Flavor World & The Kidsβ Table & The Flavor Friday PodcastΒ§
I met Drew Kinkade in Chicago. We both showed up to my friend Chase’s
apartment in the heat of summer for one
hazy weekend of meeting, greeting, and idea sharing. Chase hosted a party the
night I met Drew, and a bunch of people neither of us knew came. Drew was
showing me his mung beans (the main staple of his diet) and spilled a bunch of
them across the floor. I’d like to think we became friends as I helped him
pick up his beans around all the cool kids.
Drew founded Flavor World a few years ago. It
started as a simple clothing brand. He would print a design he liked on a
t-shirt and then sell it to his friends. Through many conversations with him,
I’ve learned about the true artistic intent behind his brand, and the deeper I
get into his mind, the more I become invested in it.
Flavor World is much more than a brand to sell shirts through. It’s an
artistic movement devoted to reinvigorating the childlike creative energy that
once resided in all of us. No creativity is off limits. Through content
creation and community building, Drew hopes to use Flavor World to make our
world into a more creative (and therefore happy) place.
I became "involved" with Flavor World during the transition between 2019 and
2020. I was staying at my sister’s place in Santa Barbara, California, and had
an hour-long FaceTime with Drew where we compared life philosophies and talked
about whatever came up. It was one of the most natural FaceTimes I’ve ever
had, and we both agreed that we needed to stay in closer contact throughout
the coming year.
In early 2020, Drew started the Flavor Friday Newsletter, an email newsletter
that shipped every Friday (a popular idea in 2020, yes). But this newsletter
is different. It’s not some boring wall of text, or five "curated" links to
someone else’s content. It’s just a way for Drew to connect with the Flavor
World audience and share what’s going on in his head. Very entertaining read.
In the end of May, 2020, Drew wanted to shake up the newsletter a bit.
Coincidentally, I was also getting into newsletter editing and copywriting.
The product fit the price, and the Kids’ Table was born. Each week, I write a
friendly column about what we liked as kids. The first week, I wrote about
rocks.
I keep the content engaging by inserting videos and other content types at
random. An example of this is this nine-second video I made about
Azurite.
I’ve covered a diverse array of topics throughout my weeks running the kids’
table, such as dinosaurs, video games, lizards, school lunch, sweepstakes,
bouncy houses, juice boxes, grandparents, all-nighters, childhood pets, sugar,
and much more.
To diversify our content even more, we started the Flavor Friday podcast in
August 2020. This podcast has a loose, relaxed feel. In it, Drew and I record
a FaceTime call during which we discuss that week’s newsletter. It’s unlike
any podcast you’ve heard, I can guarantee that. Check it out
here.
My collaborations with Drew have only just begun (as of the writing of this in
September 2020). I’m excited to see where they go.
