Dear Hank & John - 181: Comforting Existential Crises (w/ Jana Hisham!)

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

When are you too old to read YA? How do you get lost in a healthy way? Are there entire civilizations on the bottom of the ocean? And more! Check out Jana's YouTube channel: youtube.com/aFriendlyArab This episode was recorded live at VidCon London 2019! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail]. Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I like to think of it, Dejana and Hank. It's a comedy podcast where two brothers and some of them are special guests bring you all the answers to your questions, give you to be advice and also have news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, though maybe not today. Do you know how AFC Wimbledon is doing, Jana? Um... I'm not sure if you've seen Wimbledon, though maybe not today. Do you know how AFC Wimbledon is doing, Johnna? Um... Johnna's a huge fan of American football.

I'm not sure I know you. I am. That's not a joke. I genuinely. No, yeah. Like, what's your favorite American football team? I want to say Steelers. The Steelers, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Yeah. What do you like the Steelers? Steel... I tend to root for teams in, like, sort of economically not well off towns

because I feel like they need something. Well, Pittsburgh is all right. I feel the same way about the World Cup. I like countries who aren't doing so well economically to win the World Cup. Yeah. Well, and it's also like the towns that are doing well always do well anyway, because they have a bunch of money.

And it's like, do you need everything? But not with the World Cup because you can't have just the best football players, right? They just from your nations. They have to be so comming small. That'd be amazing if all of the players on the teams in New York had to be from New York. I'd see, it seems like that should be how,

I'm not sure that's how it used to be. That would be great. But like if the Yankees were all New Yorkers, they'd just be like we're not very good Like there's a lot of people to draw from but like they're mostly in finance Um, so how did you become a fan of American football and abandoned? Your home countries Sport of choice. I do like, like, fuck, sorry, soccer, because we're at VidCon.

But there's just something about watching a 300-pound man just like run into another man and just run him over. That's so satisfying. When you talk, like, when you're at work all day, like I work in social media, and everyone is just, like, talking about, like, bullshit marketing things, and trying to sell you how well the campaign is done, and like, talking about things like vanity, vanity metrics and all these things.

Vanity metrics. When you get home, you're like, I just want to see people running to each other. Right, because you can't like fake being good at football. Exactly. Like, you can be messing your way through alignment. Exactly. You can like, you know, when it comes to YouTube and social media, especially anything to do with marketing, like if you talk a really good game, you can get very, very far, which is really concerning, but you can't fake which is really concerning, but you can't fake, like, running out of the way of very big men.

Like, you either can do it or you can't. Right, right. You either can do it or you're dead. Yeah, exactly. As American publicists, they hit very hard by very big things who happen to be people. And that's really fun. And I think that America's like, yeah, I think you've taken... We've got it all figured out. You've taken the sport of rugby and you've made it good, which I'm coming here for. Do you know where you are right now? That's not a lot to rugby fans in the audience. Yes, I was looking out at them. I wouldn't have said, boy, but there's a lot of rugby fans in this audience.

But apparently a couple and they were loud. Yeah, of course. I think it's a fair to laugh. I guess it's more of a British thing, isn't it? Oh, yes, I'm defending my home country rather than my sport. Yeah, it's a... Who watched a rugby game in the last six months? Oh, wow.

I'm going to say, maybe 8% of the people in the audience. I told you, it's a patriotism thing. Yeah, I was once in the tube in London, and it was a rugby game had just ended, and people were coming home from the bars. And I'm not sure whether they had won or lost, but they were enthusiastic nonetheless. And there were a great number of them,

and it was like the whole subway car. What do you call that? The whole carriage, really? Because there's a horse in front of it. No, I legitimately had no idea that that's what you called it. The whole carriage was like me and Catherine and like 25 to 30 rugby guys all singing a song. And I don't know what this song was, but it was slurred.

And Catherine and I were like, do we, should we pretend? Like we also care about this. And then it was one of the subways that has the giant lifts to get you all the way up to the top Because you're so far underground and then like they all start making their way to the lift and we're like Let's just pretend like we're waiting for another car and wait until that lift happens Because we don't want to be in that

Room that very small room with all 25 of these guys. They were they turned out they were lovely But it felt in Tim. I felt like I was intruding upon a culture I did not understand. Great use of the word lift there by the way, that was really nice. It's been here for a long enough, it's for three days. I was told last night that my fake British accent was coming out and I've been concentrating very hard on having that knot See I spent 20 years trying to make that happen. So yeah, yeah, what's your what's your natural accent? So my my British accent is fake

Whoa, big news basically When I landed Well, did anybody notice? No, I didn't think so. It's been 20 years, so I'm getting really good at it. But so I was actually born in Saudi Arabia, and I moved to London when I was about four years old in 98.

Do you remember 98? I remember as the year of graduated high school, yes. I remember it quite well, very clearly, because of how I was an adult human. So yeah, great year 98 how I was an adult human. So yeah, great year 98. I was four years old. I started to learn English through watching the Disney Channel and watching the Disney Channel only, because I was in an Arabic school. So I had developed a very American, like teenage dream American accent.

Like thinking that things were called things that are American words, not British words. And then I eventually moved to a British school when I was eight. And everyone was like, what's going on with your accent? Where are you from? Are you from? I'm like, I'm from an accent?

I thought I was just speaking English. So slowly started saying things in the British accent, but I still speak. Me and my sister still communicate in an American accent. If I read, then I think it's like a really weird international American accent, and people find it very unsettling. I don't want to hear it. I don't like to be unsettled. OK, do you want to answer some questions from our listeners?

So, I hope that people who have sent in questions who are here right now, this first one is from... Carlin? Possibly Carlin. Possibly not. I'm about to start using a wheelchair. Should I warn people first? Or should I just rock up wheels and heels, Carly?

There it is. It's from Carly. Are you here, Carly? You're not. That's fine. Carly is not here. Carly is about to start using a wheelchair. So, I mean, any shift in, like, in our appearance, like it feels as if we need an explanation.

And of course, you're gonna rock up in your new wheels, and people are gonna be like, what's up? You're in a wheelchair now. Right, but like, one people that what? Caution, I might roll over your feet. Yeah, it's the thing that you were able to do. We've got a wheelchair user in the room. Do you roll over feet at all?

Yes, especially I may be in the... Oh, OK. So mostly intentionally, it's what I've heard. Oh, I'm so sorry about that. That's great. Yeah, that's great. Maybe Carly needs to take some advice. Maybe she shouldn't warn people.

Maybe, yeah. Surprise. Yeah. I've got it. I can now roll over people. I'm new with this. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I mean, I, I think that it probably is going to be a conversation either way. Exactly.

And I don't think that people are going to, like, I don't think that you're going to be, people are going to be, like, scared or frightened by this. They might be worried for you. Well, it's not like a new haircut, you know what I mean? It's not something that people would necessarily feel that comfortable discussing anyway. So I guess maybe a pre-warning would be, I'm okay to talk about this and this is fine. I think this is maybe what Facebook is for.

I haven't used it in a while. But it's Facebook for like, I mean, I'm married or I'm about to get a wheelchair. It's like it's major life announcements that I don't want to talk about publicly. Like I had a friend recently get divorced and it was like, look, here's the post, that's it. I got a little bit of burin, but like,

don't stop gossiping about this. I guess, yeah, I guess maybe if it's like a public announcement then it stops you having the conversation over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Which is a positive. But people are still going to react the way that they do, right? Yeah, we've got another question. It comes from Winnie who asks, dear Hank and Janna,

I have woken up with a queen song stuck in my head every morning for the last two to three weeks, not always the same song but always queen. What do I do? I want to break free Cassidy. That was great. Is this a real problem? Like, I've woken up with baby shark in my head every day for the last two to three weeks because I have a two-year-old So I feel like I feel like I would if it's up to I don't know what that's like Yeah, sorry. I can't relate to that. You know that baby shark though, right?

Very vaguely. Oh my god. I do that's I feel like baby shark is the is the most it like most like significant cultural occurrence of the last two years because I have a two-year-old. And so that's like, I'm like... Wasn't maybe Sharka Kylie Jenner's kids birthday last week? That's what I know about baby shark. What? Yeah. Well, I will tell you that the one thing I don't know about baby shark is anything to do with Kylie Jenner. It was, it looked like a fantastic birthday party.

Was it a baby shark themed? No, it was just everything themed. Was there a baby shark? Like an actual shark? I don't know. These people are very wealthy. They potentially very very pretty. What does it have to do with baby sharks, Johanna? I'm she's a kid, right? She's a baby. She probably likes the song. You just wanted to bring up Kylie Jenner. You wanted to... I know about... You wanted to turn around on me, so everybody would know how little I know about Jenner's and Kardashians.

So, I just recently started working at Universal Music, so I have this problem a lot. Oh, yeah. Because there's this thing where in all the bathrooms and the canteen and everything, they exclusively play Universal Music Artist, which is a little, I find it a little bit weird. There's kind of like if you have your own face on your screensaver on your phone, you know what I mean? It's kind of like, this is weird.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, you guys are really into yourself, huh? Yeah, and it's like mainly the same Ariana Grande song over and over again. So like, first few times you're like, oh, this is a great song and I'll tell you what I you. Can you hear me with it? It's thank you next. Thank you next. Seven rings. The whole album really. Okay. The big fans of that in the building. I think it's making them all money. So yeah. Can you love me songs?

Yeah, so hit us with one of the tracks. You want me to sing? Let's think. I just assumed. Why don't you sing a song? Do do do do do baby shark do do do do do do do do do baby shark Not gonna keep going because I'm glad you were into it people started clapping Definitely needed to shut that down as soon as possible Yeah, so so it do you wake up with Ariana in your mind every morning? Yeah, and sometimes, you know, it's the kind of place where there's music playing everywhere and there's like ten floors and every floor, every desk can't pass there on speaker, so

you now have to know way more songs than you did before and all the lyrics as well, so. Well, at least you have a reason to stay up with the things that are going on. I don't know. I have reached the point in my life where I know what music I like and I'm like, I'm not going to listen to the other stuff. This is what being 38 is like. What? Good to know.

Yeah, I just like, I love the stuff I love. Why would I listen to anything new? I don't think so. So all the bands I listen to are still making albums. And I'm like, guys, you're old. You're all too late. You need to style like, I can't keep up. What kind of music do you like, Hank?

I like, I listen to them, I'm a P. Giants. A lot, like a lot. Do you know about this band? I don't know who that is. That's fine. Raise your hand if you care about them, I'm a P you're giants, raise your hand if you've heard of them. All right, that's less than half of you. But it was a bunch.

Yeah, they're a very nerdy American band. I see. Yeah, they make very good music. It's not like funny. Funnily, I think sometimes we think nerdy music is like, oh, that's like weird. Yankovic, like music that is commenting on music almost. And quite small than genre.

And but there may be giants, they make very serious music, they're very good musicians, but like it is just well loved by nerds. And they're old and uncool, that way you're talking. They are in there, I think 60s, by nerds. And the old and uncool that we were talking about. They are in there, I think, 60s, by this point. Wow. Yeah, because their first album came out, I think the year I was born. Which one?

Do the math. I was 18 to 1998, OK? So 1980. That's one of my ideas. 1980. She's not going to do the math. Yeah, so is there any practical advice here, though? What do you do?

What was the question? When you have a song that you can't get out of your head with it. It's kind of my job to have songs in my head. Right. Get a job that involves Queen. And then you're good to go. I have a couple go-tos that get songs out of my head.

The crash test dummy, that's called, mm, for some reason, the thing that we've got a guy dancing to it in the back. It's like the moment I said it, he was like, I know that, that's a bomb. And so every time I have the songs out of my head, I can at least get that song stuck in my head and then the other one will be gone.

How was that better? Well, because I'm tired of that. That sounds relatively worse. That first song. So I want the new song in my head. I just want something, I want some variety in my life. I think what you've got to do is like you've got to just really be in it, you know what I mean? You've got to lean in.

Yeah, and you've got to just... Heck yes. I mean if it's queen, why not? Yeah, some of that. Of all the things to be unhappy to have stuck in your head. It is very good music. Hey, I've got another question, but this person is from somebody who will unfortunately will not be here.

As a young, this is specifically for you. As a young creator, we're calling up the fact that you are a young, which is great for me, because it means that if you weren't young, that would be terrible news. That would be really awkward. Yeah, from a diverse background. How do you deal with, like, fame, creative mental blocks,

and also people coming at you on the internet? Ciao Hank, looking forward to seeing you. Coming at me in a negative way. Yeah, so I did say cyber bullying. Okay. But I changed it. I don so I did say cyberbullying. Okay, but I changed it I don't know why editorialized I apologize Yeah, I mean cyber bullying is a very strong term so I guess I can I can understand why you try to right water it down a little bit

I do think that being from a diverse background, you do tend to get a lot more opinions thrown at you and I think it's also because on the flip side people assume that when you're making content you're making it on behalf of 20 million people from the place that you're from. Is that a problem for people from Saudi Arabia as well that they're like you you're acting like you're speaking for all of us Absolutely, and I think like I mean I do use Saudi in a lot of my titles because that's the topic right? I'm not just like Saudi girl does something unrelated with the fact that I'm from Saudi right in life

This is significant to the video and I think they see it in the way of like, you're using our country as a way to reach an audience, but you don't represent us because you're very different to what an average Saudi is like. Which is really weird, but at the same time, it means that I do have a sort of niche, so it's not one of those things where I'm like, I wish that I was not diverse because I feel like it is part of what makes my content unique, but I do get a lot of hate for posting anything

really on the internet. It could be the most innocent video. I could be hanging out with friends and people would come and be like, why are you hanging out with guys? You know what I mean? I could be like, oh God, they'd be like, why are you wearing like a cut shirt? You know what I mean?

So I think at this point, after eight years of being on the platform. I'm like I Don't care. Yeah, and I think like if I if I did I probably would have stopped a lot sooner But the way I like to think about it is that Before I started making content No one from Saudi Arabia who was a female was making YouTube videos So if I'm in these few years have made it a little bit easier for another person who Kind of sees me and says oh, I look like that or I live like that or I've got that same background And it's they will probably end up getting less hate because I kind of took that a little bit of that brunt

So it kind of makes it worth it for me to normalize it for people. And I just think about like, if there's just like one, like eight-year-old Saudi girl watching my content being like, oh, so like you don't have to look a certain way or act a certain way to fit in with society. And you can't, I can be who I am and be from Saudi Arabia and be a little bit different from other people. That's worth random comments from strangers that I don't know.

You know what I mean? That's great. Thanks for doing that. Yeah. Yeah. Applause. All right. We have another question.

This one comes from Winnie, who asks, at what age should you make the grievous transition from YA books to adult books? Chapstick in Timothy Shalamet Cassidy. It's not from Winnie, it's from Cassidy. I don't know why. Her name is Winnie on Twitter. That's a really good question. Oh yeah. Because I felt like for a really long time, I was asking myself about the same question. If you go into like a bookshop in your channel, pick out what you're gonna read next, and I'm like, I do wanna read this,

but also it's meant for 16 year olds. Right, yeah, you're gonna walk into the cashier and they're gonna be like, so who's that will do fiscal? Or... At the same time, I'm like, I know I'm really gonna like it. Right! That's the thing! Right. I mean, first of all, like...

Harry Potter is a YA book that was... That's true. Or even a children's book that is well loved by lots of adults. Some people like it. Some folks I've heard. I've had... ...of various ages enjoy the series of Harry Potter. These are just rugby fans, no?

Yeah, I tell you. Yeah. And in general, like, I don't like, like, YA is a marketing distinction. Right. Not a content distinction. It is a way of dividing up a bookstore, not a way of deciding what books people should read.

Because technically, you can read a book from the perspective of an eight-year-old, which I did do recently, and it's not an eight-year-old's book. It's an eight-year-old's to be reading it. So I guess it's, maybe it's the subject matter of like, teen angst and kind of putty and being, yeah, like trying to figure things out, but that's, you know, coming of age books on exclusive to 16-year-olds, you know, and maybe a lot of the classics of people love would now be considered

like young adult novels, you know. Yeah, yeah, I mean the catcher in the rye is a coincidental example of a book that if it came out now would be put into the YA category, but there was no YA category. Exactly. Like, it was just everything was books. So it's not as trashy, I guess. Right. But I tried to read catcher in the eye, and I had no idea what was going on for like a

hundred pages. I was like, nothing has happened yet. Like, there was this thing about a hat and then I was it. And I'm like, and I didn't get it. Everyone was like, this is the book that you read when you reach a certain age. And like it's really gonna kind of help you like gain perspective and understand the world.

And I was like, I have no idea. What did you recatcher in the rhyme? I might have been 17. Yeah, see this was my experience too. When I read catcher in the Ryan High School, I was like, this book is trash and I hate it. I was very confused. And then when I read it as an adult, I was like,

oh, okay, obviously this is a good book. So is it a thing that adults tell kids to read? Yeah, maybe I just didn't grow up fast enough to get Catcher in the Rye. So if I read it now and I still don't get it, I'm just a child. Yeah, exactly. If you hate Catcher in the Rye, you haven't grown up yet.

It's not what I'm saying. It's very weird to die on. But I still read young adult books and I love it. And I think that it's a really fascinating time of life to explore. People don't change in other, it it's very, like the character development can happen much more significantly in young people than in people who are older and it makes more sense. So, yeah.

And I find it like to be an opportunity to like live through the lens of people whose lives are changing dramatically, which lets me look at my life and say, like, could it change dramatically? And what would that look like? And if it did, would I be happy or sad about that? Right. It makes you reflective of the things that are going on and not being adult and being like, this is the way that it's going to be in that one forever. Right.

And there's also why I books that I don't read or like, it turns out that's true of all categories of literature. Oh, yeah, sure. But it also, I also feel like at some point they get so popular that people start to kind of, people who haven't read the books get really critical over it and then it becomes like one of those things where it's like I'm reading Twilight or reading whatever. Like I remember when the Twilight books came out, everyone loved them and it was really great. The movies came out on the first movie, it was terrible. And I think everyone was. I mean, are there any rugby fans, I mean, Twilight fans in the audience? I don't think there's a two separate circles. In the fun diagram of rugby and Twilight fans.

But yeah, I remember when the movie came out it was like one of those things where all the girls were like In love with Robert Pattinson and then it became like a weird kind of Right, like fan thing and it wasn't like I was like I'm 15 these books are great for me Right, so I think like it's weird that people have like those kind of opinions about Something like books, which is should be like educational or at least useful to your brain. It's not like music where it's purely recreational. I don't think that's true either.

I think music is not purely recreational. I think there's a lot. Well I work in the music industry so my opinion is more valid. You've had your job for what? Two weeks. Two months. Two months. Okay.

Well, I've never worked in the music industry, except as a musician. Yeah. That's totally fair. Yeah. We got a question from Greg. Greg, are you here? Who wants to hear my famous British accent?

I pretended to be a Brit. Yeah, Greg, what's up? I pretended to be a Brit. Yeah, Greg. What's up? I pretended I didn't pretend to be British. I just something happened. I was watching too much Monty Python in high school And I had a fake British accent for a year and everybody was like stop and I was like I'm not doing anything This is just how I talk and And it was was deeply embarrassing now, deeply embarrassing. One of the two most embarrassing things I've ever done probably, in terms of not like moments, but like decisions I made and stuck with.

But I think that my British accent in high school was sort of, it was like a, you know, mild like posh British accent. I would say like, oh everyone, how's it? Welcome to Dear Hank and John. It's a comedy podcast with two brothers and see a questions and give you dubious advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Maz and AFC, Wimbledon.

That was like, I kind of like went into a different one at the end there. You guys have a lot of accents. It turns out that there isn't a British accent at all. I walk around and meet different people in this country, and some people are deeply unintelligible. And other people sound almost Australian. And then you've got, and then you, yes. And then you, yeah, it's not. And then people, like your accent also is not the British accent. What would you say your accent is? So I feel like my accent is like a London accent,

which is much more mumbly and very like. You drop a lot of teas. I drop a lot of teas and I get... I also do that deliberately to make myself more relate to both. Yeah, exactly. And sometimes, like, if I am hanging out with... So I went to a state school, which is what you call public school. Sure.

And I also went to a private school for a couple of years. And I had two different accents for two different groups of friends. Because you would just become more posh, just being around posh of people. And then because the accent is fake anyway, it just starts going with whatever other people are doing. All accents are fake. We're all making it up. And so sometimes it's really hard to keep up. If you're with someone who's speaking in a different, slightly different British accents, you start to pick up their mannerisms and their terminology and like the way whether they drop T's or not. And I kind of feel like I sense the kind of accent they have and I just mirror them. Right. So, which

is a little bit psychop. Well, the thing that, well's, that's your path-based. No, I think it's mirroring, which is a, like, it's a completely normal thing that, like, it's how we learn to talk at all. I can feel myself doing it when I can't stop. Because you're, because you're a conscious being. But the weirder thing is what I did, which was like, I don't want to be normal, and so I'm going to talk funny.

Uh, and litter, like, and then for a while, after a high school. You did enough for a whole year? Oh, yeah. I had a little bit of a weird Minnesota Canadian accent when I started college. And people were like, where are you from? And I was like Orlando. The least accented place of anywhere in America,

because it is just like we all learned how to talk from TV. Do you like you? Like me, see? America because it is just like we all learned how to talk from TV. Like you. Like me, see? Worlds apart, but so similar. Oh, cool. I have one more question before we're going to get to the questions from the people in the room. So get ready.

Do you have, do you have anybody need advice? We got some nods, okay. We keep looking for life on other planets, but how do we know that there is no intelligent life on the bottom of the ocean? Like entire civilizations from Lena. Lena, are you here? Hey! How are their entire civilizations on the bottom of the ocean? John, go. You're here in the music industry.

I wanna say yes. Alright, we're settled. And this is... And this is why I wanna say yes. All right, we're settled. And this is why I want to say yes. Because, I mean, you know more about science than I do. I'm just going to put that out there. It's very possible that you know more than science than I do. But I feel like we don't know anything about really, oh, we know some things.

Sorry. I feel like I'm going to teach her right now. You know, we know. She's doing her oral presentation. We know things about the ocean, but we also don't know things about the ocean. And it's kind of like the human. And one of those things could be that there's

civilizations down there. Like, you know, it's like, we don't know a lot of things, really. It's like I'm listening to a talk from the White House. So what I think we should do as a precautionary measure is build a wall in the ocean just in case there are civilizations down there. Yeah, yeah. You never know. It's a bit of a trek up the continental shelf, but you never know.

I mean, it might be a simple limitation to our shipping infrastructure, but it is important to be safe. Yeah. It's a matter of national security. The thing that I love. State of emergency. God. The thing that I think of is like, so intelligence

has evolved multiple times. But usually, it is evolved in vertebrates. So we have very smart birds, and we have very smart chimpanzees and primates and humans. We also have very smart cetaceans, whales and dolphins and stuff. But then there's octopuses and they are so freaking smart and they have nothing to do with us. Like they are just completely like on a total different evolutionary shoot. They're related to clams. Like they are not really,

they're more closely related to clams than they are to us. Equally delicious. Yeah, I had some grilled lobster last night. It was really good. It's very intelligent food. Octopus is, though. They're crazy smart.

And they have, this is the weird thing about octopuses. They have weird donut-shaped brains. Yeah. But that's not where the majority of the decision making gets done in there. It's like this is tentacles. They have distributed nervous systems. They have thinking neurons in their tentacles.

If you... So they genuinely eat every one of that tentacles has a mind of its own. Yes, could it be? The octopus learns to do something and then you cut off one of its tentacles, this is a terrible experiment, but it has been done.

The octopus gets dumber, like it forgets stuff. Like it'd be like if you cut off my foot and I forgot the words to thank you next. Because it turns out that that's my foot knew that. That's crazy. But an equity. So I think maybe there's a civilization of octopus as well.

And indeed, have thought about a science fiction story that I would write in which instead of doing chemistry in like water pots, so this is one of the things about being a chemist, do you think about like you have to create different environments for chemistry to happen in? The obvious one is like a lot of chemistry can't happen outside of water, like sacks of water, which is why we walk around with sacks of water inside of us because that's how good chemistry gets done

and why we are big bobs of, we're just water sacks. We're just big water sacks. Everybody gets used to it. So you, but, but, octopuses would need to create air sacks so that they could do air-like chemistry inside of it. So this is a story that I wanted to write about, essentially, race of octopuses that did chemistry inside of air bubbles to become to become science users.

The lost airbender but with octopuses and science. It's possible. I have not consumed that video. I'd read that. All right, she's in. All right, do we have questions from our audience? Yes. So my question is, what's your figure where you have lost in that healthy way,

like not to the point where you're lost, lost, lost. Right. How do you get lost in London specifically, or in any city that you're visiting? Right. So how do you get lost in a place, but not too lost that it's dangerous, and also not into a place where you might get stabbed.

The nice thing about now is that you can always look at your phone and it'll tell you roughly where you are. And unless you're in a tube station, and it says way out and you're following the way out signs, and then you go in a circle. Right. And you get back to the way out sign that you just saw and you're like, I'm with you now.

This is now my house. So they do that for crowd control purposes. So you could technically get from one place to another in the underground Wake quicker because there are ways to get there But they're like oh go this really long way so that we can get more people on trains by the time it takes you to get there They just kind of they want you to they want you to instead of like waiting around They want you to be in the hallway exactly. I thought I was in a Star Trek episode. I was like, I have been here before

and it was five minutes ago. Like, it took me a long time to get back and I don't like it. And I started to be like, and then it's like, your phone doesn't know where you are because you're 30 miles underground. Yes. And like, the thing about the London Underground is that, so London is on clay, which is really

soft. So what they're constantly doing is pumping water out of the ground so that the whole thing doesn't just collapse. Uh-huh. So we're like always like just like a really close to having. Just complete. So when you see a leak, it's like one of those pumps failing. So that's just constantly happening.

Well, I'm only down there a little bit. So like, probability wise, you guys are going to be the ones that die. So. Exactly. To answer the question, I am very good at getting lost because I'm very bad at directions. So I've been lost multiple times out of my hotel room in the last two days.

Just walking in the wrong direction. So my advice would be to not look at signs for a really long time, like I do. And then also just be really bad at getting your bearings right because if I just literally turn around Like you know when you come out of a sharpen then you Go back the way that you were walking not realizing that you have done that it's just because I've turned around I've turned around I forgot which way I just like one three sixty and you like walk out of the shop and you walk back to your hotel instead of the other Direction. Yeah, so maybe turn around a lot. I have, there should be an app that just, like, it's called Lost Finder.

And it just, like, takes you. And it's like, we're going to take you to a random spot in Seattle. Enjoy. That's a good idea. That sounds fun to me. All right. Another, any more advice?

How do you deal with all different stuff and crowd. How do you handle convention crowd life? I've been to lots of conventions in my life. The first convention I ever went to was an anime convention in Orlando when I was a kid. I went to a bunch of Harry Potter conventions. I went to car shows, which are like conventions, but there's cars. There's actually one in this building right now. It's a adventure.

Weirdly enough. And so I like to... Sometimes it's hard to get to the place where I want to be. Sometimes it's hard to decide where I want to be doing, and then I decide to do a lot of things that are not eat food, and then I realize that I have an eaten food, and six to 12 hours, and that becomes a problem, because I'm just like too excited

about the things going on. But like the overwhelmingness of the crowd, that I deal with by like, I would, it's very easy to interpret this as like, by judging the humans that walk by me. I'm not judging them. I just am looking at them and I'm thinking like, what is the life that that person has?

Look at the shoes that they chose to put on this morning. And I sort of like pick individual little things to look at rather than the mass of things that are happening around me. And that like gives me a thing to think about that is not like the anxiety of being in a crowd which can be a pretty intense anxiety. Like those flowery boots for example, those are great. I could think about those for like five minutes.

I think so my main experience with conventions is YouTube once. And I think that for me, because I've always been like, mainly been a creator at these things, and I find that knowing that people aren't really here to see me, I feel like it's an imposter syndrome kind of thing. But also it makes me feel really like free to be able to walk around and do whatever, but I also feel like people are looking at me and being like, she's a featured creator, but I don't know who she is, you know what I mean?

So I find that kind of like really make a little bit more nerve-racking. But when I was at conventions, just to go, like Summer and the City, for example, the most difficult thing for me was being there on my own and having to kind of almost pitch yourself to someone, not as a creator, but just like as a person. You know, to be like, do we have any common ground? Like, can I walk around with you for the next three days?

It's a big commitment to make. So yeah, so I think that's really difficult. I think like the, yeah, that was a challenge. Like crowds for me, like not a thing that concerns me or causes me anxiety. It's more about actually interfacing with you. Right, and like finding people that you're going to spend time with.

Right, because you don't wanna like, and it, on the other side of it as well, like you can meet someone who's kind of not your cup of tea. And you're like, I don't, I don't want to be stuck with you that whole weekend because I'm going to have a miserable time. And then it becomes awkward because then you like, I'm trying to like see me other people and be like are you What kind of to you yeah, right exactly So I have no advice to keep okay, well now we know least what your anxieties are All right one more question. I think probably turning on my phone. Yes

There were all the hands were already up when I looked up So I didn't know who raised their hand first I would put your hands on again all the hands were already up when I looked up, so I didn't know who raised their hand first. I wouldn't put your hands on against it. No, I'm against it. Well, wow, you guys, who put your hand down first? I'll go with you. I think it was you. Yeah. But how do you deal with the question that goes to the next central crisis and not the dog?

Right, so the question is, I'm taking a philosophy course. How do I not, like not be a philosopher? Basically, none of them are happy people. It seems, and you look at the history of philosophers, they don't seem like a hedonistic lot. They're very worried about ethics and doing the right thing and sometimes think themselves into oblivion. So how do you avoid that fate?

How do you not have existential crises while studying philosophy which seems to be what it's designed for? I think you don't. You don't. I think that's the kind of the purpose. We live our lives for a lot of our lives. And sometimes for your whole life, not really examining why we're making our decisions, how we ended up in our situation,

the culture that we're inside of and how it influences the decisions that we make and how we see the world. And a lot of people go through life without really questioning that stuff. And that is the simple way to do it, but it's not like the good way to do it. And so, when you start asking those big questions, like, why can't I wear a skirt without people looking at me weird? And I have to wear separate, each leg has to be in its own skirt. That, like, why is that?

And how serious a consequence it is for a man to wear women's clothes. And how that is, something that could actually be physically dangerous to a human being. So, you start to ask questions like that, and it opens up a big can of arms of how many of the choices that I make are my choices, and how many of them are the choices that society has made for me. Generally, I find an existential crisis really comforting. All right. Yeah, because I have this too. I'll come my story after you.

Okay, as I feel like, especially, I don't know, maybe the way that I was brought up was everything is definitively the way it is. And it's just black and white, you know what I mean? This is a thing that you should do and this is a thing that you shouldn't do and it's decided for you and it's decided by extraterrestrial beings that you can't question. Sure. And so being taught that way, it feels like everything's got a lot of weight and it feels like everything is a bigger deal than it is.

And then when you have that kind of thought process of, it's so arbitrary that I have two skirts for my legs rather than one. Yeah. And somehow that's really significant to everyone on the planet. It makes you feel like, oh, it's not actually a big deal at all.

And actually, it's not black and white. It's just a lot of gray. And I can be very comfortable in this gray. And I have the same. I have the same other thing when you look up at the stars and you're like, oh boy, we're a tiny little dot. I'll round one tiny little dot in a tiny little dot among tiny little dots. Exactly.

And I'm like, you can see that and be like, hey, wow, all of like, I mean nothing, and nothing means anything, and all meaning has evaporated, or you can see it and think, like, all. Everything is fine. Yeah, and like, ultimately, like, like the my big screw ups aren't as big,

and the meaning that we have is defined by us. And I get to choose what matters to me, and like, we all are collectively choosing the stuff that has significance. Exactly. And that doesn't mean that it isn't significant because I matter. Exactly.

And that's both freeing and also, it gives me a connection. Yeah, it's freeing, terrifying. But it also gives me a connection to other people and makes me think this really is a human endeavor rather than some like, you know, universal endeavor. And that doesn't make it more, more or less valuable, it just like, it helps me understand what it actually is. Yeah. That's what we're going to end our podcast. The News from Mars is terrible, so I don't want to tell you about it. And the News from AFC Wimbledon, let's be honest, it's also

bad. But they are, yeah, we're going to, they're going to play their FA Cup game today. And- I think so, and Kingston? I don't know what that means. Yes? Oh, okay.

Yes. Why do I know that? I knew that. That's my thing. And yeah, and so they're going to play their FA Cup game today against the championship league team and they will Profferate. They pay. Almost certainly Millwall. They will almost certainly lose, but they did just beat a premier league team, so maybe it'll happen. Who's it? They beat?

Really? Yeah, it was a thing That's great. Yeah FA Cup. Congratulations. That's what it's all about. Thank you. I appreciate your support. And thank you everybody for coming out. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. That would be awesome. Thanks, FA Cup.

It's got to be awesome. Thanks, FA Cup. Thank you.