Analog-ish: Seeking low-tech ideas in a high-tech world

Becky Mollenkamp
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  • Mental Health
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Analog-ish is a weekly interview podcast for people who are tired of being optimized. Hosted by feminist coach Becky Mollenkamp, who believes slowing down is a radical act, each episode features conversations with thinkers, makers, and everyday radicals who are finding their way back to something slower, more intentional, and more human. We're not here to tell you to smash your phone or go off the grid. We're here to ask better questions about the role technology plays in your life — and to explore practical low-tech ideas that give you more agency over the answer. From reclaiming rest to building real-life community, from protecting your attention to finding unmonetized joy, these conversations are honest, curious, and refreshingly free of hustle culture. If you're burned out from being constantly online and hungry for a different way forward, this show is for you.

  1. Sep 16

    What Gave a Nurse the Audacity to Build a Tech Startup?

    Psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and Silicon Valley clinician Nana Adabie joins Becky to talk about the paradox she lives inside every day: building a tech tool to help people recover from tech overload. Nana shares the patient moment that sparked the idea for Loretta, a grounding app named after the tree in her front yard, and walks through why traditional meditation apps fail people with ADHD, how dopamine-seeking and parasocial relationships online affect mental health, and what "grounding" actually means in the body. They talk candidly about audacity, immigrant identity, burnout, and Nana leads a live guided grounding exercise listeners can do right along with her. Topics Covered (with timestamps):• (02:17) Nana's background as a Silicon Valley psych nurse practitioner and the burnout epidemic she saw firsthand• (03:35) The patient moment that sparked Loretta: "I wish I had a Nana in my pocket"• (05:51) Why Loretta is built differently for neurodivergent users, short, narrative, not traditional meditation• (06:54) Nana's own relationship with technology, burnout, and the parasocial trap of online validation• (09:42) Is dopamine addiction real? How the ADHD brain seeks novelty and stimulation• (11:37) Living with "two identities" and how Nana rebuilt her own offline creativity through piano, painting, and nature• (15:21) What grounding actually means, in Nana's own words• (17:24) The story behind Loretta's name, the tree in front of Nana's house• (17:56) A live guided grounding exercise listeners can follow along with• (22:58) The audacity conversation: "there's so many mediocre men building so much dumb stuff, why not me?"• (27:54) How the Loretta app actually works, step by step• (33:36) Nana's closing advice: go sit in the sun, barefoot, for ten minutes Resources Mentioned:• Loretta app: helloloretta.com• Nana's Substack: https://nanaefua.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips• "The Creative Act" by Rick Rubin: https://amzn.to/4xtruBN• "Liberate Your Business" by Becky Mollenkamp: beckymollenkamp.com/book 🎤 JOIN US IN THE FEMINIST PODCASTERS COLLECTIVE: http://feministpodcastcollective.com/

    What Gave a Nurse the Audacity to Build a Tech Startup?

  2. Sep 9

    Food Makes You Feel Like You Belong Somewhere with celebrity chef Aarthi Sampath

    Chef Aarthi Sampath of Beat Bobby Flay, Chopped, and her new East Village restaurant Dravida joins Becky to talk about food as identity, technology's real role in a professional kitchen, and why she thinks restaurants matter more than ever in an AI-saturated world.  Aarthi traces her path from swapping lunchboxes as a kid in India to running a restaurant built around a cuisine scattered by colonialism and migration across South Asia and its diaspora.  They dig into how tech has actually changed restaurant work (POS systems, AI-standardized recipes, automated payroll), why she isn't nervous about AI taking chefs' jobs, the real villain behind food delivery apps, and what it means to train a staff to bring genuine hospitality ("your inner auntie") to every table. Topics Covered (with timestamps): (00:59) Aarthi's origin story: trading lunchboxes as a kid and discovering food as connection(04:21) How TV and shows like Chopped changed the cultural status of the chef profession(05:43) The real ways technology shows up in a restaurant — POS systems, inventory apps, AI-standardized recipes, automated payroll(07:34) Why Aarthi isn't nervous about AI in the kitchen, and where she thinks it can't replace people(10:17) The "alter ego" of being on camera, and why some chefs thrive on TV and others don't(13:40) The "duck on water" metaphor, the chaos of the kitchen versus the calm experience in the dining room(16:36) Why she thinks people are craving in-person dining again after years of delivery-first eating(19:01) The real problem with delivery apps: the 30–35% cut they take from small restaurants(19:43) The origin and meaning behind Dravida, tracing a cuisine across colonialism, migration, and the South Asian diaspora(22:39) The throughlines across cultures: hospitality, tropical produce, and spice as historical connector(24:06) How she trains her staff to bring authentic hospitality — "bring in your inner auntie"(27:16) Aarthi's version of self-care as a chef and entrepreneur, and why business growth feels like self-care to her(29:57) Her closing message: come sit at a restaurant with a wood-fired oven and no technology, and reclaim a real third spaceDRAVIDA RESTAURANT: 211 First Avenue, East Village, NYC 🎤 JOIN US IN THE FEMINIST PODCASTERS COLLECTIVE: http://feministpodcastcollective.com/

    Food Makes You Feel Like You Belong Somewhere with celebrity chef Aarthi Sampath

  3. Sep 2

    Believe Women. That's the Whole Policy.

    Sociologist and founder Dr. Moriah Brewer joins Becky to ask a question most of us were taught never to ask out loud: why is something that happens to roughly half the population still treated as shameful, private, and inconvenient? Moriah unpacks why periods get hidden (hint: it's about usefulness, not modesty), shares her own years-long journey through undiagnosed PCOS, fibroids, and infertility, and explains the difference between equity and equality using periods as the clearest possible example. They dig into period leave policy, period poverty, medical racism in healthcare, and why "care" might be the one truly AI-resistant human skill left. Moriah also introduces Like Home, the period care platform and doula network she's building from the ground up. Topics Covered:(01:33) Why periods stay hidden: Moriah's theory that it comes down to usefulness, not modesty(04:27) Why this conversation includes trans men and all menstruating bodies, not just women(05:54) Moriah's own period history — fevers, vomiting, being told she was "dramatic" — and the diagnoses (PCOS, fibroids, a uterine polyp) that came only after a fertility struggle(10:11) The vision behind Like Home: a period care home, app, and in-home doula network built on service, not just products(13:23) "Believe women" — Moriah's own experience with medical racism, including underrating her pain to an EMT at 19(15:51) Period leave policy today: 2% of US companies now offer it (up from zero seven years ago), plus what Italy and Japan are doing(16:44) Moriah's ideal world: self-determination during your period, free period products, and addressing period poverty (2 in 5 Michigan women affected)(20:26) Equity vs. equality, explained through the lens of periods and privilege(23:12) Why fighting for period leave benefits everyone — disability leave, paternity leave, and mental health leave all ride on the same fight(29:34) Why "care" might be the one thing that's AI-resistant, and the return to community-based care(35:41) The barber story: six weeks of guaranteed vacation in Switzerland vs. one week in the US, and why tiered maternity leave at Moriah's former university never sat right with her LIKE HOME: joinlikehome.com🎤 JOIN US IN THE FEMINIST PODCASTERS COLLECTIVE: http://feministpodcastcollective.com/

    Believe Women. That's the Whole Policy.

  4. Aug 27

    The Dopamine Hit Now Comes With a Pile of Sh*t

    Brand strategist, writer, and business mentor Lindsay Hyatt has been online since the AOL free-hour CDs, and after two decades of building her career on visibility, she's questioning all of it. In this episode, Lindsay talks with Becky about what happened when she started deactivating Threads for a week at a time, the Pavlov's-dog realization that the dopamine hit stuck around even after the "reward" training stopped, and what it felt like to sit out a Buffalo Bills coaching-change controversy instead of weighing in online. They dig into the difference between community and content, why "reciprocity" disappeared from the online business space, and how Lindsay is relearning to do things purely for fun, with no monetization angle. Topics Covered:(00:22) Lindsay's 20-year career built around being online, and the moment she started questioning it(03:00) How social media felt different in the Twitter-in-2010 era versus now, and what changed after the pandemic(06:01) The disappearance of reciprocity in the online business space — "talking into the void"(10:56) What's left when you strip away the performance: confronting depletion, exhaustion, and who you are offline(12:16) The practical mechanics of deactivating Threads week by week, and the milestones that came with it(14:00) The Buffalo Bills coaching-change story — sitting with the urge to comment and not doing it(18:37) Consumers versus creators, and forgetting how to make things without a monetization goal(21:26) "Taking my power back" — free will versus addictive, manipulated habit loops(25:19) Rediscovering analog joys (biking, music, the flute) and unlearning the expectation of a dopamine hit(32:49) Returning to a traditional day job for financial stability, and reframing it as freedom rather than defeat(36:14) Lindsay's advice: give yourself grace, expect it to be imperfect, and try deleting the app for just one day Resources Mentioned:• Lindsay's website: https://www.lindsayhyatt.com/• Lindsay's podcast, Reprogramming: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reprogramming-with-lindsay-hyatt/id1687118927 🎤 JOIN US IN THE FEMINIST PODCASTERS COLLECTIVE: http://feministpodcastcollective.com/

    The Dopamine Hit Now Comes With a Pile of Sh*t

  5. Aug 12

    How to Network like a Human with Brandon Drake

    In this episode, you'll hear from Brandon Drake, a relationship-driven CRM consultant who's built a 7,000+ person networking system that scores people on how genuinely reciprocal they are — not how useful they might be. Becky and Brandon dig into why "networking" makes so many of us cringe, the difference between go-giver and go-getter mentalities, and the exact red flags (and green flags) Brandon listens for in a first conversation. Brandon breaks down how he gamified his CRM with an engagement scoring system, why he refuses to work with CRMs that use "stair-step pricing," and how automation actually freed him up to be more human with the people who matter. If you've ever felt weird about networking, or you're drowning in a LinkedIn list of 4,000 names you barely remember, this conversation offers a genuinely different way to think about relationship-building in business. Topics Covered:• Why the "used car salesman" version of networking feels so bad, and what relationship-driven networking looks like instead• The go-giver vs. go-getter mindset, and why corporate conditioning trains people to ask "what can I get from this person?"• The one question Brandon asks to instantly reveal whether someone is relationship-driven or purely transactional: "Who are your strategic partners?"• Red flags Brandon watches for in a first meeting, jumping straight to "target audience," rattling off accomplishments, not respecting calendar/time boundaries• Green flags that tell Brandon someone is a match, asking how they can help him before he asks them, admitting a mistake and correcting course• How Brandon gamified his CRM with a points-based engagement score built from both human judgment (tags like "community oriented" or "salesy") and hard data (email opens, replies, referrals)• Why he has over 7,000 people in his CRM and how the engagement score helps him prioritize who to reconnect with• His argument that automation and AI, used well, don't replace human connection, they buy back time to actually have it• How his automated 60-day nurture sequence still routes back to real human follow-up (reconnection calls, updated bios)• Why he refuses to recommend CRMs with "stair-step pricing" and what he looks for instead• Who he actually works with: service-based businesses across industries, filtered by values alignment rather than niche• His closing advice: lead with a go-giver mentality, and go read "The Go-Giver" Find Brandon Drake at https://healthydataguy.com/ Resources Mentioned:• "The Go-Giver" by Bob Burg and John David Mann: https://amzn.to/4gHD86z 🎤 JOIN US IN THE FEMINIST PODCASTERS COLLECTIVE: http://feministpodcastcollective.com/

    How to Network like a Human with Brandon Drake

  6. Aug 5

    Reclaiming Curiosity After Educational Trauma with Podge Thomas

    Podge Thomas is a queer, neurodivergent, multiracial creative entrepreneur who teaches people how to use Notion — not as another productivity hack, but as a tool for reclaiming curiosity that traditional education flattened. In this episode, Podge walks Becky through the concept of "digital gardens": a pre-algorithm way of collecting, synthesizing, and sharing what you're curious about online, without letting platforms like Facebook or Instagram dictate what you consume. They talk about why Podge refuses to use AI automation inside Notion even though it's available, how educational trauma shaped their fiercely anti-productivity-culture stance, the difference between "efficiency" and genuinely meaningful process, and how anyone can build their own "master's program" of self-directed learning using free tools and a little structure. If you've got 800 open tabs and no system, or you've felt disconnected from your own curiosity, this conversation offers a real alternative to algorithm-driven scrolling. Topics Covered:• What digital gardens are, where the concept originated in early-2000s blogging and programmer culture, and why it's resurfacing now• Podge's input → synthesis → output process: collecting content, processing it in Notion, and turning it into newsletter and blog output• How educational trauma and being punished for asking questions in school shaped Podge's anti-productivity, curiosity-first philosophy• Why Podge intentionally avoids algorithm-driven platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) but embraces YouTube and Reddit for discovery• Podge's decision to email Notion and request AI automation features be removed from their own account• The difference between using tools for genuine efficiency versus getting trapped in a capitalist productivity mindset• How Notion forces metacognition, thinking about how you think, arrange, and process information• Teaching Notion specifically to neurodivergent people, marginalized entrepreneurs, and adult learners who were failed by traditional education• The idea of building your own "master's program" through free online resources and self-directed curiosity• Podge's practical workshops and free resources for learning Notion, including a DIY YouTube-in-Notion system Podge Thomas:• Website: https://www.podgethomas.com/• Podge's digital garden 🎤 JOIN US IN THE FEMINIST PODCASTERS COLLECTIVE: http://feministpodcastcollective.com/

    Reclaiming Curiosity After Educational Trauma with Podge Thomas

  7. Jul 29

    Aligned, Not Automated: A NASA Strategist on AI Burnout

    Bree Nachelle isn't anti-tech; she's a NASA-trained digital strategist, mindfulness facilitator, and AI practitioner who's also brutally honest about what happens when productivity tools stop serving us and start running us. After a mini stroke at 43 forced a total reset, Bree wrote Aligned, Not Automated to draw a hard line between automation for its own sake and automation rooted in purpose. In this conversation, she and Becky dig into why "I hired five AI employees" often just means you've created five more jobs to babysit, how capitalism turns time-saving tools into productivity traps, the specific mental-load relief AI has given her as a Black woman managing chronic illness, and why real guardrails — used books, a paper planner, weekly credit audits, matter more than which app you download. If you've ever felt exhausted despite "automating everything," this one's for you. Topics Covered:• Why hiring "AI employees" often just creates more unpaid oversight work instead of real time savings• The difference between alignment and automation, and why Bree's book exists to name that gap• How Bree's 2024 mini stroke at age 43 forced a reckoning with burnout, corporate ladder-climbing, and self-neglect• Using AI tools to fill cognitive gaps during recovery from brain fog, ADHD, and perimenopause• The environmental and labor costs of AI (water usage, data centers, farmland) held alongside its personal benefits• Why women, especially Black women, carry disproportionate mental load, and how that shapes both AI adoption and AI skepticism• Bree's personal guardrails: buying used books, auditing AI credit usage weekly, printing and fact-checking AI output by hand• Using AI to manage chronic migraines via pressure-change alerts, and to manage caregiving check-ins for her kids• The "23 minutes to reset your brain" research on task-switching and why multitasking doesn't work• Rejecting AI-generated art specifically, while still using AI tools for workflow and admin support Connect with Bree Nachelle:• "Aligned, Not Automated" by Bree Nachelle: https://amzn.to/3RwVoFl• Bree's website: https://baronessbree.com/ 🎤 JOIN US IN THE FEMINIST PODCASTERS COLLECTIVE: http://feministpodcastcollective.com/

    Aligned, Not Automated: A NASA Strategist on AI Burnout

  8. Jul 22

    The Hidden History Inside Vintage 3D Viewers

    Keita Wangari is a tech founder and former Google product researcher who spends her off-hours collecting something most people don't know exists: 3D viewers and stereoscopes dating back to the 1800s. In this episode, Keita traces her collection back to a $2 thrift-store find inspired by The Devil in the White City, explains the actual science of stereoscopy, and walks through the surprising 150-year history of 3D viewing devices — from Holmes-style stereoscopes to View-Master's 1939 debut. She also gets into something far heavier: how Black people were almost entirely erased from 3D photography's history, except in derogatory depictions, and her ongoing mission to find and preserve non-derogatory images of Black life and history. Along the way, she talks about being one of the only Black collectors in a mostly white hobby space, what it means to be a "caretaker" rather than a hoarder, and the legacy plan she's already written for her collection — including a museum earmarked for African-American history. Topics Covered:• What 3D viewers and stereoscopes actually are, and the real science (stereoscopy) behind how two slightly different images create depth in the brain• How a thrifted 1933 "Century of Progress" World's Fair viewer, sparked by reading The Devil in the White City, launched Keita's collection• The surprising 150-year history of 3D viewing devices — from 1880s Holmes-style stereoscopes to the True View company to View-Master's 1939 debut at the New York World's Fair• Why stereoscopy is still functioning technology today — used in lunar missions and modern surgery — even though the viewing devices themselves feel delightfully analog• The near-total absence of Black people in 3D photography and stereo cards from the 1800s through the 1950s, and the handful of derogatory exceptions that did exist• Keita's mission to find and preserve non-derogatory 3D images connected to Black history, including Howard University's opening, Black soldiers, a Tuskegee classroom, and a candid photo of Hank Aaron• What it's like being one of very few Black collectors in a predominantly white collecting community• Why Keita sees herself as a caretaker rather than a hoarder — researching, organizing, and documenting every piece instead of just accumulating them• The legacy plan already built into her will, specific pieces going to her husband and collector friends, with the rest earmarked for a museum focused on African-American history• Her advice for anyone wanting to start collecting: find one object that sparks curiosity, research it, then deliberately keep your focus narrow Book Mentioned:• "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson: https://amzn.to/44ZXBw1 Connect with Keita Wangari:Vintage Viewers website: https://vintageviewers.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/3dcollector 🎤 JOIN US IN THE FEMINIST PODCASTERS COLLECTIVE: http://feministpodcastcollective.com/

    The Hidden History Inside Vintage 3D Viewers
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About

Analog-ish is a weekly interview podcast for people who are tired of being optimized. Hosted by feminist coach Becky Mollenkamp, who believes slowing down is a radical act, each episode features conversations with thinkers, makers, and everyday radicals who are finding their way back to something slower, more intentional, and more human. We're not here to tell you to smash your phone or go off the grid. We're here to ask better questions about the role technology plays in your life — and to explore practical low-tech ideas that give you more agency over the answer. From reclaiming rest to building real-life community, from protecting your attention to finding unmonetized joy, these conversations are honest, curious, and refreshingly free of hustle culture. If you're burned out from being constantly online and hungry for a different way forward, this show is for you.

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