Stumbled onto Arabian Nights

Yesterday, after a round of souvlaki we found ourselves in a movie theater in the very first row (this is relevant later on), watching the live adaptation of Aladdin. If you have access to the internet you would have seen that the reviews were far from positive. But as I have a soft spot for anything Aladdin, I would not let a couple of bad reviews stop me from paying money to watch it.

I should have. First of all, this will not be one of these posts arguing that there is no point remaking Disney classics, cashing in on nostalgia and failing to come up with original ideas. Not that that is not true, but this has happened to numerous movies, so you know, fine! I really liked the live adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. It was brilliantly cast, it stuck to the original storyline with a few welcome additions (eg. Why the people of the village were unaware of the enchanted castle) and the shot for shot replication was touching. But, as with all blockbusters, after this successful live adaptation, the next one seemed rushed and sloppy.

Just like everyone else I was more confused than anything that this was directed by Guy Ritchie. Were Aladdin and Jafar going to solve their differences on a boxing ring, with rats running around and all of that shot in grey? And then I realized what Guy Ritchie directing meant in this case. It meant I should not have eaten a souvlaki and sat in the first row. That camera was on its own private roller coaster, rushing through the streets of Agraba and toying with my vomit. The song numbers were nicely shot though, good thing they fixed the CGI for Genie. But why didn’t Guy Ritchie make sure that Jafar looked either menacing or foul rather than pitiful? Weird choice, should have cast the guy from Snatch that arranged the dog fights.

I’m guessing they got Guy Ritchie so they could have two names that people had heard of, including Will Smith. Do not get me wrong; kudos to Disney for not white-washing Aladdin and kudos for getting new faces and sky-rocketing them to fame. That two-name comment was more of a joke than an actual criticism. But let’s get back to the white-washing thing. There has been a lot of talk in Hollywood about accents and how ridiculous it is to have actors do broken English accents in non-English settings. Let me explain this sentence I wrote that makes little sense. Would Aladdin, Yasmine and the people of Agraba in Middle East Asia speak English? No. But for the purposes of the movie, the purpose being us understanding them, they are. So, is there any point in them having an accent? No, it is translated anyway. So the movie half did this. Meaning the central cast had clear accents, but everyone else had ‘Arabic’’. I burst out laughing, honestly. It is a good thing the merchant understood Aladdin with that weird manner of speaking he had. And say, Yasmine and the people of the palace are meant to have different accents because they are higher born or whatever. Why does Aladdin have a different accent to all of his peers? Maybe Abu taught him.

These are but details. This next complaint is a long one.

Aladdin is a story about a poor boy, that was seen as a ‘street rat’ because he was born among the ‘rough’, but instead was a ‘diamond’. That boy gets an all-powerful Genie, and momentarily gets blindsided by his good fortune and changes for the worst. But towards the end of the movie realizes that what matters is what’s inside and not whether you were born rich or poor. I am assuming whoever is reading this over 12 may find this overly simplistic, but it is a pretty good premise for a children’s film. And a pretty complete one too. Aladdin has a full character arc, a justified arc. But no, they had to make Yasmine sultan to pretend they are feminists. Yasmine is already one of the fiercest princesses in Disney; she defies orders, she insists on marrying out of love and not necessity, resists Jafar and ultimately manipulates him in order to defeat him. She is great! My personal favourite! But this movie decided that she needs to sing an oh-so-cheesy song named ‘I will not be silenced’ and defy the chronological context of the movie by becoming sultan. And what was most frustrating for me was that she claimed she wanted and ‘should be’ sultan because she loved, understood the people and as a ruler would do what was best for them. It is amazing how much you can understand about common people’s needs when you are a princess that has never been outside the castle. She stole bread from a merchant to give to two starving children; noble, for sure, but not an effective economic strategy. In that case, Jafar might have been better suited. He did say he came from the streets (that sounds more gangsta than intended) and rose to the second, nay first, most powerful man in Agraba. He possibly understands them a little bit better, because he has lived among them and escaped the rough himself, even though he was far from a diamond. They gave Yasmine this unfounded focus, without any events supporting it, without a character arc and it just felt forced and undeserved. It was done to be done. It was quick and sloppy.

Again, the comparison is inevitable. Beauty and the Beast showed Belle invent a washing machine, learn how to read, want more ‘than this provincial life’, make her own decisions, change a man and sacrifice herself for her father… And have Stockholm syndrome and eventually just observe while the beast fought off the villain. But it made sense! Her feminist portrayal worked because she was the main character and it was her story, The beast ultimately fighting off the bad guy also made sense because he got a proper character arc. I applaud the intention to introduce stronger feminist messages into these movies. But if they wanted to include these feminists messages, they should have given Yasmine a character arc rather than a song she sings to herself. Or have her play a more integral role in the outcome. Or have someone else write the script for this stupid adaptation.

The only thing I will say, is that I cannot account for how this message may register to a child-girl (yes, I am an alien). It may be that this a good way to tell a young girl that she can be whatever she wants, even if they say only boys can be sultans. I am sure kids won’t focus on the ‘they do not have electricity, they probably would not have a female sultan’ and maybe some little girl will sing that awful song and feel empowered. In that case, my opinion is irrelevant. Not necessarily wrong, but irrelevant.

I could talk about Will Smith as the Genie, I mean he was no Robin Williams, he would never be, but I think he practically saved this movie. But as you may have understood by now, this blogpost was a poor excuse for me to bitch about Yasmine’s poorly developed, distracting subplot. I should have been upfront, I apologise. Aladdin is my favourite film so I am very, very biased and more disappointed than I should be. Will I give my money for another live adaptation of a Disney film? Probably. I mean Lion King is coming up. But in the future I might trust the reviews a bit more. And Guy Ritchie a bit less.

Re-stumbled onto Infinity War (AKA, the pre-game)

‘We are in the Endgame now’, said Dr Strange, even though creators swore that the title of the final instalment of Phase 3 from the MCU had not been mentioned in the previous films. They are liars and we love them for it.

In preparation, me and my friends went back and watched ‘Avengers Infinity War’ for the third time and I can honestly say, it could not have been a better movie considering what it was. As always, I will start with the negative, yes the one. The main complaint is that with so many heroes, no one got enough screen time and that is true. Captain America hardly got any lines in but that is what is so amazing about the MCU, he didn’t need to because his actions spoke millions: ‘I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission’, is a sum of the 'Civil War' outcome and ‘We do not trade lives’ is his moral code in a gist. Five lines was plenty for a movie with 28 superheroes. He also got a magnificent scene, where the puny human from Brooklyn, born in 1918, resists the mighty titan with his bare hands. I swear, I got goose bumps. Plus, Endgame will take care of limited screentime, as most of the additional Avengers were erased and only the six original Avengers (and Antman and War Machine and the Racoon) were left to fight. And if things go the way I think they will, the Endgame will do justice to Steve Rogers.

There were a couple of details which were the utmost celebration of what the MCU has achieved and I would like to point them out. First one is the emotional turmoil it placed our superheroes in and how we all empathised. Thor had to witness his people get slaughtered, his best friend (and last) sacrifice himself and his brother choked in an impromptu act of kindness. So he is hurt and pissed and deservingly gets the best shot at Thanos out of all the Avengers. But he should have gone for the head. Then, both Peter Quill and Wanda Maximoff have to fight every inch of their being and kill the people (or robots respectively) they love for the greater good. And once they manage that unimaginable task it is undone in seconds. Still does not mean I forgive Peter Quill for FUCKING UP the whole universe, but you know, I empathise. After the life-ending snap, many last words were a knife through the heart; Black Panther say ‘this is no place to die’ as he gets erased from existence and Peter Parker turns to dust in the hands of Iron Man, who felt guilty enough as it was about this kid he took into his care, but he now has to watch him die, essentially. It was all heart breaking.

On the subject of Peter Parker, everything about this Spiderman is compensation for the Emo and Hipster Spidermans of the past. He is a movie nerd and a millennial, hence the pop-culture references, but possibly the best (and unlikely) version of a teenager you can get. He is so innocent and selfless it does not even cross his mind that an alien attack is diversion enough for him to disappear. He perfectly translates his ‘small scale’ vigilante duties to the Infinity War scale by saying ‘You can’t be a friendly neighbourhood Spiderman if there is no neighbourhood’. I’m sorry, even though that quote has the word ‘Spiderman’ in it, it is proper deep. Later on, his spidey sense, just like Mantis’, warns him about what is to come, a detail that made me love the Russo brothers just a tiny bit extra. And lastly, my favourite detail, in the middle of the scariest fight of his life, he takes a moment to rejoice about being an official Avenger. He is as likeable as he should have been three Spidermans ago.

Spiderman is a major Marvel character and perhaps doing him justice is what was expected. However, what the MCU will be known for is taking characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy and making them superstars. I am not saying anything original here, but I think we need a moment of appreciation for the MCU and James Gunn in particular for making them such standouts, that within a second of ‘The Rubberband Man’ playing, we knew who was coming up on screen. That is not a small feat and it just goes to show how ironclad these characters are in everyone’s mind.

And it is time to address the Titan in the room, and that is the best worst, villain since Christopher Nolan gave Batman a sore throat. Thanos is the balls (and that is not a reference to his chin, although it could be). He is not your typical villain with equal power to the hero, but with cruel intentions; he has the six infinity stones that control the universe. He can make half of existence disappear with the snap of his fingers. He is so strong, we ignored the fact that Iron Man’s suit is now essentially the Green Lantern ring (Wait, is this a crossover episode?), because it didn’t really matter anyway. And apart from that, he has suffered, he is dedicated and there is an argument behind his actions. He has seen his own planet deteriorate because of overpopulation and he is aware that there are finite resources in this universe. He has therefore decided to take it upon him to ‘bring balance to the universe’. He is probably a vegan too. Of course, he is also an emotionally detached, murderous maniac, which is what I would be if I was vegan as well. But we see him ache for Gamora, we see him show some recognition, even maybe admiration, for the selfless defenders, their effort, determination and self-sacrifice. He is not likeable, but he is surely more likeable than his skinny son, Ebony Maw; I think I literally cheered when he got his ass ‘Alien’ed. I recognise that  Thanos is obviously worse than one of his mere helpers, but he is given more character and played by Josh Brolin. I am glad Brolin also plays Cable, because otherwise I could see me mourning his loss from the MCU. And my friends would rightfully kill me if I shed a tear for Thanos.

But the most important thing that made this movie a success, was the dynamics. The Russo brothers kept enough track of the progress so far, to know who had met whom and who had heard of whom and some of those unlikely pairings were the best entertainment in the MCU. Namely Peter Quil and Thor, Peter Quil and Iron Man, Iron Man and Dr Strange, Hulk and Bruce Banner and Iron Man and Captain America. I know the last pair did not interact, but considering the 'Civil War' aftermath we needed Tony Stark to hesitate before calling Steve Rogers. How do you make that phone call? What a beautiful human moment.

Why is this that big a deal? Because this is not just the final installment of Phase 3; it’s the final instalment of all three phases. It is possibly the biggest movie event to date, certainly comicbook-wise. There is nothing more anticipated, nothing of more pop-culture importance. I’ll say it even if no one else does, it is more important than Game of Thrones. Why? Because there are more years of investment, an extra three to be precise, and most importantly this is our nerdom payback. We were mocked and we relied on paper drawings and movies worthy of the mockery we faced to get our dose of nerdiness. And then the MCU transformed this silly, childish, fictional world to the epitomy of Hollywood, getting everyone from the hottest actors to Oscar winning actresses involved. It got niche directors into the mainstream, it incorporated other movie genres and most importantly, it gave spandex-wearing characters three dimensional personalities. So I thank you Marvel, I trust you and I welcome the shock and tears (and funny puns) that will surely make the Endgame a celebration of the superhero genre.

Stumbled onto hope for DC Extended Universe

Lots of things happened this week, good things for my professional development and mental health. Lots of good, grown up stuff. And then I watched Shazam and realised I barely cared about grown up stuff.

A quick sum. A wizard is getting too old and weak to contain the seven deadly sin monsters who had wreaked humanity in the past and needs to pass his magic powers on to a worthy ‘champion’. During his search he stumbles onto a lonely, rejected child who is not deemed worthy at the time. He is never deemed worthy, actually, and therefore becomes the villain. Sorry if that was misleading. But then he meets this other child, this boy who lost his parents, a loner, a runaway from foster homes and he becomes the champion. And if he says ‘Shazam’ he turns into a tall, handsome Zachary.

This movie was brilliant. I was a bit biased as Zachary Levi is one of the most likeable people in Hollywood and I have recently re-watched the second season of Marvelous Mrs Maisel, where he was perfect. And so much better than stupid Joel. But I had a much stronger counter-bias which is that DC has pretty much fucked up all of its superhero movies in the DCEU. Therefore, I can safely say that I have a balanced opinion about this movie and all should agree. The humour was fantastic, light and immature, as it should be. Extra points for keeping the original costume regardless of how ridiculous it looked in the year 2019. Characters were very, very likeable, meaning the main character, the foster siblings and the foster parents. And Santa Claus. Look out for the little sister, who is going to melt your heart from her very first scene.

And all the ‘comic book’ stuff were ‘comic book stuff’. Yes, the villain and the wizard do not get a sufficient back-story and are charicature-esque. But I mean, how much back-story can you give a white-bearded wizard to make him relatable without spending seven books, eight movies, a play, two prequels (to date) and multiple unnecessary tweets? And the villain looked like he had a difficult childhood; how would I have enjoyed his defeat if he was relatable and I felt bad for him? I hope this is not a spoiler, I mean even for Avengers: Endgame we all know Thanos has to lose, right? Right? He has to. If he doesn’t, I am quitting the movies. All of the movies. Okay, maybe the seven deadly sins could have been better (much better) CGI-d or taken a note out of Fullmetal Alchemist and had more character, but mehh, they were way too ugly anyway.

And the big surprise of the evening was that this was an emotional movie. Emotionality was always lurking in the background, the protagonist is a delinquent foster child with a good heart, his best friend is a foster child with a disability, they are outcasts and bullied at school; that is all there. But it is shoved down your throat, begging you to focus on how unfortunate and scarred the protagonists are, as in some other, uhum, movies. But when the time is right, emotionality hits you in the face. Followed by some beautiful, immature, funny scenes.

So is this hope for DC? Did they finally get it right or will this just be an exception to the Snyderisms we have had to put up with? A friend of mine suggested that the movie was good because of the lower budget. As Shazam is not a famous superhero, there was more creative freedom, more room for risk. I hope that is not true. I hope they finally sat down at DC’s fortress of solitude, their Batcave, their headquarters, pinpointed what Marvel did well, hired James Gunn and will now reboot the universe. And while I mourned for Battfleck, and will do so until the superhero genre is fully saturated, I welcome this change if it comes with Shazam and his aesthetic in the Justice League.

Let me also put this out there, while I love Disney and all it has done for superhero movies, this could easily turn to a Lex Luthor situation with Disney having full control over blockbusters and us mainstream viewers depending on (1) whatever mediocracy they put out and (2) Oscar’s season. Part of it is already happening. As much as a liked Captain Marvel, it was not Winter Soldier. It was not a love-project for someone, it was not an original perspective. It did not need to be. From the 34 characters that will be or be referenced in Avengers: Endgame, she was the only one we had not met; of course we would watch her movie. We would watch her movie even if she wore a helmet that looked like a chicken’s head. Again, kudos for original costumes. How am I talking about the MCU again? Shazam deserves better. Shazam was awesome. Pretty decent soundtrack too.

It is good for us to have some healthy competition among the comic book movie giants, trying to out-do one another. We will get the better movies, more thought-out scripts, interesting directors and justice for Batman. I will be so disappointed if this ends up being an unexploited, momentary genius, but on the bright side, I will always have things to complain about on this blog. Bright side for me, that is.

Stumbled onto Marvel’s amazing soundtracks

I recently watched Captain Marvel, the first standalone film with a female protagonist in the MCU. Not Marvel, because Marvel made Elektra, even though we are all trying to forget. This movie could have a lot of hype; first female protagonist, Oscar-winning actress, one of the most powerful heroes in the MCU, young Samuel L. Jackson and so on. However, when half of our beloved characters have ceased to exist, a mad titan has won against our heroes and we are probably going to see the noble Captain America die in the next film, all the potential Captain Marvel hype is just not there. But to be fair this was an okay movie. It was enjoyable, the CGI to de-age SLJ did what Justice League could not do to Henry Cavil’s moustache and the characters were a bit flat but likeable. And the best part? The soundtrack. The full-on 90’s, girl empowerment, grunge soundtrack for the first female superhero movie set in the 90’s.

It is not the first time we have had a successful nostalgic soundtrack in the MCU. James Gunn (rehired, #JusticeforGunn) did it amazingly by creating a Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack so fine and fun, we would take it without the movie. Good songs that tied in as whole and related to the story. All songs were roughly from the 70’s because that is when the protagonist, Peter Quill, received the Awesome Mix Vol. 1 mixtape from his dying mother. The songs were therefore emotionally tied in to the story and made sense plotwise. But that is not all; they tied in to the scenes as well. This was a comedy disguised as a superhero movie and the songs were giving the scenes an essential light touch. They weren’t complementary to the scenes, they were integral. And that in turn did justice to popular, adored songs.

Captain Marvel’s soundtrack has not caused the same uproar, but man did I feel like wearing brown lipliner, thinning my brows and trying to dress like Kate Moss (for the unaware, these were all 90’s trends). A bit of Salt-N-Peppa for the fun, a bit of Nirvana for the grunge and a bit of Hole, Garbage and No Doubt for that girl-power grunge-pop aesthetic. It never felt out of touch; Brie was only happy when it rains, sporting a leather jacket on a stolen motorcycle and that made a filler scene feel complete. Plus not one, but two R.E.M. songs, including Man on the Moon, which felt so utterly appropriate. While not as awesome as the sensibly named Awesome Mix, this is another Spotify playlist to follow.

 It seems the world was shocked by how good the first Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack was (second one was not too shabby either), and superhero movies tried to implement nostalgic playlists into their movies. Captain Marvel, in my opinion, did it very well. You know who did not though? DC! Right after Guardians of the Galaxy was released and these relatively unknown superheroes got so much attention and praise, DC’s dark antihero movie ‘Suicide Squad’ went back into the editing room with many reshoots to fit this more fun and wacky attitude people seemed to enjoy. And therefore the next trailer is Harley Quinn, Deadshot and whichever other forgettable character was in the movie doing bad guy stuff with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ playing. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, a king of songs. A song so big, it got its own movie. Problem is, it did not work. Neither did ‘Seven Nation’s Army’ or ‘You Don’t Own Me’ or ‘Without ME’ or any of them. And this is a typical case of DC misunderstanding what worked and why. You don’t only need epic songs; you need epic songs that continue from one another, tie into the scene, tie into the plot. In other words, you need to do these epic songs justice, think them through rather than have them as accessories. In one, simple sentence, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is a flamboyant masterpiece, not a clickbait prop.

 Good news is James Gunn is doing the next Suicide Squad movie (at the time of this blogpost) so we can hope for a good soundtrack. Even better news is that he was rehired by Marvel for the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, so we can hope for an even better soundtrack. The best news is that while DC got it wrong, another Marvel director got it right, so we can hope for amazing soundtracks for many superhero movies to come. 

Stumbled onto a facial

For a few years now, makeup has received unprecedented attention and therefore makeup artists are now more common than baristas and overdone brows is the 2010’s epidemic. But even more recently the focus has been switched to skincare, for which my knowledge is basic but my interest growing. For example, my dedication to sun protection comes from Charlize Theron who named it the single most important thing in skin care. Have you seen her face? Also, have you spoken to a dermatologist? Wear sunblock! Ready for more skincare advice from our pop culture icons, I enthusiastically began my research. But I soon realised that spreading your own blood (vegan) across your face (a la Kardashian) is a piece of advice I’d rather not follow.

A couple of more celebrity beauty routines just for fun. Demi Moore favours blood sucking leeches to detoxify. It is an excellent alternative to green tea, which is diuretic. You wouldn’t want to risk having too much potassium in your blood for those poor leeches. Victoria Beckham (you know whatever is coming next is good) prefers bird poo. And all this time we were ignorantly scraping it off our cars, poor birds were only doing us a favour. While on the subject of poo, haemorrhoid cream is apparently better than concealer for those under-eye bags. Sandra Bullock was as surprised as we are. And of course, we have to mention the queen of unconventional beauty, Gwyneth Paltrow. Gwyneth is all about fair trade; if you want to take from the lower end, you have to give back. Jade eggs and vagina steamers. I think it is pretty clear by now, Gwyneth Paltrow always wanted to be a farm bird; lay her eggs and become a high-protein, low-fat meal.

But as sane, everyday people would not drain their blood for a facial, the obvious solution is creating blood moisturisers that cost 1000 dollars. Or, you know, promote six step skincare routines for morning and evening, including serums and face yoga classes. That sounds like fun actually and preferable to any other yoga I have tried. And then celebrities endorse L’Oreal skincare and do a bunch of ads. But as Nikki Glaser very accurately said, whatever affordable skin care Jennifer Aniston promotes, she wouldn’t even use on her poo-poo hole. And yes, I am aware that there is an excrement pattern throughout the text, but that was not my decision. Skincare is getting insanely popular, specialised and expensive. And then when La Roche-Poche does not give you radiant cheekbones they can blame it on the clay you don’t eat (not kidding, a spoonful of clay per day keeps the aesthetician away, according to Shaeiline Woodley).

I remember boys thought it was weird when we put yogurt on our face as a DIY mask. I am sure yogurt sounds pretty normal now, eh? And ineffective, I mean if yogurt could do the trick, why chase down birds and feed them prunes? Or at least that is how I inmagine Victoria Beckham spends her day. I am assuming this entry has been no help other than putting you off your lunch so I am just going to end by promoting the absolute basics. Wear lots of water and drink lots of sunscreen. Or the other way around, whatever works for you.

Stumbled onto my YouTube homepage

Let me start by admitting that I am stupid. It took me long to realise that what shows up on my YouTube homepage as ‘suggested’, ‘recent’ or ‘popular’ is based on the videos I had already watched. That is on me. But I did, for a time, think that all the ‘A Closer Look’ videos were coming up on everyone’s computer and that that was a worldwide popular late night segment. I mean each video has about 1.3 million views, I was not completely delusional. And then I logged onto YouTube without signing in and I realised that I have no contact with what the rest of the world is watching. The difference was immense and I learnt so many things! Ariana Grande has more than one song, there is a YouTuber that looked for dead bodies in a forest and James Corden’s show is actually doing really well! Who would have thought? The fact that I am an idiot and did not realise that YouTube was tailored to my needs (even though I was fully aware of all the data protection scandals) is on me. The fact that I am practically living in a distinct social web from the person sitting next to me is kind of scary.

It is amazing that we have breadth and depth for our interests and preferences, but, at the same time, we only exchange views about these with similarly minded people. And then we think there is more of us, we think we are indisputable. That was perhaps the benefit of TV. There were some options, less options, that would play at a certain time. So say I was watching a crappy prime time show (cough-cough, Big Bang Theory, cough-cough). There would be other people in my immediate environment watching the same crappy prime time show, because it was on at ten pm. And some of them would agree with me and we would make fun of the show during our lunch break. Some others would disagree with me and argue for Jim Parsons, Aspergers-like performance. And these are the people that I am afraid are almost missing from the equation now. I don’t have to fight with all the ‘Team Coco’ subscribers; we all love Conan and none of us is ever going to subscribe to ‘Jay Leno’s Garage’. But I am shielded from the opposition. I am aware that this sounds like I wish we were all sending essays to each other about the stereotypes and sexism and joke repetition of ‘certain’ prime time shows. With an admittedly good theme song. But I mean casual conversation, where ideas are exchanged and not just reinforced or voted down. I swear I won’t talk about how the internet is robbing us from real human experience, like a grandma; this casual conversation can be on WhatsApp while on the toilet. The best kind.

Apparently this is a real problem that was particularly prominent in the 2016 election in the US, where if you compared a Democrat’s and Republican’s Facebook feed it was as if they were living in different countries. There are serious issues about personal data being available to all sorts of companies, but the reinforcement I choose to discuss is at a basic, pop-culture level, because that is all I know. We are all getting a biased version of reality that is shared, recycled and reinforced among us. It is just curious that the freedom offered by the internet may be making us all the more close-minded. And if that sounds like I made a life-shattering realisation, signed out of YouTube, stopped reading news on Twitter and visited a couple of contradicting sites, I did not. I really, really like my videos and not having to look for them. Yay progress!

I swore I was not going to make the grandma argument about real human experience within this post! But here I go. Newcomber, Festinger and many more social psychologists did a number of studies showing that stronger relationships and greater likeability developed with people that lived closer by and were encountered more often, compared to people with similar interests. I think this is how we function, it is in our DNA, it is related to oxytocin, and yes I am going to cite all the relevant psychology terms I know to project authority. But just as I thought everyone in my office watched ‘Screen Rant: Pitch Meetings’, I also think physical proximity is useful, nourishes critical thinking and even compassion.

And it is not like we can’t get both. If 1.3 million English-speaking people, likely to be aged from 20 to 40, with a similar sense of humour are watching ‘A Closer Look’ I will either find or convert someone. It is just equally good to have a third person sitting next to us while we watch it to point out that joking about Trump’s spelling mistakes on Twitter is a distraction from the more alarming aspects of his governance. It’s nice to have these sort of dull people around and love them just because they are physically next to you, rather than hate them behind a username. And people tend to have stupid usernames.

Stumbled onto the Podcast World

Little late to the game, I know, but this has been a life-changing experience. I first remember having the word ‘Podcast’ pop up on my iTunes as a separate category to music and videos (back when I had an iPod). I didn’t know what it might be and no answers I received made me curious at all to find out. I think I then revisited the word when I began listening to audiobooks and a friend asked ‘why audiobooks and not podcasts?’. But even then, I could not really see the point. But then my favourite famous human being started one, Conan O’Brien, and I decided I didn’t have much of a choice but to immerse myself in the Podcast experience.

So this started off as a fan-girl experience, planning to exclusively listen to ‘Conan O’Brien needs a friend’ so as to get my daily Conan dose that I was lacking as the show was off the air FOR EVER. But that was a one-hour Podcast per week. I needed more. I soon found out about comedic podcasts, informational podcasts and opinion podcasts from people whose opinion I would like to know. All of a sudden, Stitcher (because Spotify and iTunes want me to pay them money, which I won’t), was filled with downloaded episodes from about four ongoing Podcasts. And while that may not seem like a lot, bear in mind I like to catch up. I am not one of those people that can just accept that I came in late and will therefore skip the episodes I missed. I need to know, I need to be able to go ‘it used to be much better’ about any Podcast I am following. The current situation is that I walk, commute and shop with someone babbling on my headphones. And that is all good, apart from the few inconveniences that have occurred.

First of all, I have completely given up on music. I remember reading NME, jotting down bands and looking them up. I remember being able to chronologically comment on Cage the Elephant’s musical progression. I remember having a free Spotify membership (again, I am very cheap) and not allowing myself to listen to my own playlists until I had listened to my suggested mix, in order to learn new songs. And now, Arctic Monkeys came out with a new album in May 2018 and honestly, I might have heard it once? Have I? And it is not just new music that I have lost track of, I hadn’t intentionally listened to any music since October. That means none of my favourite songs, none of my guilty-not guilty pleasures and none of those songs that make you contemplate about life and love and happiness and worthiness and so on. Thankfully, Foals had a new single to break this streak, but even that I have listened to once. And I have referenced Foals enough on this blog for this statistic to be shocking. I miss music. I think, I can barely remember what it sounds like.

Secondly and most importantly, I look like an idiot. Constantly. This is especially true for the comedic Podcasts. You know how when you see a person laughing by themselves on the bus you make a mental note to sit away from them? Let’s just say I have a lot of personal space on my commutes lately. I walk down the street and I laugh, and I also try to hide it, which likely makes it worse. Most of the time I have a knowing grin on my face like I’m approving of a joke that no one else in the street has access to. It is ridiculous! Google satellite has now probably flagged me as a schizophrenic who is really, really enjoying those voices in her head.

But it is not just the comedic Podcasts. Unfortunately, my face is quite expressive regardless of content. So I might be buying courgettes and staring at them really hard because I am trying to understand how private insurance companies convinced the American public that public healthcare was a direct attack on their constitutional free will. But as I don’t have ‘I am listening to an anti-Trump Podcast’ written on my forehead, I just look confused by courgettes. And sometimes I am, I mean, they must be closely related to cucumbers right? There are just so many similarities. And pumpkins. For some reason I feel like those are related.

Lastly, I am victim to the same problem we all are, now that TV has taken a backseat to streaming services and the internet. AKA, I don’t really have someone to talk about one of the past times that takes up quite a bit of my day. It is more and more the case that we all deal with our own pop cultures that are popular for a large number of people, but not a large number of people you personally know. There is a sometimes a false sense of something’s popularity and I feel as if that has created some personal barriers in communication. This is something I would like to discuss in a separate blog post, as it is sometimes funny and sometimes scary, but for the sake of this topic it is quite simple. Apparently not everyone listens to ‘No such thing as a fish’ and apparently I am not good at repeating jokes. Therefore I am now unlikeable. And Podcasts are to blame.

Whining aside, I am loving this world of Podcasts. They are amazing and much needed distractions, they feel way more genuine and they are a practical alternative to YouTube videos to pass your time. And as a person whose emotional wellbeing very much depends on distractions I am grateful for the ability to take them with me on the tube. Last thing, ads on podcasts are a lot better. Take note, YouTube.