Sarah Edwards, Entertainment Editor
Last fall, El Camino students Emma Fechter (‘26) and Joanna Gayoba (‘26) decided to create a podcast called Pakpi and Empoy’s Lunchtime Special in the radio room in S-1 to share their opinions and jokes to others.
Ever since they posted their first episode on Oct. 3, 2024, Fechter and Gayoba have uploaded several episodes about many different topics including backpack tours, confessions, and “Would You Rather”. They have had two special guests join their podcast so far — journalism and media teacher Matt Sumpter and art teacher Michael Zysk. With Sumpter, they discussed and explained different Gen Z slang terms. While with Zysk, they talked about different stories from teachers and decided whether they are the “bad guy” or not.
“We started last year, junior year, beginning of the year. We talk about lots of different topics, about life, school, just random topics, anything that comes to our mind. And we have guests sometimes, we’ve only had a couple but it’s still fun,” Fechter said.
The students have posted eight episodes now and plan on uploading more throughout this school year. They use the music platform Spotify to post their episodes and have a 5.0 star rating. Their episode times span from 15 minutes to 35 minutes and their monthly views range in the hundreds.
“We have like about 100 monthly recurring viewers but on our stats, some episodes have more views than others. Like our first episode has about 400 views, and our most recent one, about 100,” Gayoba said.
Fechter and Gayoba came up with the idea of making a podcast together because friends of theirs commented on how funny they are. They both enjoy talking and joking with each other, so they thought it would be fun to make this together.
“It feels really nice having people actually care about what I have to say, which is another reason why I love doing it,” Fechter explained, “Knowing that what I have to say is important just means a lot to me.”
While this is a fun hobby to do with a friend, Gayoba hopes to go down the media and film route and believes that the skills she learns from podcasting can help down the road with her future job.
“I want to go into film, but it kind of branches out into communications, which is like podcasting and also I do all the editing and uploading, so it’s good practice too for what I want to do in the future,” Gayoba said
On the other hand, Fechter finds this to be a fun hobby of expressing herself but doesn’t think she will pursue this as a job later on in life.
Gayoba and Fechter have several ideas for future episodes, including covering the annual Audiothon held by the KYDS radio club at EC, future trips they are planning, and college life once they graduate.
“We want more guests, for sure, and we want to, since we’re leaving for college, do summer episodes and episodes even in college,” Fechter said.
Students can listen and watch their podcast on Spotify and follow their Instagram account, @pakpiempoy for more information. The podcasters are always looking for more guests and ideas and have a google form that students can access on their Instagram.
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