‘Big Talk’ comes to Honolulu with a guide to meaningful connection

Sunrise admin June 22, 2026 0 Comments

‘Big Talk’ comes to Honolulu with a guide to meaningful connection

HONOLULU (Hawaii News Now) — A social media series focused on meaningful conversations has grown into a global movement — and now a new book — aimed at fighting loneliness and social isolation.

Kalina Silverman, founder of Big Talk, joined HNN’s Sunrise Weekends to discuss having important conversations with strangers and her new book, a guide to creating deeper connections.

Big Talk started as a simple experiment — skipping small talk with strangers to ask deeper questions — and has since grown to 367,000 followers on Instagram.

“I started Make Big Talk over 10 years ago as a personal passion project when I moved to a new city for the first time, and I felt really lonely. I didn’t know why, because I was meeting new people, but I realized it was because there was a lot of small talk and not those deeper connections that we all need and crave as humans.” Silverman said.

Big Talk has hosted more than 2,000 workshops for master’s and PhD students from over 75 countries and has spoken to audiences around the world about connection, belonging, and the power of human stories.

” Everyone thinks that I’m covering disasters, and it’s really sad, but it’s actually very uplifting to meet people who are so resilient and kind, even after a disaster,” Silverman said.

Silverman has helped raise more than $3 million for survivors of the Los Angeles fires, Hurricane Helene, the Texas floods, and the Hawaii floods, earning her a Shorty Impact Award for Emergency Relief Storytelling.

Born and raised in Santa Monica, California, Silverman earned a degree in Broadcast Journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

In 2017, she received a Fulbright Scholarship in Singapore, where she researched ways to build cross-cultural empathy through conversation.

“It really feels like it’s one conversation at a time. I’ll meet one person, then someone will see my video, and then I’ll meet another… Each conversation can lead to another, and that’s really the beauty of Big Talk: you never know where one conversation may lead,” Silverman said.

Silverman said her dream for Big Talk is to keep taking it around the world and growing it in this grassroots way—because the part I can control is each person I meet.

“I just want to keep spreading the message and good vibes of Big Talk, interviewing people, and meeting everyone.” Silverman said.

Silverman gave some advice on how to talk to new people.

“I say go outside, smile at someone, and if you have a because there’s so many times where you’re like, oh, I wish I said that I wish I connected with that stranger, they seem so interesting.” Silverman said.

Visit Big Talk on their IG and makebigtalk.com.