Hyperfixation: Stories about intense focus

The Story Collider

Story Collider, Inc.

Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Performing Arts, Arts, Science

4.4 • 818 Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers become extremely fixated on something very specific. Part 1: After being diagnosed with breast cancer and opting for bilateral mastectomies, Jenna Dioguardi becomes beholden to her cancer to-do list. Part 2: As an 11-year-old kid, Luke Strathmann makes it his life mission to get rich off of Beanie Babies. Jenna Dioguardi is an Obie & Drama Desk-award winning performer. She made her Off-Broadway debut originating the role of #13 in Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves, and can now be seen storytelling in dimly lit venues throughout New York. Her solo show, Nipples for Christmas, is currently in development and had its debut in March. By day, Jenna works as a video producer and editor, creating the ads that target you on Instagram. She co-produced, starred in, and edited Smooch the Tucc, a web series chronicling Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy, and she was the co-creator and co-host of two live shows: The Best Storytelling Show (we promise) and The Mister Rogers Variety Hour. Follow her work on IG @jennadio3 & at ⁠jennadioguardi.com⁠. Luke Strathmann is an NYC-based writer and comedian, and currently leads the communications team at Yale’s Department of Economics. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker and McSweeney’s, and he is the proud host of ‘EconLOL,' the world’s first, best, and only economics-themed comedy variety show (at Caveat Theatre in NYC). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:31.7	A science story, huh?
0:34.9	Is NYU scientist the...
0:36.6	I felt... I felt...
0:38.3	And I just thought, well...
0:39.3	It was that golden moment.
0:42.3	Because science was on my side.
0:49.3	Hey everyone. Welcome to the story clutter, where true personal stories about science help us to discover how weird and wonderful it is to exist in this world and be a human.
1:03.3	I'm your host, Mishayevsky, and today's episode is all about hyperfixations.
1:08.4	For the uninitiated, a hyperfixation is something incredibly specific and sometimes
1:13.3	strange that you become obsessed with. And we're not talking just something you like a lot like a hobby.
1:20.8	These hypervixations are all consuming. Our first story is from Obie and Drama Desk Award-winning performer Jenna Diogarty.
1:29.9	Her story was recorded at our go-to spot in New York, caveat, and Jenna's story opened my eyes
1:35.8	to a body part I spent almost no time thinking about, nipples.
1:40.5	So, uh, thanks, Jenna.
1:43.2	Um, but nipple self-consciousness aside, this story is so funny and just the right amount of
1:49.8	strange.
1:50.4	You're going to love it.
	...

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