Daily Podcasts Video Research

She keeps asking the big questions — and millions of viewers keep pouring in to hear the answers

JL;DR SUMMARY Kalina Silverman, founder of Big Talk, focuses on replacing small talk with meaningful conversations, as evidenced by her impactful interviews with wildfire survivors like Nicole Lalage. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

Community SupportSocial Media ImpactCultural ConnectionsTedx TalkKalina SilvermanBig TalkWildfire SurvivorsMeaningful ConversationsNicole LalageBook Deal

Places mentioned

Los Angeles, California, United States
"As the Los Angeles wildfires continued to spread, she booked the next flight back."
Pasadena, California, United States
"Lalage, owner and head sommelier at Pasadena Wine Shop, knew, intellectually, that her physical home was gone."
China
"When she was about five years old, there was the trip she took to China, where she watched her boisterous, friendly grandfather stop to greet and chat with everyone they encountered in the neighborhood."
Cambodia
"There was her volunteer stint at an orphanage in Cambodia at 16 that opened up my eyes to the world."
Ecuador
"The summer after her sophomore year, she joined a high school friend who was studying film at Columbia on a trip to Ecuador to work on a docu-series about education."
Germany
"That same summer, The Memory Archives, a joint program of Northwestern and the University of Hamburg, took her to Germany to work on a Holocaust oral history project."
Singapore
"After graduating, Silverman won a Fulbright grant to spend a year in Singapore to research ways to use Big Talk to build empathy across cultures."
Sweden
"Shes heard from mothers, soldiers, leaders, and more in notes that came from Thailand, Sweden, Germany, Israel, South Africa, and closer to home."
Israel
"Shes heard from mothers, soldiers, leaders, and more in notes that came from Thailand, Sweden, Germany, Israel, South Africa, and closer to home."
South Africa
"Shes heard from mothers, soldiers, leaders, and more in notes that came from Thailand, Sweden, Germany, Israel, South Africa, and closer to home."
Thailand
"Shes heard from mothers, soldiers, leaders, and more in notes that came from Thailand, Sweden, Germany, Israel, South Africa, and closer to home."
Asheville, North Carolina, United States
"Shes since traveled to Asheville, North Carolina, to make similar videos in the wake of Hurricane Helene."
Berlin, Germany
"On Silvermans last day in Germany, she said she saw a question written on a remnant of the Berlin Wall that brought all the pieces together: What do you want to do before you die?"
Tanzania
"Shes recently interviewed semi-known figures like librarian influencer Mychal Threets and Sarah Natochenny, the voice of Ash Ketchum on Pokmon and strangers, including a Maasai warrior from Tanzania, a mother whose son was killed by a drunk driver, a young woman who lost her husband to cancer, and a man navigating middle-age."
Uruguay
"Nicole Lalage was on a work trip scouting wines in Uruguay when her home burned down."

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 55307
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-06-24 05:31:02 UTC
Curated 2025-06-24 08:31:35 UTC