Episode 337 – WICKED: PART ONE

Runtime

88 minutes

Show Contents

0:00 Introduction

4:01 Know Your Enemy with Guest – Hillary Butler

25:26 The New Slang: WICKED

69:45 The Other Side: Hillary and Ryan talk further reading after Jon M. Chu’s film

Thoughts from your host…

As we introduce today’s podcast, my guest and I mention our individual moves from Twitter over to Bluesky:

Hillary’s feed is here – my feed is here.

As the Twitter exodus gained traction, I turned to a dear friend of the show expressing thoughts, concerns, theories, and more. I wondered aloud if we were ever going to get back what we once had, or if that sort of mass instant communication was gone forever.

The dear friend answered my question with a question: Whatever the form of social media communication is – do you need to be on it?

He isn’t asking whether i need to claim my account, stake my username, etc. He’s asking regardless if the community is in one place or scattered across several…is my time better served doing something else than having conversations 300 characters at a time.

Fair question.

Eight or nine years ago, I resolved to start keeping my phone in my pocket a little longer – it turned into me reading more books in one year than I ever had in my life, and was the start of a whole new habit.

I still believe in sharing thoughts, points of view, experiences, and more. I believe that the democratization of publishing is a net positive. However, so much of these short bursts of content add up in ways we don’t truly track (Even though our devices can even do that for us these days).

Case in point; My personal pet peeve is a person saying “I wish I had time to read”. Don’t get me wrong, some people who say this are very busy…but more often than not, these same people will lose hours scrolling, commenting, betting, downvoting, and more.

Is that time better served?

My hope in the move over to the place with bluer skies is that I can spark a few smiles, create a positive space, and share interests. That sort of feed won’t go viral or set the world on fire, but so be it.

To answer my friend’s question, I don’t need to be on it; none of us do.

Links Mentioned on Episode 337:

Matineecast 315 with Hillary’s full Know Your Enemy History

Matineecast 280 where we discuss CYRANO

Penn Jilette discusses magic in the movies for Vanity Fair

Ariana Grande’s MEAN GIRLS-inspired music video for “thank u, next”

Hillary’s BlueSky can be found here. Comments and feedback are welcome and thank you very much for listening. 

Enjoy!