The Eldest Daughters Club is the Honest, Hilarious Show Emerson Students Need Right Now
By Karenna Umscheid
Lindsay Debrosse (she/her) and Marissa Palmejar (she/they) told me they’re the remaining members of a friend group that has fallen apart. Debrosse tells me about “looking back and being like ‘look at all that carnage, huh?’ That’s crazy. We made it though.”
Having both grown up as the oldest daughter in families of color, Debrosse and Palmejar have countless shared experiences. It’s a kind of adolescence that isn’t shown in movies or TV shows. Debrosse describes growing up in this eldest daughter's experience, explaining how sometimes your emotional needs aren’t met when you’re the first born.
Debrosse reflects on her childhood and says that “as a child you want your parents to talk to you, and you grow up and become 21 and you don't know your parents, and my parents dont know me. It’s having emotional detachment from your parents but still loving them, and not understanding their sacrifices until you're older.” Her experience feels rare and isolating, but she has found a shared understanding through her discussions with Palmejar.
Debrosse and Palmejar keep echoing each other’s statements, especially concerning the reason they created the show. Palmejar tells me that they treat it as a passion project, a creative outlet to talk about things that matter. She emphasizes how it's not for a grade or an assignment, instead it’s a way for the two of them to talk about stuff that really matters to them, from pop culture to their personal experiences.
For Black History Month, they are featuring black artists and poets on the show. On one episode, Debrosse chose a poem by Denez Smith, describing black queer experiences and signifying how Debrosse feels about her friends. Debrosse is reminded of this poem in moments “when I’m crying laughing with my friends until we can’t even look at each other makes me want to live for the next hundred years, it breathes a life into me that I can’t even explain.” She chose to share this poem because of how it speaks about her experience in a way she felt like she couldn’t.
Even if you aren’t an eldest daughter or can’t relate to Debrosse and Palmejar’s experiences, it’s still a very fun show to listen to. The comedy in the show is fantastic, with the hosts discussing a myriad of popular topics with natural chemistry. They’ll disagree on trivial matters, joking back-and-forth with one another. They tell me that “it’s fun to listen to funny people!”
Palmejar tells me the appeal of the show to Emerson students specifically when saying “we might not be your best friends or your older sister, but there is some part of Emerson that is kind of lonely. At least in the college experience, some part of it is going to be lonely. To navigate that loneliness, it’s nice not having to be alone with your thoughts, and if Lindsey and I are the voices that fill the time, we're gonna make it fun.”
Until the end of days, Debrosse and Palmejar will laugh and talk about everything they feel passionate about, sneaker resellers included.
The Eldest Daughters Club airs on Wednesdays from 9-11pm on wecb.fm.