Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Haydel.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Emily. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
It’s funny. I’ve actually done a VoyageATL story once before and looking back on it, I can maybe continue on with where my LA story is at right now. If you want the backside to how I arrived in LA, you can check that article. I’m from Atlanta and growing up, LA was a place I always wanted to live that seemed unfathomable for me to actually reside in. Anyone that I met who said they lived in or around LA always incited a twinge of jealousy inside me. Thankfully, nearly a year after graduating from the University of Michigan in 2017, I was offered a part-time job as an in-game host for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The part-time aspect didn’t matter as it was too big of a job to pass up for a recent college grad trying to break into sports broadcasting. My family supported it, so I moved to LaLa Land in March 2018. Within the first few weeks, I felt the pressure that is LA even though I didn’t necessarily see it. Followers, staying up all hours of the night trying to think of “organic” content to post for no reason on social media, and the like were constantly on my mind.
To this day, my college and high school friends refer to that first phase as “when Emily first moved to LA.” It wasn’t cute. I, luckily, was falling deeply in love with K-Pop at the same time, starting with BTS, and in between Dodger games, I started to busy my time hanging out with other fans going to different events like the BBMAs, The Ellen Show, James Corden, and through that, I started to create my own content where I interviewed a variety of those fans in order to feel some sort of purpose as a fan and posted it on social media for other fans to observe. Thankfully, this later took me towards another job at the most successful K-Pop store in LA, Choice Music, where I met many more fans, learned much more about the genre, and gained retail experience. Although I still knew very little about K-Pop compared to the veteran fan, I had such an eagerness to learn more and be around it. In the meantime, I was approached to take on the role as emcee for UCLA Football games and Women’s & Men’s Basketball games. I love being able to witness another college community outside of my alma mater’s.
As time moved along, I continued to do more within the K-Pop space, networking, planning and hosting events, writing for kpopconcerts.com, hosting weekly radio shows for “What The K-Pop Radio” and eventually, “Bleav Podcast Network” approached me to host my own K-Pop podcast where the formatting is about interviewing fans, influencers, journalists, and tastemakers alike about the genre. I came to the conclusion, with amazing guidance by friends, that I needed to spend time in Korea if I were to be serious about this career route. Before moving, with a beautiful team of people, the “In My Feels” podcast launched, and I currently still now host that and have thankfully started to be able to interview actual artists in the realm thanks to my co-host, JREKML’s, tenured K-Pop career. In between, with my sports background, I made sure to insert my K-Pop into the job whether it was pitching different groups to come to Dodger Stadium (what’s up NCT 127!!!)or just mentioning it during an intro to the game. Sorry, Bruin fans lol. Luckily, my coworkers welcomed it. Now, I’m here in Seoul for the next month and a half! Trying to continue to network, interview, and immerse myself even more. Certainly a process already but enjoyable.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
This, too, like my path described in Voyage ATL has not been necessarily difficult as there is a natural progression and improvement always. However, there has been internal struggle where I’ve learned more about myself. I’ve learned the hard way that being straightforward with those around me including myself, positive or negative, saves everyone else a whole lot of extra, unnecessary emotion and wasted time, and unfortunately, at some points, I fell back into the career-only mindset and caused a few friends to express their discontent and hurt feelings about how I’ve treated them and our relationship. I’m horrible at managing my time, and whether it’s work, family, or friends, this year that bad habit showed itself. I’ve read more about manifestation, visualization, and meditation, and I try to adopt it into my life. On-camera, when I’m nervous, which is more often than not, I call back to those phrases, and I’ve come to realize that research on the topic I discuss will always make me feel more comfortable and natural even if I haven’t been on camera for weeks.
Right now, because of my privileged lifestyle, I’m learning the hard way how to be self-sufficient, and in some cases, I only feed my struggle by being extremely lazy. As much as I can sit at home and twiddle my thumbs, I will never get anything done, but I certainly appreciate what my family has provided for me in each aspect of my life. Thanks for the long, uncomfortable conversations, fam. Speaking of family & friends, I’ve experienced more deaths this year than I’ve dealt with before 2019, and some were more shocking than others. A death that I didn’t think would hit me so hard but still brings tears as I write this was that of my beloved dog, Bloo. He didn’t know what unhappiness meant, and from time to time when I’m frustrated, I ask myself, “What Would Bloo Do?” I believe in that law about energy and how it’s neither created nor destroyed, only passed along. I hope the energy of those I knew who passed, live on positively inside of me and those around me too. I also got to save another dog’s life, Sasha, and lord knows, that was far short of an easy process. that taught me extreme patience. I guess this is all to say that many groups of people and things that meant a lot have passed in and out of my life this year. It’s terrifying wondering where they are. Time is of the essence.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
My business…although it’s not necessarily a business, is based on connecting groups of people or entities that normally would never find themselves interacting with each other. That is most gratifying to me. I enjoy feeding off of others energy, so being amongst passionate Dodger & UCLA fans as well as K-Pop fans, is amusing, energizing, and fulfilling as well. I enjoy traveling and constantly moving around; otherwise, I feel stuck, which is rare. And probably also why I also cannot find a boyfriend much to my mother & grandmother’s dismay. However, I’m most proud, as I said in the Voyage ATL article, of the fact that I’m never satisfied with where I’m at in life. Whether it’s my career, location, or mental and emotional state, I always feel the need to reflect and improve, and I try to do that by observing and connecting with other people to learn and possibly adopt the ways that they positively live and further their lives.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Jeez. There are many. Every time, it revolves around spending time with family. Whether it’s watching a movie, show, game, traveling, singing, getting annoyed with each other, eating-anything I do with family is my favorite time and memory.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://emihayyy.wixsite.com/eportfolio
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emihaydel/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/emihaydel
Image Credit:
UCLA Photo: Dana Mayeron, Dodger Photo: Campbell Dunn(@campbelldunn, MLB), Pic w/ organge pants: Rubi Flores(@rubi_d_flores)
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