Call For Comments: Digital Performances and Deep Fakery

From Mav: There’s been a weird thought running through my head on and off for the last few years. How much of an actor has to be present in order for a performance to count as the actor acting? As CGI enhanced performances get more and more common what “counts”? Do we have to rethink…

e73. Reading Practices

How do you read? Do you do it on a computer or a tablet or do you prefer good old fashioned paper texts? Do you listen to books on tape or use an audible subscription? Do you prefer to watch movies or videos? Do you like audiobooks? Do those even count as books? What about…

Call for Comments: Can you judge a show by its pilot?

From Mav: Back when the Game of Thrones aired their finale, we devoted an episode to not just talking about that finale, but the idea of finales in general. We talked about what makes a finale succeed or fail and what some of the best examples were. How important (or not important) is it to…

e72. The Power of Cuteness

The Internet has two main purposes: porn and cute kittens. The reason people like porn is obvious… or if it isn’t… well, that’s a different show. But what about the kittens? Why do we like cute things so much? The answer isn’t as obvious as it seems. For one thing, cute is a complicated concept.…

e71. Back to School

There’re two ways that kids learn about college before they go. Either they talk to parents or high school counselors and they learn about all of the hard work and studying and how it’s important to take it seriously and avoid all the horrible dangers of drugs and sex and alcohol that the “bad kids”…

Call for Comments: Kickstarter and Popular Culture

Hannah: Kickstarter, the crowdfunding site whose “mission is to help bring creative projects to life,” turned ten in April. You may know Kickstarter for enabling the Veronica Mars movie to happen. Or you may know it if you’ve played games one of the many Jane Austen games it helped launch (Marrying Mr. Darcy, Polite Society,…

e70. Does Pop Culture Matter?

Live from Wizard World Pittsburgh! Shows like ours and… well, a lot of the rest of the internet are hopelessly devoted to popular culture: Comic books, movies, music, video games, sports, TV. All of the stuff that sophisticated people will tell you is rotting your brain and wasting your life. We like to think we’re…

Call for Comments: How do you read?

From Wayne: I’m a reader. I read a lot. I learned to read early from comics and children’s books and have never really stopped. Books have been my most constant companions and best friends. I grew up in a very rural place, with few opportunities. We never lived in poverty, but we also never really…

Call For Comments: Back to School College Survival Tips

From Mav: It you’ve listened to the show, you’ve probably picked up that all four hosts (and many of the guests) are college teachers. Add onto that, that between the four of us, we’ve been in school of one kind or another for like 100 years. That means we’ve seen a lot of shit! Some…

e68. Parallel Media

You ever notice that thing that happens when a movie studio releases a movie and then another studio releases a movie with pretty much the exact same premise at the same time and they’re so close to each other that it seems like neither could have copied from the other? It happens a lot! What…