American Girl Fan Club Podcast Review

Hello everyone! Today I'm going to be doing something a little different than usual, that I'm actually kinda looking forward too - a review of the American Girl Fan Club podcast!

For those of you that REALLY haven't been paying attention to what's going on with AG, they've recently (ish) launched a series of podcasts! There are three, but the most popular one among the online community is the American Girl Fan Club! This is run by AGIGers Sydney Paulsen (she just got married, so idk if she's actually going by Paulsen anymore) and Kristen Washington! It's really fun to listen, so if you haven't checked it out, I would totally recommend it! 

Anyways, after that little bit of back story, let's jump into the main review!

(By the way, this post does have spoilers, so read at your own risk! 😉)

Overview:

American Girl Fan Club is a podcast run by Sydney Paulsen (5hensandacockatiel on Instagram) and Kristen Washington (ag_4allages on Instagram). Both are adult American Girl doll collectors, who have been working with American Girl for years.

In each episode of the podcast Kristen and Sydney go over a different AG related topic. They've done multiple episodes focusing on the creation of different AG characters, but have also talked with American Girl employees, influencers, and other people who were impacted by AG.

My thoughts:

I love this podcast SO MUCH! It's really interesting to hear about what goes on behind the scenes at AG, and it's also fun to hear questions I've always wondered answered! One of the most recent episodes was an interview with Valerie Tripp, who, if you don't know has been writing for American Girl since it first started! For a while, I've wondered whether a doll's product or her books are created first, and apparently, according to Valerie, it happens both ways! 

Another one of my favorite parts of the podcast is the personal stories Sydney, Kristen, and their guests share. In one episode, a women who works at AG talked about how she heard of a little girl whose dad was getting deployed in the military for a really long time. Apparently, when he got to where we was going, he found his daughter's doll in his bag - she had put her there to keep him company while he was gone!

I'm not even kidding, I was on the verge of tears.

In another episode, Jacqueline Greene, the author of Rebecca's books talked about how once, two old women came up to her and showed her a picture of their mother. Coincidentally, her name was Rebecca Rubin and she was an immigrant as well! They told Jacqueline that Rebecca (the doll's) story meant a lot to them because of their mom. It was so sweet!

I feel like if there's one thing I've mainly taken away from this podcast, it's that the people who work for American Girl actually really care about the company, the dolls, and the whole message of "showing your inner star!" I feel like all the issues everyone has with AG these days are all Mattel's fault.

To kind of summarize this whole post up, if you're thinking about listening to the AG Fan Club podcast - DO IT! To me at least, it feels like AG is kind of trying to recognize their older fans and the whole AGTube/AGIG community!

I would definitely give this podcast a five out of five stars! I love it so much!

Thanks for reading, and I will hopefully see you in about a week!

Bye!

~Annabelle