Snack Break: Alysa Liu, The Rise of Play and Funmaxxing Our Lives
Welcome to Feed the Fangirl!
We’re Ella and Victoria - longtime friends, pop culture obsessives and eternal fangirls.
Whether it’s TV, movies, music, books or celebrity - we talk about all the things on our pop culture menu.
Food for thought - it feeds the inner fangirl!
Welcome to Snack Break, a Feed the Fangirl bonus episode! This is a bite sized episode that doesn’t quite fit on the main menu.
Today we talk about the American figure skater and olympic champion Alysa Liu and reflect on what she has taught us about making art on your own terms. We also explore the rise of play amongst youth culture and discuss the term ‘funmaxxing’. Plus, we share how we have ‘funmaxxed’ our own lives and reminisce on our favourite uni elective ‘Creativity’ (yes, we got to make puppets).
We mentioned a few articles in this episode: Alysa Liu Isn’t Worried About What Comes After Gold [https://www.teenvogue.com/story/alysa-liu-olympic-gold-teen-vogue-cover-interview-2026 ] from Teen Vogue, Funmaxxing: Should we all be playing more? [https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/69961/1/funmaxxing-should-we-all-be-playing-more-alysa-liu-community-games] from Dazed, The Rise of Play Among Youth Culture [https://grownkid.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-play-among-youth-culture?r=6g244c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true] from Grownkid, You do not need to suffer to be excellent [https://substack.com/@girlstudies/p-188580350] from Girl Studies and “Alt, Gay, and From New Jersey”: The “Babes of Glory” Are TikTok Fancam Fuel [https://www.them.us/story/amber-glenn-alysa-liu-isabeau-levitio-babes-of-glory-figure-skating-trio-fancam] from Them
PSA: That’s a wrap on season 1 of FTF! We are taking a short break and will be back in June with fresh, weekly, full length episodes (and maybe a few bonus eps) for Season 2. In the meantime, keep an eye out on our socials to stay up to date and be the first to know when new episodes drop. Thanks for the support of season 1!
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Cya soon! xoxo
