Skip to Content
Podcasts

Rona Akbari Misses Weather Talk

3:02 PM EST on February 9, 2022

What do you do when your name gets consumed by something much bigger than your own life? What would you do if that name your parents so lovingly gave you suddenly became a punchline, and then a pandemic?

Writer and artist Rona Akbari did the only thing she could think of: seek out a support group with other Ronas.

In the latest episode of Namedropping Giri and Samer talk with Rona about where the true meaning of her name comes from in Pashto, first discovering her name became slang for the the novel coronavirus from a tweet by Desus Nice, why she misses the days of casual small talk, and how it's hard to draw support for people in Afghanistan when conditions in the country fall out of the headlines. Also, Samer reveals his strange scam for dodging bar tabs?

You can find the transcript for the episode here. If you happen to read the transcript instead of listening to episodes, we'd love it if you could go to the podcast platform of your choice and give us a review.

You can subscribe to Namedropping on Apple, Spotify, or wherever else you listen to podcasts. You can find our RSS feed here. Email us at namedropping@defector.com, or follow us on Instagram. Thanks friends!

If you liked this blog, please share it! Your referrals help Defector reach new readers, and those new readers always get a few free blogs before encountering our paywall.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter