'Jäbät & Tunteet' podcast - shedding toxic masculinity
'I am part of 'Jäbät & Tunteet' (Dudes & Feelings) podcast production group, which includes Nosh A Lody, Miro Olsoni, Nasim Selmani, Abdirahman A. Bile, and Jonathan Guzman Monet. The mission of the podcast is to normalize the fact that people identifying as male, dudes, also talk about their feelings. With our own example, we want to encourage young dudes to be more vulnerable, to be brave and to talk about their feelings to a safe person. Our vision is that young dudes in particular, and why not older ones too, would have a new male role model with less traces of toxic masculinity.
The concept of the podcast began when my friend, A&R coordinator Nosh A Lody, thought out loud why he and other dudes donated have a safe space to talk about their feelings. A Lody wanted to create a space in the Finnish media field for dudes to feel, and asked me to create a visual look for the discussion program. I have always found gender roles and male role models strange and questionable, so I seized the opportunity immediately.'
Creating the visual identity for the podcast
'I do the art direction and visual communication for the podcast. On my part, I manifest a new, emotionally vocal male role model through my visual communication on Instagram. My goal is to create an easily approachable social media precence, with posts that are easily shared and thus popularize our way of speaking. The purpose of communication is to grow our platform organically, without a large marketing machinery. I have freedom in my work, but I still justify my choices to the team. I discuss the topics of the episodes with the dudes and express my opinions as a big consumer of podcasts. In addition, we discuss our feelings and support each other as if we were in group therapy.
I don’t write the episodes myself, but most of all I listen carefully in joint meetings and behind the scenes when the episodes are recorded. After befriending every member of the production team, it was clear to me that the podcast communication should look and sound like our common moments together. The program is based on everyones' own experiential expertise, so I ended up writing down my own feelings and experiences alongside my illustrations.
In addition to our circles' peer support, the most significant in the project is the audience feedback it brought. Young and older dudes, as well as those close to them, have expressed how there has been a great need for an open conversational culture among men. Reading the messages makes you feel as if you are witnessing a change in the culture of masculinity. The main discussions have made it to our own close circles, and as a result, I have begun to talk about my feelings to the people near and dear to me.'
You can listen to the 'Jäbät & Tunteet' podcast (in Finnish) on Spotify. On the Instagram profile of the podcast (@jabatjatunteet) you can admire Aarni's illustrations.