Episode 8

Haeny Yoon:

Welcome to Pop and Play, the podcast all about play in its many silly, serious and powerful forms. I'm Haeny Yoon.

 

Nathan Holbert:

And I'm Nathan Holbert. In this season, we're talking all about young people's media, how to make it, why it matters, what participation looks like and its challenges and limitations.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Right. So if we're going to spend a whole season droning on and on with adults about how to make media ... Just kidding, we love all of our guests. For kids. We should probably ask the primary audience that this is for. And today, we have a treat for you. We're talking with kids from 6 to 16 about what media is getting them excited and interested. With so many options, so many platforms, we're wondering where, when and how young people engage with media these days.

 

Nathan Holbert:

So who are our media experts?

 

Haeny Yoon:

Well, first, we have Riley and Val, two six-year-olds and best friends, who know exactly what pops and what flops. We have two guests with us today, Riley and Val. Riley?

 

Riley:

Yup, me.

 

Haeny Yoon:

And Val.

 

Val:

Here I am.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Here you are, yes.

 

Val:

Here I am.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Riley, let's start with you. Tell us about an ice cream flavor you really like and a color you find interesting.

 

Riley:

I really like chocolate.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Good choice.

 

Riley:

Ice cream. And I really like the color orange.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Remember, Riley, talk in there. Here you go.

 

Riley:

And I really like the color orange.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Orange. Solid color. Val, how about a good ice cream flavor and a color that you think is interesting?

 

Val:

I like chocolate and vanilla mix.

 

Nathan Holbert:

That's a good combo.

 

Val:

And my favorite color is all of the colors but not black, gray and white.

 

Haeny Yoon:

But not black, gray and white? Those are my favorite.

 

Riley:

What about brown?

 

Nathan Holbert:

Next we have Sabine and Sam, two 11-year-old lifelong pals who are on the cusp of their teenage sensibilities.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I'm going to have each of you say hi. So Sabine.

 

Sabine:

Hi.

 

Haeny Yoon:

And tell us if you like Taylor Swift.

 

Sabine:

Oh, sort of.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Excellent answer.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Sort of? What does sort of mean?

 

Sabine:

It means I like some of her songs.

 

Nathan Holbert:

What song do you like?

 

Sabine:

Shake It Off.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, excellent.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Everybody loves, that's a great song.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Who doesn't like Shake It Off?

 

Sabine:

No one.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Exactly. Sam. Say hi.

 

Sam:

Hi.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Same question. Do you like Taylor Swift?

 

Sam:

Kind of, the same as her.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, and what's your go-to Taylor Swift song?

 

Sam:

I don't know. There's five I like.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, nice. Can you name any of them?

 

Sam:

I do like Shake It Off, and I like Anti-Hero.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Ooh, Anti-Hero is a solid choice.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I like that one.

 

Haeny Yoon:

And finally, we have Nico and Lucas, 16-year-old twin brothers who look nothing alike and have very distinct media habits, interests and hobbies. So just your name and then the last TikTok you watched.

 

Lucas:

My name's Lucas. And the last TikTok I watched was, it was probably a car crash or something like a car crash.

 

Haeny Yoon:

A real car crash?

 

Lucas:

Yeah. Especially on TikTok and Instagram, there'll just be videos of car crashes.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Good Lord.

 

Lucas:

Randomly.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my God.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Nico, what about you?

 

Nico:

I watched this video, this little dog. I think it was ... What was it called? French Bulldog, I think. I don't know, one of those type of dogs.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, I love French Bulldogs.

 

Nico:

Yes.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Now, that we've gotten to know our esteemed guests, what are the kids even into these days?

 

Riley:

The Grinch.

 

Val:

Well, I do like Spongebob, too.

 

Riley:

I actually do like Peppa Pig, too. Bluey.

 

Sam:

Bluey. I have YouTube Kids, and there's this food channel that I'm addicted to.

 

Sabine:

She's obsessed with it.

 

Lucas:

For me, it's probably YouTube.

 

Nico:

Yeah, I'd agree with that.

 

Lucas:

Call of Duty or games like that, or just the sports games.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Okay. So that's a lot of stuff. But in addition to YouTube and Call of Duty, Lucas and Nico also talked a lot about anime. Right? So Haeny, do you know anything about anime?

 

Haeny Yoon:

No.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Okay. This is a problem. I also know nothing about anime, so I think we should turn back to Lucas and Nico as our experts to ease us into this new world.

 

Haeny Yoon:

So what's a show that you're really into recently?

 

Lucas:

I like One Piece. One Piece is my favorite show. The main character's name is Luffy, and he wants to be the King of the Pirates. So he gathers a crew. And it sounds simple, but the story, it kind of goes kind of crazy with the world building because there's a thousand hundred something episodes.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Have you watched them all?

 

Lucas:

Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my God.

 

Lucas:

Well, they're still making them. They're in a break right now.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. Okay.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Wow.

 

Haeny Yoon:

That's great. Nico, how about you? What are you watching on these platforms?

 

Nico:

I'm watching Dragon Ball.

 

Haeny Yoon:

That's anime too, right?

 

Nico:

Yeah.

 

Lucas:

Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Okay. I am unfamiliar. I don't really know that much about anime.

 

Lucas:

I started off with Naruto, which a lot of people know, and that was just because my friend watched it. And then I just, I don't know about a rabbit hole, but I just kept watching more and more stuff. And then my friend told me to watch One Piece and I was like, "Okay." And then I would watch it, and then I would watch episodes, then take a big break, and then watch a bunch more episodes and then take a big break. So I think I started watching it in eighth grade.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Okay. Yeah. What's appealing about it? What do you think got you really hooked on it?

 

Lucas:

The characters are cool, all of them. There's a swordsman who has fights with three swords. He has two his hands and one in his mouth in between his teeth. And then there's a chef. And his big thing is he only kicks because his hands are reserved for cooking. So he just goes around kicking people. And then all the characters have their own thing, and each one of them have their own big goal. And then reaching their goal, that's all they want to do.

 

Haeny Yoon:

So they have an individual storyline that is contributing to the collective storyline.

 

Lucas:

Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Very cool. Nico, wait, do we say that Dragon Ball Z is anime?

 

Nico:

Yeah. Dragon Ball Z is anime. Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Okay. Tell us how you got into anime.

 

Nico:

Well, so we have a cousin and he showed us one day. He was like, "Do you guys like Superman?" And we were like, "Yeah." And it was like, "Well, there's this show Dragon Ball Z, and it's about this guy named Goku, and he's pretty much Superman, but different."

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, that's actually smart.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I like that.

 

Nico:

He was really into the show as a child growing up.

 

Haeny Yoon:

That is really smart to compare it to something that's familiar.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Do you have similar interests outside of media stuff?

 

Lucas:

I mean, not really. We're pretty opposite in most ways.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. So you converged on anime?

 

Lucas:

Yeah, just that.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Well, I wonder why is that? I wonder, I mean, not to analyze too far, but I'm curious. That's kind of cool though, right? There's this thing that despite your very different interests and things that you guys engage in, that this one art form is, it hits the right buttons for each of you.

 

Lucas:

I think we both liked Batman and DC and the superhero things, and there's a little bit of it for everybody in there. And I guess the thing that was both for us is the same.

 

Haeny Yoon:

So anime kind of offers that. I feel like there's a wide range of people that are interested in anime actually.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, totally.

 

Haeny Yoon:

So I feel like it must be hitting a lot of different things. Wow. The thought of a 1000 episode pirate anime saga is also intriguing and very exhausting to me at the same time.

 

Nathan Holbert:

That's a lot of episodes.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yes. So what do you think about anime?

 

Nathan Holbert:

Why are you asking me? What do you think?

 

Haeny Yoon:

I don't think that much about it.

 

Nathan Holbert:

You know what I think about anime is, when I see clips of anime or when I talk to people that like anime, I realize that, oh, we have a lot of shared interests. The things you're into are often the things I'm into. And so I should probably like anime. It seems reasonable that I would also be into anime as well. And I just don't really get into it. And I think what I figured out is there was something about the fact that when it became popular in the US it was the mid to late 1990s and that was...

 

Haeny Yoon:

You were too old.

 

Nathan Holbert:

That was the exact age where I was trying really hard to be cool, so hard. It was really intense to make sure that I wasn't doing or liking things that might be considered uncool. And so I think it was just like, it came with that time where I was turning myself off to things like cartoons or even to some extent video games.

 

Haeny Yoon:

You really missed out on an opportunity though. Now it's really cool and you totally missed that window.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I know, I know. And I occasionally try to claw it back. Maybe it's just that I still have no kind of shared language for it, or the kind of tropes and aspects that are core to the genre just don't really connect with me. And so I'm always like, "Okay, well that was weird."

 

Haeny Yoon:

You know what I think is so fascinating about anime though is I have seen kids that are really young into different forms of anime, even ones that we might consider "violent". And then I've seen much older adults be really into anime, and I really love the intergenerational piece of it. So it's not that I don't like it, is why I'm not into it. It's because I have a very packed reality television watching schedule. So getting into a 1000 episode pirate anime series...

 

Nathan Holbert:

That's a commitment, right?

 

Haeny Yoon:

That's a commitment, right? A commitment that I may be willing to make sometime in the near future. So get ready, one of our seasons, the whole season's going to be about anime.

 

Nathan Holbert:

We're going in.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yes.

 

Nathan Holbert:

It's not all anime, though. Our youngest guests had very different opinions about what the right shows are to be watching these days. So let's turn to Val and Riley to find out.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Do you guys hang out outside of school?

 

Riley:

Yes.

 

Val:

Yes.

 

Haeny Yoon:

What are some things that you do when you hang out?

 

Val:

Oh, you were there once. Remember when we had Movie Night in the Courtyard?

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yes.

 

Riley:

I was there too.

 

Val:

You were too? You were there.

 

Riley:

I was there too.

 

Haeny Yoon:

What were you guys watching in the Courtyard?

 

Riley:

Which movie was it? Oh, was it Inside Out or...

 

Val:

Inside Out 2.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Inside Out 2?

 

Riley:

Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Do you like Inside Out 2?

 

Riley:

Yes.

 

Val:

Yes.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Why do you like it?

 

Val:

I don't know.

 

Riley:

Because I like certain parts of it.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. Who's in Inside Out 2? What are their names?

 

Riley:

Joy, embarrassment.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Embarrassment's my favorite one.

 

Val:

Anxiety, sadness.

 

Nathan Holbert:

That's Haeny's favorite.

 

Val:

Fear, anger. Fear.

 

Riley:

Disgust.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I feel like I remember the main character of that movie having a name like...

 

Val:

Wait, but what's that?

 

Nathan Holbert:

Renly? What's the girl's name? Is it Renly or Riley!

 

Riley:

Oh.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Wait a second.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Wait a second. Is that you?

 

Nathan Holbert:

That is so confusing. Have you seen Inside Out 2?

 

Haeny Yoon:

I've seen parts of it.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Just wait. How do you see parts of Inside Out 2?

 

Haeny Yoon:

It's called YouTube. You could see parts of everything on YouTube.

 

Nathan Holbert:

You really do watch media like a Gen Zer.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I do. Yes, I do. I do. I do. But you know what? Them talking about Inside 2 too kind of brought me back to my feelings.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, it does. It does.

 

Haeny Yoon:

So do you remember what it feels like to be a new person at school?

 

Nathan Holbert:

I do. I was a new person. I moved to a new high school my sophomore year.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, wow.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Moving in high school is very scary.

 

Nathan Holbert:

It was a little scary.

 

Haeny Yoon:

You know exactly how Riley in the movie feels.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yes, I do. I mean in the sense that on the one hand I was kind of happy to move, it felt like I had kind of a chance to just sort of start over, and that was kind of a neat idea at that age. But yeah, it was a little scary. And certainly you had to figure out the way to navigate the space. And I feel like if I were to try to identify the specific emotions and if I were to use the Inside Out 2 emotions specifically, which to recap are Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, Anger, Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Wow. Do you get a gold star for that? I think so.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Straight off the dome, definitely not reading that from a piece of paper right in front of me. But I think for me, I was probably, I think it was probably something around maybe Anxiety and Embarrassment that were the most salient.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, [inaudible 00:13:30] I was definitely going to say those two things.

 

Nathan Holbert:

You were?

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, because high school Haeny was very insecure and had a lot of anxiety and was always worried about being embarrassed. Then adult Haeny became just embarrassing.

 

Nathan Holbert:

And full of ennui.

 

Haeny Yoon:

With no holds barred embarrassment. But as I'm thinking about the movie, I'm also thinking about how I wish that I could always bring adult Haeny back to high school with all the things that I know now, because I would tell myself not to take certain things seriously, to look at people with a different kind of perspective instead of being like, "They're just mean. They're just like this." Right. I think we're all trying to work through some of these emotions living inside all of our heads.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Absolutely. And that's why you have kids so that you can try to do that to them and they can just completely ignore you and make all the same bad decisions that you made when you were their age.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Sounds awesome. But I think when we see things like this, definitely we have much more empathy to what it's like to be a child and what it's like to walk into a new space like school. It's actually very terrifying. And as adults, we sometimes forget it.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Totally. Okay. Slightly separate question, but on the same topic here. Well, what about reality TV? Is that something you were into when you were younger? I mean, I know it kind of came out as we got a little older.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I was always into reality TV from the very first Real World.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Oh, okay. I was going to ask you what it was for you.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, it was Real World. That's the thing that got me hooked on reality television.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

How about you?

 

Nathan Holbert:

I never liked it. I watched Watched some Real World because everybody did. I think I probably watched some Fear Factor at one point. Boy has that changed.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, what about Gladiator, does that count as reality TV?

 

Nathan Holbert:

Oh, I guess. I mean, I guess competition shows are kind of reality TV. I definitely watched that. We've talked about that.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I know. But let's turn to our next guests, Sabine and Sam, who will talk about what reality television actually is, or our confusion around it.

 

Sam:

All the kid reality TVs are so boring.

 

Haeny Yoon:

What's an example of a kid reality TV?

 

Sabine:

Like Stuck in the Middle? Oh, it's a show about, so there's this girl, Harley, she's an inventor. Jenna Ortega plays Harley, everyone [inaudible 00:15:52] just so you know.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, Jenna Ortega plays her. Harley?

 

Sabine:

Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, I love her.

 

Sabine:

Okay, so she's in the middle of seven siblings, so she has to [inaudible 00:16:02] her stuff. And it's really annoying because she doesn't like her siblings.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Wait, but she's an actor.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Is that a reality television show, or is there just a show based on reality?

 

Sam:

That's not reality?

 

Sabine:

Oh, I don't don't know what reality is. I don't.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Did you mean when you say reality TV, do you mean like?

 

Sabine:

Realistic fiction?

 

Haeny Yoon:

Realistic fiction.

 

Nathan Holbert:

TV shows with people that aren't cartoon and that aren't animated.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh. I see.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Got it.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. But Sam, do you cooking shows that adults make too? Or is it just basically kids cooking?

 

Sam:

I don't like watching people.

 

Sabine:

Do you like the Great British Bake Off?

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. Do you like the Great British Bake Off?

 

Sam:

No, it's boring. It's just people mix things.

 

Haeny Yoon:

So do you like baking?

 

Sam:

I like Tasty. It's like shorts.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Okay.

 

Sabine:

Ay-yay-yay.

 

Sam:

Yeah. But I don't like just watching people just mix things.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. So you want something that's like five minutes or less, they've made something and you get to watch it and then be done with it.

 

Sam:

Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Okay.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Sounds like the perfect audience for TikTok over there.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Sounds like YouTube.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah.

 

Sabine:

It's a little.

 

Haeny Yoon:

So Sam, what do you think is Sabine's watching aesthetic?

 

Sam:

Sabine likes... Not reality TV, but realistic fiction.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Realistic fiction?

 

Sam:

Yeah. Because you always watch like, Nicky, Ricky.

 

Sabine:

No, I hate that show. No, I used to watch it. No, Sam. That's actually true. I only like Stuck in the Middle. I do like...

 

Nathan Holbert:

Stuck in the middle. Okay.

 

Sabine:

It's good.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Do you Stuck in the Middle because you like the show format or do you just really like Jenna Ortega?

 

Sam:

No, that's not the reason.

 

Sabine:

I've watched her in Yes Day and Stuck in the Middle.

 

Sam:

But it's not.

 

Sabine:

That's it. I'm too horrified to watch Wednesday. That one's terrifying.

 

Sam:

I watched one episode, I was like, "Nope, let's stop [inaudible 00:17:38]"

 

Haeny Yoon:

You're terrified.

 

Sabine:

I just like the format.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Is there anything you guys like to watch together?

 

Sam:

Oh.

 

Sabine:

Not Tasty.

 

Sam:

Oh [inaudible 00:17:47].

 

Sabine:

We could never agree.

 

Sam:

Ever agree on something.

 

Sabine:

But when we have sleepovers.

 

Sam:

It's chaos.

 

Sabine:

We can't agree.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Okay, this is great. What's the last time that you watched a show or a movie together?

 

Sabine:

At our sleepover? I don't know what it was.

 

Sam:

But I remember you didn't want to watch it. Remember?

 

Sabine:

I didn't? No. Remember the failed sleepover? [inaudible 00:18:05]

 

Sam:

Yeah. I think it was that. It was probably Prince of Egypt. Right?

 

Sabine:

That wasn't a sleepover.

 

Sam:

Yes. Well, it was a failed sleepover. You just said this.

 

Haeny Yoon:

But you both liked Prince of Egypt?

 

Sabine:

We like it, but we didn't want to watch...

 

Sam:

We didn't want to watch it. But we just didn't know what else [inaudible 00:18:21].

 

Sabine:

I just didn't want to watch it. And she was just like Prince of Egypt, and I was like, "Fine." Three seconds later I did not want to watch this [inaudible 00:18:26].

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, so you basically can't agree on what to watch, so you just end up watching something that maybe both of you don't really want to watch.

 

Sam:

But then we just get bored and stop watching it.

 

Sabine:

Because when one of our parents come out and they're like, "Why don't you do something else?" Because we're fighting so much for what to watch.

 

Haeny Yoon:

But I get it. I mean, I feel like right now sometimes I would spend an hour just watching previews of shows and I never watch a show, because I'm like "I can't decide."

 

Sam:

Well that's why I like YouTube because you don't have to commit.

 

Sabine:

Sometimes I can't decide.

 

Nathan Holbert:

You just let it decide for you, right?

 

Sabine:

I just can't decide.

 

Sam:

Yeah. I just click, I'm just like, "Ooh."

 

Nathan Holbert:

Let the algorithm choose.

 

Haeny Yoon:

And then you could just move on.

 

Sabine:

Sometimes when I don't know what to watch, I just search in a letter, a random letter, and then I see what comes up.

 

Sam:

Oh, me too.

 

Sabine:

And then there's nothing good. So I do the next letter or the next letter.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Is that how people find shows these days?

 

Sam:

That's what she does.

 

Sabine:

That's what I do.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Wow.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Sounds like too much screen time to me. Okay. So here's another question I'm curious to hear, and you guys might have different answers to this, but what makes a good show to you? What is it that makes the show just right?

 

Sam:

Something that I don't get bored of.

 

Nathan Holbert:

But what is that?

 

Haeny Yoon:

But what keeps you not bored?

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah.

 

Sabine:

Like you said, the format.

 

Sam:

I like movies more than shows.

 

Sabine:

I do.

 

Sam:

I don't go on Netflix and watch shows anymore.

 

Sabine:

I don't want to have to click "next episode" or something because sometimes...

 

Sam:

Oh really, that's awful.

 

Sabine:

That's just one episode I want to watch. And then I don't know what else to watch. So watching a movie that's just long silence and awe, just being like, "Oh..."

 

Sam:

Shows have a lot of seasons and episodes and I don't want to just.

 

Sabine:

It's overwhelming.

 

Haeny Yoon:

So you like movies because they're short and there's an end.

 

Sam:

Long.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Long and an end.

 

Sam:

They're long.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Long and an end.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I mean, I have the exact opposite watching vibe because I don't like movies because they're too long. And I like TV shows because they're short and I could stop watching it. But then they go on forever.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, but then, then you watch like...

 

Haeny Yoon:

Which I enjoy.

 

Nathan Holbert:

15 episodes.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I get tricked.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Which is much longer than a movie.

 

Sam:

Either I watch a movie...

 

Sabine:

Either I watch one movie and then I'm done, or I watch like...

 

Sam:

Or like 50 episodes.

 

Sabine:

10 million episodes because I can't stop.

 

Sam:

I remember once I binge watched the entire two seasons of Avatar.

 

Sabine:

Oh, I remember that. Oh, I remember that.

 

Sam:

Yeah. I woke up at seven in the morning and didn't stop.

 

Sabine:

And then watched it.

 

Haeny Yoon:

So that was a very interesting conversation.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I personally love this new idea about reality TV. I'm into it.

 

Haeny Yoon:

That it's realistic fiction.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Realistic fiction.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Not actually reality television, which is a delightful mistake.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I love the idea that the default kind of television is cartoons, and then sometimes we have these realistic fictions as well. That's super great.

 

Haeny Yoon:

But you know what one can argue that reality TV is actually just realistic fiction.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah. Oh, totally, totally. I remember when I used to teach with a guy who was a writer for Fear Factor, and I was like, "Wait, Fear Factor has writers?" And he's like "Kind of."

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, because it's realistic fiction. So you know what? Joke's on us. Sabine's right.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Sabine's right. She's always been right.

 

Haeny Yoon:

She's always been right. Yeah. So it's making me wonder, for me, I'm very into reality television and I've said this many times, or even realistic fiction.

 

Nathan Holbert:

All of it.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I love The Office, I love Severance. I love anything that is kind of true to my own reality, but also a...

 

Nathan Holbert:

Is your reality a lot like Severance?

 

Haeny Yoon:

No. Like an exaggerated version of my own reality, right?

 

Nathan Holbert:

Ah. Yes. Yes.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Because I think [inaudible 00:21:53]

 

Nathan Holbert:

Like a caricature of your existence.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, it's like a caricature of it. And I find that to be really interesting and fun and a way to kind of think about yourself because I feel like it helps you make fun of yourself. I watch The Office and I think about my own colleagues, and I love my colleagues. Sorry. So this is not any shade to my colleagues.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Who's your gem?

 

Haeny Yoon:

But I just think about, oh my God, this could one more step of one more word, and we could have gone, crossed over into this territory.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Full in there. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

And something about that just feels comical and humorous to me. And it's sort of a way to deal with the realities of life.

 

Nathan Holbert:

That seems right. But I will say that I personally have an aversion to cringe comedy, shows that are just really cringey.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. And you know I love cringe.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I know. It makes me really uncomfortable when I'm watching. So while I have also thoroughly enjoyed The Office in my day, I think I find that the older I get, or maybe it's just that the more horrifying the world becomes to me, the more I turn to those comfort shows, shows that are people that are giving me hope in humanity, or people that seem to really care about one another or care about society. You'll turn on something like a Parks and Recreation and you're like, "Oh, how can I stay mad at the world? Look at these federal employees who really care...", I guess in this case, state employees, but yeah. They seem to care.

 

Haeny Yoon:

It's a lovely idea.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Isn't that nice?

 

Haeny Yoon:

So idyllic for such a time as this.

 

Nathan Holbert:

But I loved The Good Place. Basically just any Michael Schur comedy is really what I'm looking for.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, yeah. I mean we basically both like realistic fiction, just different versions of it.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Sign us up. Just like Sabine.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. So I think as we end this episode, I feel like there are ways we often think of kids and adults on two ends of a spectrum. This is kids TV, this is adults TV, anything that kids like, adults hate. Anything that adults like, kids hate. But we found that that's actually not true.

 

Nathan Holbert:

No, not at all.

 

Haeny Yoon:

So let's go back to our guests and see what they have to say about where their interests might converge.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Sam, what do you watch on YouTube Kids?

 

Sam:

Art channels.

 

Sabine:

And Tasty.

 

Sam:

Oh, and there's this food channel that I'm addicted to.

 

Sabine:

She's obsessed with it.

 

Sam:

I watch it when I'm hungry.

 

Nathan Holbert:

What kind of stuff do they do on the food channel or art?

 

Sam:

They just make food and it's tasty.

 

Sabine:

Yum yum yum.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I love shows like that. I watch a lot of food shows too.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah.

 

Lucas:

Law and Order.

 

Nico:

Oh yeah, I remember that.

 

Lucas:

That was the really big one. Me and my mom would watch that together a lot.

 

Nico:

Yeah, I remember that.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Law and Order: SVU or a Criminal Intent?

 

Lucas:

No, not SVU.

 

Nico:

We watched the ones from I think 2000 to 2005. And then in the early nineties? No, the [inaudible 00:24:36] nineties.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, no way. Wait, so you like it? So you like Law and Order: Criminal Intent?

 

Lucas:

Yeah, it was pretty cool. I haven't watched it in a while.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, me too. I love that stuff. I love any kind of crime drama.

 

Lucas:

Oh, that's the other thing I watch on Netflix. I'll see the crime documentaries and I'll just go through phases of watching them because it's...

 

Haeny Yoon:

Me too.

 

Lucas:

Something disgusting, but you can't look away. It's like exactly that. And so I'll be watching them on the TV and then my mom will make me turn it off because it's like, they're talking about cults or something.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my God. That's my favorite genre of all. Wait, Lucas, what are you even doing? I mean...

 

Nathan Holbert:

Cult crime dramas. You nailed it.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I love that. You know what? I think it's not that I love crime. Okay. I just like learning about these things or something.

 

Lucas:

Yeah, it's interesting what's going on in their minds.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Exactly. And you're like, how are people thinking like this? But then I can't look away.

 

Lucas:

I know.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. Okay. So collectively, we all love Law and Order. Keep making those, people.

 

Sam:

My dad and I, I don't watch things just with my mom. It's only my dad. We have the same taste in movies, so we watched Lord of the Rings and The Hunger Games.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, nice.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Oh, nice.

 

Sabine:

Me and my dad, we were watching Jaws and my mom, she just sits on the couch with her noise-canceling headphones, listening to some crazy rock music, and she's just going crazy drumming on the table and on the couch. And I'm just looking at her like, "What are you doing?" Because we can't hear it. We are just listening to duh duh, duh duh, duh duh, duh duh, duh duh.

 

Haeny Yoon:

So it's kind of something that you and your dad enjoy, but she doesn't necessarily, she's not [inaudible 00:26:25].

 

Sabine:

But she also really likes Christmas movies a lot more than my dad. So yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

And then do you watch Christmas movies with your mom and watch Jaws with your dad?

 

Sabine:

I don't even care what's on. I'll watch it, because [inaudible 00:26:36] looks like.

 

Haeny Yoon:

And then Sam, most of your watching is with your dad.

 

Sam:

Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

That's so great.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Hey, do you watch any shows with kids in your life?

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yes. Plenty.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Are you going to tell me?

 

Haeny Yoon:

This past summer, me and Emmy watched the Eras Tour multiple times.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Wait, how does?

 

Haeny Yoon:

On Disney+.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Oh, okay. Okay.

 

Haeny Yoon:

After going to the Eras Tour...

 

Nathan Holbert:

Right.

 

Haeny Yoon:

We actually converged on the Eras Tour on TV and was able to share a lot of different memories. But I often think that there are actually genres of television that adults and kids can both like, I'm thinking about Sam and Sabine talking about those competition shows. I am way into that. I love any kind of cooking competition show, any kind of baking competition show.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Man, those are so perfect to watch with kids, especially.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yes.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Great British Bake Off, those kinds of shows. What is it? Chopped Junior or whatever. That stuff is great. Right? Kids really get into that. You're into it. And then you can try to make the stuff after as well. [inaudible 00:27:40]

 

Haeny Yoon:

Well you can. I'm like, "I can't make this." But yeah, I think that's so true. And I think there's something about the format of that. Like Sabine said, "It's the format.", right? I love the format of it and how it draws you in. Right. So how about you?

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, I love watching shows with my family. It's kind of funny, having two kids. It's kind of one of those things that I think we've always been somewhat intentional about of like, "Okay, let's all sit down together and let's watch something." And then of course there's all these arguments about whether, "What are we going to watch?" "No, I want to watch this." "I want to watch that." But there's a couple shows that we've always been able to coalesce around. Obviously we've talked about Bob's Burgers being one of those shows here. We watch Abbott Elementary together. There's a, Great British Bake Off at various points. There was a show we watched, we lived briefly in England and there was a show that was about making tiny miniature doll houses that we all became really obsessed with.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, that's awesome. People are obsessed with miniature things.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I know.

 

Haeny Yoon:

In general.

 

Nathan Holbert:

It was so great.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yes.

 

Nathan Holbert:

But yeah, it's great to sit down and watch a show together and then have these shared conversations around the themes of the show. Not like intentional shared conversations, but then you have, you make the same jokes with one another or you can call each other names of characters. I don't know. It always builds this nice collaborative spirit for a family. So I enjoy doing that.

 

Haeny Yoon:

And some of those things are unexpected. Right? You might like Law and Order: Criminal Intent together. You might like true crime shows, you might like Jaws. It's just surprising where people will come together on things.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah. I mean, I think the punchline here is that whether it's children's media, whether it's what are we calling this? Realistic fiction, whether it's reality TV...

 

Haeny Yoon:

Whether it's true crime.

 

Nathan Holbert:

True crime, there's a ways in which this type of media creates space for this intergenerational explorations together. It creates space for relationship building, identity building. It's a really rich site for that work.

 

Haeny Yoon:

So we'd really want to thank our guests who really gave us some insightful comments about what's happening on television, but what's happening relationally and what media can do and not do for us.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah. Thank you Nico and Lucas, Sabine and Sam, and Riley and Val for hanging out with us in the studio and talking to us about the way you experience and explore children's media. We appreciate it.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Thank you. Bye.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Bye everybody.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Pop and Play is produced by Haeny Yoon, Nathan Holbert, Lalitha Vasudevana, Billy Collins and Joe Riina-Ferrie at Teachers College, Columbia University with the Digital Features Institute.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Audio recordings for this episode by Abu Abdelbagi.

 

Haeny Yoon:

This episode was edited by Billy Collins and Adrienne Vitullo.

 

Nathan Holbert:

For a transcript and to learn more, visit tc.edu/popandplay. Our music is selections from Leaf Eaters by Podington Bear, used here under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. Blake Danzig and Meier Clark provided our social media and outreach support. Follow @popandplaypod on Instagram. Thank you to Abu Abdelbagi for support with our website and additional materials.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Do you teach about play and pop culture? Check out our topics collection, organized for the classroom. And of course, don't forget to share Pop and Play with a friend or colleague.

 

Nathan Holbert:

And thanks for listening.