YOLO Meets FOGO --The "Fear Of Going Outside" Podcast in Season Two

 Not everybody is comfortable outdoors. I once went camping and had to watch a YouTube instructional video seven times to assemble the two tents we brought along. I have a friend who went camping to "rough it" and got lost only 500 yards from the campground parking lot where his Ford F-150 truck was parked.

So, it's not completely nuts to develop a podcast where the host is afraid of, well, the outside.

Believe it or not, there's a podcast for that. It's called Fear Of Going Outside. And it began its second season on February 13. 

Fear of Going Outside  (FOGO) is a nature show — by the most reluctant host ever. Most nature shows are hosted by reckless white men, but avid indoors woman Ivy Le is an Asian mom with severe allergies. Last season, Ivy conquered camping. She’s back, braving the outdoors to go hunting - or die trying!  

In this season, Ivy Lee shares her experience conquering hunting, from the preparation to learning how to find animals in the wild and how to break them down in the field. 

She seeks out the answers to questions “indoor people” ask: why are outdoor clothes so ugly? Who do you call if you break a leg in the wild? And does it smell bad when you skin an animal?

 Ivy Le is a Vietnamese American stand-up comedian, actress, and writer based in Austin, Texas. Ivy was selected to be one of the 10 out of 18,000 applicants to go through Spotify’s first Sound Up podcast accelerator for women of color. She co-hosts the only queer comedy mic in Austin, is a producer for Austin Sketch Fest, and performs at comedy festivals all over the country. She speaks Spanish, German, Vietnamese, and English and is a mom of two kids. 

Fear Of Going Outside premiered in May 2021.  Through its ten episodes that ran till August 2021, listeners followed Ivy's journey from indoor cocoon expert to communing with nature in its most basic form. Listeners followed Ivy through therapy, training, a shaky introduction to bugs and plants, and her preparations to finally go camping.

So far in this second season, Ivy has learned about hunting for food and discovered that the 26th president, Teddy Roosevelt, was both a hunter and a conservationist. 

Then Ivy learned about archery and using a bow for hunting. In the episode, Ivy learns about draw weight and draw length with bows.

Ivy then gets fitted for a sleeping bag, and in the latest episode, she butchers an entire hog with chef hunter Jesse Griffiths. 

Check out the second season. It's a delightful mashup of a nature show, a fish out of water tale, the origins of indigenous people in America, and a close-up view of those who love hunting, fishing, camping and just being outside.

Fear of Going Outside is produced by Fearless Squirrel Productions. On the website of FOGO, the podcast communicates this important message to listeners: "Fear of Going Outside is created in a space that was and is still home to many Indigenous people. We are grateful for the opportunity to work in the community and on this territory."

Check out Fear of Going Outside for a new episode every Monday.