Article Club

ACEp 4 Transcript

Hello, welcome to Article Club. This is the show where we read an article and we talk about it. We talk about it. Allison, what are we reading today? We are reading the end of Seriousness. Ooh ha ha ha. RIP and this is a piece by Lauren Michelle Jackson in the New Yorker. Mm-hmm. And it's talking about.

How over time, really starting in the sixties, I mean, we'll go into the history that she walks through, but especially in the last couple of years, there's been this shift from, finding comedy and everything to the memification of everything, to a backlash against being serious.

Can you be serious about anything or will people say oh, you're taking this too seriously, or Can't you find some levity? Or Can't you find some humor? There are lots of lines that she quotes in this piece that I say all the time. Oh, absolutely. As I was reading this. I came face to face with the fact that I cover up everything with humor. I know deflect, deflect, deflect. Maybe less the memification of everything. I'm not a meme gal, but. But yeah. Is covering everything with humor? Just the millennial version of the Memification Sure. That GenY is doing.

And did we not always do that? That's another big question. We could talk about that. Yeah. Are we ever allowed to be serious? At least as long as we've been alive. Right. Her point is, as the internet, as Memification has become a thing, everything is funny. We cover up everything within LOL. I feel like I've always done that my whole life, do you remember , when, for our generation, LOL. Was started being used ironically because yes, for a while it was like LOLL Mao. That's how you actually show You're laughing. Yeah. On the internet. And now it's just like lull, which is funny. There's one line that she says became prolific, which is lull. That's crazy. Yeah. It's avoiding going deeper and getting more serious on these topics and just brushing over something that someone tells you about that holds a lot of maybe intensity or weight and you're just like, right. That's crazy. Right? It's a throwaway and the crazier things get the more it's easy to just do the brush off, the more it gets papered over.

Yep. She talks about how anyone's first response two things is, is laughter. It seems I thought this line was so good. Jokes are safer for stalling opinion and thereby contention by foregoing one. So if you just laugh it off or if you joke about it, it allows you to actually avoid having to have an opinion or draw firm line on something.

Right? It ends up always being the end. Even if you do have a strong opinion with somebody, if you're debating something, you're going back and forth. How do you even then bring it back together? There's rarely a, let's shake hands and look at each other in the eyes. Seriously. Right. And disagree to disagree.

Right? It's a, you know what? La la la it's all gonna burn to hell or whatever it is. This has also been making me think about humor as survival. And she doesn't really talk about the history of how there's, there, she gets into certain communities using humor to cope with trauma, but I personally feel like if you can't laugh about it.

Yeah. Ruminating has always been a thing as a sort of Irish Catholic person that's you can't do, you can't go into a, crawl into a hole and feel sorry for yourself. Right. It's like a pick your up, self up by the bootstraps. Yeah. Throw some humor on it and move forward. One foot in front of the other.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And she talks about, we're in an irony epidemic, which I thought was interesting, comedy used to be allowed to be used, but there was still some sincerity in what people said. And now. Everything is a joke all the time. Right. Wait, speaking of irony this isn't exactly irony, but we have to acknowledge something.

But in the Alanis Moset song, this would be ironic. Yeah. Don't you think? Isn't it ironic? Every single time we record this podcast, we show up without coordinating outfits and lo and behold. We are matching yet again. Stripes. On stripes. I have a slight olivey stripe for you just listening through your ears, not gracing us with your YouTube presence.

What would you call yours? A burgundy brown? Yeah. Yeah. Like a, like a sort of, I don't know. Yeah. Burgundy, brown. I swear. Dear reader, we are not coordinating these outfits in yet. Just happens, but now we can never. Now we can ever, ever talk about it to see what happens. But are our stripes the jokes of, of clothing?

Maybe they're just ubiquitous. Yeah. Maybe we were both feeling buoyant. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jailbird clown. Like I know when she was talking about the irony when she was talking about the irony epidemic, but also just company and tragedy. I was thinking about my like middle school drama classes where you're like learning about the Greek amphitheater and tragedies and comedies and how these things have always been not at odds, but like two sides of the same coin.

But I thought, the history that she takes us through of the Ification of America Uhhuh was not something I thought about. She was talking about how there were comedians like Lenny Bruce and John Lemon in the sixties, who basically brought comedy to like the cultural zeitgeist or like the pop culturey world.

And that was from the. The sixties into the two thousands was the norm, like pre, pre that it was like, people that grew up in the like, great depression. There just wasn't, I think a lot of like laughter and to your quote levity. And then she talks about nine 11 actually as a turning point, which, I mean, how old were you when nine 11 happened?

We were in eighth grade. Seventh, right? Seventh grade. Seventh grade, eighth grade, seventh, right? Yeah. I was in Dr. Kunos, or you're right, Mrs. Hazing class. So that must have been in seventh grade. Mm-hmm. It's so interesting. Our millennial generation, we all, we were in school. So our teachers went outta the room and were told, or what happened.

Yeah. We brought like a TV in. How glad are you that Instagram didn't exist? Oh my gosh. When you were in seventh grade? During nine 11. Oh, I, I'm so glad. Feel like that would have, I didn't know, there, there were all of these. Like Teletubbies falling from the World Tower. Oh, I missed all of this.

so she talks about how like when nine 11 happened obviously there was a huge tragedy in America and there was actually a brief respite from any comedic reaction, right? So the onion went dark with dark, like SNL happened late night comedy shows like stopped producing for a couple of days.

And how. After that, like when they came back the South Park example, that episode, the example that she gives was super salient to me, where basically they were trying to use comedy, I think to cope with this tragedy, but in a way that was over the top. And in the South Park episode that she talks about happens, they have Rudy Giuliani coming on to the South Park episode and saying, I give you permission to laugh and if you don't, I'll have you all rested.

And and this almost slap, sticky like not actually processing the tragedy through comedy. It was like sitting above that. Mm-hmm. It wasn't actually serving a purpose. Mm-hmm. It was just stupid to like, to paper over it, not to actually deal with the tragedy.

Do we feel like her nutshell argument was. Pre nine 11, and I remember this as a kid, I remember being told nothing will ever be the same. You will remember pre nine 11 and post nine 11 as a kid, which as a kid you're sort of like, this is the only thing in my life that has been that way. Now we have the pandemic.

Sure. There's none of these other things in our lives. Do you think she's arguing, eighties, nineties rom-com. It's this, at the expense of minorities and all of this, stuff that would never fly today. It was just this sort of like rosy humor world. And then nine 11 makes us feel like we can't laugh about anything ever again.

And then she says, this snark replaces it. Mm-hmm. It is like this skepticism, this snark, this almost like nastiness pre. Hitting the internet, which then explodes this memification. Yeah. I thought the line that she used that really speaks this was, the thought was that to meet something with a laugh was the same thing as defanging.

It a fearful humor inflated with American self-importance. 'cause there's also a little bit of god, like Uncle Sammy, God bless America. But with, with a little bit of, again, irony or tongue in cheekness as you're saying that because clearly the fact that nine 11 happened meant that that couldn't be the case, or I don't know exactly what she's saying there.

What you were describing is fair for what her argument is. I also think there's a little bit of a conflation of the fact that nine 11 was also the beginning of internet culture in general. I think those are coincidental, but that it wasn't just nine 11 that like changed the face of comedy.

It was also that YouTube started to really take off. Think about all of those stupid videos that we watched on YouTube , oh, Greg Bailey from a shoe and we all knew them. There were for some reason Charlie Bit, my finger, Charlie Daniel and the dentist. Charlie bit me.

What was the one with the the end of the world like Alaska can come to. Amazing. Yeah. Rick getting like rickroll, like all these dumb things. And they're all very like juvenile and unfeeling. I'm so much more monoculture. The internet now it's, which is what America is a bit of a like.

Yes. And yeah, it's so niche there's so many different niche American cultures except I guess if you were then bucketed by the algorithm into a certain cohort of people like me, mom, memes, uhhuh, or whatever, into cooking memes yeah. Like it's become more sophisticated. So you're like getting even more specific.

Yeah. Instead of this monoculture. Totally. Whether you like it or not, I chuckled a little bit to myself thinking about sociologists dissecting memes. At one point she talks about sociologists, writing of the cut and paste internet jokes that are impacting the zeitgeist in our conversations.

It just reminds me like we are still, we are living in history. Like people are studying the stupid totally stupid things that people are putting out in the world. Oh yeah, yeah. 'cause one, one example that she talks about, there was that truly tragic photo of people jumping from nine 11, and then she talks about how people mummified it by putting Teletubbies doing it, and you're just like, wow.

People were really just testing the fucking waters to see what was gonna work. And the fact that the internet allowed you to do that anonymously, it allows people to make comedy of something in a way that you wouldn't necessarily say in person, which I think is the age old like question of our time is like, would these things be happening?

If you had to say this face to face? Is the fact that people are more online contributing to this lack of seriousness? 'cause it's like conversations that you just wouldn't, right. You would have to and, and you wouldn't be algorithmically placed in the viewership that you're in without the tech behind it too.

You're anonymous and you're only seeing certain things that you know are based on what the algorithm decides you should see. Totally. It's just I think she talks a little bit about how it's gone so far. So it first started with like probably a handful of like internet trolls or like people just.

Fucking around and finding out on the internet. And now like this memification, this edification, has become ubiquitous. So like you have government agencies, that are like tweeting, sassy comebacks. You have brands getting onto, I think about I remember when we were at Uber and we were thinking about what does our social media presence look like?

Everyone would always talk about the Wendy's Twitter account. 'cause it would just troll people and isn't this so interesting as a brand? Like it's such a Totally, it's such a pointy point of view. In my first job out of college at an ad agency, it was like the new age of media. All these brands were getting their Facebook presences and they were trying to figure out who are we gonna be on Twitter, what have you.

Mm-hmm. What, like Oreo we're all about celebrating all the moments. I was literally tasked with, these suite of brands, how do we be quote unquote always on with those brands? How do we listen to what's happening in the world and then respond to them? Yeah. Yeah. Pretty wild. Okay. I have many questions for you about this. First thing on that, Memification of the world, one thing stuck with me. She talks about the precious currency of attention. Mm. It feels like at that time when the internet then became.

Everybody had an account. Everybody's following these likes. Even she talks about, I'm gonna put this meme forward and that she decides not to do it, but like she could've gotten, she's thinking about it all from it. That feels really good. It's like we all have this counter that's now out in the world.

And the funnier we are, the cooler we are, or like the sassier we are, we get oomph from that. Yeah. We get juice from that. It's so fascinating, the precious currency of attention. First of all. Humor with serious subjects. Mm-hmm. I know I, not in an offensive way, like I think there's a line, but humor for me is a avoidance.

It's a way of saying I have no control over that thing. At least I can make light of something else and sort of like move forward with my life. How do you see yourself using humor? I think my default has been very similar to that, which is that. If something is uncomfortable, EI have two solutions.

One is to use humor to, to like unstick that from the discomfort or two, I'll just talk really quickly to move through that subject. Okay. Or maybe both. I think in my best case scenario, humor is a way to actually connect people and and disarm. Disarm.

Exactly. But I've found, as I've. Tried to be more strategic or just less faulty to that, there's a lot of beauty to very authentic and real conversations. Mm-hmm. I even see this like in my, in relationship where like my default would be like, oh, that's a silly thing that you do, but really it's something that annoys me.

Mm. And then when my partner's like. Why wouldn't you just say that, that's annoys you? And I'm like, oh yeah, like that gets to it much faster. It doesn't risk you not missing that. I was trying to use humor to do this. I think in some ways it's worse. Humor is very passive aggressive and very again, papering over things, which I feel like where the internet.

Has taken it. I I even think at the end she talks about the tragic murdering of the United Healthcare CEO and how it then became mummified and, have we taken this? Has it gone too far? And I will say I was looking at some of those things as someone who had worked in healthcare and was like, the reimbursement system is fucked up.

Mm-hmm. And was like, wow, these are clever, spins on this perspective, but also this man was just killed. Killed. And yeah, how do you just so casually joke about it. Use a word here that I circled and went e She said the laughs were productive. Yes. So there's a POV here. A little bit.

Oh yeah. At the end of the day somebody got murdered and I understand it's all complicated and there, it's crazy. And then our health insurance profits Yeah. Is like the biggest, it shouldn't, there probably something wrong when, when our healthcare industry, when this company is like the fourth largest market cap in the us mm-hmm.

But. We can we la like I don't think we can then make light of this guy. Such a good question. What can we do? The way you're even phrasing that, can we do this? Yeah. Can we not do this? And there's some people who are going to rules, there's people who aren't going to, people are gonna have an opinion on it and is like laughing, being productive.

Just another vestige of capitalistic societies that like, it can only be productive. Or it can only be good if it's productive. Why can't it just be enjoyable or pleasurable? Productivity is a really interesting word. Choice. It's a really interesting word.

There was something in, there was, I felt a lot of this piece was actually like criticizing some of the like alt-right kind of memification of things that are serious. Like when you think about decorum and everything that happened. Yeah, exactly. When you think about the stock market or politics and how all of that's now been like mummified, but.

There is still something in here too that's a little bit like let's go back to the old days of America and America needs to be productive and that I, that I just didn't, I found to be also a little, eh. Yeah. I'm surprised there's, a handful of things that immediately came to mind starting to read the article that I'm surprised she didn't mention.

One being SNL. Mm. Why about that? Because it's been around for 50 years. It's been around for a long time, and I feel like it's always been this sort of cultural pulse collision between comedy and politics. Mm-hmm. And bad things happening in the world and in, it's in such sort of a still monoculture way.

It's like when America shows up to laugh about the stuff that's going on in the world. Yeah. I wonder why she didn't broach that. Yeah. Yeah. I, I thought to the productivity piece, I found like the question of like, when does humor stop being cathartic and start being dismissive and is that really just a personal question or is that something that we can answer?

Like as a, as a population? I have a hypothesis, please. I think it's scale. Humor can continue unbridled like. In the internet where there's so much going on, right? You can make fun of whatever, da, da, da, da. When you are intimately connected with one person and they were impacted by something or they're telling you their story, that is where I, I cannot fathom a person of the right mind being able to like laugh in their face.

Mm mm-hmm. About that thing. Mm-hmm. In a way that you would like haha emoji in way, haha. In general to the world. So I do think there's this scale piece. There's been this huge shift away from a one-to-one. I pick up the phone to call you. Okay. We have a dinner party. That's pretty much it. Or, I stand up in a PTO meeting.

But even that we've talked about, it's so much more harder to hate somebody who is an opposing view. If they're in the room and they both have a kid at the school and you're, you're interacting with that person, you have to see them again. Yeah. I think it probably has something to do with that.

There is no line in the internet there, right. There's just, it's just scale. It's just shouting, but one-on-one. Speaking of, do you remember the last time you were serious with someone who isn't your partner had a serious conversation or interaction? Mm. Like I guess, what does serious mean?

Not, not light. Not hum. Se serious. Yeah. Like tense. I, there are things I feel like I really have to gear myself up for. 'cause they're so not which is also a factor of our society these days. Like we're so online, we're so out of practice.

We can just be so like light touch. Yeah. We're so out of practice. Yeah. Serious situations are coming up every single day when you're just living your life. Yeah. Probably family, I probably have only had a handful of like really serious conversations outside of my partner in the last year.

And why are that? Like only, why do we only give that? To the partner. My partner gets all of it. I recent, I was thinking about the, I was like, when have I been serious with anyone except my partner, so I smile that you deflect things with humor that you actually don't like about the person.

I'm like, I can't remember the last time I beat around the bush with humor. I'm like, I fucking hate that. No. We are quite, we are kind to each other, but I would not ironically say something funny to get Uhhuh. Uhhuh. I'm just like. Very matter of fact. Yeah, very matter of fact.

I was having a similar thought of, not like when was the last time you were serious, but when was the last time you were uncomfortable for a protracted period of time? I do think those are different though. I want to hear, but I think serious and I'm uncomfortable.

Totally. I think they are different. But. Discomfort. Like you, you were willing to, I think for me, I often use humor to exit discomfort. Yes. Agreed. And so stage left. So when was the last time that you like, like I, I can't think of a time when I was uncomfortable that I didn't try to disarm it with humor.

I can't either. What do you do? I don't know. Okay. Okay. So one thing that just popped into my brain someone was like, rage driving. Giving me the finger I like merged. Literally did nothing wrong. Uhhuh. I do not understand road rage. Do you have like anger and sadness inside of you so deep that a complete stranger who made a mistake slash I didn't make a mistake. Let's be fair. Right. But they, thank you did, let's be real. But does that just feel so good to them? I, I think this is, no, I don't something think it does.

This is something I don't relate to. How can that feel? Good? They must feel rattled. Everyone's rattled. Don't, it does feel good. Oh, I just watched this movie on on Apple called Hard Truths. And it's really not, it's not about anything. It's basically these two sisters.

It's not about anything. It's these two sisters and one of the sisters is just so angry all the time and watching, honestly, you should watch it because I would say that was the last time I was dis like uncomfortable, uncomfortable, uncomfortable, uncomfortable for the whole movie.

And I was like, wow, this is so unpleasant. Mm-hmm. I had to watch in two settings, even though it's like an hour and a half movie. And the one of the sisters is just so angry. She like literally wakes up screaming, she's so mean. They have her go to a dental hygienist and they're like touching her gum and she's being such a bitch to the dental hygienist.

She's mean to doctors. She's mean to like people in the street. She's mean to the cashier at the grocery store. And you're just watching her and you're thinking like, how, like I was just have so much oh, just make it stop. 'cause it's, I'm so uncomfortable because clearly. To the anger like that. Yeah. I can't imagine having that anger like that, I don't think it feels good to them.

I think it's just I think it's help. It, it's outlet. Yeah. They can't help it. Yes. They're just giving me the middle fa like with two kids in my car. Yeah. They think that you are doing it with intention and mal malice that, but I feel, I feel bad for that person feeling that way

and don't get me wrong, I'm no saint. Somebody does an asshole move. Like I'm not pleased with them in the car, but. For sure. And I think think that's what a lot of the, like confus very quick when you think about incel or the mine are not all right and they're all, posting these things about how women are so fucked up and, and it's because they are, they have their own.

Like discomfort that they're sitting within. Sure. I guess the way I got to road rage was like being in an uncomfortable situation. I, I couldn't even resolve it it just ended. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So a lot of the uncomfortable situations are just like, some, you be like, it's something on the road, or like you'll never see them again or what have you.

Something with a friend and somebody you care about in an uncomfortable situation, you address. And I can understand that being serious. Oh yeah. But if, if someone is mad at me, sometimes people are like, I wanna, I'll talk to you about in a couple of days. Oh, oh no.

That is torture. Yeah. Oh, same. I'm like, I need to deal with this right now. But again, that's, I think my, discomfort with un being uncomfortable. Uhhuh I don't want that to linger too long because it's unresolved. It feels, it feels awful. Yeah. I had a moment recently in a a place of levity.

It was a, it was a party. Lots of people around and someone who I love very dearly. Told me something personal about their family, something tragic I did not know. And it was really interesting. It was like, ha ha, ha all around, whatever. And the party just went quiet to me and I sat down with this person and that like shift to serious and it was, it's something that I can also relate to and it felt really good.

Mm. And it usually don't talk about something like that in a cha da da like chatty yeah. Party. Talking about humorous catharsis, also connecting on something serious and sad that you can relate to is incredibly cathartic. I ended up, I said Charlie, , I wanna stay da da.

I think that's her point in the article of like how far we've gone. Yeah. That now the default when someone tells you something tragic is to be like. That's crazy. And then like we're, we are sort of like going too far on one or hope it doesn't happen to me.

There's so much bad shit happening that it's yeah like Sean Freud or whatever. Great. Another thing I have to worry about, but thank God it's not me. Let's move on with our lives. Yeah. But it's like we've gone too far. We don't have that counterbalance. Which is probably why it felt so nice.

It also nice and, and it feels nice to take something from some, to take someone off something off someone for a little bit. And I know I can do a better job of sharing with other people when I need help, when you know something taken off of me for sure. You and I have talked about this a lot. People who are close to you actually do wanna do you favors, actually do wanna sit down and have a serious re conversation with you. Solution actually just do wanna help. But we feel like, oh, we're inconveniencing conveniencing people. We're in this sort of like flighty. We even have our segment of what's blowing up the group chat.

Yeah. Which feels like intimacy. It feels like the place for seriousness and. Most of it's not because that's not what we're looking for every day, but I don't know that moment and then reading this article made me think, hmm, there's something therapeutic and human and lovely about. Being serious sometimes.

When she's talking about the irony epidemic, that's why I feel like it's interesting because I think for especially millennial women we're told to be authentic and genuine. But like on a platform, it's oh, I like I like influencers that are, feel really genuine or authentic.

But I think sometimes those things are embarrassing or unwelcome. And so there is this weird world that we're straddling where it's everything's online. So if you are a friend that told you this story, like posted a Instagram live or a reel about this, that's still very. Authentic and it's like genuine to what's happening with him, but then like it's not really welcome in that way. That's so interesting because part of the reason like everything in the room went quiet. I. To me in my brain was, 'cause I didn't know this about this person and they hadn't shared it with many people before.

Mm-hmm. And I had asked a question that prompted it and it flashed through my mind that there was all these times before that this person, was dealing with a saying that you, that I had no, that I had no idea. Yeah. Yeah. That, and you know what that is? It's like whenever anyone tells me they're pregnant, it's usually because they're telling me at 13 or 14 weeks.

When they're starting to come out of the horror of the first trimester. And I just feel so sorry. I did not know totally that I couldn't just cuddle you and feed you dumplings and pick up your kid or whatever. So maybe it like it brought into stark relief.

Hey, my day-to-day is just this, I'm, covering up things with humor. I'm glossing over things or whatever. And people are dealing with shit. Yeah. As am I, but I'm covering that up too. So healthy. So healthy, so healthy. Oh. I do have to say, as I was reading this article, I could not get the Bare Naked ladies song out of my head.

I'm like, kind of guy. Laughs at a funeral done mean about. No, I have sympathy, but where like Thomas I history at funeral, my shirt I think of was, this is a guy who laughs at a funeral. It's, you dunno what to do. I could know where the irony, irony epidemic of thinking. Isn't it ironic? Yeah. And how everyone says that she uses irony wrong or incorrectly.

And that's, oh my God, I'm reading this book on screenwriting. Stay tuned. No, I'm just kidding. And the guy's talking about how you are like. Your screenplay tagline, it's not even called logline or whatever it is. It needs to have a little bit of irony. It's newly white couples spends Christmas with four separate divorced parents, and that was like four Christmases or whatever.

And it's there's gotta be this like, ooh. Ooh, you wouldn't expect to spend it with four parents. You wouldn't expect, Uhhuh. My boyfriend used to help this organization in LA that does sketch shows, or they, they would probably say they're more hybrid than that, but they take open submissions for concepts.

And the submission recently was something only a child can get away with. Ooh, which was fun. We had a lot of fun, just like brainstorming ideas. And the one that we submitted was this dad goes to a restaurant with his baby, but it's like unclear how old the kid is in the script. So there's a little bit of could it be like a teenager or something?

And he's the kid's inconsolable. And the dad's ordering food, but the kid won't stop crying. And finally the dad like. Is desperate and looks at the waitress. He's I'm so sorry. Like his mom. We don't know where she's been, but she normally breastfeeds him. And so he's he just really wants some milk.

And then the flipping it on head, on its head is like the waitress then like basically takes out her boob and it's I've got, I'm on it. And then the second flipping autonom is then the manager comes out and he's Sheila, not again. Oh. So good, thanks.

But it it didn't get selected. The irony okay. It should have the, the, and as I was reading that and thinking about, okay, it has to have irony. Why is that? Mm-hmm. And it's because you need something surprise. You need like a carrot for the audience. This, that surprise could be.

Funny, it could also be serious. Mm-hmm. It could be like, one of them is like a cop is off his own leave and goes to see his mom. And her building is held up by hostage, by like Uhhuh terrorists or whatever, Uhhuh. So it's an interesting, like we're, we're always playing in this psyche space between is this a serious thing I can laugh at?

A funny thing I laugh at, is this a serious thing? Is it surprising to me? And. I guess a good story. A, a good screenplay like really messes with us. Straddles 'em all. Straddles, straddles, straddles the space, straddle them all. Am they gonna go laugh. You cannot understand what I mean. You soon will.

Any, any other last thoughts or mus a couple of other thoughts? Yeah. One I was thinking about toxic positivity in relation to toxic humor for the first time reading this. Mm-hmm. It's toxic Positivity is something I know I have to work on and it's something I know.

Actually building startups as a founder, you literally have to be toxically positive. You have, it's okay guys, like everything's burning to hell. Yeah, we got this. Like you have to motivate people who signed up for your thing. You have to convince investors it's the right thing. You have to take care of your customers and you just learn to be this cheerleader.

And then you become a mom and you're like, okay, let's get one foot in front of the other. We can go to gymnastics. It's okay that you, pushed a girl into the, into it's not okay, it's like sometimes I feel like I'm constantly in this sort of like cheerleader place. And it's like a humor's a tool in my toxic positivity sometimes.

So I think checking that is a good thing. Yeah. I agree. Finding some depth and seriousness. I agree. Yeah. It sounds like we do not, it sounds like Lauren, we don't think it should be the end of seriousness, even if it is. Ooh, what a sad prospect. Yeah, because seriousness has substance.

I see what she means with you don't wanna be like a pearl clutching person who has no sense of humor. Sure. But. I think that's a little black and white. Because the world is so rife with all of this, like flatulent online humor, she says.

Mm-hmm. I do think someone who's Hey, can we talk about something seriously for me is incredibly powerful. Oh yeah. It's oh fuck yeah. If someone says that to me, I'm like, let me give you all my attention. Yeah. And wielding that seriousness. It could be strategically. Yeah.

Yeah. Strategically, I think it could be powerful. That's the word. Could be really powerful. Mm-hmm. Hmm. All. Shall we? Yeah. Group thread. So this is our segment called Blowing Up the Group Chat. This is when we discuss something that is, blown up. Blown up a go. Chatt, what are we talking about?

What are we talking about? Something I sure do. Mine I feel like I'm always hawking products on here, but I've got some ones. It's good for the, it's good for the links, baby. That's good Products. And this go around, I, I will hat tip this to one of my friends who saw them first.

And actually it seems like everyone has, seen them, but just hasn't all purchased them. So these are sweatpants, jeans. And now these were a thing of the early aughts when I feel like everyone bought sweatpants jeans or like jagging, it was mostly jeggings that were like, looked like leggings not good, but they were.

Yeah. 'cause it, it was the skinny jeans there started as not good. Can I just say you came over to my house wearing these two days ago, three days ago. Yeah. I have not stopped thinking about them since and before we even started recording, I told you I might drive to the place. Future sponsor. And purchase these.

Yes. Influenced, I'm gonna specifically say these ones are extraordinarily expensive and I'm sure there is a good dupe on TikTok or Amazon, but I haven't found them and I did use like a promo code just I'll throw that out there. Ooh. Let's talk later. Yeah, I'll, I'll tell you more.

But they're the rag bone Miramar. Sweatpants, jeans. 'cause they have a button. So the button makes you feel like they're real pants. Or makes other people think they, they're real pants, but they are not. They're sweatpants and they're good. Allison showed me these and it was so cute. You were like, look at the divot.

The rivet. Rivet. Yeah. Is it a dit It's not a divot, it's a rivet. You're like, look at this rivet. It looks so real. Yeah, it does. It does. I had to touch it last night. My boyfriend tried to put his hands in my back pocket, but he couldn't 'cause they were not real slap. That needs to be an adv for I know. He was like, oh.

And then he told me that in Columbia, that that all the, all the caddy girls, the gato Gatas wear fake jet. I'm sorry, caddy Girls. Yeah. Caddy girls. Like the sort of like, bitchy girls. Oh. Gatos, the Gatas, they all wear sweatpants jeans. Wow. But they weren't as cool as mine for sure. Okay.

Okay. What's blowing up your group chat link links. Okay. So I went to an improv workshop for a day and everybody needs to know about it because you've already heard about this. And I thought I would bring my favorite little improv game to the pod. Great. But you also know because I also already made you play it with me.

Great. The workshop is just great. You're making stuff up, but you are of course, yes. Anding, you're agreeing with people. It connects you in this way where you both feel like anything is possible and it's nice for somebody to agree with you all the time.

Oh, totally. And my physical therapist, she's sier the better, also told me that she just went to an improv, improv class, and she's probably in her mid fifties and she was like. Allison. It was amazing. Yeah. She was like, I, I'm so bad at it, but it felt so good. Yeah. And it was just, I felt so playful and fun.

I, the teacher was amazing. She also miss didn't know you're not supposed to be trying to be funny and interesting, which, I'm always trying to be, it's be less interesting. It's actually more funny. Okay. If you just go with the truth of the threat or whatever. Anyways, this game is called Word.

Okay. And the way you play the game, it's basically trying to help you connect with your partner to mind meld toward the same destination. Okay? So you each think of a word, hope this goes well. Once you have a word. Mm-hmm. You say word. It could be anything. It could be bird, it could be closet, it could be light, it could be whatever.

After you say the word, then you get to say another word and you, the goal of the game is to say the same one. Okay. All right. Let's, let's, so should we try? Lets, here we go. Word. Word. Oh, we have to say 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. Store. Okay. Door and stadium. So listener, we need to get close. What is between a door and a stadium?

Word, 1, 2, 3. Entrance. Archway. Entranceway. Whoa. An archway entrance. Okay. Okay. Archway entrance. Okay, so now we need to get between archway and entrance. Word.

Word. 1, 2, 3. Tanner. Funnel And banner. Okay. Word. Word. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3 balloons. Super bowl. Okay. Balloons and super bowl. Word. Word. Vibe. Okay. Word. 1, 2, 3. Football, half time, half time in football. Oh, this is such a boring one. No offense. Football. Okay. Word. Half time in football. Word. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3.

Commercials. Kenrick, Kendrick, and commercials. Ah, see word. Oh, that Kendrick is in the article. Oh yeah, they do. Full circle. Yeah. 1, 2, 3. Pepsi.

All right, let's give it one more. Okay. Drink and Pepsi.

Okay. Word 1, 2, 3. No, I don't have mine yet. Drake, Pepsi. Okay. Word, one to three. Coke. Coke. Yes. We did it. We did it. So that's how it's done. That's how it's done. We both got there. You can play it with friends, you can play it with enemies. You can play it with your kids. Yeah. Try it out. Word coworkers. Give it a go. Oh, I do have to share that. I played this once with my husband.