Marcelo’s hot sauce brand rebranded. The new label, instead of “Hank’s Inferno,” read: “Marcelo’s Slow Burn. Some days it hurts. Some days it doesn’t. Both are fine. ”

Her guest today was Li, who was waiting in the lobby, nervously tapping his phone. Li had a different kind of pain. After retiring from esports due to a repetitive strain injury in his hands, he’d struggled with a loss of identity. In gaming culture, pain was a glitch to be patched, not a feeling to be felt. “Just grind harder,” the forums said. “No pain, no gain.” He’d almost believed it.

Marcelo sat in the green room of The Real Reel podcast studio, his knees aching. The producer had just handed him a list of “talking points.” Next to his name, it read: “The Happy Hank Fall: Mental Health & Laughing Through the Pain.”

Meanwhile, in the editing bay, An was reviewing a clip for the episode. “We’re not doing a trauma weepie,” she told her producer. “Popular media loves two types of male pain: the silent, stoic cowboy who drinks whiskey, or the clown who cries on command for a ratings bump. Both are lies. Both hurt men.”