For the 50th episode, Matthew Wrather hosts as he, Mark Lee, John Perich, and Jordan Stokes dispense more advice (at the request of a listener’s mom, no less), pimp our listeners, and take the guilt out of guilty pleasures (or put the “ear” in “irony,” depending on how you see it.)
Overthink This
Our pop culture recommendations.
- Stokes: Jem and the Holograms on YouTube (http://bit.ly/mLPpK)
- Lee: Isaac Hayes’s soundtrack to Shaft (http://bit.ly/31ar7J)
- Wrather: True Blood (HBO)
- Perich: Kings (NBC)
Tell us what you think (and tell us your ideas for the 50th episode)! Email us or have your mom call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401. If you haven’t yet, take the very short survey! And… spread the overthinking by forwarding this episode to a friend!
God, I can’t believe you guys didn’t pimp my shit -_^. Dicks.
hey, i feel like i came across as kind of a dick about the professional school thing. that was meant to sound more tongue-in-cheek than it did, which is why i’m going to be a doctor and not a comedy writer.
Hey, Sean. You know, I felt the same way after we ended recording… that I came off as kind of a dick… What is it about the Internet that makes everyone come off like a dick?
Sean: I think we ultimately agreed with everything that you said in your comment – that “guilty pleasure” implies a moral judgment to something that is really just a judgment of the peer group, and that pool sharks are more interesting than med students but med students are still cool.
So we all agree with each other. However, on OTI podcasts it takes us about 15 minutes to agree.
By the way, I should mention that I finished making a seafood risotto just minutes before this podcast started to record. (This is what’s known in comedy parlance as a callback.)
You guys only all agree on the podcast because I was at my cousin’s wedding and couldn’t be there!
Conflict, people! Conflict! Nothing puts butts in the seats like a good fight! ;-)
Speaking of conflict, my suggestion was by no means meant to cause any. I envisioned little anecdotes about each other, a sort of nostalgic, remember-that-one-time sort of deal wherein by presenting these little stories, you’d actually give some mighty fine insight into what makes each of you You. But, now that I think about it, I suppose that *is* fodder for some potential unpleasantness…
Earony: I like the term, if only because it distinguishes the kind of enjoyment I get out of poking fun of something versus a hipster doing it. But this does make me wonder, is it earony when a person is watching something for the first time and making peanut gallery comments for the duration, yet when it’s over, they can’t stop talking about how awesome it was? I kind of want to say no if it’s something that stands alone like a movie, since my impression is that to be earonic, you’re making fun of it having already experienced and liked it somehow; ergo, you’re aware of its flaws and poke fun affectionately. But if you’ve never seen it before, how can you know you like it and thus have that affection when poking fun? So a series is more ambiguous, since you’re familiar with the previous episodes and the series itself, but you haven’t seen the episode you’re watching.
Ah, my brain…
That leads me to a podcast topic, though. Verbal commentary during a movie (or TV series, why not?). Yes? No? Special circumstances?
Earony, at least in the understanding that i got of it, could just as easily apply to tropes or cliches as it could to individual pieces of art (e.g. the Clichemageddon contest). You could be watching a new goofy action movie and chuckle at the uses of well-worn cliches that don’t work while still enjoying the ones that do. I imagine this is the reason why so many romantic comedies are successful: people care more about the form than the specific content, so a movie can still make you happy (because it hit all the right notes when it needed to) but still give you fodder for running commentary.