#13 Read-Watch-Listen
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Jason Sudeikis Is Having One Hell of a Year
By Zach Baron, GQ
Aren’t we all? Business people LOVE sports analogies. Comedy people, not so much. Which is why people like Jason Sudeikis stand out a bit. He often talks about improv in the same way that he talks about basketball. If you didn’t know he was famous, you’d probably look at him and think “that guy coaches his daughters soccer team.” He’s tall, he is very much a sports guy, or as the article puts it “six feet one, good hair, strong jaw… [and] a former college point guard.” His voice is low but jovial with an approachable accent that helps in the funny department. He started out as a funny man doing theatre and Comedy Sports. Comedy sports are things like Whose Line is it Anyway - a format where two teams play improv games and get points for what they do. Sounds pretty fun right?
I think what this article is really asking is “How did Jason Sudeikis get here, to this point?” The beginning of the article tries to disarm this notion of “unearned confidence” - you’re born with a body that for whatever reason society has deemed to be authoritative or revered. Translation: you don’t have a comedians body. You don’t have an acceptable form for which people feel comfortable laughing at (Jon Hamm walks this line as well). More often than not, the funny bone is created by the people around you or the people that made fun of you. Sudeikis has said himself that he benefitted by being surrounded by funny people, including his family. For many other comedians though, their funniness probably came from getting people to laugh at something that wasn’t at them. As the article goes on to explain, the perceptions we have of people like Sudeikis are a mismatched. A topic that Malcolm Gladwell keeps banging on about. We see someone like Sudeikis and think, this guy probably has it easy, how is this funny? The article pushes back against that, and breaks down all the small turns and signs that he followed throughout his life to get to this point.
I stumbled on a tik tok of some guy painting his bathroom ceiling with fish. The internet is weird. And I’m just glad he isn’t painting a ceiling in this photo.
This last year was mayhem. Starting a show off the back of an idea you’ve had for ten years doesn’t sound like the best idea. On the other hand, this year has been mayhem anyways, so what’s the worst that could happen? The articles starts with and ends with Sudeikis’ philosophical mumblings of how and when people are driven to take things on and move forward: “It’s a very interesting space to live in, where you’re living in the questions and the universe is slipping you answers…And are you—are any of us—open enough, able enough, curious enough to hear them when they arrive?”
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Envy
By Contrapoints
I love Contrapoints videos. They have some of my favourite things - long rants about Freud, dark humour, frequent breaks of the fourth wall to eat sushi… I first heard of their channel through the podcast Rabbit Hole - a must listen. Contrapoints was what many people turned to when YouTube’s suggestion algorithm was pumping people with right wing content. The internet is constantly growing and changing, and it’s changing us. But as long as it continues to have people like Contrapoints, I’m not totally pessimistic about how it grows.
I realise that this is an almost feature length youtube video about the philosophy and pop culture aspects of Envy but… I think it’ll be worth your time. It’s okay, you can skip an episode of Love Island. More and more podcasts, articles, videos are addressing “the polarising times that we are in.” And after watching this video I can’t help think that so much is tied to envy. Yes, it’s also because of massive wealth inequality and too many billionaires. Reflecting on this video I question how much of this is (and a lot of what Contrapoints covers), performativity. We like to fit things in little boxes for ourselves, even our identities. And if we’re not outraged by other people’s opulence, their looks, or intellect, how does that place us against them or in the wider world?
The best thing about this video is that she ties it all back to the relationship between Spongebob and Squidward. I promise, it’s worth the hour and half watch, folks. Much like Jason Sudeikis’ unearned confidence, Contrapoints covers the aspect of unearned privilege when she talks about student loan forgiveness, “If I had to pay, they have to pay too.” This feeling is encapsulated in the phrase “It’s not fair.” In the same way that it “isn’t fair” that Jon Hamm can be both incredibly handsome and very funny. And when society is so polarised and the predominant feeling is “It’s not fair,” people get more irritated when the privileged make it even more apparent through virtue signalling, calling our their privilege, or displaying their feelings of guilt.
Other highlights of this video are frequent references to Death Becomes Her, digging into feminism, and the duality of our identities.
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TCount Skylarkin at Hootananny
By Count Skylarkin, Hootananny
Summer is almost over when really you probably feel like it just began. The hot girl summer memes are making a return and half of your office is probably on vacation. Put up your feet, take a listen and I promise you’ll feel like the summer will never end with this music. Whether you are on a beach somewhere, cleaning up your house, or having some friends over for a BBQ this set will fulfil your needs.