podcast audio

The Karaoke Club is a place where people can come and sing songs they love in front of a supportive group. They are looking for future leaders of the club but haven't found anyone yet. They plan to set up applications next semester. They want the club to continue and prevent it from disappearing like it did in 2014. They are looking for people who are passionate about karaoke and want to create a welcoming space for others to sing. Hi, I'm Ava, and I'm here today with Ty. He's the president of the Karaoke Club. Now, most of us know what karaoke is, but can you just please give us a little intro about what the club is all about? Yeah, so karaoke is the Japanese tradition of singing to songs with your own voice and not the singer's. And what we take, we don't exactly do that every night. We do what people sing over songs on Spotify with their own voices. And it's a wonderful place for everyone to come up, sing a song they love to sing, and do it in front of a group of people that will really be supportive of them, no matter how well or how shitty they sound when they sing, to be frank. It's a wonderful space to be. I love that I made this space. Yeah, that sounds great. I definitely want to do something like that. It sounds very welcoming and fun to just debrief after class. Alright, so the topic that I want to talk about tonight is finding the karaoke leaders of tomorrow. So, like, who will be running the club? What grade are you in, just to start us off? I'm a sophomore. Sophomore, so you have, like, about two years until you graduate? Yeah. So, do you have a plan about who's going to be running the club in the future once you graduate? No, not at the moment. Something like me and the two other guys that run it, we look at the people who show up, and we try and see who's there, like, on time every time, and, like, consider them, thinking about, like, would they be a good fit to replace it? And it's kind of hard, because it really is a passion. It's a passion project, not really something that's... I can't say it's not as rewarding as what you put in, but it's definitely not for everyone to run it, for sure. Did you set up, like, applications for people to apply and, like, become, like, the new vice president, president? We did not, and we definitely plan on doing that next semester, because there's not much time left in this semester to do much of that. I get that. And we need to get on to it, yeah, because I definitely want this club to live further on than all of us will be here. Yeah, I heard about that mysterious disappearance back a few years ago in, like, 2014, I think it was, that the club just disappeared. So, all I can find online is that they had a Flickr album in 2007, and nothing else. I don't know if there was one in 2014. So, I don't know, but if it's true 2014, I don't know. Right, and so, since that disappearance, how can you prevent something like that from happening again? Exactly what you said, looking for other people who match the passion that we put into this and want this to continue to be a welcoming space for people to let out a singing urge that not many other places on campus can fulfill. All right, well, thank you for your time. I appreciate it for stepping out of the room I just brought you out of, but thank you. Yeah, absolutely. All right.