Outgrowing SA Culture

Just venting. 

Chapters

• 0:08 Challenges of South Asian Culture
• 8:55 South Asian Identity Struggles & Community
• 16:03 Contemplating Changes in the Podcast

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Hi everyone, welcome back to. But what Will People Say? I'm your host, disha Mazzuppa, and this is a South Asian Insuritial Relationship and Lifestyle podcast. Welcome back for another episode. Hello everybody.

Speaker 1: 0:21

This week's episode is a ranty one. It's a solo episode. You're going to notice there's more solo episodes in general around here. A girl is busy and just booking guests, recording guests. All of it just takes a lot of work, not to say there won't be guests. We definitely have them lined up, but there's definitely some changes coming to the show. But this week's episode is definitely just me being annoyed and maybe venting and just needing to know that I'm not the only one who's just over all of it. So here we go.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Okay, so maybe this is because I just turned 31 and I feel like I'm older and so much wiser now. Just kidding, I'm just worried about going into their 30s. I highly recommend being in my 30s way more fun than being in my 20s. I remember being real stressed out about it, but now I'm just like actually I have even fewer Fs to give about the nonsense. The problem is, a lot of those Fs I don't have to give are for the South Asian culture and the community. So this is going to sound like I hate brown people because I just need to vent. Okay, I'll just leave it at that. I'm just gonna give you my final judgment and let me let it out. You don't have to listen to this episode if it's going to make you mad. I'm sorry, but I don't know what it is. But I'm just done. I think you know what it is. It's.

Speaker 1: 2:05

When I started this show in my head I didn't really have a plan for it. I didn't know how long it would go on, but I was kind of like, oh well, like this isn't go on forever, in the sense that at least the premise of interracial relationships and all of this would just be a thing that would die with our parents' generation, a thing that really us as millennials and Gen Zs would have to push through, and then everyone else can just get on with their lives and we can just go and be normal people. But instead, the older I get, the more I see younger people, people that are millennials and Gen Zs, even just spewing the same bullshit but wrapped in a different package and a lot of the stuff everyone complains about like the worst parts of our culture. There's plenty of people still perpetuating it and, as you see, more and more like South Asian media in the Western realm, it just kind of throws in your face that like oh, actually it kind of feels like nothing really changed, like, yes, some things did, but there's still a lot of crap, and it's like, oh, you're actually just the problem and we're just continuing. That. That's weird, and so even you know what it is with this podcast. It kind of keeps me in the South Asian space online and even with people that you know I interact with because of the show and I will say generally, I mean, first of all, I love my guests. They are amazing, incredible, wonderful people and I've never had to complain about any of them. But there's other, like the online space maybe that's what it is where it's like I don't want to be here and I think it's because I'm older and I can just call it for what it is. You can also say it's a trauma response where I'm just hyper aware of everything all the time and I don't know how to turn that part of my brain off. But I like, for example, let's get specific here, right, I See a lot of people online that will especially on, like these dating shows or when people talk about dating and let's be clear, all these people talking are singles fucks.

Speaker 1: 4:31

I don't know why they give advice, but they will say like, oh, if you like date white people, you have internalized racism. And I'm like, first of all, the low effort thought it must take to turn everything that includes people of two different skin colors and just like call it racist as a blanket statement is like the most boring and unoriginal and least level or lowest level of Critical thinking you have ever seen. But it's like, oh so a culture that has used shame and fear to control their people and Bind them to toxic shit shed the whole. What will people say? And replaced it with. I'm just gonna judge you with statements like that that Don't make any sense but also are extremely disrespectful and rude. But they're just like that's the statement.

Speaker 1: 5:20

Or like I hate when brown people date people who aren't brown and it's like You're single, bro, sit down and shut the fuck up, don't give me advice about who we're dating. Or that like they can't possibly fathom that you could date someone who isn't brown and actually just be happy with them because they're kind and nice people and they love you and respect you and treat you as an equal Like. I know that's a foreign concept to a lot of brown people, especially if they date only other brown people, but it's actually Not that hard to grasp if you actually just like weren't an ignorant idiot sandwich and it's like these are people who are younger than me, slightly older than me, like literally my generation, right, and I'm like bra what. And like it's just so broken and I'm like all you did was take the problem of what will people say as A way to control people and you change it to. I'm just gonna call you a racist, like what you.

Speaker 1: 6:22

It's boring, it's unoriginal and it's stupid. Honestly, like if, if you are around brown people who stay dumb, things like that Don't even leave room at the table for them, don't cut them out and shove them out the door. Honestly, like you it was. It's so aggravating every time I see it, every time I hear it. It's just like so this is the best we came up with. We're just gonna replace one problem with another version of the same problem. Got it so like they're doing the same thing.

Speaker 1: 6:54

And here's the thing. Just like our parents generation who use like what will people say as a way to control everyone because really it benefited the person who said it. Right, it like benefits you to say something like like that it's the same thing like being like oh, if you date someone who's not brown, you're internally racist towards brown people or you hate yourself, which whatever. I don't hate myself, but it's the same thing and it benefits you because you're single as shit and that sucks, doesn't it, bro? Anyway, and it's like it's not even guys too. It is guys very often, but it's also girls, and that's where you're like oh look, the toxic brown girl crap is also still here. We're still doing that. Okay, it's creepy, it's cringy and it's unnecessary. So I think you know again, this podcast keeps me in the South Asian spaces and I think I've reached a point where, like honestly, I don't want to be there. I really don't.

Speaker 1: 7:55

You've heard so many of our guests here. If you've listened to any amount of guest related episodes here, a lot of them will start their Story off with I didn't really grow up with brown friends, or I didn't grow up in a space with a lot of brown people, or I actually don't have any brown friends right now, and there's a reason for that because when you have friends outside of your culture. You're constantly like Filtering things through different lenses. Like my friends are from all over the place, they're from all over the world, they speak lots of different languages and everyone has like a Different perspective. So when I need advice or when I need feedback, I have so much outside in advice. Like they're on the outside right they're looking into some of the cultural nonsense and just giving kind of their idea of what their perspective is and their advice. And then when you're in a room full of all brown people, everyone just spewing the same bullshit and Feeding into each other and no one's questioning it.

Speaker 1: 8:55

Like a lot of people who stay in the South Asian space. Like you know those kids who, like they went to school with a bunch of brown people, all of their friends are brown and they only date brown people and everyone around them is brown. And if you were like, oh, like, who do you spend your time with? It's only all their South Asians. Like they just live in an echo chamber and so they just believe their own bullshit and no one questions it and They'll say they do that. Yeah, you know, like things are really changing. Like I don't think my parents would really care, like if I did it, someone who wasn't brown, I'm like, okay, that's cool, I don't you don't have to tell me that, but they just don't question even.

Speaker 1: 9:33

And for me, I think obviously a lot of it has to do with just how I was raised and all of that when I've always felt like an outsider in the South Asian community and my Spidey senses are senses are always going off when I'm in brown spaces where I'm like I can't be here. I'm sorry if you hear my dog snoring by the way, she's over here and out cold, but I'm always on the outside looking in instead of being in it. If that makes sense, and so it makes me like I Just have to call everything what it is and maybe I just struggle with anything that's less than the truth, like if it's not, I'd rather have an uncomfortable truth then Like a placating or comfortable lie, whereas I find a lot of South Asians are happy to live with the lie because they benefit from so much of our culture and maybe, maybe I'm jaded, I guess, from being a kid who really didn't benefit from anything in South Asian culture, let's be honest, and it just makes it really hard to be in those spaces and for a while, like with the podcast and being in these spaces, I felt like, oh, like, maybe this is a way where I can connect with the community and I can like find my place that is more niched down in a group of South Asians, right, and I just don't think that's happened. And no, that's not true. It has happened because I'm friends with so many of my guests and so many of my listeners and you guys are all awesome, but a lot of you guys are just like me and like this little online space I have with you guys is the level of South Asian that I interact with.

Speaker 1: 11:21

And then in my real life, in my everyday, I don't, and I think that's enough for me. I think there was a point where I was like you know, I should like, I don't know, have more brown friends or something, and I was like, nah, maybe, and I think it's because I'm older and I see that so much is not changing and there's just so much bullshit and there's so much of just the like, like, I don't know. I find the whole like, oh, like, I'm a child of immigrant story and I'm like you're a child of immigrants with zero student loans, who became a doctor and whose parents have paid for your existence and you've never had a real job until you became a doctor. Like you're stop playing the whole. Like I came, like my parents came here with $5.00. I know you didn't like stop. And then you know it's like the really traumatic story of how they've like broken barriers or whatever crap it is, and I'm like, okay, I guess Whatever, and like they're so happy like to feed into that story because it gets them attention. And I'm like there are lots of South Asians who have not had those opportunities, who have been overlooked. There's so much abuse and narcissism and stuff in our culture that those people who love spewing, that they love being brown, will absolutely ignore all of it and look the other way because it doesn't benefit them. And then they'll like go off and like raise their kids like you're gonna be a doctor. You're like, okay, wait up. Way to keep it up, bro.

Speaker 1: 12:53

I don't know if I'm making a point with this episode. Truly, I am ranting. I don't even have like notes, I'm just annoyed. You know I'm not. I don't know if I'm annoyed, I think I'm just sad because I truly thought like this stuff, most of it would have moved on. We would have like gotten past it, but instead we just again now it's just said differently and I'm like you know what, and it's disappointing because it's like I, yeah, I don't think I want to be in that space anymore and I don't think I feel bad about it.

Speaker 1: 13:34

More than anything, as I get older and I start thinking about like having kids and I'm like an, as someone who has like, truly like, dealt with the brunt of the worst parts of South Asian culture, that I'm like you know what? The samosas aren't worth it. The lingas and the samosas. You know what? I can get samosas at Trader Joe's for $3.99. Now I don't have to keep myself in this community or force myself to be around these people, because I don't forget me, like I'm an adult and I can just, like you know, get on with my life. But I don't want my kids to have even like Like an ounce of the bullshit rub off on them just because I'm trying to hold on to like lingas. You know what I mean. Like great, we have amazing clothes and we have great music and we have amazing food, but guess what? It's 2024. I can get that basically anywhere now, especially in Jersey. I Don't have to sit here and put myself through.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Any event, let even like a 0.01% chance that my kids might have to like hear some ignorant commentary from someone who's my age who decided like they're better than everyone and they're gonna judge the people around them the same way our parents generation judges everyone around them. Like I just don't. I already, like every day, struggle with myself, worth and with like what, I, what? Who do I want to be in this world? Like some days I'm like what am I doing? Like it feels like I'm surviving most days, and and the older I get, and like being in therapy and seeing like how much of the toxic, abusive shit has seeped into like every part of me and like and Some a lot of you who are listening will probably relate to this, I know, because my DMs are full of you guys where we talk about this stuff but like Everything my personality, the, the job I ended up in, even the relationships were in like think of how many people on this show or just victims of narcissistic abuse, because a lot of y'all are. If you're in therapy, you know that. If you're not, you'll find out. Or your parents just loved you and we're like you can marry whoever you want Like that's great, amazing. I love that for you, but there's a lot of you who didn't. I think that's the other thing.

Speaker 1: 16:03

There's so many South Asians that, like they want to tell the immigrant story but they are fully benefiting from it, while ignoring the people who didn't. Just Because it's uncomfortable and it's like I would do anything to scrape off like the impact of the years of bullshit, like I would peel my skin off if it meant I wouldn't have to like feel like every part of my personality was a result of, like, the things that we went through. And then you're in these rooms and spaces where the South Asians who are like benefiting from all of it don't want to be around someone who calls everything what it is, like they want to sugarcoat it, they want to, or the best part is, they don't want to address it right there. It's like, oh, but like our culture is so important and then the best part is it'll just be something about colonization, because apparently, as long as you call it that you don't have to look in the mirror and at the skeletons in the closet of your own culture, like just say it's colonization and then you can blame white people and it's like I don't want to be in that space anymore, like I don't have to sit there and be around people who are happy to ignore what so many especially the women, like so many women in our culture go through. And then there's the men and women in our communities who just like don't care but then like want to like feed into, like the oh, but like lingas and big Indian weddings, and I'm like I'm so fucking bored Like you don't care about anything but the things that benefit you here and like, but like you know, we're cycle breakers right there, they're all cycle breakers and I'm like gross, no, you're not, because, trust me, nobody wants to be a cycle breaker. It's like the worst thing ever. I would shut that again in a heartbeat if it meant I could just feel like a regular fucking person who can just go through life and be normal and we already know I'm not normal, that's not a secret around here and just realizing like so much of that is just like because of all the bullshit that I went through, and I'm like cool, this sucks. And so I don't know what that means for this podcast, because really this podcast has shown me like truly the best South Asians around, like my guests, my listeners, like you guys are amazing and have always like made not just me but other people who listen to the show, knowing that they're not the only ones.

Speaker 1: 18:50

But I think I've spent four years cultivating an audience that is understanding and also open to change, and that includes change on this podcast, because I think that is going to happen eventually. It's already happening and I'm not sure what that's gonna look like. I don't know, but I think part of where the change is gonna come from is from a point of just like I don't know if I can be here anymore in terms of like, maybe it's the online space, but also sometimes the in-person space. Like some of you hang out with these people and you're like my life Is a joke. I always joke that like I go see my parents and all the like stereotypical things brown parents do that are the worst they do within the first 10 minutes. But now it feels like that even happens when I'm around people my age and I'm not saying that's everybody, but it is a lot of them and I just I think, because I'm a little bit older now I don't have the patience or the interest in putting up with it because I Don't care what they think Enough to want to be around them for more than like the bare minimum you know what I mean, or at all. I think that's the thing it used to be. It went from trying to fit in or like trying to be there To bare minimum to now just like I'm good, I'm gonna pass. So there is that, and I don't know. Let me know if you guys ever feel this way, like I know. Like obviously most of you are just normal people who have like lives and jobs, unlike me, but like a lot of you are also like kind of To some extent, probably see the uptick in like South Asian representation and it's amazing. There's lots of great things that have come out of it, so many amazing artists and musicians and all of that. But then, like there's also like these other creators or other people that are Trying to act like they can speak for the South Asian community, but like are actually just like not, and so I think I Don't know how this show will change, other than Probably having fewer guests, because I just don't have that kind of time anymore. But we'll see. I love podcasting and I love being here and I love you guys. Like you guys are the fucking coolest, so hopefully you'll stick around for the ride and the journey If you're still here and listening.

Speaker 1: 21:34

I'm also working through getting through the anonymous submissions box, like that's kind of the Suggestions box, request box, questions you want us to answer on the show. I'm gonna start going through as many of those as I can. So if you want to Submit something in there, feel free to submit something. It could be long if you be sure it could be a question. If it is like a specific question, you got to give me some context. Sometimes people will leave like one line and I'm like I don't know what this means. So give me something that makes sense that I can answer for you guys, and I'll try to have.

Speaker 1: 22:11

I think what you'll see more is more and more of my friends and also friends of the podcast people you have already heard that will probably be brought on to have some of these conversations and more of my friends, whether they're South Asian or not, because what I have found is the best sounding board for advice has been people who can look from the outside in, because they can keep it objective and they can call the crap for what it is instead of trying to like sugarcoat it. I'm not saying they are all gonna be not brown. I mean, this is a salvation podcast, but a little you know mixing it up around here because, if anything, the show has been a representation a little bit of me and a lot of you guys and the lives you live and and we all live in a world where at least most of us don't live in a bubble, and so you might see a little bit more of that. We'll see. We'll see what happens. I don't really actually have a plan. I just need to vent today Because I can't possibly be the only one. You know what I mean. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. If you're still here, I'll see you guys next time. Thanks so much for tuning in, guys.

Speaker 1: 23:20

Make sure if you enjoyed this episode, you leave us a review on iTunes. You can find the show on all major streaming platforms. You can find me on Instagram at Disha dot Mazeppa. You can shop my Etsy shop Disha Mazeppa designs. Find out everything you want to know about this show at Disha Mazeppa dot com. And if you or someone you know would like to be a guest, you can email BWPS Podcast at gmailcom. And I'll see you guys next time Bye. This podcast is hosted and produced by Disha Mazeppa. Music for the show was created by Craigswell.