Patrick Armstrong is spotlighting Indy one podcast episode at a time
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Patrick Armstrong is handy with a camera and has a background in creative writing, but his best skill, he says, is his ability to make conversation with anyone.
Thanks to his Korean-American heritage, his experience as an adoptee in rural Indiana and his vested interest in the culture of Indianapolis, the 36-year-old downtown Indianapolis resident can find common ground with anyone he meets. And he’s made it his career.
Armstrong is @patrickintheworld: a podcaster, photographer and content creator who highlights the cultural movers and shakers of Indianapolis. He launched his first podcast, “The Janchi Show,” in 2020 as an exploration of his Korean-American identity and experience as an adoptee. He’s since founded “Conversation Piece” — an interview podcast with local artists and cultural figures — and signed on as Downtown Indy Alliance’s digital content coordinator.
Armstrong sat down with IndyStar to share his story, his aspirations to one day step away from the microphone and how he thinks Indianapolis can elevate itself from the “little sibling” of the Midwest:
Question: How did you end up in Indianapolis?
Answer: I was born in South Korea in 1990 and got adopted by a White couple who lived in Rensselaer, about an hour-and-a-half north on 65. I spent all my formative years and went to college at Purdue. Then in 2013 I took a job at Angie’s List, as you are wont to do in Indianapolis. I was here on and off for the next six to eight years, went to Chicago with my now-wife in 2018 and came back right at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.
Did you always consider yourself a storyteller? When did you realize it was something you wanted to do?
After moving back here and starting to do podcasting, that was when it became something that I felt like was a thing that I had. I majored in creative writing, and I think I really have always enjoyed the act of storytelling in that way. But at a certain point, I thought that I knew more than everyone who was teaching me and I dropped out. I did a lot of customer service stuff, and storytelling fell to the wayside a little bit. But once I moved back here and once I was going on this identity journey, that really kind of popped back up.
When did you get into podcasting?
In June of 2020, I experienced what I like to call a “coming to consciousness” moment with my identity. I guested on a podcast called “Dear Asian Americans,” and the producer and host of that show told me that I should start a podcast about being a Korean-American adoptee with two other Korean adoptees that he had on his show. One thing led to another and in September of 2020, we started "The Janchi Show." It’s about the Korean-American adoptee experience, now more broadly the Asian adoptee experience.
Patrick Armstrong, 36, highlights Indianapolis cultural figures in his "Conversation Piece" podcast.
And when did that turn into interviewing Indianapolis locals?
I launched a podcast called "Conversation Piece," which was me talking to my friends and whoever else about whatever they wanted to talk about. In mid-2023, I was like, ‘You know what, I want to do something more specific with this show, specifically about Indianapolis.' And I wanted to do an in-person show. I started formulating the idea of what it would look like to produce that and do that here, and in February 2024, that’s when we launched it. I made a really hard pivot to focus all of my creative efforts here in the city because I’d spent a significant amount of time here but had never built community here. I felt like I didn’t know what my place was, but I felt like I had one tiny thing that I could bring to the city potentially.
You've been open about your identity journey and connecting with your Korean roots. What made you first want to explore that?
I grew up in a predominantly White community in a White family, and while I had a positive experience, I also experienced a lot of things that made me wholesale reject my identity as Asian. I carried that with me through young adulthood and basically all the way up until we moved back from Chicago. I was always most comfortable with the friend group I had already established, and I was really uncomfortable with identifying as Asian. It limited me in what I was willing to do in a community-building standpoint.
I had a specific experience that caused me to ask myself, “What does it mean to be Asian?” The day after I had that thought, I found the “Dear Asian Americans” podcast and I reached out to the first guest that I listened to. I read a lot of books and got connected online to a lot of community that gave me the opportunity to ask those questions.
As a resident and someone who's spoken to plenty of locals, you've gotten to know Indianapolis pretty well. What would you say are some of the biggest misconceptions about it?
One of the biggest misconceptions is that there’s no culture here, and part of that is on us as a city not defining what that culture is. I think the culture of Indianapolis is the people itself. There is so much creativity, so much ambition, so much innovation happening from individuals here. I think it gets lost in the weeds of what our systems looks like, whether that’s political or small businesses or whatever the case might be.
We’re still considered flyover territory. Even though we have one of the best airports in the country, there’s still this narrative that we aren’t worth stopping by. It’s on us to try to change that, but it’s also on those systems to help support the people making that change.
I hate to say the word “resilience,” but there are communities and folks that have existed here and maybe not thrived but survived in spite of attempts to make them go away. If you’re here and you have spent the majority of your lived experience here, you’re going to rep the city in a way not a lot of people understand. If you spend any amount of time with folks that are from Indianapolis, you are going to see what I’m talking about when I say the city is of the people and of the storytelling.
Where do you think Indianapolis can improve?
When we have big events, we do a good job of trying to activate our local economy, artists included. When we aren’t hosting big events, I don’t know that we do a very good job of that. I don’t know that we really invest in all different forms of art and multimedia in a way that will really allow us to tell the story and develop the culture of Indy.
If you invest in your makers and creators, it can be really impactful for the rest of your city. I think we unfortunately just haven’t figured that our yet in those “down times.” It shouldn’t take a Taylor Swift or a Final Four for us to be like, “Hey, we want to put art all across the city.”
What’s next for you?
In the six years I’ve been doing this, I feel like I’ve been on mic or on camera a lot. And I’ve told my story a lot. I appreciate every opportunity to do that, and I’ll continue to do that when the opportunities come. I’ve met so many people that I would love to put in front of the mic, in front of the camera and amplify their voice and their work. I’m just one person, and I can talk about my story ad nauseum, but that’s not all that’s happening out there. I’m not the world. The beautiful thing about humanity is everybody’s got a different experience, a different story to tell.
Fast facts: Who is @patrickintheworld?
Name: Patrick Armstrong
Age: 36
Hometown: Rensselaer
Content: Podcasts, interviews
Favorite Indy spots: Leviathan Bakehouse, Daisy Bar
Three local creators he recommends: Jamaal Shabazz (@maal317), Precious Jewel (@themostpreciousjewel), Michael Zarick (@thirdspaceindy).
Advice to potential influencers: "Anybody can be a podcaster or a content creator. If you have something on your chest that you feel like you need to share, whether you're super well-researched and seasoned in saying that or whether you're not, I think you just have to pick up the thing and do it."
