By Link Keller
In my B.A. program, my advisor impressed upon me the importance of doing ‘informational interviews’ with folks whose work I thought was cool, and something I wanted to do or study after graduation. It was 2015, and I was very into the ‘My Brother, My Brother, and Me’ podcast, so I term-searched for podcasts that were about psychology and video games. I listened to a few different ones, but most importantly, I listened to PsychTech, hosted by Josué Cardona and Dr. Kelli Dunlap, and I thought everything they talked about was the absolute coolest. So I emailed them requesting 30 minutes to ask them a few questions (again, I was following my advisor’s informational interview guidelines).
Josué had a different idea–we ended up chatting while playing Tomb Raider: Curse of Osiris co-op for a little over two hours. It was such a blast, a great start to a beautiful friendship, and an extremely on-brand Geek Therapy moment.
In 2017, I was invited as a guest on Headshots, to talk about Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and about a paper I had written about it and flow state. I was nervous and so so excited to talk about a game I loved and how culturally and psychologically valuable it was. A few months later, I reached out to Josué on twitter and told him he and Kelli NEEDED to do an episode on What Remains of Edith Finch, so of course Josué roped me into another episode of Headshots (and yes, I did also write a paper on What Remains of Edith Finch).
In January of 2018, I became one of two new hosts on the Geek Therapy Podcast, alongside Ali Mattu. The podcast underwent some changes and it was exciting to be a part of something I thought was simply fantastic. I learned a ton and felt as though I brought something special to the conversations, that I had an outlet to discuss all these things I loved with others who got it, y’know? It was wonderful.
In 2019, Dr Brandon Saxton joined as a host, and partway through the year we started a DnD campaign as a fun Geek Therapy thing to do together which turned from a 3-episode special one-off to ongoing podcast Geek therapy Adventures (hey, Brandon, when are we playing next??)
I have deeply enjoyed watching the GT network grow over the years I have been a part of it, and I am immensely proud of what I have been able to contribute to its continued growth.