Ben: Hey, what's up? Holo everyone and welcome to the last episode of SimplyPodLogical in the year 2020.
Cristine: Oh phew, thank god Beyyn.
Ben: Here's some clickbait for you. We should call this the last episode so a lot of people click on it, right?
Cristine: Ruude. Ben: So uh we're wearing these uh sweatsuits we got from YouTube for Christmas Cristine: Fashion 2021
Ben: How do you feel? Very retro it was nice because we didn't buy each other Christmas presents so it was nice to have something to open Cristine: But youtube got us a present! Look at this style. Actually the pants are a little short for me Ben: How was your Christmas? First of all everyone out there i hope you had a merry christmas without the h if that's the sort of thing you celebrate. How was your Christmas, Cristine?
Cristine: It was good, it was low-key as we expected. We had seven zoom calls in two days between the 24th and the 25th Christmas day so that was kind of exhausting and i kind of now understand i mean i don't understand but i feel for students who have been doing eight hours of zoom a day because i made a comment on snapchat like oh seven zoom calls like i'm so tired and they're like uh girl you haven't had to go through school i guess in the last year and yeah you're right so i i totally respect people having to now transition to online school and online learning of any kind it's it's it's a lot for sure to have to do a lot of online classes so and never mind talking to your family for two days straight online Ben: Yeah but it was the very it was a very 2020 Christmas you know, a lot of zoom calls and a lot of just like lying on the couch watching Netflix
Cristine: Yeah we didn't do very much Ben: Not much at all, very low key, didn't really see people Cristine: Just the, cats
Ben: Just the cats just the kitties but uh Cristine: Oh, she likes your hoodie, your sweater Ben: Uh so today we're going to do uh a little look back at 2020 before it's in the rearview mirror and in very 2020 fashion i guess we want to reflect on the best and worst of the year, so movies, tv shows, youtube content, all sorts of things we want to talk about the best and the worst of the year
Cristine: Mmhm
Ben: All right, you ready Simply? Should we just hop right into it?
Cristine: I'm ready Let's go get em!
Ben: All right first category like we've already alluded to i think this year was a lot of just sitting on the couch consuming content for people
Cristine: Yeah
Ben: Not allowed to leave the house, see friends, so a lot of people just have been binge watching movies and tv shows so category number one, Menchie
Cristine: CATtegory number one Ben: CATegory is uh what is the best and worst television slash streaming series that you saw this year? Do you want to go first? Cristine: So i have a few, i wrote notes so i didn't forget Ben: Okay, i guess that's allowed
Cristine: I liked Tiger King, I think that...
Ben: God was that this year?
Cristine: That wa,s this year right? Wait was it? Yeah, it was early this year
Ben: That feels like a lifetime ago Cristine: I know, well that's what everything feels like in quarantine um i just thought it was really well done because it was surprising. Like it was the most shocking like what the heck are we watching and when you tell someone oh you have to watch Tiger King they usually roll their eyes and like i don't want to watch a show about tigers like how could that possibly be interesting so i i think that alone like the fact that it was really quite interesting even though it doesn't look like it's interesting just based on the title kind of got me and made me put it on my list. I also liked Dirty John, which i think the first season might have actually come out in 2019 but the second season uh the the version with the the female lead Betty i think was her name yeah um she oh yeah you never saw that, i watched this alone um i thought it was really well done it was based on a true story so
Ben: Okay
Cristine: That's good
Ben: A true story about what? Cristine: Well you don't actually wanna hear this
Ben: I don't wanna hear like five different things you liked tell me one you really liked and tell me why you liked it Cristine: It was about a woman who um was accused and did murder her husband and his new wife um but she has a long history... Ben: It's a feel-good story
Cristine: No it's like a murder mystery is the way they presented it but it as a result of all of this there was a lot of challenging of the divorce laws in the states so it kind of it goes back to the 80s and 90s so for that reason i found it really interesting especially those based on a true story it was like a dramatization of the true story but i thought it was really well done
Ben: Okay Cristine: Then uh Chernobyl
Ben: Oh okay we watched this together, Chernobyl
Cristine: Yeah we watched that together that's an incredibly sad story again based on a true one Ben: So this came out a while back a couple of years ago i think
Cristine: Oh, did it? Ben: but we only watched it this year because i guess we got HBO
Cristine: Maybe it was recently available on HBO so i just think therefore it's 2020. Ben: But very well done mini series. The mini series has kind of made a comeback
Cristine: Yeah and then another mini series we watched that i really liked was The Challenger: The Final Flight which was another true story
Ben: Another feel good
Cristine: this one was a documentary rather than a reenactment about um uh
Ben: the challenger spaceship disaster Cristine: that ultimately crashed and killed astronauts and a teacher Ben: Yeah it was gonna be the first flight to have a civilian on board and they rushed to the launch even though the weather wasn't good Cristine: Yeah for PR
Ben: and the space shuttle blew up because the o-rings couldn't handle the change in the temperature
Cristine: and there was a lot of PR and political questions of NASA's mission and motives after that, so i just thought that was really interesting like relearning pieces of history i guess is kind of what i spent my time doing Ben: Okay so i guess i didn't do my homework well because you had like five answers i only have like one answer
Cristine: What's your number one?
Ben: Those are your best, right?
Cristine: Yeah
Ben: If i had to pick one show i really enjoyed this year it would be the Queen's Gambit Cristine: That was good
Ben: on Netflix. Very successful show. I think it's single-handedly made like chess like five times more popular this year than it has been in the past few years
Cristine: Well you started playing chess
Ben: Yeah i'll just hop on chess.com i saw mr beast tweeting out that he's like playing chess now and i guess he's like there's some streamers who play chess like some really like master chess players who will livestream them playing chess it's actually pretty fascinating to watch because you see how they see the game on a different level like they'll show you how they're thinking like 30 moves ahead of where they currently are in a match
Cristine: wow Ben: But that show i thought was like i don't think i'm giving anything away it came out a while ago like spoiler alert yada yada but it's a story about a uh orphaned sort of child genius who is a chess prodigy. She's a woman in a man's world when it comes to chess and it's really less about chess than it is about uh the sort of madness of genius and her sort of struggling with that but it just it hits all the right notes it's sort of a feel-good story in the same way any good sports movie is a story like at its core or a huge aspect of it is like can the American beat the Russian? And it really reminds me of some of those old sports movies like rocky or some of those old hockey classics where it's just like the American hero against the Russian in a way so it kind of checks those notes but i find it was really good because it didn't fall into some of like the obvious tropes of storytelling that i think it could have, right? So there's this you think there might be conflict with her mother her uh adopted mother early on because she becomes her manager and it sort of hints that oh maybe that will lead to some tension in the relationship and it sort of dangles that in front of you and instead it's like no that's not going to be an issue and even like the way they treat her substance abuse it would be so obvious or easy to tell a story about how uh the fact that as an orf in the orphanage he got addicted to uh tranquilizers and it would have been so easy to just make the story all about substance abuse and how that got in the way of her success but i thought it told a much more nuanced not obvious story around those sort of challenges Cristine: I agree with you that it's sometimes refreshing to get the take that isn't just the most predictable but i was still very frustrated in the first few episodes that there wasn't much commentary about how um negatively like life-changing her substance abuse could have been like there wasn't any warning it was like yeah i'm just addicted to this no big deal and i think that probably doesn't send the best message so i remember like three episodes and i was like i hope they're gonna like have a lesson here because i don't like the way this is presenting this
Ben: But like this isn't an after school special, you know what?
Cristine: I mean i can appreciate that and i know... Ben: I don't think...
Cristine: It's not their responsibility to teach lessons about substance abuse i just thought that the first few episodes in i was feeling a little like weird about how they weren't presenting it in any like you know you have to explain why this is not a good thing
Ben: Well i mean but i don't think it glamorized it at the same time and ultimately it kind of culminates with an acceptance that Cristine: yeah
Ben: i don't want to just give away the ending Cristine: There was a conversation that the character had later on that did reify that yeah this isn't so good for her but just the first few
Ben: she doesn't need it to be good at chess
Cristine: Right
Ben: anyway i don't want to get too much into it, Queen's Gambit was a very good series, i thought. That was my best of 2020 Cristine: So what was your worst? Ben: Oh just very recently i watched uh the Flight Attendant, i guess this was on hbo i think i watched it because who did i see saying it was good i think uh Linds Defranco, i saw she had tweeted about it saying it was good so i'm like okay i'll check it out i did not get it at all maybe i just have a grudge against Kaylee Cuoco because she was on what i think is maybe the worst television show ever made the Big Bang Theory so maybe i just held that against her but i thought the show was just super goofy and this you know how we brought up like Home Alone last week? Cristine: Yeah
Ben: And how silly it is that there were all these shows about like children outsmarting criminals? This show was kind of that except it was like Cristine: young adults
Ben: dumb alcoholic flight attendant outsmarts mastermind international criminal organization and it takes like the same amount of uh disbelief and fantasy to believe that as you know the kid in Home Alone beating the crap out of two uh home invasion uh robbers
Cristine: So i didn't watch the whole thing with you but i watched a few episodes and i was like i don't like it Ben: Not into it, eh?
Cristine: The whole show like gives me anxiety i don't know if it's the music or the tone it's just like too much too much too much I can't do it
Ben: So what was your uh worst tv show of the year, Cristine?
Cristine: So it's it's not a fair response because i didn't watch all of it because i couldn't, but i tried to watch The Crown Ben: For like what, five minutes?
Cristine: Because i am interested in it and i have heard that the more recent episodes or um seasons of it like have Princess Diana in it so i was interested but i wanted to watch from the beginning so i went to season one like i couldn't get past like episode two
Ben: Is it just too too slow and dry? Not enough things blowing up?
Cristine: Well it's not that, it's it's just like it's a whole other world that i guess i don't have an interest in. Maybe that's what it is like i'm just not interested in the the princess monarchy, i don't know Ben: Yeah no, I think that's fair. Like some people seem really into historical dramas around that sort of uh era and context like, Downton Abbey was like a hugely popular show and i tried watching that back in the day and like i guess if you don't have an interest in the sort of politics or social norms of that specific historical context i don't know why you would be so uh hold to that content Cristine: I mean some of it does interest me especially the gender norms in that era and there is some of that in the first episode that i was like oh interesting but then like i don't know it was just kind of boring overall. I don't know, sorry like i'm sorry if you really like that show maybe i do need to watch more episodes but i just couldn't get into it
Ben: Okay so there's there's the series portion. Okay category two
Cristine: What's that? Ben: uh music. So...
Cristine: Music
Ben: who was your favorite what was the best and worst of music for you in 2020? So it could be album, artist, genre whatever
Cristine: So i don't really and maybe this is just um a new thing in the last 10 years but i don't really listen to music in such a specific way like so and so band came out with a new album i am now going to download slash in the past buy the cd album and listen to them in a row and consider that a piece of this time i kind of discover songs randomly and they didn't just necessarily come out and it's usually a youtube algorithm youtube music algorithm that has just like found it for me
Ben: you just end up in a playlist okay yeah, so what cool new music did you.. Cristine: But i i looked through the playlist that i've been listening to recently because i was like what the heck did i listen to this year and did it come out and i did discover through this research that i really do like the new Tame Impala album, The Slow Rush
Ben: Okay
Cristine: Which i couldn't even tell you the name of the album until i deliberately looked it up because that's just not how i listen to music in 2020 but in particular the song Is It True which i know you guys if you watch my stories have heard so many times because i'll put it on like in the beginning of a workout or i'll be painting my nails and i'll be grooving to it and everyone always asks like what's that song? It's often Tame Impalla, Is It True
Ben: Yeah so do you i think you're in the norm here and i'm the outlier but i still think there's a lot of value in getting an album and sort of listening to it sequentially
Cristine: i think like people have done that with Taylor Swift, for example her recent albums for sure i mean if you're a big Taylor fan i can understand doing that and doing it in a chronological order to get the experience that she's trying to deliver i guess i'm not that attached to any particular artist so it's not really how i listen to music anymore
Ben: Yeah i guess i just sort of miss the art of an album telling a story and actually it's funny you just said that because my album of the year is Folklore by Taylor Swift Cristine: Really? Are you just saying that to be like cool? Ben: I'm not just saying that to like be a contrarian
Cristine: Wait wait, i have a question. Are you a Swifty? Ben: I might be a Swifty. No no okay i have a real appreciation like she came up with an album before this i don't know if it was early this year or last year that was kind of very mediocre let's say Cristine: Which one was that?
Ben: uh lover i think maybe that was the single i i don't know anyway i just i really have an appreciation for she is the kind of person who could just be pumping out pop ballads and making billions of dollars that way Cristine: Right
Ben: and she might be one of the best people at making those big pop ballads like she did on some of her albums from i don't know like five years ago
Cristine: If you got bad blood
Ben: yeah that era right uh but to see her take this more mature turn and almost do more folk music and work with people like Bon-Iver, one of my favorite artists and the guy from the national as well i just think it's a really cool evolution to see from her Cristine: Yeah, I love the songs with Bon-Iver in fact, like those are my favorite songs and specifically the part where Justin is singing but but that's because i just really love Bon-Iver's whole vibe and the way they make music and i always have so
Ben: Absolutely the best one of the best uh live music i've ever seen was them when they were touring after their self-titled album and uh you're right if Bon-Iver had come up with a new album this year i'm probably picking them instead of Taylor Swift but i just want to give a shout out to uh the Swifties out there. I do have a runner-up though i just need to quickly mention that my favorite songwriter of all time Bob Dylan came out with an album this year in 2020
Cristine: He did? There's no way. He can still sing? Ben: That's kind of the insane thing why i want to bring it up like this is a guy i think his first album came out in 1962. so i think he must have set some sort of record for how many decades he has spanned. So in early 60s he would have been like 18 or like 20 years old right so he he's at least 80.
Cristine: So was it good? Ben: So here's the thing it's probably the best album he's put out since the 90s i think it's really unfair because he just came out with like these masterpieces that i don't think will ever be touched in the late 60s and i think it's kind of really unfair to like constantly judge his new music by that standard but i think it's the best album he's put out in a long time and you still see the sort of uh glimmer or glimpses of brilliance in it that he had back in the day as well like his voice is completely different he kind of sounds like a garbage disposal you know it's kind of just super raspy from decades of smoking:
Cristine: Yeah i wonder i don't think many people listening to this podcast have probably listened to recent Bob Dylan
Ben: Taylor Swift and Bob Dylan they should do a duet
Cristine: What's the worst? Ben: What's the worst? Do you want to go first? Cristine: I don't know, i don't know if i wrote anyone down. I think I...
Ben: don't want to be too mean? I can go first if you want because i just i there's no one thing i want to pick out but i guess this is a sign i'm getting old and i'm not cool anymore but any anytime i heard rap music this year
Cristine: Well not ANY rap music
Ben: Most rap music i heard this year and like new rap or hip-hop music i kind of found myself just like rolling my eyes at the lyrics and i'm like wow like when i was a teenager or young man i would have listened to music like this all the time and really enjoyed it
Cristine: We did
Ben: and i would have heard my parents complaining about it being like a bad influence and misogynistic and i would have just rolled my eyes at that right but i'm i guess increasingly as i'm getting older when i hear music obviously there's counter examples and there's like more socially conscious or Cristine: Yeah so don't say all Rap
Ben: I don't want to paint with too broad a brush you know like Chance the Rapper, Kendrick Lamar there there are there are rap hip-hop artists who are doing i think really interesting and creative things but i think there's also this trend towards just like blatant uh misogyny in modern rap music you see from a lot of the guys with named like little Little Pump and little this and little that and little drug use and they're just glorifying drug use and talking about women really horribly Cristine: Yeah
Ben: and i guess increasingly as i get older i just look at that music as just like uh not good Cristine: I think that means you're just getting old, Dad
Ben: An old man, Dad Cristine: I can think of a song that was not well received uh it's a cover actually it was the cover of the song Imagine that was sung by a bunch of celebrities in their mansions during quarantine when they were telling everyone else you know it's okay but i'm here in my 10 million dollar LA mansion
Ben: You want to bring this up again i in retrospect yeah that was super tone deaf Cristine: yeah
Ben: those people were coming from a.. Cristine: Yeah i i know that i understand that but it was a it was a moment let's say of 2020 that everyone kind of rolls their eyes at so
Ben: Yeah you know what's funny that that song is kind of beautiful in a way about.. Cristine It was ruined
Ben: imagining well i think what kind of ruins it too is knowing John Lennon the guy who wrote it was also a really shitty human being in a lot of ways
Cristine: Oh, was he? Ben: And maybe that's an important lesson that you like you can find a lot of beauty and inspiration from people uh but like those people can also be really messed up and flawed and dark people too and you shouldn't expect anyone to be some example of perfect
Cristine: yeah, no one's perfect
Ben: yeah but he was a pretty awful guy in a lot of ways in his personal life
Cristine: I am not aware Ben: Just so you know. Uhhhh
Cristine: What's next, Ben? Ben: Category three uh what was the best and worst purchase you made in 2020?
Cristine: Let me tell you
Ben: Uh oh this gets you excited. You bought a lot of random crap off Amazon
Cristine: Okay i have two of the best
Ben: Okay
Cristine: and they are both pretty reasonably priced there's no like Birkin bag shit or whatever The the number one thing that everyone should invest in who works from home studies from home or just like exists at home by a computer is a desk warmer for your tea mug slash coffee mug
Ben: Is that right?
Cristine: So it's just an electric thing you plug it in you can get it for like 20 to 40 bucks off Amazon and i use it everywhere that i drink tea So i have one in this room, I have one in my office, I have one in my nail studio downstairs while i'm like swatching i can't live without it now it's such a good investment. I even bought one for all my friends or a few friends from work i gave it to them i gave one to my sister like it's just such a good purchase so i'll leave a link for that down below Ben: Yeah is there a specific brand
Cristine: No
Ben: like you can find a lot of these kind of generic
Cristine: The brand in my experience and i've tried a few brands just to see like does not matter they're all basically the same it's just like brands put their own label on the same product i's kind of what i've noticed
Ben: I know at one point i'd looked into you there's a company that makes mugs that you can pair with your cell phone and the mug itself keeps the liquid warm and you can tell it through your phone how warm you want it and it sounds really cool Cristine: But you're a prisoner to that mug Ben: Exactly it entirely depends on you being okay with using that mug always
Cristine: And that mug is not big enough i'm very particular about my tea mugs so this desk warmer you can put any ceramic mug on it and it'll warm it
Ben: Okay
Cristine: So it's smart Ben: Anything that warms on a hot plate
Cristine: Yeah it's basically a hot plate but not as dangerous, it's not an open flame Ben: I mean how safe is that?
Cristine: Well Ben: What's the chance those are just going to explode one day?
Cristine: Well they all have auto offs Not this one, but the one the other ones like they have an auto off if you take the mug off then it will turn off because it doesn't have the weight on it so it has a weight sensor so that's smart but i usually unplug it like when i'm just Ben: Yeah that's probably a good idea
Cristine: Yeah and then the other purchase that i bought more recently also from Amazon, i'll leave another link is uh the galaxy projector lights which kind of went viral in instagram ads i didn't end up buying from the particular ad that was impressed upon me i just went on Amazon and found my own that had good reviews
Ben: Could you describe so what are you talking about? Cristine: So it's like the descriptions often say for kids Ben: Which is true
Cristine: Which i kind of, i find very funny uh but it seems like it's been co-opted by uh marketers targeting teens and younger people as like a rave kind of light rather than like a kids light but if you look up like kids galaxy projector you'll find exactly what i'm talking about it's um basically like a light that has a plastic over it in different shapes so when the light shines through the plastic it kind of reflects in different patterns on your ceiling and sometimes they move and you can change colors with the remote it's just led lights
Ben: yeah it's just a way of putting a pattern of lights on your ceiling in different colors
Cristine: And I find it very calming and uh it's fun to you know take swatch videos on my cell phone or snapchat with it in the background and it's really fun in the background when you're on zoom calls and it's just like i personally really like mood lighting or like neon lights like we have on this podcast i hate overhead lighting it gives me migraines so any kind of colored fun lamp i can put in the corner just like helps my mood
Ben: Yeah and it's great if you want your room to have like a teenage girl aesthetic
Ben: oh come on it's not just teenage it's like a spa aesthetic also you can put it on like blue mode it's really nice and calming it's not just for teenagers
Ben: i i don't mean to be too yeah, ok
Cristine: He hates it! Ben: As long as you, i don't like it at all Cristine: It's such a good purchase! All i'm saying is there's not even that expensive you can find them for like 40 bucks Ben: Okay. What was your worst purchase of 2020? Cristine: Probably something also from Amazon because it's kind of hit and miss um i think that that dust collector for your nail dust Remember that?
Ben: oh from the video
Cristine: I made a Simply Nailogical video on worst-rated Amazon products Ben: Yeah so this should be an obvious answer Cristine: And one of them was like a, it looked like a weird accordion robot
Ben: It's like a vacuum for.. Cristine: It was like a vacuum for i guess when you file your nails well no it's for acrylic nails mostly because that makes more dust but like it didn't really work that well And it was just weird so Ben: Yeah. Oh okay uh
Cristine: What about you? Ben: What about me? um my favorite purchase is probably uh the massage table i bought for you
Cristine: oh yeah, for me?
Ben: Not because you've gotten a ton of use out of it but uh Menchie enjoys it very much little boo boo
Cristine: Yeah, they do Ben: Sometimes we'll hear her, I wonder if we could even just insert this clip into the podcast because it's insane like we'll go to bed and Menchie kind of likes to roam around the house and we've noticed she spends a lot of time on the massage table and she does weird things on there like she's bouncing around and meowing really strangely something about that table brings out the wild side of Menchie
[angry cat meows] Ben: So
Cristine: It's like she's possessed
Be: It's like her own little play structure or something Cristine: Well i lie on the massage table after every time i do cardio because then i do my physio exercises on the massage table just because it happens to be right beside the treadmill and then i think like my sweat has gone on the table
Ben: ohhh
Cristine: as a result
Ben: So you think your scent is driving her crazy? Cristine: I think she smells me on the table, we should probably clean the table Ben: Maybe yeah ,probably wipe it down. So yeah that's that was a fun purchase this year um worst purchase i think way back at the start of 2020 i bought some uh nice-ish clothes like a dress shirt or two...
Cristine: Why would you do that? Ben: pants, well it was pre-pandemic right Cristine: You thought you'd need them for work Ben: I am never going to wear those clothes ever right Cristine: yeah
Ben: And maybe uh if i could give one more answer the worst purchase or it's not really a purchase it's the thing i couldn't buy it was impossible to get your hands on any of the two new video game systems this year and i think that's a big fail a big nope Cristine: Cardi B has like six of them though Ben: How do you know that?
Cristine: She shared it in her story, i don't know she has like six of them Ben: Is she's selling them on ebay?
Cristine: I don't know what she's doing with them
Ben: Maybe she's part of the problem But basically yes scalpers bought up all these new systems Cristine: So you can't play the newest video games Ben: So I can't play the new video games
Cristine: You can only play the older video games
Ben: I know, boohoo All right next category we're pivoting towards youtube content, right. So the next two categories are best and worst youtube video you saw this year and best and worst uh online creator of 2020
Cristine: Great, thanks Ben Ben: We might sort of dance around the negative aspect of this but let's start with youtube video, what was the best youtube video you saw in 2020?
Cristine: That's really tough um because there's a whole bunch of good fun ones but i think more recently and you brought this to my attention i just find it so funny and ironic and i guess that's what i like is that video game Dunkey, the the guy that you watch it, Ben's a fan of He recently did a thing where he was basically making fun of other gamers who didn't put much effort into their content anymore and said that's all i'm going to do this week. We're going to do Minecraft Mondays Ben: Yeah among us
Cristine: and he was just like it was it was a joke but then he actually did it and he made them like super short and like not good on purpose Ben: yeah drama Mondays
Cristine: But it it worked and all of a sudden he has far more views on those videos Ben: Yeah so there's kind of a double edge to this, right?
Cristine: Yeah
Ben: He proved a point Cristine: Yeah
Ben: but he also got a lot of success and made uh some interesting ironic content ,so maybe some context for people uh he came out with a video said i'm not making good content anymore Cristine: yeah
Ben: and yeah he i think he has a pretty good point that when you look at someone like him puts a lot of effort into their videos historically uh you could tell like he'll play a video game for 100 hours and then condense that down to like an eight-minute video that is very creatively edited and you can tell some thought and effort went into the writing and scripting of it and it must be so frustrating for someone like that to see a lot of popular streamers who just upload content every day of them just playing a game and reacting very loudly to it and that's what a lot of like gaming content kind of is and to see those people being way more successful than people putting a lot of effort into videos I agree with this argument but there's something i actually kind of reject about this criticism in a way as much as i like the guy in that this isn't a zero-sum game, you know. Like this is kind of like someone who makes like a really good tv show that does well and gets good ratings and critics love it complaining that the Big Bang Theory is the most popular tv show on television like people watching, dummies enjoying the Big Bang Theory isn't preventing people from enjoying your HBO miniseries that is really well done, you know what i mean?
Cristine: I mean i think he understands that he's just being funny Ben: yeah yeah, no I get it
Cristine: I didn't think it was that deep
Ben: I think some people have this attitude like oh youtube's only supporting these like corporate creators now and things like that when really like you can make your good content whatever you whatever you subjectively think good is and there's still a place for that and a guy like Dunkey has probably done unless his content's demonetized way more than i'm aware he's probably done very well for himself Cristine: Yeah he's not saying he hasn't done well but he he turned this into a joke and i just thought it was really funny because i really appreciate parody. It's something i used to do a lot of in the past, like with Troom Troom videos and we would parody the the dumb Troom Troom shit sometimes um yeah so i i liked that that series i guess, of videos Ben: I get it, i think he's still doing it, he's keeping up the joke Cristine: Like that it's funny, it's ironic, it's sarcastic it's sarcastic and i guess that's my favorite style Ben: No no i'm not disagreeing i'm just uh maybe i'm playing devil's advocate a bit I'm a huge fan of that guy and i thought it was pretty brilliant what he did there too, it's a good answer
Cristine: So what's your uh most favorite youtube video?
Ben: Oh uh i guess i kind of have two answers um one is i fell down this rabbit hole of watching this guy called uh Xiaomanyc
Cristine: Is that the guy who's, who speaks multiple languages?
Ben: I think i showed a few clips so there's this like young very white looking generic dude in new york who is uh there's a word for people who are like really good at learning languages died Cristine: Polyglot
Ben: Polyglot?
Cristine: Yeah
Ben: yeah uh and so he'll learn like Mandarin and Taiwanese and like more uh uncommon dialects like Fujinese and then he'll walk into like a really authentic restaurants in some area of Chinatown and he walks in like he's just going to be the white tourist who's asking for like the general tao's chicken but then he just starts speaking like their native dialects to them and you see the reactions of these people just being amazed that this white dude can talk to them and it's it's kind of like almost like subtly inspiring in the way that like the language barrier being broken down can bring people together but it's more just fascinating from the sense of just seeing people's it's like a light-hearted like prank video almost in a way because they're having these reactions like i can't believe this guy's talking Cristine: Yeah it's it's feel good prank
Ben: Yeah
Cristine: If you want to call it prank, it's not really a prank He actually can speak the language Ben: I guess that's kind of a cheat of an answer because it's not like a single video, if i had to just pick like one video i enjoyed, i think this year Mark Rober came out with that squirrel video, right? That went viral. and i think that's a good example of like the kind of content that can still be successful on youtube that isn't super corporate and backed by a bunch of sponsors it's just i mean obviously he has a lot of support and success but it's just some engineer in his backyard decides one day he wants to feed some birds, he realizes squirrels are stealing all the bird food so he comes up with a clever way of uh building an obstacle course to see how how clever squirrels can be in terms of getting the bird food and it's like pretty he basically builds an obstacle course like a ninja warrior style course for squirrels and like he's a brilliant guy he's like he used to work for NASA right like so he's a really uh intelligent like uh he's an engineer right but it's kind of like an amazing it's the kind of content you want to still see being successful on youtube a kind of DIY spirit to it, even if he's a guy with a lot of means and education and background in it yeah that's my best Cristine: So who's your worst? Or sorry.. Ben: worst video?
Cristine: the worst youtube video you saw in 2020 Ben: I mean usually the answer to this, people will just say Rewind which i always thought was kind of unfair you know like i think people always had these expectations that rewind could be something it wasn't Cristine: But youtube didn't make a rewind
Ben: but there was there was no rewind this year
Cristine: I was gonna be like did i miss something?
Ben: Well like what's the upside to it and this year just would have been really hard to do anything. Maybe the answer is that uh music okay let's not go there all right maybe we should just skip to..
Cristine: Okaaayy Ben. Ben: the next category
Cristine: Next question! Ben: uh okay creator, best and worst creator of the year, Cristine
Cristine: That's not fair Ben: Just okay we could just do the best for this one if you don't want to be mean Cristine: Hold on, let me check my notes I mean i do have an answer for worst actually
Ben: oh do you? Okay this should be interesting
Cristine: It is any and all creators who were irresponsible uh this year and did things that were against public health guidance and that i believe have now poorly influenced their followers and also demonstrated big acts of privilege uh all of which things that i i don't like, i don't like them Ben: No no i think that's a very reasonable answer and that's not one we have to dance around. People who were...
Cristine: And here's the thing i can't even pinpoint one or two people because it's been dozens it's been dozens of youtubers or online creators who've been doing this so... Ben: It's a good point, right. It would be easy to just be like Jake Paul kind of became the face of it for a while because
Cristine: Yeah but that wouldn't be fair because there's so many more people now
Ben: No but like he was quoted in articles basically Cristine: saying he doesn't care
Ben: basically promoting like that it's a hoax right which is just like the height of your responsibility but i agree with you like that's like the obvious worst example maybe but then there's a ton of really popular people who have still been doing collabs uh still going to birthday parties with tons of people there
Cristine: Still hosting Christmas parties Ben: despite how bad things have been in LA, specifically too, Like it's it's really gross
Cristine: There's been a lot of hypocrisy too um like people tweeting like be safe be responsible, just because you know that's the thing you should do as a responsible creator but then also demonstrating behavior that is the opposite of what they said. So when i see that i am rolling my eyes behind the scenes i but i'm just not really saying anything because it's not about calling out one individual there's just too many there is real there is really just too many so i feel like i was talking about this with my co-workers actually because i just feel so disappointed and um the fact that i am connected to my youtube peers just by nature of being on the same platform like i'm a youtuber they're a youtuber and sometimes when youtubers do bad things you know it reflects poorly on you because you are also of that breed or in that industry and so i feel like secondhand embarrassment that there's other people like huge people on this platform doing that Ben: Yeah no i think that's a totally fair and not at all petty answer, without singling people out um If you want to start in a negative aspect i could kind of similarly think this was a big year for politics, right It was an election year in the States and uh i noticed more than ever i guess because i watch some political content especially this year how much awful political commentary there is on youtube and uh i think it's a healthy thing for youtube to be a space to find a diversity of viewpoints and healthy political discourse that i don't at all want to say like youtube should be censoring things or anything like that but i think what i realized is there's a lot of uh i guess people call them grifters there's a lot of people who make content that are purely just leveraging people's heightened emotions and the divisions in the country to their benefit to just get more views and more money even when i don't think they even really believe what they're saying so you'll have people who really pump out a lot of content about how awful woke people are and they'll just like make fun of SJWs and this has been a thing on youtube for a while i guess just a lot of it was really, i was shocked at how much of it was ending up on my recommended feed this year Cristine: yeah
Ben: and it occurred to me i i don't think it's unfair to say i think a lot of these people don't really even believe the arguments they're making or the criticisms they're making of these people they just know it's going to play well even though it is hurting your democracy "who cares, i just want to make content that's going to get millions of views where i make fun of people for their political beliefs and further divide people but i don't care about that i'm just going to make money off of my youtube videos" Cristine: There's definitely been a lot of selfishness and greed that i've noticed exactly like what you just said is another example this year that and people you know partying, collabing, showing their privilege. A but yeah so anyways.. Ben: Yes okay let's get off the negative train Cristine: I'm just angry Ben: All right, let's let's flip things upside down. Who who are some of the best creators, or if there's only one person maybe just someone you could give a shout out to, who you've enjoyed their content this year
Cristine: I mean there's so many people, I don't want to just say one person because then it's like you forget about this person
Ben: You go first
Ben: Okay i'll say uh gb asmr. So you you know this right because i'll often watch it at night and i'm uh
Cristine: I guess you like it
Ben: i've only recently gotten into this and here's the thing i don't, people talk about like oh i get tingles and asmr makes me feel good I don't get that at all but this has been a very i have found this to be a very stressful year for a lot of like personal and professional reasons a lot of things going on behind the scenes and i've just felt like i've been very high strung and i've found lately that it just helps at night to have someone whisper to me and does that sound weird? I've actually, it's just calming to just like turn something on of someone just sort of gently and like some of the content is really bizarre with all due respect to gb and people, like she's like telling me i'm an elf with big ears and like there's all these like role-playing things and she's like oh you got big ears you gotta oh the inspector's coming to look at your ears and i'm like i don't even
Cristine: It's too much wax Ben: and it all it doesn't really matter what you say i just like the sort of vibes and the atmosphere it just helps me relax
Cristine: That's how i feel about my galaxy light
Ben: Oh okay Cristine: See everyone has something that helps them relax Ben: Okay ,that's good. okay so there's my my answer Do you, come on you must have, who's someone who's content you've watched this year and enjoyed? Cristine: Okay this year i've been watching a lot of fitness content
Ben: Okay Cristine: I guess um Stephanie Buttermore I really like her. I also like Natasha Océane it's French
Ben: sure
Cristine: maybe But yeah like there's just a lot of people i've been watching this year a little bit more in the fitness and health domain because just because that's what i'm into and it's probably something you wouldn't expect i'd be watching i feel like people would expect me to watch i don't know, Troom Troom, more like nail videos
Ben: I don't think they'd expect that Cristine: But like yeah i watch stuff outside of that and this year in particular has been watching more fitness stuff which has been kind of inspiring and just like cool to hear and good to get techniques and like
Ben It kept you motivated this year Cristine: motivated but also like practical advice because i haven't seen a trainer or had a trainer since pre-lockdown so i'm kind of alone on my own in my gym basement trying to figure it out and watching some youtube videos of people who have figured it out how to do this at home has like helped me so yeah i would say that Ben: Maybe the reason this question was a little more difficult to answer for us is because youtube looked very different in 2020, from our perspective anyway. You know we're i think a little less tuned into uh who the new popular people are, a lot of popular people seem to be people who have come over from TikToc and it very much reminds me of you know when a bunch of people came over from Vine and uh i'm not sure i was the biggest fan of
Cristine: The cycle repeats Ben: Yeah it's kind of a similar thing going on right now but i don't think it's a secret that a lot of the people we really like some people were friendly with behind the scenes uh stopped making content this year and i'm not just talking about one person i'm uh i think this year was hard on a lot of people's mental health and particularly people who have been making online content for years and have been public personas on the internet for years and yeah it's not a coincidence i think you've seen a slowdown of a lot of people who were popular on youtube a few years ago in terms of how they're making content now uh so yeah i think there's definitely been a sort of generational shift and i'm not sure we have kept up with it so much
Cristine: yeah well i i admit and i used to think i kept up with trends and like i knew what fidget spinners were when like they came out
Ben: That's the example?
Cristine: I made holo slime when slime was big three years ago like i was you know in on the trend
Ben: You were memeing
Cristine: I was memeing and yes they were they were parodies for sure um but these days i all i know is like maybe sometimes Snapchat Daily Mail will tell me what's going on in TikToc world but i have no idea for myself what's going on in Tik Toc world because i do not follow any of these young women and men and i don't follow them on youtube and i have no idea who's dating who, who cheated on who and like occasionally i'll see a headline and it's some huge story and i'm like i have no idea who these people are
Ben:Like i watch uh the h3 pod sometimes and i think that's the closest i come to like keeping up with more generic what is going on in youtube land Not to say there's like just one narrative about what is going on on youtube right like it's really just fragmented in all these different niches anyway but i think we do feel a little more out of the loop and your approach to making content these days is very uh sort of insular and whatever you feel like doing, it's i think less referential to like the broader culture of youtube
Cristine: No for sure in the past there was always a video like oh what's what big trend is going on i'll do my take on that trend whereas this past year i haven't really done that
Ben: So do you have any perspective on you know any predictions for what what we'll see on youtube in 2021? In terms of like how content is changing Cristine: A lot of Tik Toc dances where people barely move that's my
Ben: Shady Cristine
Cristine: No i mean that like i just don't get it i'm serious can i can we talk about this how we've kind of not on i do not understand Tik Toc dances, some of them anyways Some of them are very you know like there's a powerful statement behind it there's some impressive moves absolutely i have seen some of them but then some of the more generic low-key ones that like just the most popular person is doing and that's what they do every day and they're like barely moving and there's just like one finger and they're like ha ha like i don't understand because i am i did dance class for maybe eight years of my life um and so i have a history and like dancing as a as a teenager i guess and i grew up in it and it was very deliberate you know expressive movements to create you know a story through dance whether it was jazz, hip-hop, tap, ballet whatever and the Tik Toc dances are like that minus 200. Like there's just there's very little movement and i'm just confused
Ben: So i want to say i i think some of them are actually talented dancers
Cristine: I agree Ben: But the point of TikToc isn't look how good i am at dancing
Cristine: It's look how effortless this is? Ben: Well i think a lot of it's trends. Like oh this new song is going around Tik Toc and there is a dance for it i'm going to do that dance and to make that accessible to a lot of the very young children watching i think it tends to be very basic and simple
Cristine: So they make it easy so children can replicate it? Ben: That's my very superficial understanding and also like maybe there's less to understand here than we need to think about, like
Cristine: It's not that deep
Ben: a lot of what is successful on Tik Toc is just you know Cristine: Simple
Ben: uh how do i put this in a way that doesn't sound creepy like the young attractive people on TikToc that are super successful are just sort of eye candy for children in a lot of ways Cristine: But how is that eye candy for children?
Ben: You know what i mean, like it's 13 year old like the guys who are popular on Tik Toc who just you know take their shirt off and have abs and barely dance there's we're not really talking about talent as much as we're talking about a lot of 13 14 year old girls are watching that content Cristine: So it's like..
Ben: I don't think it's deeper than that Cristine: the modern day J14 magazine, but it moves just a little
Ben: Yeah and it has barely any more personality than the page of a magazine You know what I mean?
Cristine: We are we are literally 32 years old We're like trying to understand, i'm trying to understand the appeal Ben: Ignore the Tik Toc train for a second though, like when i i think a trend we're seeing and i don't know if this is a youtube trend or just internet content trend is you know a lot of people we know and like have moved over to twitch and i think a lot of people were inclined to watch have been making content on Twitch lately and the thing that sticks out the most to me about that and live streaming in general is just that it's uh i i the ceo of Shopify used this term to refer to gaming content i think and he said like ambient gaming and just meaning like content where it's not that like you're watching the video game gameplay and that's what's important the experience of just being in a chat room with a bunch of people watching a game and the game is almost background noise to the experience of a bunch of people sharing in that experience of being in the same place is what is important and i think Twitch is similarly like that place for ambient content. People like can turn on a six hour live stream, chat with some like-minded people in the con comment section, there isn't this expectation that there's six hours of content coming at you that's exciting and engaging and always on and people will just like eat on stream and it's it's almost just like these places to hang out and feel like some sense of togetherness or connectedness right Cristine: I really like that and it appeals to me and i've but i just don't know how to get into it Ben: What live streaming? Cristine: Well i don't know and this is no no promises to our listeners i'm sorry
Ben: Check out Simply on Twitch in 2021 Cristine: No but, for six years now i've been making youtube videos that were mostly quick cut edit crazy wow wow holo, like you know excited obviously the if you watch that in real time it was not that but the edited final cut is that because that's a style i liked and it was accessible and i believe that people enjoyed that. But over time yeah it gets exhausting for you if you are creating that type of content and so i've been very keen on like i'm interested in what would it be like if i did a live stream where i was just normally painting my nails as i do every week anyways but just talking to people and it not being about like oh my god look it's Holo! Right?
Ben: Yeah Cristine: I mean we do we do that on this podcast because it's just a natural hour-long conversation Ben: In some way this podcast is dabbling in just putting less pressure and expectations on things to always be loud and exciting but like there have been some episodes of podcasts that are pretty boring, i think and that's okay right because people aren't tuning into this expecting to be inundated with jokes for an hour
Cristine: No but they're tuning into this because they want to listen to a particular topic that you and I are offering opinions on So i'm wondering like what would it look like if it were just me alone, which is a challenge i think and i admire people who can stream for six hours basically talking to themselves and people in the chat but i this space right now is me and you talking to each other there is no live chat integration, yes we take comments from you guys which is great and i love that aspect of it but it's not really like a live chat
Ben: No
Cristine: It's not a back and forth Ben: And are you saying you're maybe getting sick of just talking to me? Cristine: Is that what I..
Ben: I'm kidding, I'm kidding
Cristine: No but...
Ben: Well we thought by now we'd probably be having guests on the pod and we've sort of been inching towards that although we've been reluctant to do that over skype or zoom and stuff because we just feel it would be so much more intimate and ideal if we could have done it in person but clearly just would not be responsible to do that at this point
Cristine: Yeah and we will maybe in the future but um what do you think, Ben. Should i live stream paint my nails or is that really boring?
Ben: I think you should do whatever makes you happy i think it might be boring but i don't think that's an issue You know what i mean? I don't think you need to worry about it being boring Cristine: Yeah i wonder if people just actually want to watch me paint my nails real time. They have questions about things like how long do you let the base coat dry? I don't get into that on main channel videos because it just takes too long Ben: I don't think they'd be there to just watch you paint your nails, I think they'd be there to just sort of hang out and maybe you look at the comments and you answer Cristine: But that's something i've been craving because i realized the reason why i really like Twitter and why that is the app i'm engaging the most with people is because to me anyways it has the best uh reply system where i can look at my notifications of just comments filtered not likes because i see too many likes, like on Instagram it's it's useless because they they mix likes with comments so i can't possibly keep track from notifications but on Twitter i can so i can have a much more meaningful like exchange or reply to someone's picture of the Holo Taco they got for Christmas and comment on it and i really like that so maybe in a live stream format i i guess i'm craving being able to talk back and forth with people and it'd actually be a bit more of a conversation that i can track and the hardest part about most apps for any one of my size is that you can't track them because there's too many Ben: Well okay, this is all news to me i didn't know you felt this way
Cristine: Surprise! Ben: Yeah let's buy Cristine a gaming PC Cristine: Yeah i only have mac so i also don't know what to do
Ben: Yeah ok
Cristine: How do i stream on a mac, guys? What am i doing? Ben: Okay let's uh let's follow up on this Cristine: I don't even have a room to stream in Ben: See what happens in 2021. Okay! Cristine: Okay, surprise! But no promises because i don't know what i'm doing Ben: All right that went on a while, let's try to pump out a few more before we wrap it up, Cristine
Cristine: What else do we got? Ben: uh i was gonna say best and worst video game of 2020 but you you probably don't have i have..
Cristine: I have zero knowledge to contribute
Ben: So i'll just very quickly say uh i know we had an episode where i talked about The Last of Us and i thought it was a pretty brilliant uh cinematic experience. Although i do agree with some of the criticisms of it but if we're just talking about the game i enjoyed playing the most this year it's actually not that game it would be Ghosts of Tsushima
Cristine: Is that with Nobu? Ben: Yeah. So Cristine saw me playing this game and i'd be uh yeah, i called my horse Nobu. You're a samurai, you go around uh either choosing the the the honorable path of being a samurai or you could be the ghost who sneaks up on people and kills them without honor And it was actually just a really fun and rewarding gameplay experience Cristine: I just remember coming downstairs and i hear "Oh Nobu!" and I'm like What? So i just started saying that to Ben because it's all i knew Ben: So that was a really good game for ps4 uh worst game was Dr Jane Goodall's Great Ape Escape 2 Because it came out this year but they rushed the development of the game and it came out like before it was actually finished so it's super buggy, people have been asking for refunds they suspended the sale of it on stores and it's been a real sort of disaster and people are asking for their money back so that's disappointing
Cristine: Did you get your money back? Ben: I got my money back
Cristine: You did? Wow
Ben: Yeah Cristine: Good
Ben: All right, Cristine no no video games, how about nail polish? Do you have anything to say best and worst uh
Cristine: Hmmm i wonder okay well...
Ben: This is gonna be an ad Cristine: I'll start with the worst. How's that? Ben: oh okay
Cristine: The scented nail polish that uh i had you, my sister, and your brother test Ben: Your brother
Cristine: Specifically the the Taco Tuesday one Because that just should not be a nail polish
Ben: It should not exist
Cristine: Yeah Ben: So who, what company was that? Cristine: That was Sinful Colors and they were supposed to smell like a food Ben: yeah
Cristine: and the foods were like cheese puffs uh tacos and pizzas
Ben: donuts
Cristine: Yeah, something like that
Ben: They were savoury or sweet Cristine: RIght
Ben: And if i recall, you could kind of smell the difference between the ones that were supposed to be desserts and the ones that were supposed to be like...
Cristine: A pizza
Ben: cheesy but like it was just either they smelled like sweet like powdered sugar or they just smelled kind of like
Cristine: Or they smelled like cheese Ben: like weirdly cheesy
Cristine: But the reason why they're they're the worst is not because they smell like food, i mean that's kind of a gimmick and kind of fun whatever, it is. It's because the nail polish itself like they were trying to replicate a pizza in one of them with like a brown creme and like red glitters and white dot glitter like it just it i'm sorry but it does not work from a composition perspective
Ben: You don't want pizza nails? Cristine: No it just looks ugly Ben: I just don't want to be too.. like i appreciate companies trying to think outside the box
Cristine: The creativity, sure sorry So I give them that but just in terms of just subjectively or objectively the nail polish on its own if you forget that it's scented and it's kind of fun like the composition for me, it was not it Ben Okay, at the end of the day it's nail polish, has to work as nail polish right? Cristine: Yeah it wasn't the best
Ben: Okay so what was the best, Simply?
Cristine: Well yeahhh.. the Holo Taco Ben: Actually so maybe just uh
Cristine: What was my favorite collection?
Ben: Yeah of the Holo Taco stuff that came out this year, what was your favorite release?
Cristine: Okay so i have two answers
Ben: Oh, that's not allowed Cristine: So my favorite collection, which i think will surprise people was Unicorn Skin
Ben: Ohh way back at the beginning of the year
Cristine: I know because and i was excited for it but i was, did not anticipate how excited everyone else would be for it because it it's not holo, it's iridescent
Ben: Yeah Cristine: But everyone just fell in love with the way you could make nails look like opals right like different colors of opals and how if you layer it over the indigo away which was the dark purple versus the white, made it look so different and people were just fascinated by that and i guess i was just like used to that because i've you know worked with unicorn skin you know flakes or polishes for years now so i know that they do that over different colors but it was like i just taught that to a bunch of people who didn't know that yet and so that was really exciting to me to learn that and thats why Ben: It was fun see other people experiencing it for the first time Cristine: To see people realize like oh my god it's a totally different nail polish if you put it over a different color Ben: It doesn't have to be holo
Cristine: Yeah, anyway so unicorn skin i think
Ben: Okay Cristine: was my favorite collection for that reason. The box was also really cool like, iridescent box and different yeah Ben: I'm surprised you didn't say rainbow because that was the one.. Cristine: Ugh okay so my next answer, this is hard my favorite formula that we developed has got to be the linear holos which was the seven piece rainbow collection. That is i'm sorry if you know, you know. If you know, you know The linear holo, you know the full coverage in one coat Always do two anyways but just amazing and um yeah we're gonna do more with that formula Ben: I guess what's rewarding about that one is like uh people who don't know nail polish see it and think it's good but for people who who know nail polish they know that that is a tricky thing to get right
Cristine: They know because it's just so hard to get super pigmented rich colors but also a really strong holo flame in the linear finish
Ben: And it took many
Cristine: many many attempts
Ben: months of development to get there
Cristine: Yeah but the team nailed it so i'm super happy about that and if i had to pick sorry i'm just going on
Ben: How many answers?
Cristine: If i had to pick one single polish that came out in 2020 i i think i want to say Mint Money Ben: Really?
Cristine: Yeah that's the one i'm wearing on my middle finger it's just like i love the finish the frostiness it just it's such a beautiful color that normally i'm not a green person on my nails but i found myself wearing mint money on its own like even yes now i'm wearing christmas nails but before that i was just like i actually just really love mint
Ben: Maybe it's a good winter shade, although i could say that about any of the uh of the metallic foils
Cristine: Yeah well they're all supposed to be winter holiday shades
Ben: yeah
Cristine: but the mint i think is my favorite shade
Ben: I like Fake Date, in case you're wondering
Cristine: Yeah you want to be my fake date? So what was your worst and favorite nail polish, Ben? Ben: Okay, i'm not going to give an answer here, the same way you didn't give a answer on video games
Cristine: Well i don't play video games, you've worn my nail polish
Ben: I just i liked Fake Date a lot
Cristine: Okay Ben: I don't have a least favorite nail polish
Cristine: You better be careful Ben: All right okay, let's let's wrap it up here. Last category uh what was the best and worst episode of this podcast in 20W0, Cristine?
Cristine: Oh god
Ben: we've been doing this i mean almost a year this is episode what 43 So 43 weeks we have uploaded a podcast to the internet And some of them have been good, some of them have been not good Cristine: Remember we we started this before quarantine hit Ben: I mean like right before
Cristine: right before and now i'm so happy that we we did end up building this set in our house
Ben: Yeah Cristine: because imagine if we didn't and we like rented a studio or something, like a lot of people podcasters do, they have a studio elsewhere so i'm just we're really lucky that we did Ben: It worked out nicely i guess
Cristine: Yeah, so my favorite was the nail blogging episode where i basically got stuff off my chest that i've been you know just not saying because i don't want to cause drama but stuff that that dates back to four or four-ish years ago in my early days blogging on SimplyNailogical.com and working with indies and some good things and bad things that happened and maybe some things that if you were around in my early instagram days you kind of listened to my podcast on that and then put things together and understand why i stopped doing something or i started doing something else so for me it was kind of like i'm going to close this chapter i just want to tell people and i'm doing this later because it's really important to me not to put people on blast but i also want to give some perspective and i got a lot of messages from fellow nail bloggers after that episode basically saying thank you and that they appreciated me being honest and that they had some similar experiences and it helped uh give them some insight and perspective in their own you know nail blogging careers, so i thought that was cool
Ben: I love that answer yeah i think yeah seeing the reception to that one was huge, especially from people in those spaces right. And then to see the juxtaposition of you know i think you did that episode and then followed it up with a Holo Taco one and i love that all the comments on the Holo Taco one were very much noticing how happy you were to have that sort of ownership and control over something of your own in juxtaposition to some of the not always pleasant experiences you had kind of come up with
Cristine: Yeah and it was just a part of it's part of business, in any business really so it's not like i'm special because there's things that happen to me but yeah i think it's a good episode, if you haven't heard that episode i recommend you watch it. There's a lot of history there behind the scenes
Ben: Yeah, it's a great episode. So okay that's the best. What's your worst? Cristine: I want to say that the birth charts one In part because in retrospect like i knew going into that that i wasn't gonna believe any of them whatever it said i also don't even think i gave the right time for my uh my like the right time of birth but i think people know that we're generally respectful and not trying to make fun of other people's beliefs but at the same time if we're being honest in our own opinions yeah we're gonna make jokes because that's just how we feel and i think i did feel a little bit bad after that episode because there were maybe two comments who got upset that i felt this way and i don't ever want to make people feel like that so it's been hard to you know A) have a podcast where people want to hear our opinions and i want to be honest about them and have fun and joke when i feel like it merits a joke but also balance that with people who who might be offended by what we say Ben: Yeah no that's i i i hear what you're saying in the sense that like should we do something when we know going into it we're not taking it seriously and we're just going to make fun of it when we know other people actually care about it? uh i don't know, I could argue either way but yeah you're right our intention is never to make content just to belittle or make fun of people for thinking or believing in things
Cristine: And some of it is content that's just highly requested. I did see a lot of people asking us to read our birth charts, so people wanted us to do that even though i think most of them knew that we didn't really put too much weight in to it
Ben: Sure and i think you're just sensitive to not wanting to make anyone feel bad, i don't think i i think maybe you're overthinking it a little bit but i appreciate that about you
Cristine: Okay, thanks. So what was your favorite and least?
Ben: I mean after hearing your answer i kind of think it might be the nail blogging one Cristine: That - that's YOUR personal favorite? I mean it makes sense it's mine but
Ben: Well no i love it for you and i love that this podcast has shown people another side of you and that might be the best example of that to be honest if you're just if i'm talking more selfishly what i've enjoyed the most about this podcast are episodes where we can sort of be serious and silly at the same time so like even last week when we're talking about Christmas, so you know we'll have a 15-minute section on religion and why it's okay to not have religion in your life and we didn't grow up with religion and and then we can transition from that to just talking silly about christmas cookies you know what i mean? And i appreciate how we've been able to sort of navigate both serious and frivolous topics on this podcast and then the ones i enjoy the most i guess when i'm thinking back after the fact is uh you know ones where i can make you laugh a little. So like if we're doing like a reddit relationship advice towards the end of the podcast we're just cracking each other up towards the end and i i enjoy watching the content back and seeing you sort of genuinely enjoying it
Cristine: oh well that's sweet
Ben: Awwww
Cristine: I think people do really like those reddit ones i think we've only done two but they do seem to get a good reception in terms of views but also comments everyone likes also giving their two cents about what they think is the right thing to do Ben: I think we'll do more of those and specifically like those are reddit threads that are about people asking for advice from strangers. I know you have to kind of be careful to not take content from reddit that isn't just up for grabs or like just reproducing people's content other places but i think it's okay to take stuff from like the advice threads and things like that
Cristine: Yeah if it's people looking or soliciting advice
Ben: Yeah if i have to give a worse answer uh i'll often watch them back and uh i'm critical of myself more than anything but i don't think we should do quizzes on the podcast anymore
Cristine: Which quiz?
Ben: Every time we've done an episode where it's us live taking a quiz whether it's the political compass or the personality or the psychopath one Cristine: Hey they all start with p! All the quizzes start with p, that's weird Ben: I do not find those enjoyable to like i'll i'll watch back these podcasts and edit the camera angles of who's looking at who and where and what right so when i listen to them back and even i'm finding them kind of like i don't want to be listening to this, that's i guess something right?
Cristine: But you also have the bias of listening to yourself and we've had this discussion
Ben: Yeah Cristine: The more you listen to yourself which most of our listeners probably don't do, right? The average person doesn't watch themselves back for hours a week Ben: Having an hour-long conversation Cristine: But the more you do that i think it is natural for a lot of people to just like cringe more at themselves, so you have that bias whereas if if it were two other people having that conversation and you were editing it i don't think you'd feel the same way even if they said exactly the same way you said Ben: yeah yeah maybe but i just don't want to do quizzes i don't want to do live quizzes anymore Cristine: I mean i wonder what you guys think because a lot of people asked us to do the quizzes, they asked us to do the personality um and then i saw people asking for us to do the political bias test. The psycho psychopathy thing we just kind of thought oh this this could be a good idea um but i think some quizzes can be fun Ben: Maybe in the future though like when you do the quiz and then the content is about the results not live taking a test
Cristine: But like you said some people like to participate in that live aspect and maybe they're in their minds doing the quiz along with you
Ben: Well you could do it on your live stream How about that?
Cristine: I'll just do a bunch of Buzzfeed quizzes on my live stream. Painting my nails while taking quizzes
Ben: People would watch Cristine: I'll be like a three hour live stream Ben: Actually so maybe that's a good note to end on what do you want to see like are this isn't the last episode ever. I didn't mean to clickbait anyone Cristine: Yes, Ben Ben: What what do people want to see in 2021? I would like to think we get to the place where we start uh bringing people on. I'm not sure when that will happen but that is definitely eventually we're going to get sick of each other i think, Cristine
Cristine: Uh yeah we yes
Ben: If that hasn't already happened Cristine: We do want to have guests. We've had my sister and Ben's brother but you know that was within family bubbles at the time we do want to have some guests it's going to be tricky given the situation we might have to just cave and do some skype slash zoom ones
Ben: And figure out the best way of doing that too right. But for now at least for the foreseeable future that's probably not gonna happen quite yet so we're very..
Cristine: So you're stuck with us
Ben: open to comments suggestions Are we taking a week off, next week by the way?
Cristine: I don't know, Ben are we? Ben: I don't know. Do i get any time off, Simply?
Cristine: You can do whatever you want. What if i just live stream by myself the next podcast? Ben: Next week might only be Cristine, I might book it off. How about that?
Cristine: Yeah we'll see Ben: All right apologies to Larré we were going to have him on today Cristine: Is that a Tik Toc person?
Ben: I think so uh but we ran out of time. Sorry about that See you in 2021
Cristine: oh yes, Ben
Ben: Everybody thank you so much for watching
Cristine: oh it's Taco Tuesday we didn't even say that!
Ben: It just occurred to you? Cristine: Guys, if you did not know it's Taco Tuesday. We are here to remind you. It is that weird period between Christmas and New Year's when no one knows what day it is but i think that's kind of been all of our feelings you know most of this year
Ben: Yeah this is the period where seasonal affective disorder really kicks in Cristine: Right but i also was just trying to say that no one knows what day it is you know it's that time of year Ben: So you're gonna remind them
Cristine: I'm gonna tell you it is Taco Tuesday and uh we thank you guys so much for watching and listening and Menchie's in her holiday bed! This whole episode so cute
Ben: All right everybody thank you for tuning in Cristine: We'll see y'all later Bye!
