Maria Garcia: Why Pop Culture Matters | Muy Excited | Up+Adam

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParkingMaria Garcia knows the stuff we call “pop culture” is rarely just pop culture.On this episode of Up+Adam, Adam Montiel sits down with the award-winning journalist, storyteller, and Executive Editor of Futuro Studios to talk about her new podcast, Muy Excited with Maria Garcia, a show that takes the songs, celebrities, movies, memories, and wonderfully random cultural moments we carry around with us and asks a deceptively simple question: why did this matter to us? Each week, Maria picks apart a piece of nostalgic or contemporary culture with humor, reporting, and curiosity, looking at what it reveals about who we were then and who we are now.Adam and Maria get into the strange power of nostalgia, including the way time can soften the edges of the past while also making us forget what was actually happening around us. Maria shares how an upcoming Britney Spears episode caused her to reconsider the media culture of the early 2000s through the eyes of a 41-year-old mother, and why revisiting those moments can reveal just as much about us today as they do about the past. They also talk Ricky Martin, what happens when the icons that defined one generation mean absolutely nothing to the next, and Maria's belief that even the things dismissed as silly, frivolous, or “lowbrow” culture deserve serious curiosity.Maria also opens up about a turning point in her own storytelling career. While making the acclaimed Anything for Selena, she realized that telling the most truthful version of a story sometimes meant acknowledging her own place inside it. That philosophy has stayed with her through My Divo and now Muy Excited. Her goal is not just to tell you what happened. She wants you to come away understanding something more about people, memory, storytelling, and why certain things stay with us long after the moment itself is gone.And ultimately, that may be the widest invitation of Muy Excited. Maria tells Adam that specificity can create universality. A story can come from one person's very particular experience and still hit something recognizable in somebody halfway across the world. In a time when so much content feels automated, disposable, and engineered for attention, Maria makes a pretty compelling case for following our curiosity and remembering that storytelling is still one of the most human things we do.Listen, watch, and follow Maria:• Muy Excited with Maria Garcia on iHeart: Listen here• Muy Excited on Spotify: Listen here• Muy Excited on Apple Podcasts: Listen here• Maria Garcia on Instagram: @maria_is_muy_excited• Futuro Media: Learn more about Maria and Futuro Studios*********PORTABIDET: UP+ADAM IS AN OFFICIAL SPOKESPERSON FOR PORTABIDET - USE THIS LINK FOR UP+ADAM LISTENERS TO LEARN MORE AND GET YOURS!Listen to Up+Adam with Adam Montiel:Official Website: adammontiel.comApple Podcasts: Up+Adam on Apple PodcastsSpotify: Up+Adam on SpotifyiHeartRadio: Up+Adam on iHeartRadioYouTube Music: Up+Adam on YouTube Music********CHECK OUT OUR WOODS HUMANE PET OF THE WEEK!********ADAM’S TEDX VIDEO IS HERE!********FOLLOW ADAM ON INSTAGRAM*********Sincere Thanks to the current supporters of Up + Adam. Please take a moment and visit them and thank them for supporting local broadcasting, and valuing what we do here. Thank you for supporting them!Life ElementsCity of SLOWoodsHumaneSocietyTin City DistilleryOriginal Music by Dan Curcio and Moonshiner CollectiveMoonshiner on Spotify HEREPlease Rate, Review, and Subscribe to the podcast, and learn more at AdamMontiel.com©2026 Up+Adam with Adam Montiel / LoBro Studios, All Rights Reserved.