. Over ten years have passed and he has since then chosen to keep the edginess minus the Sasuke-ness of it all. Photo description: Year 10 me at a mall wearing a striped T-shirt and a sling bag trying to look cool.

Here it is folks, the culmination of a bunch of nothingness in an edgy typeface. Listen as I dive head-first into my cringe-filled past where I grew up as a gaysian boy with a very questionable moral compass. I also have friends who do not necessarily enjoy me being edgy and they will appear too down the line somehow. Topics this season include: childhood trauma, edge culture history, and very very obnoxious poems.