Meet Nithia and Tatiana: Podcast Hosts of Your Very Annoying Friends

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nithia and Tatiana and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nithia and, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Our business is our podcast, Your Very Annoying Friends. We are two best friends with very different lives and contrasting points of views. We live on two different continents; Tatiana lives in Indonesia with her husband Michael, and Nithia lives the single life in LA. Tatiana works as a freelance creative, and Nithia works as a full time fashion designer.

In spite of our differences, we have important common ground. We saw a void in the media for Indonesian American voices, so we decided to start a podcast to highlight pop culture commentary from a first generation Southeast Asian American perspective. We wanted to create a space to tell our story and the stories of other first generation Indonesians in the United States. Although we are here to relate and represent fellow Asian Americans, we also want to relate to everyone including fellow Millennials, and maybe some Gen Z listeners. Our goal is to amplify Asian American voices and take up space.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
We wanted to start our podcast because we wanted a place to tell our story! That is, the story of first generation Indonesian American girls with immigrant parents. We wanted to broadcast the story of how we had to navigate between two worlds. We both grew up in predominantly white neighborhoods in Southern California. However outside of school our parents wanted to instill our Indonesian culture. Therefore the Indonesian community was a huge part of our lives! We realized that this phenomenon of being caught between two worlds is not only unique to us, but it is ubiquitous to many first generation individuals; the children of immigrants. Even if people did not go through what we did, we felt as if it was interesting enough that people would want to hear about. What we’re most excited about with our podcast is that we believe in the content we create, and we’re proud of it. It has been a long time coming. For years we doubted ourselves because putting ourselves out there is a scary thing to do. We thought “would people really care about this”? We’ve learned that, there is never a “right” time to start something. The “right” time is now. We want the world to know that, it takes time and dedication to do the things you love, but it’s worth it. We are thankful for the feedback we’ve already received on our podcast, and also are very excited for what is to come!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Tatiana and I are huge foodies! Before starting our podcast, we were coworkers in the fashion industry! We would have dinners and lunches several times a week! Our absolute favorite restaurant is Bavel in the arts district. The baba ghanoush is to die for! We also love Night Market Song in Silverlake. The papaya salad and khao soi account for 50% of the meals we have had together. We are avid fans of karaoke , so any spot in Ktown where you can rent a room and sing your heart out is a go to for us. For a fun night out pre pandemic we loved Good Times at Davey Wayne’s or the Bungalow! After a fun night out we love a lazy Sunday brunch! Our go to favorite is Gjusta in Venice. When we’re feeling adventurous we will go out to Manhattan Beach and eat at Uncle Bill’s Pancake House , which has been a childhood staple since we were kids

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Our biggest inspiration is our family. We come from a long line of very inspiring people who did the most amazing things to get to us to where we are today

Website: https://linktr.ee/yourveryannoyingfriends

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yourveryannoyingfriends/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/annoyingpod

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yourveryannoyingfriends/