If you are looking for fashion news/tips, hot takes, and incredible music playlists, look no further than Keeping up with Kent State!
I had the great pleasure of sitting down with co-host Kayla and Willa recently. We talked about their backgrounds, audience, and their future endeavors. Kayla and Willa are both sophomore Fashion Merchandising students. In addition to that, they both write for A Magazine, a Kent State publication, that focuses on fashion, beauty, and culture.
Can you tell me a little bit about keeping up with Kent State? Yeah, so it is basically like a fashion talk show, but we have a different theme, I guess you could say. So, we have a different trend each week and focus on that. We also make a music playlist that caters to the theme of the week and it features about 13 songs that we have played throughout. Then the songs kind of correspond to the theme. So, for example, in our core episode, we played more like acoustic. It really fit the mold of what we were talking about. Yeah, I definitely check out your Instagram. I definitely love how everything flows and there is a theme like to the content. It is not just, you know, all over the place.
What is the inspiration behind Keeping Up with Kent State? Well, we are already like involved in media. We like saw this, um, This opening it for black squirrel radio. We were like, oh my God, that is so much fun. We are two people that talk, and we are best friends. So, we love to talk to each other all the time. We would like to just go on. And we were like, wait, we should like talking about like relevant thing.
What would you say is the most rewarding part about doing your show? Getting to spend time creating with your best friend. We also have been learning so many new things associated with developing a show. So, I had to basically teach myself, um, Adobe audition, which is like, where we like to create the show, audio. The first episode, took us like three hours, I think. I was teaching myself along the way and then we figured it out and now it takes us like an hour. So basically, just like having a project each week where it is like. Complete creative freedom and make anything from, start to finish, like is very rewarding. It is a very fun project.
How would you say your show stands out compared to others? I think our show is honestly just like fun because we have so much fun doing it. Um, and I think that that really, um, like correlates to the audience as well. And also like, especially on black squirrel radio, no one. Does fashion except for us. So that is like our little niche area. Then just the fact that we have fun with it, we roll with it. Like we laughed during it. I think that that just makes it a very fun show for everyone to listen to.
What would you say has been the most defining point so far?
That is an interesting question. I think, I do not know, this is pretty general, but I think like a defining moment for the show honestly, would be like, not last week’s episode, but our, like our third episode, we did hipster fashion. Typically we agree because we do like a yay or nay on like, do we actually like it? And we, I said this makes like much better content when we disagree almost when there is like rapport there. There is an indecisive kind of conversation. I think that that makes it more interesting to hear about. It was like some, I think that show was definitely a little small one, but a defining moment for us just because it was so fun to do because we both had very different opinions on it. Whereas typically we have very similar. So, we were like, we just realized how much better it can be by choosing things that we like do not always agree on.
Do you feel you have connected with your listeners in the way you originally anticipated? I definitely would say so, because like you mentioned we try to post every morning of our show airings. So, every Friday, pretty much. I think that like the way that we like use social media or like our Instagram, I should say like as an entity to like the brand the show, like. We know that it is like, mostly like our parents and like family members watching and like our friends supporting us. But, um, like even they love to engage with us on there. And like, it is just very interesting to like, see how that plays out. Yeah. I want to say, think that we would like to engage more with our audience and I ever thought would, um, just like through our social media presence, um, I did not like the picture it being like that at first.
Any encouraging words for your listeners, or someone who is interested in launching their own show? Honestly, I say just like, go for it. Like when auditions open think, like, okay. What is something where I would be able to talk for an hour or two hours about or playing music about or something like that. Like something you are really interested in and passionate about where you will not get burnt out on it. And yeah. Pick, pick like a topic or something. I also think like directly related to our show, like, and its topic, we talk about fashion a lot and fashion gives people like the confidence to do things. I think about the best thing that way. That is why we are both fashion merchandising majors. But like, I think I liked the idea that our show kind of like. Normalizes fashion for people a little bit. If you are ever like wanting to try a new trend, go for it. Do not ever think about what anyone’s thinking. Just care about what you think, right? Yeah. Wear whatever you want.
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