Talking Like A Teen

Episode 60: Hype

60 episodes. Can you believe we’ve made 60 of these? Hopefully the kids still find “6-7” funny once we reach that point. We’re pretty excited about hitting another milestone, so it’s only fitting that we spend this episode listing “10 Hype Movie Moments That Make Us Black Out.” From massive cinematic franchises to a few hidden gems, we try our best to maintain our composure and not “run through a wall,” as Ashley would often say. Oh, yeah. This is Adrian. I guess the secret’s out. Please enjoy this episode and don’t tell Ashley I was here!

Episode 59: Trick-Or-Treat Me Like Your Boyfriend

Hey, gang! Adrian here. Ashley’s busy checking our Halloween candy at the behest of G.U.A.P.A. and didn’t have time to do a write-up. Apparently she’s requesting all of the fun-size Snickers bars. Who knew rogue computer programs ate chocolate? News to me! Anyway, this was a fun episode to record. We decided to share stories of past Spooky Season wackiness including being radicalized by trick-or-treating, party-going woes and we weigh in on whether or not primetime television created the concept of Mischief Night.

Episode 58: Paperback Head Pigeons

[The episode’s about Invader Zim, CW: Mild spoilers for a few episodes of a cartoon that is almost 25 years old. Enjoy the following barely related rant below.]  So I had this idea of doing a riff on some ‘90s commercial about Hungry Man TV dinners or something about potatoes (listen to the episode, it’ll make sense), but I found this article today about how this potato chip company (the biggest one, they make most of the chips but I’m also not advertising for them so no name drop, the article’s linked below) is doing a “drastic rebrand” after finding out that 42% of consumers “didn’t know their chips were made out of potatoes” and to that I say, “…Huh? How?!” Ok, so: A slightly sneaky play that some corporate leadership will do, especially new leadership, is to futz with the branding or logo. If you’re a job-hopping Sweaty Executive who’s looking for a line item to put on their LinkedIn page or whatever, you spearhead a logo or branding change. You as the executive don’t have to do much (marketing and your art departments are doing most of the work), but it’s still a project you, Sweaty Executive, led. So, credit taken. This potato thing sounds like the absolute flimsiest excuse to do a rebrand ever. Either that, or American education is so in the toilet that we don’t know stuff about snack food, the thing that we should obviously be best at. And we are Too Good At Snacks for me to believe that.  It sounds like, among other things, that the logo is going to look more “like the Sun”, we are redoing the packaging to look “like the wood planks of a potato crate”, and that obviously we’re doing to shout out that the chips are, in fact, made from “real potatoes”. I cannot believe that marketing is a real thing. This truly is the darkest timeline.  Also what other questions were asked on this survey?!?! Idk, I’m spiraling out (like spiral cut potatoes, ayyyyy). At any rate, I will be thinking about this 500 word pseudo-press release for the next several hours. Enjoy the episode. Next time I’ll just stick to rewriting the Doom Song or something.

Episode 57: When My Loud Guitar Comes In

[Thanks to Ro Panuganti, we got a new theme song, it’s almost as catchy as “Yvan eht nioj”! His socials and stuff are below, go show him some love plsthnx] Oh, say can you cry? There's trouble in a far off nation Time to get in Emo formation Lyrics more deadly than Jets to Brazil That's why I gotta ring da bell! Secrof Laiceps TALT! Secrof Laiceps TALT! Secrof Laiceps TALT! ‘Secrof Laiceps TALT!’ You gotta love that crazy chorus What does it mean? Uh, it doesn't mean anything. It's like "Soco Amaretto Lime" or "L.G. Fuad" The mission’s happening It's no basement on the hill So here’s a tissue Secrof Laiceps TALT

Episode 56: My Number

So, nostalgia for commercials is weird, right?  I was listening to the episode edit, trying to figure out an angle for this write-up that you’re reading (hi hello welcome) and thought maybe it’d be fun to find a super niche piece of media from 2005 and write about it. So I head to YouTube to brainstorm, type in “2005 things” in the search bar and so many of the results were just commercial compilations. Which….struck me as strange, and now I’m doing an Overthink about it and dragging you along.  Commercials are a strange sort of pop culture time capsule. I have used them several times as fodder for write-ups: The Mc DLT commercials, KC Masterpiece, [a third thing that I’m too lazy to research], the list goes on. Some of the longest running TLAT references are just old commercials: Bagel Bites, Crossfire, you know ‘em. They’re strange because they do capture the vibe of a time, but also…they are * just* selling you stuff. Bagel Bites Guy is wailin’ into a mic trying to get you to buy a box so you can do your own bagel bites draft meme and he can get his royalty check. But also I can’t help but think about how back in 2005, commercials were memes before we had a term for memes! They were these tiny weird little pieces of media that everyone experienced because we all had more or less the same basic cable package and options were limited. But because they were doing Catchy Capitalism, everyone that was watching TV at a certain time is now  just a sleeper agent walking around waiting for the activation phrase “education connection” ,“800-588-2300”, or “structured settlement”. (Also why were there so many contraptions that allowed you to add filling inside a cake?!) And now we’ve circled from “annoying things that interrupt my show” to apparently “Thing on YouTube that I am actively seeking out to do A Nostalgia.” The commercial [is] the show. And for someone who traffics in nostalgia for occasional content, I don’t know why this hits me as strangely bleak today. Maybe commercials are art, and I’m the problem. The question at the beginning that started as a leading question is now…just a question, I guess. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m Grandpa Simpson, yelling at cloud. The world is weird now, who am I to judge you for sitting down to watch all nine versions of the free credit report dot com commercials? They are bangers. Anyway, here’s part two of our 2005 music episode. Hope you enjoy it.