Long ago, I remember being irked while watching this well-known art podcast (it had a video format), it was a off-shoot of an even more popular art tutorial/education channel. It was during the Q&A section which podcasts usually have and I believe it had pre-recorded questions that were sent to them which were then played to the podcasts hosts.

During the Q&A section, a recording of a question from a person in India was chosen, separately in another episode of the podcast they acknowledged that they have a lot of Indian fans/subscribers from India so this isn’t that much of a surprise. (My still dead art YouTube channel also has quite a few Indian subscribers). However the caller from India asked them a seemingly weird question, along the lines of:

“What do you eat daily?”

This was met with much ridicule and bewilderment from the podcast hosts, because the first thought they jumped to is “Why would this kind of question be asked on an art podcast?” They laughed off this question and didn’t respond to it.

This was what I was irked by, for a few reasons.

The first reason is more factual/broad:

Is it not important to take care of yourself and watch what you eat as a artist? What you eat to fuel yourself to do creative endeavors, finding out what your favourite artists diet is to perhaps try that and see if you can be fueled the same way?

The second reason is more cultural:

For us in the East, and especially in Traditional Chinese Medicine, certain foods are considered “heaty” or “cooling” and the key to have our body in optimal shape is to balance this heat and cool. Tying to the first reason: Watching what we eat is important. Maybe it is something people from the West can try to learn, I don’t know.

The third reason is more empathetic:

This question is from someone in India, who put in the effort to speak in an language that is not their first language, record themselves and send in their question. Would it really be that difficult to at least not laugh the question off and answer more sympathetically?

I hope more podcasts especially those that are popular and influential can learn from this and handle their Q&A interactions with more tact and nuance.