Talking Like A Teen

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.

[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.

[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

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.

I’ve started up another Skyrim playthrough, which for me is usually one of the biggest red flags that burnout is raising its ugly head, as this game, while a thing I enjoy, is something I tend to delve into when I need a thing to fill time while not having my brain go brr. (So look forward to that “Conversations with an Adult part 2: Burnout Boogaloo” episode in two months) but. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to soft pitch the thesis that “No Stone Unturned” is an ok quest actually. For those of you that don’t know, there’s a Skyrim quest where you stumble across an “unusual gem” (what’s unusual about it is that it is hot pink in the gray/brown/green ass game) and then, upon getting it appraised, finding out that your gem is part of a set of 24 and you gotta go find ‘em. And unlike most quests, there’s no quest marker telling you where they are, so this is no easy feat. Once you collect these 24 gems, you’re sent to go collect the crown they’re from, at which point, the quest ends and your reward is this passive ability to find more gems (and gems more often) while you’re out exploring. “Burgs, this sounds horribly tedious,” you might say. “Eh,” is my impassioned response. The thing with quests like these is that (shocker) the people that built the game from the ground up want you to play it. They spent time and effort and all that jazz building all of these areas, especially in an open world game like Skyrim, and they want you to explore it. Therefore, games like these are going to have quests that incentivize you to explore: think the shards in DA: Inquisition, the metals/gasses/literature/mummies or whatever in ME1, audio diaries, bobbleheads, souls, orbs, power moons, friggin….Korok seeds, the examples are endless. The game wants you to play it, and if you don’t want to, then…idk, touch grass, I guess. The quest is optional, just don’t interface with the hot pink gems if you don’t want to. If you want quest markers, there’s a mod. Or countless lists on websites you can use to track stuff. It’s ok, you’ll get through it, or you won’t. No biggie.  What does this have to do with the music of 2005? Almost nothing, other than music itself also working in a very similar way. If you’re willing to explore, your new favorite band could be in the dark corner over there. The next song that will “change your life, I swear” says Natalie Portman in 2003 might be opening for a band you already know but you skipped the opener to arrive late like a Cool Person. If you don’t want to look for hot pink gems, it’s all optional, mainstream radio’s got you. But you’ll never know what a Korok seed does unless you find one. (also don’t tell me, I haven’t played that Zelda game yet.)