PJH Studios

Category: Pop Culture

Popular culture, culture that seems to spread beyond more than three people

  • Severance is about slavery

    An interesting take by Matt Pierce: Severance is about slavery.

    Yet “Severance” and its parable about double lives has become hard to watch. Season 1’s subtler commentary about workplace alienation has given way a far more brutally explicit Season 2 plot, which is still being told as a “Lost”-style mystery: What is Lumon up to? There is no mystery about what Lumon is up to. The answer is on the screen in front of you. “Severance” is a titillating luxury TV show about slavery.

    Part of the novelty of “Severance” is that the enslaver and the enslaved can share a physical body. Helena Eagan is heir to the Lumon corporation, an upper-level manager, and therefore the captor of the innies whose consciousnesses can’t escape Lumon’s offices. Eagan poses as her innie, Hellie R., to creep among the enslaved innie workforce without their knowledge. Helena Eagan exploits Hellie R.’s budding romantic relationship with an unwitting Mark S. to sleep with him.

  • Airline safety videos become entertainment

    I don’t fly often, so I guess I missed out on this train, but increasingly, airline safety videos are not filmed on on a plane.

    … The airlines weren’t just making safety demonstrations. They were making entertainment, engaging in an arms race to make their safety videos bigger, better, and frankly: more ridiculous.

    To track this evolution, I analyzed hundreds of airline safety videos spanning thirty years. And then, I took them apart. I dissected their locations, music, and celebrities.

  • How Adolescence pulled off those one takes

    Fascinating behind the scenes of how Netfix’s show Adolescence pulled off four one take episodes (steadicam & harness) plus seamlessly attaching a camera to a drone.

  • A 500-year history of monsters

    Natalie Lawrence goes through 500 years of monsters. Their origins often reflect the society and culture of the time.

    At different points through history, individual monsters – both ancient and new – have had their moments in the limelight. They’ve becoming the emblems for specific events, conflicts and concerns that were troubling society at particular times.

    The many topical monsters that have emerged over the past half-millenium can offer windows into an ever-shifting cultural psyche. What do they reveal about the zeitgeists of different periods?

  • The Opposite of Fascism

    I’d quote the whole article, but go read what Anand Giridharadas writes regarding the opposite of fascism.

    The best revenge against these grifters and bigots and billionaires and bullies is to live well, richly, together.

    The best revenge is to refuse their values. To embody the kind of living — free, colorful, open — they want to snuff out.

  • Bed Rotting is a thing

    ‘When you’re bed rotting, you’re not sleeping, just lying there, scrolling on your phone, watching TV, or doing nothing in particular,’ Monroe continues. ‘It’s often framed as a way to “check out” from the demands of life, work, or stress. The term can conjure images of decay or stagnation, which can feel relatable to people who are overwhelmed or burned out.’

    Of course the term bed rotting comes from TikTok.

  • Capybyras are having a moment

    Capybyras have moved up in popularity recently.

  • FAFOnomics

    Kyla Scanlon coins an apt term for our current economic state–FAFOnomics. Fuck Around, Find Out.

    Yes, America needs change. But change without wisdom isn’t reform, it’s recklessness.

    And of course, there is an important point to all of this, which is that it is all noise. It’s what Tyler Cowen and Ezra Klein have both pointed out as strategic chaos: overwhelming the public’s already limited capacity for attention until exhaustion sets in. It’s the attention singularity that I wrote about last week in action, where power, narrative, and wealth merge into a self-reinforcing system of perpetual disruption.

    Welcome to FAFAnomics – F*ck Around and Find Out Economics, something that feels like the policy equivalent of a TikTok influencer doing increasingly dangerous stunts off the side of a building for views. The goal isn’t good governance; it’s capturing attention at any cost. And it’s working! While we debate whether each new crisis is legal, ethical, or even real1(as we should) the broader transformation of American fiscal policy continues.

  • Kevin Kelly’s travel tips

    Kevin Kelly has listed 50 travel tips. Here are a few interesting ones:

    If you hire a driver, or use a taxi, offer to pay the driver to take you to visit their mother. They will ordinarily jump at the chance. They fulfill their filial duty and you will get easy entry into a local’s home, and a very high chance to taste some home cooking. Mother, driver, and you leave happy. This trick rarely fails.

    The rate you go is not determined by how fast you walk, bike or drive, but by how long your breaks are. Slow down. Take lots of breaks. The most memorable moments—conversations with amazing strangers, an invite inside, a hidden artwork—will usually happen when you are not moving.

    Even if you never go to McDonalds at home, visit the McDonalds on your travels. Surprisingly, their menus are very localized and reflect different cuisines in a fun and easy way, with unexpected versions of familiar things. Very illuminating!

  • Hockey hair

    Apparently hockey hair is a thing in Minnesota. So much so, it garners its own highlight reel.