Gen Z: A Podcast By and For Teens
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library's Teen Center Studio and Media Lab gives New York City teens training in and access to a state-of-the-art recording studio. The Keeping Up With Gen Z podcast is one of the projects that has utilized this space and technology.
What is Keeping Up With Gen Z?
Keeping Up With Gen Z is a podcast hosted by teens for teens. We discuss what is currently trending or a topic that is important to us. We shed light on topics like woke culture, High School Musical ships we were deprived of, school, voting, and more! Provided with a space where our opinions are valued, this podcast helps to set the precedent for a focus on younger voices. Environments that not only promote and elevate teen voices, but also encourage them is vital—especially in a climate that is still excluding young people from spaces that define the image of our generation. Who better to define that than teens themselves?
Meet The Co-hosts, Kaelin and Rhianny
Kaelin (they/them) is currently a senior at Hunter College High School. They are currently a Library Page in the Teen Center at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. Previously, they were the Youth Civics Intern where they implemented youth engagement strategies and organize events to educate teens on the importance of voting as well as elevate teen voices in politics. In their rare spare time, they contribute to this podcast, and you can find her binge watching anime on Crunchyroll.
Rhianny (she/her) is an eighth grader at The Spence School and a Teen Volunteer at the Teen Center. Outside of the library she is the stage manager for her school’s Musical Theater Club and loves to see the play come together in the end. She plays basketball and volleyball on her school’s team and she enjoys playing volleyball outside of school to meet new people. Meeting new people is one of the reasons Rhianny became a teen volunteer. In her limited free time, she loves to read romance novels and poetry.
Although Kaelin and Rhianny are the voices of Keeping Up With Gen Z, previous and current Teen Center volunteers dedicated time to this project. Our previous host from Season 1, Alex, (they/she) has now since graduated and is a college freshman at Delaware State University, after having been a teen volunteer and a patron since 2017. From Tiffany and Maisha’s initial pilot recording, to Ummul and Raisa’s first script drafts, the teen volunteers as well as the guidance of Digital Media Instructor, Darro Chea, have made this possible.
Why Listen to Keeping Up With Gen Z?
Come for a youth perspective on issues like performative activism, and stay for the interactions between Alex and Kaelin, who are both very cool individuals. We give book recommendations every episode, so stay to broaden your reading list. You’ll learn something new every episode, and have a good laugh as well.