Kenda's back from a week of chasing the World Cup with her family — three matches, three stadiums — and she came home with a question: why did a crowd of total strangers feel so kind? Australians buying drinks for rival fans, people photographing each other's families, not one political argument. Turns out sociologists named the feeling back in 1912: collective effervescence. We dig into why awe shrinks the ego, why nobody at a match has to argue their values, and why the same crowd energy can just as easily tip into a riot.

From there it goes where it always goes on this show. Kylen reframes the phone debate ('what have you designed your phone to be a vector of?'), we make the case for feeling small but not insignificant, and then dating gets serious: Kenda opens up about the emotionally abusive relationship she was in at 19 with a man ten years older — and the deliberate restraint of her therapist mom, who stayed quiet so she could stay close. Kylen owns his side too: the cigarettes, the leather-jacket logic, the bully-baiting — all the same move of trying to prove a value he didn't feel.

We land on the question Kenda asks everyone she loves: do you want to be right, or do you want to get along? Plus a hotboxed Police concert, a bathroom-stall nacho story we apologize for in advance, and Kylen's confession that he can read people perfectly — and has been using it all wrong.

The Kylen and Kenda Show is a mentor and a mentee figuring out ego, insecurity, and connection one conversation at a time. New episode every week.

Chapters:

0:00 — Cold open

1:02 — Back from a week of World Cup crowds

3:35 — Collective effervescence: why crowds feel magical

9:18 — What have you designed your phone to be a vector of?

19:25 — Small but not insignificant

24:52 — Dating, values alignment, and red flags

31:30 — Laughter as the marriage repair tool

42:17 — Why proving your worth pushes people away

49:55 — Where insecurity originates

58:19 — Do you want to be right or get along?

1:01:29 — A confession about reading people

Welcome to The Kylen and Kenda Show — a podcast about why your generation feels alone, and what it actually takes to grow up. Kenda is the mentor: a tall, no-nonsense woman (daughter of a psychologist) who manages and mentors a whole bunch of young men and tries to help them become better versions of themselves. Kylen is her project: self-described as living in a shed, with a Peter Pan complex, half his friends dead, a guy who gets in fights, hates favorite-color questions, and once nearly died from an infection that started in his teeth and was creeping toward his brain. Edgy, funny, and unfiltered — this is the conversation that launched the show.

This is the origin episode. Kylen and Kenda lay out the whole reason they're doing this: a phone-addicted, lonely generation that's struggling with technology, late partnerships, hard-to-find jobs, and a quiet inability to connect. Their mission is simple and stubborn — get people back to real community, real dialogue, and the social skills nobody seems to teach anymore. Along the way they get into the near-death tooth story (eight childbirths' worth of pain, apparently), why fighting is wrong but so much fun, and the difference between curiosity and confrontation.

You'll also hear the honest mentor/mentee tension underneath all the jokes. Kenda's line says it all: "I don't have to mentor you... you are not an easy person, and every day I choose it." They dig into red flags versus "the ick," what's actually worth suffering through in a relationship, and why teaching kids real psychology matters before they learn the wrong kind.

So pull up a chair, you little voyeur. New episodes drop here — hit subscribe and come build something better than another night alone with your phone.

Chapters:

0:00 Cold open — "I live in a shed. Peter Pan complex."

1:23 Who Kenda is + her hope: community without phones

4:01 Self-aware but still an infant (road rage, control)

8:42 The fight code & mental toughness

13:54 Kylen almost died from a toothache

20:14 Why "show me the research" really means trust

30:00 Why this generation feels so alone

35:21 Real red flags vs. the "ick"

43:24 Wrap — the origin story

🎙 The Kylen and Kenda Show