GoodByWeekly #5: Propaganda and Love
It's Dave again, hope you missed me because I have been missing making content. Not sure how many of you all know about Love and Propaganda, a nightclub in SF that's just recently closed, but I felt that what I had to share today was propaganda first, then love so the title was fitting.
You Are What You Watch
I've been spending a good bit of time thinking about how public opinion is shaped by pop culture. Given that the average American spends 2 hours and 51 minutes a day watching television, it's one of the most influential areas of pop culture. I recently listened to a 99% Invisible podcast titled "You Are What You Watch" which dives a bit into television's influence. Take Top Gun, which was originally written for the enemies to be North Koreans. The Pentagon basically came in and said "hey, we're not worried about North Korea, can you make the enemies Libyans instead and we'll provide you with military helicopters." This one feels obvious, but knowing America, the propaganda can't just stop at military support...
The Space Race after WWII was viewed skeptically, but Walt Disney actually was a major force in changing that opinion by showing over the course of decades the idea that rockets are normal and doable though casually showing them in films. Then you have movies like Armageddon in 1998 which was used to get NASA funding for asteroid detection programs by giving Americans this idea that an asteroid hitting Earth is possible.
The most interesting thing I discovered though, referred to the Tax Reform Act of 1976. Prior to 1976 Americans could write off investments in movies as a tax break without really any limits so you had lots of people investing smaller amounts of money into films and they were high risk, but it didn't really matter because you were saving money on taxes. The IRS obviously caught on and after 1976 less than 5% of movies funds came from outside investment as opposed to an estimated 20% prior. This meant that large entities had all the control and with that control could easily require writing off the script and making minor changes like what the U.S. Government did for Top Gun. The beauty of content through YouTube and social media is it's so democratized it's difficult to control and create a mono-culture. Maybe Austin and I will talk about this a bit more in a podcast episode.
You can find more out listening to the podcast listed below, or reading You Are What You Watch written by one of the speakers in this episode, Walter Hickey.
99pi
Food is Love
I am a firm believer in food being a love language and sharing food with friends is a form of showing love to me. A couple weeks ago I got up early on a Saturday and was really craving a savory scone for some reason (weirdly British of me I hope I don't get that craving again). But long story short I made these bacon cheddar jalapeno chive scones and decided to deliver them to my friends and Stav even traded me some delicious orange chocolate chip muffins (super yummy). Not only did I feel like the coolest person in the group chat for a few hours, but I filled my morning with baking instead of watching TV and shared love to my friends. I feel like cooking is one of the easiest things to slip when getting busy, but when I frame it this way and turn it into a way to socialize as well it makes it much easier to keep up as a common activity during my week.
Now that I've talked about my scones, here's the recipe I followed. I did make some adjustments though. I added 1 jalapeno diced, garlic powder, onion powder, and a little paprika since the British are afraid of spices and I needed more cream than was listed on the recipe. I probably could have baked them for a bit longer honestly, but they were really yummy and I'd definitely make them again.
Event of the Week
In light of my unsuccessful attempt to go roller skating last week, go roller skating this week! In SF the Church of 8 Wheels is a cool place and a fun activity to throw into the mix but a park is also just as nice if you have your own pair. Austin brought up today that I have a lot of random Dave skills and I'll take roller blading as one of them...
I hope you all have a joy filled week and do what you need to do to feel Good today and tomorrow.