Bonus: Seeing Great Friends Be Great Friends with Cleo and Callie of Melanin Muses Podcast

Ode (@thatsod.e / @thatsod_e) and Mo "Kid" Licorish (@licorishislegit) welcomed Cleo and Callie of the Melanin Muses Podcast for a bonus episode built around Hamilton trivia, anime, and mental health advocacy. The conversation traced how Melanin Muses began during the pandemic, moved through the meaning behind the podcast's name via Disney's Hercules, and dug into how algorithm bias against Black-branded content shaped their marketing decisions.

Cleo and Callie used Fruits Basket's Tohru Honda to illustrate self-neglect, referenced Naruto's Sasuke and Fullmetal Alchemist while discussing community building, and pointed to Avatar: The Last Airbender's Zuko as an example of using pop culture to spark connection. Callie, a clinical therapist, grounded the discussion in practical guidance for creators, including warnings about parasocial relationships and the permanence of internet content.

The Mental Health Check-In featured Kendrick Lamar's "United in Grief" as a reference point for Mo's disclosure of living with bipolar II and a prolonged manic episode, alongside Ode's discussion of unmedicated ADHD and PMDD and Cleo's reflections on upcoming travel to Japan and Korea. The Big Mad segment covered postpartum depression awareness, the loss of public figures including Tim Curry and Dolly Parton, and the arrest of Milo Yiannopoulos by ICE, closing with a critique of science fiction's robot-as-oppressed-minority allegory.

The episode ended on Making Us Happy, featuring the Love and Deep Space character Valko, a karaoke callback to Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century's "Supernova Girl," and mentions of the Melanin Muses Fruits Basket episode. You can find Melanin Muses Linktree here: Connect with the Snerdy Crew: Watch, Listen, or Sponsor the show: ⁠