Dissect - BONUS - Talking Childish Gambino with S7 co-writer Camden Ostrander

Episode Date: March 2, 2021

Cole and S7 co-writer Camden Ostrander have a conversation about Childish Gambino, Because The Internet, 3.15.20, Glover as an artist, and more. Then they answer a handful of questions submitted by Dissect listeners (yes, they address those mysterious alien videos). Shop limited Season 7 merch: https://bit.ly/36ClxIV Dive deeper into the world of Because The Internet with our episodic visual guides (https://bit.ly/30EKbF1), where you can also read the BTI screenplay in full. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @dissectpodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Spotify, this is Dysect, long-form musical analysis broken into short digestible episodes. I'm your host, Cole Kushna. Hello everybody, and welcome to a special episode of Dysect. I'm Cole Kushna, and today we have the special guest, Camden Ostrander, who was the co-writer of season seven. How are you? I'm doing good. Thank you for having me, Cole. How are you?

Yeah, I'm doing good. energized, ready for the conversation. So kind of allay the land here for this episode. Essentially, I wanted to do this just to introduce audiences to you because you wrote the majority of season seven. And I want them to kind of get to know you a little bit. So we'll be kind of doing some question and answers that I have for you and kind of peeling back the curtain a little bit for this season and talk about process a little bit. And then we're going to take some questions that we're going to take some questions that we have for you. We got on social media about the season and about Donald Clever.

So we're answering some of those. And then finally, we're going to end the show with the rest of the listener submissions that we got, where listeners described their kind of biggest takeaway of the album. And we had about an hour of those left. Awesome. Yeah, we had a ton came in this time, which was really great to hear. And, yeah, I mean, they're pretty impactful. even the ones just on the finale, I thought were really honest and emotional.

And I really appreciated everyone that took the time to do that. So if you sent a clip, it will be heard. So yeah, let's just jump into, I kind of just let's start with kind of a brief introduction of you. And you don't have to go into your life story or anything. But if you want to just give us a sense of who you are and really kind of, you know, how you got interested in Donald Glover's work. because like I said, on the finale episode, I do kind of see you as the world's leading Donald Glover scholar.

So I'm just curious about how this kind of obsession started. Gotcha. All right, well, that's super nice of you to say, Cole. Thank you. So I'm Cam. I am a high school English teacher, besides writing here for Dissect, which has been great. Donald Glover has essentially been my portal to culture

since I was like at the beginning of high school. In 2010, he dropped a mixtape cul-de-sac. I just got a computer with the internet. It was like the first thing I downloaded. Ever since then, I've basically been a super fan and just always wanted to look for connections and conversations and community online. How did you find cul-de-sac?

Because that was, I mean, that was pretty early on. That was very early. I watched community. which came out in fall 2009. And I was like, wow, this is my favorite show ever. Like, this is the first show that I felt a personal connection to. So when I finally got, like, internet, I was like, I want to find out everybody involved in the show.

Troy and Donald Glover were obviously some of my favorite parts of the show. Yeah. And so I, like, looked into everything about him. I think he was, like, just about or just had dropped the mixtape. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So when did the kind of formal analysis?

and kind of the academic approach to his work start? So because the internet came out 2013, and I was very into it as it was happening. It was my senior year of high school, so I think I was starting to get my brain set right and start to figure out that I could think about things on a deeper level. So like this was for me the first work where I was like,

whoa, there's deeper meaning in pop culture. And so that, kind of set it off. And so every time since then, in my like academic career, I guess, that I had a chance to create a work about something I wanted to, like that I got any choice. It was always Donald Glover, Gambino, because internet, which led to eventually by the end of college, I created a website and a whole thesis about because internet as a world and kind of explored and broke down the fact that how every single part of the world interplayed between each other and how all the connections between them were part of the themes and the messages

that we're getting across. Yeah. And so that kind of, the website that I made then kind of gave me some groundwork to work from. Yeah, I mean, that was the website that you introduced to me via email, just to give people an idea of how we met. You might remember better than I can in terms of timelines and stuff, but I just remember getting your email among, I don't know if it was, was it when I called for pitches or? You sent like a tweet like, hey, does anybody have any ideas of pitches or something?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yours definitely stood out at the time, especially because of the website. You know, anytime I'm fielding pitches or, you know, getting emails like that, like it really, it's essential that you have something to kind of show. Right. otherwise it's hard to just it's hard to know by a couple paragraphs yeah so i remember you know because i made this pretty public at least on social media but i wasn't a huge fan of because the internet before this season always knowing that um i never really put it on the album i always kind of

saw it as my own shortcomings and like not really knowing because i missed the initial launch of it It was, you know, 2013. I think I was, I'm pretty sure I was in college then. And when I was in college, I was like, head in the weeds, classical music was all that I listened to. And so I missed, it's ironic because a lot of the albums that I cover on Dissect, I actually miss the whole rollout, the whole hype around them because I was in the classical world just like with my head down. Because it was enough to try to just catch up on that world because I knew nothing about that going into college. So I was really just trying to catch up on my knowledge there. And so then when I got out of college,

there's all these records that came out in like the four years that I was in college and just had a lot of catching up to do. All that to say, though, you know, because the internet was amongst those albums that I just missed. I 100% missed, like I don't remember anything about it. I think the only thing that I remember about it was the sway freestyle, actually. Everybody saw that. Everybody saw that, yeah.

And that was like the golden era of Kanye. I think Kanye is like the one guy that. I was really, even in college I was paying attention to. But anyways. But yeah, so your website really kind of unlocked the world for me. And even though I even started the season and I signed you on to do it, I still wasn't like a huge fan at that point. You might remember our first conversation.

I was pretty honest about it. But I believed in your work and your pilot that you wrote for World Star enough. And there was enough listeners requests to just me like, I know I'm probably in the wrong and that's kind of what ended up happening which I'll talk about later but yeah I mean so all that to say I guess like yeah

your website was incredible and the way that you're able to translate that to kind of what we did with season seven I thought was really great I think it also had something to do with that I made a content guide at the beginning of pandemic

I had like time off for my two jobs finally so like I made that content guide that was like there's no commentary. This is just every piece of the world we still have. And I sent that to you again like, hey, Cole, I'm following up. And I think that was the moment. I think that worked. Yeah, the timing was great. I mean, we'll talk about kind of the themes and how they resonate today. But yeah, it all worked out. I feel like at the right time. And that's really that's really what started to sell me on the album, which I now love. Like, I should just say that up front. I really love and appreciate this album now. And all that pretty much thanks to you. But it was really

when I started to see the world, the larger world, and how the album was just one piece of it. And even though aesthetically, it's still not what I prefer usually with music, just in terms of, like, my sonic preferences. Yeah, when I realized what he was doing with not only the music, but the screenplay, the public performance, all the pieces that connect, it really for me it changed the way I listened to the album because after you realize all those connections and all those kind of various pieces you can for me it's hard to listen to the album and not think about being in this world and like kind of just using the album to kind of you know like almost like how uh what are those things called the uh the circuits like circuits like kind of going into all the firing off yeah and like and connecting with different parts of it and it's just like I just became, you know, had a lot of respect for what he attempted to do, which is this huge undertaking, which is because the internet. So anyway, so yeah, I wanted to kind of get into your experience about just riding for the show. I know that was kind of a first for you. And, you know, just talk generally about the experience, I guess I'm curious to know, because we haven't really talked about it too much.

No, I know we haven't. That's another, I don't know if everybody realizes we've had maybe a. handful of conversations. We haven't been able to talk much. We conversed through the scripts. Exactly. All of our conversations are through the script. So writing has been pretty amazing.

I'm very lucky that I have had the opportunity and the timing how this is all worked out, which has been great. Writing has been a wonderful experience. To be able to dive into all the little details and to really scan through and like take time, on each word has been really important and a really nice opportunity and a good chance to have to really appreciate every part of it. Because in the past I've written about the world and

these larger components and how those interact. But being able to really parse everything down has been such an incredibly rewarding experience. Because I've known some of these things that we wrote about and talked about, but I did not know all of this was going to happen when I started. So it's been a very great learning experience. And a lot of that also comes from like your guidance and being able to work through all these things, which has been really nice. Yeah. What's like, is there a memorable moment that or like a discovery that you had that sticks out? Like I know for me, I'm trying to think of a recent one.

I can't think of one off the top of my head. But whenever, anytime I make a big discovery, like sometimes I'll like literally jump out of my seat. Like, oh, that's fucking awesome. Like, amazing. It happens all the time. Yeah. Yeah. What are the, you have any of those moments this season?

I had a ton of those moments. It was really amazing because I also felt like nobody's had these moments with because I think we broke a lot of new ground, which was nice. So every time I was hitting these, I was like, I felt like I knew something the world didn't know, which was kind of crazy. Yeah. There was, there's been a bunch of them. The first one, I think you kind of alluded to this with the World Star Script was,

the mushrooms and the coffee. I had talked about like the splitting the song down the half and I knew all of that. But then I was having a conversation with a friend Brian Harrington and he and we were both, I was talking about like, well, the first half is like this. The second half is so psychedelic. And we were like, what if he put shrooms in the coffee? Like what if that's what this is? And we're like, we lost our minds.

So that conversation was like a highlight for me. and how nervous I was writing that spec script that was like the moment I was like okay it's cool I know Cole's going to take this like this is going to happen other moments include the married buried moment in Telegraph Ave

because I had built a lot of like the context for that song and I kept listening to it over and over and over again thinking about the fact that each lyric was subjective and then realizing that he sang both in that one word and how it connected to the way he would write the blogs and all the performance art that went into that song was crazy.

And then the last one I think that I really need to mention is the recluse and the look at the rec and the rec league. Yeah, yeah. That tying together the first half of the album was something I was like jumping around my room. Like I could not believe that I hadn't seen it, that nobody had seen it, and that the first and last word of the first half are the same. Yeah.

And how many implications that the word has? It was insane. Yeah, that was, that was, yeah, there was a number of moments even just reading the scripts where I was like, oh, my God. And it's funny because I think I started out more skeptical, in general in terms of, like, you know, for me, like on the show, it's like the biggest risk that I take is, like, you don't want the show to come off as just a sequence of, like, big reaches, you know, just to make the show entertaining.

So I'm always like very cautious about the things that I put in the show and really want to make sure that they're grounded. So I remember being a little more skeptical. But one of the cool things about this when you, the couple things I guess. One, the expansiveness of the world allows for all these like connections that I think are intentional. And there's enough of them to be like, oh, it's it's obvious this was intentional. The rec thing is like a perfect example of that. If that was just on its own, it's like. okay, maybe it's a coincidence, but when you tie all the connections together, it's like, oh, that's very purposeful.

And I think there's a bit of flexibility this season only because, in terms of interpretation, only because I think the large point of this record and the theme was subjectivity and was kind of... You have to reach out. Yeah, you have to reach out. And it was like the world was that one of the genius parts of my interpretation in the world, at least, is that it's not, he doesn't spell it out for you. He's just giving you ingredients to bake your own cake with. You know, it's like he's, he's just giving you the pieces. And there's some, you know, clear narratives. But for the most part, it's just kind of random, not random, but, you know. It's a, it's a curated range of books and pieces that we can all go into. You can log into the computer. at the library or you could pick up a book at the library you could do all this different stuff there that's what he made like that's what he built yeah and and it's it's it's because of the obscurity that we're able to do that in a large part because if you it was if it was such a narrow piece

that it didn't have that expansive quality it would be you know less expansive it would be less to explore and so the ambiguity and the kind of looseness of connections is what allows it to be this living, breathing thing. Exactly, yeah. It's like a place we can inhabit and keep staying in, which is nice. Yeah, which, I mean, I think the biggest challenges season was trying to fit it all in, which is impossible, I think. I was trying to think, like, what, is there a form in your mind that you think could do the work?

Because I feel like we did the justice within the constraints of what dissect is. I think we did it justice, but there was so much that we had to leave out just for, timing for structural purposes. I'm just wondering if there is a form in your mind that might be able to come closer to encapsulating everything in the world. Right. I think it's being made and I think dissect is an important part of it. Because I'm going to be on, like when I was pitching the season, I was like,

okay, if this doesn't happen, I'm building something myself. Yeah. It's felt that important and essential to me. And I don't really want to pitch you, but like the thing that I'm trying to build, I think one of the projects that I have outlined and I've thought of as I think this would be the way to do it is a docu series. Kind of like that film that explored The Shining and all those interpretations of that, kind of like all these 10-part documentary series we've seen, I think that is another part that could get into like the film aspects and the visual aspects. Yeah. Something kind of like an extension of what we did with the 2005 video.

I think is a project that still can loom large. I think there's still a lot of stuff to be talked about. And I look forward to doing that. I think that's going to be good. Yeah, I mean, that would be great. In terms of limitation, though, I almost think it would be more limiting a visual that. I guess it depends on how many episodes. It depends, yeah.

Because you can literally do a 30 episode hour long to dedicate all the everything to this world. So, yeah, I don't know. It was just something that I thought of in terms of like how. how can you encapsulate this world? Especially with what I mean, what's great about your work is that you've documented and saved a lot of things that aren't available anymore. Spin hard.

That's one of the challenging, too. When did you start doing that? 2016, like a year or two after it came out, things started to disappear. And that's when I, like, freaked out. And I started to save everything that I could and started to try and piece everything together. there are still pieces that are gone forever.

I'm worried that they're gone forever. So that kind of bums me out. But like, yeah, this has been a labor of love for years. Yeah. Yeah, he doesn't seem, I think you mentioned this to me at some point, but he doesn't seem very sentimental in terms of trying to preserve what he created, which thematically fits with what, like, he was talking about. But at the same time.

It's an experience. It's a moment. Yeah. You have to learn from it. experience it and then move on because we have other stuff to do. We have to grow up. Like, I do worry sometimes that we didn't get because internet and the time we needed to. I think we'll talk about that more later, but like. Yeah, I mean, we can get into that now. I think that's a good segue. I mean, it seems more

relevant today than it did. I mean, I didn't experience it so you can lend some insight here, but it seems more relevant today. It was almost like a like a premonition. Like, everything he's talking about rings to me way truer than it could have back then. Gotcha. It is prophetic. I mean, even on a silly side, the number of Lion King and Star Wars references because of the internet, blow your mind. Just to look back and be like, oh my God, did he know? Like, you can wonder. To me, in the moment when I got, like, when it happened in the moment, I thought it was, like, I thought it was everything. I thought it was super important to the time. I felt it connected with my life. I really felt it very deeply and personally, but I've always felt it deeply and personally since then.

I think it's a thing that over the time continues to change and grow, and we make new connections with it over time. So, like, right now, it feels very important. And until we have an entirely new world or new system or form of communication, like, I think it's going to feel relevant and important. Yeah, I think mostly I was thinking about just he was able to recognize, like, the seeds that have now developed into what I think is more obviously problematic parts of the internet and social media, which 2013 is like not that long ago, but in terms of what's happened

since in terms of, you know, acceleration of technology and just our reliance on, you know, social media and all these things that we use more than we did back then, the way that he was able to examine it then. Because even if you look at like Twitter back then, it's nothing really like it was, you know, what it is now. I mean, I guess fundamentally it's the same, but the way that we use it, I feel like, is, you know, only kind of grown exponentially. So it's interesting to think about him being able to know this because he's born out of it. Like his ability to understand where it's going is because he was born from it. Like his whole career, like Derek Comedy on YouTube, the fact that Childish Gambino is a meme generator product. Like his whole thing is born from it. So I think

he was able to see like what had happened to him and be able to understand what was happening to all of us. I think he felt it very personally and was able to package it so early. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And even to the point of like the whole we were becoming God, like it's like he's thinking. Yes, he is. You know, yes, he is thinking. He is thinking. He's thinking about the future. Yeah. No, and it's, and he's kind of, it makes sense to me, but he's, and maybe you can, you can lay that out, because we talked about that a couple times in the season, but part of me wonders if it really came across. So maybe you can kind of talk about that concept of like the whole we are becoming God. Okay. Idea. So the idea

of what God, like, because he, his whole relationship with like religion and maybe traditional concepts that we've thought of is pretty interesting and complex, being raised Jehovah's Witness, but not necessarily adhering to the faith. and all the conflict, I think, and turmoil that he, it seems we can recognize that he's felt, especially like on a song like Zelets of Stockholm, where he's being pretty personal about it. So the idea of, like, God to him is the act of creating something. When you make a space for people to connect, like you make a world, like God, in like biblical terms, made the world and made it a space for us to live.

So any act of creating anything is an act of God, because you're making something, you've made a connection and produce something from it, which then becomes a space for conversation and connection and life. So our ability to create and our ability to make connections is growing exponentially because we're making more connections than we ever have before. Like you are reaching more people than even a nationwide leader could in medieval times. Right? Like your voice right now reaches more people than entire nations used to.

So we have so many more connections and we're just creating so much more. and there's also the idea of like because we are so connected like we find ourselves in each other and just like this massive unity he kind of if you look at like the arch of the career and kind of what he has talked about more publicly recently you look at it a bit like he's looking at infinity and like this shimmering idea of humanity as some like one conscious thing or like i think he calls it the deep web in that deep web tour announcement where he's like our human deep subconscious. Like we are going towards the ocean, all of us together.

We are all going to be one. Some things he's talked about recently, like the neurolink and like AI and how that's all going to progress towards that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's where I see things going for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I'm wondering just, and I think I know the answer to this, but I just, I'm wondering if you kind of believe what he's selling.

in terms of like the themes and you know is there anything assuming that you're most of it's probably yes is there anything that you kind of disagree with or just kind of give me your general consensus on on you know what he's kind of talking about in his art i like worry about it a lot i think because i do buy into what he seems to be like the idea of the future that he has um and his his like the hope is that we can build humanity into whatever our future is because we're like we began and we're going to end. So we can either preserve some of us, the good parts of us, or it's over. And we see this in so many ways.

Like we have made so many mistakes and the ways that we have set things up that might have doomed us or we can try and figure out a way to save ourselves as we move towards the end. The thing I just get concerned that no, that not enough people are listening or that not enough people are hearing it or connecting with it and that we're not. not going to be able to kind of preserve humanity and preserve the things that are special to us as we move on. So I don't know if like I agree, but I just get so nervous and I get worried about it kind of, I think is how I see it. Yeah, I think that's understandable. I think a lot of us are

worried. I think this year was a, you know, a wake-up call in terms of the severity of a lot of things that you know how bad things can come at least in my life i think this year is um it's definitely been the most intense that i've experienced i've never really felt a you know a nation a wounded nation like this before i think you know i was too young to really process 9-11 like obviously i remember it and stuff but i imagine it's somewhat something like that where you know today this year was just you can feel the nation hurting Like that, you can just feel it in the air. At least I can.

And I think that was just kind of, yeah, even just dissecting this work now in this moment, really, for me, illuminated a lot. I think more than anything, it gave me stuff to consider and think about, which I think is what he was kind of, you know, attending on anyway. It seems like more about, like, there's definitely he wanted to say something, but. I think the inspiration of conversation is the point more than any point that he was trying to make. Does that make sense? I don't know if I'm explaining that correctly. I think so because with conversation, like he said before, like recently in the New York time, the New Yorker profile that happened about him before season two of Atlanta, he said,

if there is a God, all she wants is a conversation. And so I think the way that he sees it is we have to figure this out so that requires connection and conversation and that produces whatever is next. And so what he wants to do is to build that safe space for us because we've created spaces that are not safe for conversation and connection. Like we've created an economic system that requires competition and requires stunting and requires, if one person's going to eat, somebody else is going to go hungry. and a bunch of other things like that.

And so he's like using art and using his ability to create so much. Like I think he does feel a frenetic need. And he talked about this when he said he would like wake up screaming, thinking that he's not doing enough to help humanity. Like he, that is felt in your bones and in your soul, the fact that you need to make a space for everybody else. Which is also really interesting thinking just about the way he was raised with his parents being foster parents.

and like imagining the home that was created by that family for so many people and seeing him like essentially continue and extend the amazing work of his family. It's pretty inspirational. I think it's really interesting to think about like that framing his purpose. Yeah. And it's it's a it's a contrast to what, you know, another thing that illuminated that was illuminated for me, at least personally was just the way social media has developed, even since 2013, you know, I don't know, I don't know what year they started kind of using the algorithm to feed us, you know, content on our feed that's customized rather than just what was, you know, once they figured out they could make money off of it. Yeah, and the way that, well, yeah, I mean, it ties into like capital and ads and clicks and, you know, this attention economy.

But the way that just this little experiment that we've had over the last. Whenever they did that, let's say the last 10 years or something. Right. And just leading to just this moment of division and polarization, I really feel like a lot of it has to do with the way that we are using social media and the way that social media has been programmed to essentially feed off of conflict. Because when I experience, what I experience out in the real world is nothing like I experience, or at least witness on Twitter.

I just don't think we're as divided as we think we are. I think there's a feeling of division. I think it's false though. I think we are more connected than we are, you know, disconnected. And I think what we're experiencing right now is kind of an illusion. And I think a lot of it has to do with this digital world that is a huge experiment at this point. You know, we're the first, we're the guinea pigs of what's going on right now. And I just, for me personally, this, dissecting this album, watching, what is that?

that documentary that came out on Netflix. Social Experiment, is what it's called? The social, yeah. Social experiment. Or dilemma, social dilemma. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I know that like illuminated, you know, kind of lifted the veil on a lot of things for a lot of people.

And just looking into this thing that, you know, we're all using hours on day, not really examining it. It was kind of like this slow feed. You know, we all got cell phones, whatever, 10 years ago or whatever it was. we probably were, well, most of us were not using them as much back then, but then it's just been this slow accumulation where more and more this digital world becomes more infused with our life to where I feel like it's pretty much on equal footing with what we do in the physical world is what we, you know, do on in the digital world. And for some people, the digital world is probably more. And I just feel like it's, this has been a good year to kind of take a step

back all this tying into because the internet really thinking about how we want to move forward, how we need to inject humanity into these digital structures, or we're just going to kill each other. I mean, that's really how close we are to a civil war right now is, I think, indicative of like what can happen. That's like the worst case scenario, right? Or one of worst case scenarios. And I do think a lot of it has to do with how we. interact online. And this year and this album, really for me personally, just made me, you know,

take a step backwards. And it's like, okay, how am I personally using this tool? Am I using it correctly? And then how are we as a, you know, kind of as the world, how are we choosing to use this system and what can we do to make it better? For sure. Yeah. No, totally. I agree with all that. Yeah. Yeah, so let's move on. I know we're, let's see, we're already at 40 minutes. Crazy how fast these things go. So I definitely want to leave some time for the listener questions.

Yes, we should do that. So let's get to, so I organized a few that multiple people had questions about. So we're going to answer those first, and then we'll get into the more individual questions. A lot of people are curious about Kauai's connection to Stone Mountain Kauai follow-up connection to BTI. If it's part of the narrative, if so, where does it fit in? How does it change? Because the Internet, obviously, that could be probably its own season on itself. But if you want to give some kind of recap or short form analysis of what you think, where that fits in.

Gotcha. So it's like a concept mixtape EP joint project. I think we have to remember that when it was created, he was envisioning it as the sequel. He enlisted the help of other artists and that all the money from it went to, the Kauai section went to preserving national land in Kauai and that the Stone Mountain section went to police reform.

So that, like he was thinking about these things, about creating a safer space when he made them and enacted that in real life. the Stone Mountain mixtape serves as a dream sequence like it like it was all a dream but like actually it was all a dream um so he starts the album right yeah

yeah exactly I had a dream and then the last word is and then I woke up so it gets us a nice kind of inclination and like a dream sequence of like this is a fantasy he has he talks about selling 10 million copies of Rosco's wetsuit and all these of his newest album

um the interesting thing about it is that Stone Mountain mixtape was for so many people, they were like, oh, Donald Glover is from Atlanta? What? Like nobody, so many people didn't know. So that was an interesting part of it. And in that way, it sort of serves as a flashback. It's like, this is where I am from. This is me, you know, kind of really getting into a lot of that locale. With the Kauai EP part of it, it's kind of like a fantasy of the future. We saw Kauai in, because of the internet,

appear as a fantasy land. Like he's in Telegraph Ave when he wants to go trips to Kauai. And he talks about like in interviews he mentions, he's like, I'm trying to be able to provide for my family so they can just go live in Kauai and not worry about anything. Like this idea of this shimmering fantasy island is a kind of utopic idea. So when we look at it, it's sort of like So Mountain is the past or where he was at. because internet and the palisades are the moment of because internet and then kawai is the future and we see that i think it all gets summed up in the secret track and we talked about this in that

episode but like that moment is both the beginning the middle and the end it is infinity like it encompasses between the verse structure and the idea of becoming god and all the connection in the infinity that we talked about with 2005 like that just kind of encapsulates and ties it all together in a big old loop. Yeah, that's pretty impressive, to say the least. Yes, yeah. And there's a lot more we can obviously say about each part of it. But that's for another time, I guess.

Yeah, that's for your next project, I think. Exactly. Yeah, so then let's talk about the ever mysterious alien thread. Maybe give a brief summary of what the alien thread is and then kind of where you see it kind of tying into. Right. Okay. So the, this is one of the,

favorite questions we got was about the alien thread and the music videos. In the video for the worst guys, which was initially password protected on childish gambino.com, in that video, we see Donald gets this like monster attaches to his leg. And like one shot, we see him walking away with it. And it's like when he's not wearing his wetsuit, interestingly enough. So the alien attaches to his leg. And we're like, oh, what is that? And then throughout the videos, there are these ideas of this loosely tied narrative that it might be related to Donald being infected with this alien and the different actions that he has.

And people have a bunch of different theories about, like, in sweatpants, it's because the aliens are taking over the world and occupying each body, which I don't necessarily agree with. But it kind of gets developed and reaches a climactic point with Telegraph Ave, where we see Donald and Jenae, who is either playing Naomi or some other character. Honestly, at this point, we don't really know. In what might be a flashback or a flash forward or a fantasy dream, who knows. But they're in Kauai and they get followed by some locals who are scared of Donald for apparently no reason until they attack. And then he becomes this monster and kills them and saves Jene. So there's this whole alien subplot, surreal narrative.

I think the thing to stress is like, because the internet, it doesn't have one single fixed narrative. There are multiple ideas of what is happening and they're all intertwined and they exist on different planes and platforms. If you look at the influence of Hero Marai, the director, his surreal and his horror aspects that he's always brought to Gambino's projects, his influence on the music videos and his work on those, it seems like this is the perfect space for Hero to be like, let's toss in this crazy, horrific idea.

and there's like a lot of with the world building that Donald has like this is an interesting way to be like okay now let's include outer space in the world and let's include fantasy and stuff like that

personally I think the best way to look at it was that article by was Trey Smith it's like all about that race and covering the secret in child scambino's music videos when he kind of details

the alien subplot is sort of this extended metaphorical narrative of being black in America and feeling like an outsider and how you're provoked for different ideas of what you could be and what happens when you act in different ways and things like that. Yeah, I remember you kind of stressing the world-building aspect of it where it being, you know, another part of the world seemed to be a part of the point.

There's just another thread you could follow within this larger thing. Okay, so multiple people also asked, let's see, I'm just going to read this one from at Money Rudd. Money Red, okay. Money or not, yeah. Given that BTI is a direct continuation of the story on camp, do you see any connections either directly through narrative or thematically between BTI and Awaken My Love and 31520? So I'll let you handle that because I haven't really thought about it. that much. Gotcha. So I see a bunch and I see it in the whole world of Donald Glover universe. It's not just the albums that continue these kind of narrative or thematic ideas. And I think one thing

to just like to say at the start of this to kind of frame the thinking is the way that Glover seems to have integrated his personal life with the work and the way that like as audiences, we do that with all the time. When we know a celebrity and they make art, that knowledge of the celebrity in real life impacts our understanding of the art. So I just say that to say, it seems like he's just continued to interweave his own life with the art in ways that allow for people to kind of create thematic ties. With Awaken My Love, there's definitely an aspect of fatherhood. There's some ideas about it being like the boy's father, which isn't necessarily like set in stone,

but there are many thematic similarities. then we see a lot of connections also between this and some of like the TV and film work for instance like Awaken My Love there's a guitar solo about the father and the mother and in Guava Island like the two lovers meet at like an acoustic guitar solo

like that's how they fall in love and it's like oh he did the same thing twice this is probably connected I think the biggest thing to look at with because the internet getting carried on is in Atlanta If you look at the pilot of Atlanta The first scene is a world star scene Like they get in a fight in a parking lot And a guy yells World Star and Donald says no no no don't do that

Or Earn says that Yeah there's also the idea of Earn the song Got Continued as Earned the character That's definitely there Especially with the fact that Atlanta really more directly deals with capitalism And kind of capital and earn marks as in This guy has to figure out how to make money How to earn value

the one big thing and I think this like really blows it open as far as like okay everything is tied together thematically is because the internet starts with that you can't live your life on a bus and that kind of call to action and the pilot of Atlanta

almost the thesis of the entire show is when Erne is on a bus with his daughter and he asks this guy who is sitting there and who's like on infomercials and he like is kind of this weird esoteric guy and he comes up to Earn and he approaches him and asks him why he's struggling and Earn says, are some people here just to make it easier for the winners? Like, is that all I'm here for?

And the guy tells him, you know, to like stay the course and let the current push you through the river. And Ernst says, I'm not going out like that. But that's the central question. Yeah. And Earns on a bus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, it's definitely tied to everything we saw. Well, with a daughter, too.

Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, that's that's a great point. I know a couple of people asked about 31520. You want to touch on that at all? So here's my, okay, so I love 31520 and I love when people ask and want to talk about it. I don't know what to say because I don't feel that it's finished. And there isn't enough of the context that I really like honestly like me like with the foundation of all the work that I've done, I thrive on all the context and all the other. stuff that gets tossed into it. I think it's death by numbers. I think if you look at the song and because the internet death by numbers and you look at the visualizer for that and how he uses that visualizer with the circles and the triangles and these different ideas of this is life and action and really all like the

infinity that is contained within that visualizer and then putting that into action on 31520 where all the titles are numbers and it is and it looks like it is the death of childish Gambino, which we've kind of been thinking is coming for a while. He's definitely been indicating he wants a name change, which makes sense. He's got to grow up and death happens and we need to move on and all of those things. So the way I like to frame it and think about it, like if you want to tie them together them mathematically, is thinking about death by numbers, the reincarnation aspects, the ideas of freedom and of blank slates, and looking at that as 315, 20. Yeah. Okay, that's a move on to iconic delivery says how do you feel about all the celebs that were in BTI whether in concert

or on the album Gabriel Union Rick Ross as father chance as the friend you know we touched on this I think throughout the season but we did I do think I cut like your kind of overall explanation from the finale so I wanted to give you a chance to just kind of touch on how you see the celebrities functioning um yeah what's what's their functioned what do they offer to the world? Okay. Thank you, cool. So I think like the performance art aspects of because of the internet and the way that it highlights

and illuminates the fact that we have, that everything that we know is because of the internet, it's because of the interconnections we make with things. When we see that the boy's father is supposed to be Rick Ross, every idea we've ever had about listening to any Rick Ross song comes into play. When we see Chance the rapper, who back then was much different than Chance the rapper right now, But when we see him come in, like we know the character he's playing. And Glover really was able to intertwine public life with the art in these ways that push a lot of boundaries. Like Rick Ross, I think, is super symbolically indicative of constructed identity, kind of postmodern ideas of you can be anybody.

You want to be. You can just make it up, right? Because Rick Ross did that. And it's like, we got to deal with reality a bit too. Like, we need to figure out how to move on from that idea because that idea on its own is problematic. as we've seen Rick Ross B as much as we love Rick Ross

but excess is his character Yeah So there's things like that There's also the Jeannay Ico thread where he had every tabloid thinking that they were in love What's the movie that you said Connected to this

With Kubrick Where eyes wide shut Eyes Wide Shut Yeah Where having the stars Like be publicly intertwined Really does affect the way that we see the romance in the space of the art.

Yeah, so it's just kind of a more illumination on identity, perception, and how the interaction of all these things really create our quote-unquote identities, which is just an amalgamation of perceptions, including our own. Oh, wait, I have to bring up the most underrated one that exists, was the Michael B. Jordan, like the Telegraph Ave release, and using his role in Fruitvale Station and Ludwig's role, as the composer and their connection to coogler and all of that. I think we covered that enough in the Telegraph Ave episode,

but like that one has gone so underappreciated for years. Like that tweet that Michael B. Jordan sent out had like 70 likes. It's ridiculous. I would like everybody to give them their props for what they did. Yeah. Okay, so at Thomas Hurrah, hurro. He says, how do you view the relationship between commercial viability

and the opacity of the album's meaning. Does BTI benefit from the success of its singles and surface level feel good triumph? Or does the narrative depth of the album get obscured? So I think if I don't understand the question, it's kind of like it has this commercial appeal. And so a lot of people just listen in for that, maybe obscuring the deeper meaning,

whereas if it was a more, I guess more obvious art project, whatever that means the deeper meaning would be more obvious to people. I think that was my interpretation of the question. I don't know if you had a different one.

That's interesting. The way I kind of thought about because I saw the question I kind of tried to think about this. First off, I don't want to sit here and think that I have some great understanding

of commercial success and what makes a pop star a pop star and things like that. But if we look at 2005, I think this illuminates kind of what this question is getting at. 2005 was the lead single and if you look at it

like Glover himself was like this is my least favorite because I know this is pop, I know it's an earworm I didn't necessarily want to include it on the album but I'm going to because this is the thing that will real people in and you see in 2005 that he's able to layer in all this messaging and all of these ideas

in this song that is legitimately an amazing pop song I think what Glover then did which shows the true capability of a project like this is all the permutations of 2005 when we see the secret track when we see the music video

when we see all the ways he was like okay I'm going to make that pop song that everybody wants to hear I'm going to make the one that's going to go on the radio and I'm going to build this and I'm going to show you that just a single connection

can bring you into a world of infinite connections and that's the whole the music video I think we explained I think enough but like the Ferris wheel is like you have a connection you're sitting there but there's all these other ones

and it is exposed when you look at it all, which I think is brilliant. Yeah, no, that's a good way. That's a good example of the genius of, because you see that throughout a lot of kind of, you know, at least my personal favorite artists are the ones that are, have big platforms, but then use it to expose people to,

you can call them worlds, or we can call them more complex ideas or, you know, things to think about. and just using their appeal to expose a mass amount of people to new ideas, I think is really admirable. And those are usually the artists, like a Kendrick

and even Kanye, like, those are the kind of artists that I really, you know, admire. And I think Glover now falls in line kind of on that same plateau for me. Yes, I'm so glad. It's so amazing. He definitely sold me. amazing to hear you say that you have to understand that having listened to the show for years

and wanting you to do this album for so long to hear you say that is incredible i just have to acknowledge that yeah the one thing that i think about a lot is like i don't think i would ever try this album on my own and that was part of the reason why i didn't do it you know if i was going just by request this would probably have been season three because you know it was it's been the most requested work but for good for good reason i'll pat i'll pat myself on the back to say that i knew i knew i knew i knew didn't know enough about the album to do it and i just thought it'd be a waste of everyone's time if i tried to do it maybe i would have got in there and learned and figured it out but um you know my intuition was not to do that and i think it worked out for the best bringing you on board because

you had the advantage of seven years of thinking and studying and and bringing all that to the table where I was just going to start from scratch, essentially. And I know I would have missed the vast majority of stuff in the world. So I'm glad it worked out. Yeah, it worked out for sure. It worked out. Okay, so just a fun question from at Tommy something, something.

What's your guys' favorite punchlines on the album? It's interesting. The first time I remember, like, the first time I heard this album, like I'd been a fan of Glovers for years. I loved the punchlines. And the first time I remember like one of my first reactions being like, he really pulled back on the punch lines. Like he said he was in his switch performance,

but he's like he really pulled back. My favorite. Because it's early work. That was one thing that I discovered going back to is mixtapes and stuff. They're so reliant on those punch lines. Yes. I like to think of it as like, we've seen like his illumination of subjectivity

and the way things have multiple meanings. I think he got to that because he did create work that was built on these double entendres and these just for jokes. But it's about when you make meaning with the connections that it actually built something. So I think that was like the switch. And he has a live performance you can find

called the switch where I think it like flips. I think that's a big turning point for his career. Anyways, regardless of that, my favorite is in sweatpants when he stops everything and turns to the camera and explains fissures don't make noise when they start up.

just so you know because it breaks it like foreshadows the breaking of the fourth wall with the slamming on the table and as we showed in the sweatpants episode it is the culmination

the ultimate stunt evolution of everything from Charlie Sheen winning all the way up through I'm gonna name drop the car from two and a half men that his replacement was driving around the whole time

just because of how layered that is and what an iconic moment it is and how it always plays out live, that's like, that's my favorite punchline. Yeah. No, it's a good one. I think mine, the first one that comes to mind, I didn't think about this too much, but the World Star moment, the money counter, aka just the way that he was able to tie those together with the sound and so succinctly in that moment and then how it feeds into this big climax in the script. I just thought

that's such a brilliant moment and a brilliant way to frame it in such a short amount of time and it really works just sonically. It's just like... It's the collage of the internet kind of in a moment, which is really cool too. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so I had the same question. At Lena Callan asked what song was the hardest to dissect? Okay. So the one, the episode that I'm most proud of is the no exit episode is Act 3. That was the hardest one.

That's my favorite episode. Thank you. It is my favorite as well. For my money, it's the best episode of Dissect of All Time. When I was writing that, it was, I was going through it when I was writing it, I think, is how I have to say this. It felt deeply personal, and it felt so. important and essential and central to everything that I felt like I had to get every single

thing right and that I had built so much into that episode because I tried to like bring a bunch of things and tie them together and I knew it was the most important one to me and because of work schedule and how it all worked out I wrote a lot of that very late at night like I was I felt it felt kind of weird how like 3 a.m. I'm looking at the clock it's 3 a.m. I'm trying to write the script. So personally, like, I shed tears writing that script. Like, that felt the most personal and the most cathartic and the most impactful. So, like, when I think of, like, hardest to write, like, that's the one that put me through the most.

Yeah. And then Flight of the Navigator, I had to listen to the most. That one also felt like a lot of pressure for the fans who love that song. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, I have that same experience when you know it's a big song. You just want to do it justice, so it is a lot of pressure. I'm curious to why, like why, if you want to, can you talk a little bit more about why it was difficult, aside from the pressure?

For flight of Navigator or for now? Yeah, yeah, flight of the Navigator is the moment, and because that episode also included death by numbers, which I know we cut so much of, and especially because nobody really has watched that visualizer. Yeah, yeah. But to me, that visualizer is one of the pinnacles of Glover's career as far as like, this moment has everything. This is such a powerful thing. And I know we had to cut so much of it. So that was very tough to deal, like to just like get all that down. And then the song Flight of the Navigator is so personal to so many people.

And I know that. And I just felt very wary of any missteps. And it's also such a spacey song that I didn't know where to go. like I felt very lost writing that episode. I like when Spotify rap just came out and like that was my most played song because I had it on repeat over and over and over again trying to wrap my head around it. So and I think you I think you saw that in the script I turned in.

Thank goodness we changed it. But like I think there was a lot that went through with that one. Yeah, I can't remember the first version of it. I mean I was really happy with what we came out with it. It was like, I just did a poll on Instagram, and it seemed like the clear-cut favorite episode of the season, followed by no exit. So, you did good. I'm so glad it worked out that way. So that's good.

Yeah, you always want to do the big songs justice. I definitely understand the pressure there. All right. So let's see. At Roger Stoneley, Atwater Ass. I believe you mentioned on Twitter at one point that this album wasn't your favorite. it, not a big fan before dissecting it. How is your opinion of Gambino changed now from when it first came out?

I think I touched on this enough throughout this conversation, but I'll definitely just reemphasize that it was not something I listened to. I only listened to it because people kept telling me to do it. And every time I was formulating a new season, I would listen to it. And it just didn't resonate that in a way that it just, it was like, it was almost like there was like a wall in front of me in it and I just it didn't connect yet. And yeah, not to beat a dead horse, but your work is really what opened the door for me. Thank you. That's very nice to hear. It was my, you know, my most played album. This in 315

was my most played album this year. I thoroughly enjoy the work. The music itself has definitely kind of grown on me in terms of like, I remember when I was hesitant about the album, it was always the middle section that was like, okay, I can see why people like these first handful of songs. They're upbeat, catchy, a lot of good punchlines. But then it kind of, at that point for me, it kind of dipped after like no exit

and gets into like the more, the slow ethereal songs. Yeah, no, yeah. Which now I really love, and that's probably my, you know, what I like most about the album is that second half. But at that point, I just didn't have the entry point to enjoy it the way that I do now. So it's really, I mean, it's a rare work when I put it on now, though, because like I said before, it's like it's so immersive. It's almost like the way that I feel like to Pippa Butterfly is for me. Okay. Or that it's not the same world to Pimp a Butterfly, but it's a cinematic experience.

that's the way I hear it at least. And it's like I have to listen to that from top to bottom. It's like I can't just listen to one song from that album. And I feel like because the internet's kind of the same experience for me now, where it's different than just listening to most other music and songs for me. It's more of an experience than, yeah, traditionally just putting on a song for enjoyment. So, yeah. So Thundercat is the key ingredient for you, it seems.

It's all about Thundercat. Yeah, right. Okay, so is there anything from the, this is Son of Melon says, is there anything from the BTI world that you just couldn't even remotely come close to understanding? Something specifically you'd like to ask Donald about. So I'll leave that to you. Okay, so I don't want, I'm not ashamed to admit this. I have a Google document with hundreds and hundreds of questions for every member of royalty about every question I've ever had. And I have a ton of questions.

So like when I say whatever I say next, like I have more. So that's the thing. I would want to ask about the death by numbers visualizer. I'd want to talk about that. And if there's like an archive and all of those things. Here's one thing that Donald himself seems to have been very angry about and that I wish we could see. Sweatpants, the music video, was released with the Deep Web Block. And when it came out, Donald said, you know, my label ruined the...

this release. I'm very angry. Somebody buy me out of my contract. And so we've, like, people are like, what? Like, we don't get all the details about why that happened. But years after the fact, a production company uploaded to YouTube, a behind the scenes footage, like real, of an entirely different sweatpants music video. They're not even entirely different, actually, because as he says in the script, he's like, I'm feeling deja vu. The other music video, which has Donald Glover in it, shows us there's clips where it's like multiple Donalds are showing up. He's in a different diner, but it's

the same thing where he's kind of walking through and then he sees himself and other people and he kind of like walks through in, deals a lot of stuff. Problem seems that have actually been in this music video, but it never got released. And the company that uploaded it had to take it down. People can

find it on my Twitter if they want it. I've saved it. Thank goodness. Yeah. I am of the belief that that that he was supposed to release two videos, that as he does in the song, where everything he says, he takes it and one ups it,

he was going to do that with a music video, release a music video, and then one up it with another one, and have the deja vu process happen, and all of this stuff, but Glass Note got in the way, it seems. So I'd like to ask him about that or to figure out what would have happened

if we got what he wanted. Yeah, so do we know why GlassNote did, do we ever get details around their thinking behind that? Not really. No? I don't think we do now. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Do you have any, like, are there anything to stick out to you? No, that flashing noises. Besides like the flashing noises.

The flashing noise is going to bug me for a long time because, I mean, we addressed it in the finale, but, you know, we were pretty honest about not really knowing what it was. I just wish I knew what the sound was. Like that, because I feel like that would unlock, because we, it sounds like a flash, but who knows if it's a flash. It could be something different. It could be something specific. Maybe it is a flash. It's a specific kind. It'd be nice to just know what that was. It's all subjective. We don't know.

Yeah. It's all that. Yep. But it's something. I mean, it's there. So it's something. Yeah. It would just be nice to know the source because I feel like that would be a big clue.

That would be cool. At least in terms of our subjective analysis, it would help a lot to have the objective source of the sample. What made the noise? Yeah. Yeah. yeah um yeah i'm trying to think of anything else that's definitely the first one that comes to mind only because it's so prominent um i also there's the um earth has an entirely different song so earth is a version that was released late so the song that has azalea banks in it was a version of the song

completely different than what was going to be on the album almost up to the release date so much so that in the initial CDs they have to like put in a slip of paper that says with the new credits, which has banks on it. It was going to have Macklemore. Yeah, that's like, and it was supposed to be, according to Glover, he's like, it was super housey, and it had McElmore. I've got a ton of ideas about where it would have gone.

I really want to hear it. I think the key to think about is Glover at the time in interviews was like, McElmore is going out there and giving gay rights speeches. He is using his platform for this incredible thing. I think that, and I think we talked about it enough in the episodes, but there is this discussion of the sexual spectrum and sexuality as an experience

rather than any fixed identity and I feel like it's very housey it's got McElmore at this time I feel like we would have seen a much more direct address of the thing because Glover started it on clapping for the wrong reasons when he tells the story about kissing a boy when he was young

there is an interview where he's like yeah I thought that moment would have been bigger but nobody picked up on it so I wonder if he was like going to like once he realized people didn't pick up on it that he scrapped the McElmore song and put on Banks. I wonder if that was the change.

I'd like to talk to any of the people involved to figure that one out. Yeah. I think that's interesting. Yeah. I think all these threads that didn't make it into the episodes, or at least not in the, there's definitely multiple times where you had kind of a longer sidebar about some of these ideas.

Thank you for reading those. No, yeah. I mean, it's always a tough call for me. I went through the same kind of thing with Femi, who's like you, a brilliant mind, knows, you know,

he knows Kendrick's work inside and out and could just, you know, go on forever with very interesting and relevant thoughts. But, you know,

my role, especially when working as with a co-writer is to be the editor almost and just like, I get it, yeah. Yeah, so it's like,

it's hard for me, it's painful for me and probably even more painful for you to see it cut, but I bring it up only because like, people should be following you after this,

especially if you're into, because the internet, because I think there's, a lot of things that didn't get into the episodes that a lot of people would find interesting and relevant. I'm tweeting about this all the time. So, yes, people should go check it out. What's your handle? Meta Modern Cam is the handle.

You can also find me on the dissect page. You've tweeted at me so they can find you there. And we'll, yeah, this episode will be posted. I'll tag you in it obviously. So people should definitely follow you for your, I'm assuming you're not stopping here. that your Glover exploration will continue on as like a lifelong, I would think kind of a lifelong thing. That's the goal is like to be a professor where I just get to teach classes on this stuff.

So that would be nice. Yeah, I think that's it's needed, man. I think I haven't really select, personally I haven't selected one artist, but I think there's a need for that in terms of like someone like you dedicating analysis to one artist that is going to be historical. We don't have a lot of that in the moment. And especially with artists that are working in the space of hip hop, typically you don't get that treatment.

And if it is, it's not to weigh later. So I would like to see more people like you dedicating their kind of academic work to this. you know, there's been, it was something that I noticed in, in college where when I was studying classical music is like, I love Beethoven. I love Mozart. But everything revolved around Beethoven, Mozart, Hayd. It was just like every paper, every, like, there's thousands of books on that, you know, these three guys. And I, I admire them. They're so important. But it was just like, there's more. You know, it's like, there's more. There are more, yeah. there's more and we don't have to be stuck with like these figures these kind of safe figures that have been talked about for decades and centuries at this point it's like there are people living now creating work that is worthy of our attention and could teach us things about the moment in the moment and so I really admire that that you're kind of on that path it's a it's a tragedy that Glover himself talked about in an interview where he's like I'm making everything I can to

address to take on the responsibility of today. And I really hope it connects right now, but I also just hope that later on, if people look back at me, they're like, okay, this guy tried to deal with what he was facing. Yeah, and that's, I mean, that's one of the points about this album. I mean, is there a work outside of, I'm sure academics or people like that wrote about the implications of the internet, like Neil Postman, I know, this author and academic, you know, was writing about it in like the 80s and 90s pretty prominently about the advanced. and technology, but is anyone doing it in pop culture? I would put Donald Glover in pop

culture, not to undermine him, but that's kind of where he exists. That's what I loved about this album. Not only was it so prophetic in terms of where we're going and how we're experiencing things today, but it was really a serious attempt to address the dangers of the time, you know, and like really taking a focused look at what is happening and really trying to make sure that we're doing the right thing as we move forward and really like taking that ownership of it. And I feel like I could feel that in the music and in all the parts of the world where he was really trying his best to reckon with it and share his thoughts on. And that's what 31520 is.

That's today. Like that's when he dropped it. He's like, this is today. Let's handle today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Well, let's end on a fun question at Tucan. ask what is your favorite song on the album and why it's a good it's an impossible question i know yeah every day it changes um like so like act three probably i think might be it but that's not a song and i honestly don't view these as songs i view them as pieces of the world but if i have to pick just a song i'm probably going to go with world star um it's the reason i wrote the spec script like i think it is the blueprint for everything and i think we did an incredible job on our episode but there's so much more to talk about with that song. I think that we feel real universal

connection in the idea and the dichotomy within the only, even in the word, World Star, where we want to be everything. We want to be infinite. But also there's stuff we didn't talk about in our episode like the juxtaposition between Jazz Club and World Star, as as Fam points out in the script. He's like, why are all these white people in the jazz club looking at this black artist? and he plays on this history of kind of how audiences have appropriated maybe black culture and art and how that's happening on World Star right now. It's like we are repeating. We are doing the same patterns over and over again. We didn't even touch on that. Right. So I think there's so much more, I think that's just an indication of how much more there is to that song. And like I can think about

and talk about that one as the blueprint for the whole world and just even just on its own forever. So that that would be my pick for the favorite. What's the one that you listen to just more as like a song and not the kind of thematic aspect? Just for the song. I mean, World Star is probably the one that just pops up. Like, I put that one in playlists and have that one just on its own. Yeah. Okay.

So, yeah, I would say, I didn't think about this. I'm going to go on intuition. World Star is definitely, I would say, I agree with you, in terms of it's thematic, what it's doing thematically, all the things you just said. I think it's my favorite song. I don't know if it's the song that I would listen. to the most. I love it as a song.

I'm trying to think, I mean, Flight of the Navigator is an obvious one, but it's just like so beautiful. Yeah. And production-wise, that's definitely one that I really like. I would say maybe no exit, though. Would be if I had to choose. I'm really bad of choosing favorites. Gotcha. No, I hear you on that. It's impossible for, but yeah, no exit. No exit. It's never

been performed live. That one in life, the biggest troll aren't performed live. Oh, interesting. But those are special ones, yeah. Do you know why that is? I think if thematically, I don't think he could perform. I don't know if he could perform those. I don't know. I can see that with no exit. What do you think about life? Like, why about life?

Because it is that afterlife looking at everything. And like, I think in the moment you don't have that. And like the live shows, like Earth was the final song. And when that So Fly outro hits, the mansion blows up and there's a bonfire literally that appears. And then he goes into So Fly. It's like we've seen the future we've talked about today. Can we now make a space where we can party and enjoy having fun with my old hits?

Like that's how he structured the live show. So I think that's pretty neat. But it meant Life the Biggest Troll did not get performed. Got it. Where was 35? Well, yeah, I don't know much about the tour in terms of its ordering. did it follow closely with the album? Yes, except I think Pink Toes and Telegraph Ave are flipped,

which is interesting because they are parallel thematically, which is really cool. And it pretty much stayed the same. The tour is one of the greatest things that I need to know, I need to know if they have archive footage, because I can't keep watching the same iPhone for it over and over and over again. Yeah, you would think, given how much work they are produced, the time that they would think to record it professionally.

One of the tech companies put out like a sizzle reel, which leads me to believe they have full footage. But that's a burden of question. It's like that Yeezus tour footage. I mean, do you ever see that trailer that they dropped? I think Hype Williams directed it. It's like supposed to be a live video, a full live video of Yisist tour, which was definitely in my top five concerts I've ever been to.

Gotcha. And there's a whole storyline. and came out in the same year as because of the internet, right? Yep, yeah. They're very, they're very intertwined. Is such a golden age. I'm trying to think BTI,

Yeezis, good kid, Mad City. Mm-hmm. Those three. Did Frank come out the year before, Channel Orange? Yeah, I think it was a year before. 2012, yeah. Yeah. But that era, again, ironically,

I was in classical world land the whole time, but that's such a golden era of music. I feel like that's where all the kind of modern kings and queens were like birthed in that. There's a big time, yeah. Yeah. Blog era and all that stuff too. It was pushing a lot, which was nice.

Cool, man. I think we're probably good to wrap here. Was there anything that you wanted to talk about that we kind of didn't get to? I know we skipped a couple of the questions, but anything that you wanted to kind of say or talk about? No, I think we did a pretty good job. I think we covered a lot. Thanks, Cole. Yeah, it's impossible.

I'm growing increasingly aware that it's impossible to talk about Donald Glover and any truncated or this works. I know this. Yeah, so I'm looking forward to what you kind of do next with all this. I think there's an audience for it, and I definitely encourage you to keep going with it. Thank you. I'm looking forward to keep working with you. I'm very excited for everything next to come. Yeah, this will definitely not be the last time that we're going to work together.

We're already kind of brainstorming some possible ideas for the future. So that's going to be great. Yeah, I mean, thank you so much for your work. You know, this was a really great experience for me. It was very, I mean, I learned so much from your work and your writing. And, yeah, I mean, you kind of opened up an entire world for me, which I really appreciate. I think a lot of fans that, you know, I hear this on social media.

that already loved, you know, so many people love this album, but I do think a lot of parts of the world that are just now gone, we're able to kind of relive and find some new audience here with this season. And, you know, that has to do with how kind of diligently you've been documented to the world and thinking about the world and kind of finally getting a platform to condense some of those thoughts and sharing it with people. So, yeah, I mean, I would be incredibly proud of yourself for accomplishing this. It's a, You know, that's one of the things about dissect, I don't people realize. I mean, I guess just curious as I have you here, was it, as you got to the end, like, at least from my experience, whenever I get towards the end of the season, I'm usually gassed. Like, I'm just my, I'm just tired and exhausted at that point. Did you, was there any of that during the season? Um, I don't think so. We've taken, I think we've taken a long time with this.

and more than anything like I am a little I'm definitely afraid of what's to come but I'm also so excited about what is to come next to where I think that that emotion is the overriding one where I definitely had like

a purge of emotion like listening to the finale like when that last word was written and then when I heard it and then when I heard the first of the audience feedback which was incredible there was a lot of emotion going on but more than anything

I think it was, wow, look what we can do now. Look what the conversations are that have begun. Yeah, no, it's a, yeah, you should definitely be proud. It's a, it's a huge feat. You know, it's, I don't know what the word count is, but, you know, it's like 8,000 words in episode. I did it. I did it. Oh, you did? Do you have it? 120,000. Yeah, I mean. For published words, not to speak of all the stuff you read. Yeah, so it gives just a window into, you know, the work, the work that's involved. and it's, you know, it's intensive and, um, but worthwhile. So anyways, yeah, again, thank you so much for all your work. We'll do more in the future. And we are going to hear now

for, um, the rest of the listener submissions. So thank you everyone, um, who submitted those. There's some really, really moving and touching, um, submissions and I really want to think specifically people sharing their fear. I know that's probably not something that's comfortable for a lot of people, but I was really glad that people bought into that idea because I really think that's one of the, you know, one of the central messages of because the internet is connection through our shared fears. And it's interesting to hear how much overlap when you, when you hear these submissions, how much overlap there is in our common fears. And a lot of the same ones come up over and over again. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you, Cam. Thank you to everyone that worked on

Dissect this season. And thank you for everyone that listened. and we'll talk to you next season. Hello, my name is William Latham, and I'm from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Because the internet is my favorite album of all time, and my biggest takeaway from it is that my relationships with my friends and family are valuable, and I shouldn't take them for granted. I also learned to not be a bystander in general on that life pass me by. One thing that I fear is being abandoned by those people closest to me

and being alone when I need to help the most in whatever major obstacles that I encounter in life. Hi, it's Aaron from Belfast. my biggest takeaway is the accompanying screenplay and how it interwees with the musical narrative I've listened to this album hundreds of times and I was never aware that there was this additional material so experience in that

with all its connected and repeating patterns throughout BTI and the script has been really interesting to get a lot more out of it so thank you for that as far as my fear would be humanity's repetition of the past as the world continues to get more polarized. Hi, I'm Guillermo from Connecticut. I listen to BTI countless times. I've gotten lost in the multitude of soundscapes, but I struggled with deciphering the message behind this work. It was

through this podcast that you call sparked the screenplay which was the final piece of the puzzle for me. Gambino brings to like the existential crisis we all have. How can we live forever? We don't want to die. We want to be immortalized in any way for the future. As for my fear, I do fear death, but especially what does come after? Is it heaven, hell, purgatory, or does it just go dark? I fight with this every day. It's nice to now I'm not alone. Thank you.

My name is Owen. I'm from New Brighton, Minnesota, and this podcast has really shown me how much depth and detail there is and because of the internet. Every time I listen to this album, I find something new, and I reach a new understanding of Glover's message. After listening to this podcast, I'd say my biggest takeaway, is that the internet is evolving along with us, and it affects how people view others and ourselves, but we can't let it keep us from growing and moving forward. We can't live our life on a bus.

Joey Anaham, California. My takeaway from the album is that is the story of the deepest type of loneliness, that is an absence of self that can lead to reflection and freedom, but no one wants to see it succeed, even yourself, because being your true self is scared, And in my life, I hid all my true selves by making different personalities like I counts on the internet, and now I can't remember which one is mine.

And now I'm scared to choose the one that is not me. Hey, this is MJ from the Philippines. And my biggest takeaway from Because of the Internet is that we can be alone, but never lonely. We might feel alone only, for example, deal with existential crisis or problems like losing a special connection with someone. But we can never be lonely because we're all here. We're all here going to the joke we call life. The trolling has to come to an end and start making meaningful connections to make life worth living for each other. And since Bita emphasizes human connection to our shared fears, my greatest fear is death or dealing with loss. Thanks.

Hi, Jake, originally from L.A. County, now living in Denver, Colorado. I noticed back in 2013 that Donald Glover was a renaissance man. I noticed that through his comedy and through his writing and his stand-up and his music production and everything culminating together made me realize that he has the algorithm of humanity and the human experience

fully locked in. Cole, I appreciate you for dissecting because of the internet and I appreciate Donald for creating it. And my personal fear is a fear of my own inauthenticity. Thank you.

Hey Cole, my name is Connor from Colorado. This BTI Glover season has been my favorite thus far for Dissect. It really shows the connection between Glover and the listeners, and that we share more in common than we might first realize. My fear is never getting over my past and forgiving myself and reaching my full potential. What's good? This is Malachi from New York. First off, I want to say I'm a huge Dysk fan. And I'm a huge Donald Glover, Childish Gambino fan.

So I was so happy to hear when you're doing, because of the internet, because that's my favorite album of all time. It was just the soundtrack to my life when I was figuring myself out and finding myself in high school through my writing. And my biggest fear is being alone. Hi, I'm Abram from Winnipeg. And I've been perplexed by this album since 2014. I listened to it for the first time on a band trip in high school.

And I guess the reason it's been perplexing is that I just never really realized how big this transmedia world was. I was aware of a screenplay, but that was like it, you know, but I never read it. But Dysack really helped me out. And my fear really is I really want to live a meaningful life. I want to make sure that my life means something when I die, if not for me, at least for my descendants or people around me. My name's Chris. I come out of Nashville. I go by mad moves.

I'll say the biggest takeaway I took out of because of the internet in the time that I was listening and digesting everything was just to be undoubtedly me, be unfiltered and just 100% just me. I think my biggest fear is that I'd lose sight and just being me and lose track of what being me is, you know. I think that's the biggest thing I take out of that. Hey guys, Braden Roberts here from British Columbia, Canada. This is the first album by Gambiano slash Glover that I'd ever listened to,

and I listened to it when it first came out, and since then I can't count how many times that I've gone through it. Pink Toes has been a favorite of mine for a very long time, along with Zellets of Stockholm, but there's honestly too much to go through in just 30 seconds. I've spoken with others about connection nowadays, and, you know, especially with Zoom and video conferencing, saying we're with everyone in such a distant kind of superficial way that it's no longer really gratifying to us and society feels more distorted because of this and I fear disappointing the ones that I love most What's up Cole? My name is Dylan and I'm from Delaware

I definitely have a newfound appreciation for this project and this artist when BTI first dropped I was like 18 and I really hadn't seen enough in life to understand the nuances of this project I just thought sweatpants was a banger, you know what I mean? But listening to the season encouraged me to dive deep into the visuals and the screenplay. And today at 25, Gambino's thoughts on maturity, connections, and the meaning of existence resonate more than they ever did as Dylan or the boy works on navigating his 20s post-college and figuring out what really is worth caring about. My fear is that I'll make one dumb decision or choice that will mess up any progress I've made in my life so far. Hi, Cole. This is Gabe from Pennsylvania. This season of dissect and your analysis of BTI has been

such a treat since I grew up with this album in high school. My favorite act of the album is Act 2. One of my biggest takeaways was in the 305 episode with the lyric because we're all just ticking time bombs. This lyric resonates with me even more looking at the state of this year, not knowing what to expect at any moment, but being ready for the worst. Explosion. This brings me to one of my biggest fears which isn't dying, but exploding. Thank you, Cole. Looking forward to season eight. What's up? This is Indigo. I'm from Bremen City, Germany and my biggest fear is to die before I can really live up to my potential and like really get to know myself and why I am here. And that's what the album made me realize, like, that I am not alone with these feelings and thoughts.

And that so many see the same answers as me. And yeah, thanks for dissecting it. Hi, my name is Ishawn, and my biggest takeaway from BTI is the structure of the duality of this album, because from one perspective that at least I had is that the album is about all existential and pessimistic point of view that life has no meaning. But Cole showed that this album is more than that, this expresses the identity of him, the transformation, not the fact that he just died with no purpose, the fact that he at least tried to find. and was in the middle of it. Hi, this is Keone from California, because the internet was the album that made me fall in love with rap music. I remember Donald Glover being my favorite as Troy and community, and I remember

when he poured his heart out in those hotel letters, and I remember how that made me feel at only 13. A few years later, I decided to listen to 3005, and I fell in love with everything it talked about that I couldn't understand yet, but would soon, and to this day, because the internet is my favorite album ever. So thank you, Cole for this season, and thank you Gambino for teaching me to love music even when I'm scared of losing that love. Thanks. My name is Justin and I'm from Hillsborough, Oregon. My biggest takeaway from this fantastic season would have to be the extensive thought process of existentialism that changed how I received things day to day. I've had this album on CD for three years and

after a full analysis I didn't even have a hunch of the kind of impact it would have on me. This is the first season I started and I got hooked after the first episode. I love getting to no more music theory and getting to understand the artists even more through the meanings of what they write. One fear that I would share is I have a fear of being alone. Hi, Cole, my name is Tyler, and I live in central Pennsylvania. Coming into this season, I already had strong prior opinions about the ideas expressed in because of the internet, even though I hadn't really listened to the album before.

They were just things that I would think about, like how people's perceived reality online is different from their actual reality. So with that, my biggest takeaway is an appreciation for this multifaceted artistic world that Gambino has created. So thank you very much for dissecting it and exposing me to an album I probably otherwise would not have listened to. Hi, my name is Seamus, and I'm from Dublin, and because the internet is my favorite album, and it's just really helped me with existential thought, just teams it deals with. And I really want to thank Dysect, just for opening up the album so much more, so I can get so much more out of it. It's really helpful. And my biggest fear is probably the ocean, because there's a lot of existential dread from being in the ocean.

Hi, I'm Jay from Queens, New York, and my biggest takeaway from Because of the Internet, and the Seasons in Dissect, is the way Gambino has woven that power into the DNA of BTI. On that power, he talks about truth to power. He talks about embracing oneself and how your biggest weaknesses can become your strength. When you're open with yourself and everyone around you, then no one can hold that against you. And one of my biggest fears is not owning up to my own potential and not embracing myself. And he gives me the strength to not only be honest with me. myself, we honest with those around me so that we can coexist and embrace each other.

Hi, this is Matt from New Jersey. My biggest takeaway from Because the Internet is just how someone can make an album and everything surrounding it feels like its own world they can explore and get lost in. I've always loved albums and analyzing them, but when those albums of extra content like written work, live performances, or music videos, I got this strange feeling that they were quote-unquote cheating in a way and I can only judge by the music. But life is too short, which is probably my biggest fear. You guys, the second of this album made me realize that I don't have to try to be so objective about it. everything. Artists make these things for a reason after all. Thank you, Cole, for being such

inspiration in my life since 2017. I still watch that Kanye season finale often. What's up, Colin Camden. My name is Connor. I'm from the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Ever since the first season of Dysect, I've been blown away by what's been revealed about certain artists or albums in these seasons, and I've made a ritual of going on long drives just to listen to the new episode whenever it drops. And with because of the internet, I've realized that, well, I can't relate to to all of the boys' experiences. I think the fear of being alone or unimportant or invisible is something I really struggle with myself

and seeing that expressed in such a free and honest way in Gambino's work really spoke to me. So thank you guys for making this season happen. Hey, this is Halifson, I'm for Latvia. My biggest takeaway from because the internet is whatever we do, whatever we are anxious about in our day-to-day life, whatever we are afraid of, and then it doesn't really matter. And then we all die, and so the life,

about thoughts and worries. I'm afraid of not finding another person who loved me back as hard as I'm able to. I'm afraid that I won't find a one, that I'm going to die alone. After listening to the album, I realized that there's only one love that really should matter. Love of yourself. Hoping to reach this goal to find someone who will fulfill me is just whack. The person who you spend the most time of your life is yourself. And the most love you should ever give to someone is yourself. Hi, this is Peninda from Canada. My biggest takeaway was that Gambino is a mastermind. He invited us to confront how technology and the internet shapes our culture. It distorts our authentic identity and how our innate need for connection, perception of reality, and truth is obscured by this medium.

One thing I fear is the rise of surveillance capitalism, especially during the pandemic, where the internet is such a key tool for connection. How is surveillance capitalism undermining our privacy and democracy. This is a question I'm grappling with. Hello, this is Chase from Loser in Pennsylvania. I started BTI once I realized this was this season from all of the hints, and it's quickly become something that I personally consider a modern masterpiece. As a child and byproduct of the internet, it speaks to me directly to say to live life like it's always the last day. As long as the internet connects us all, yet we all feel disconnected, it will always be relevant. Finky dissect for the great season.

And the fear I have is the fear that the things I put love, an effort into will be seen as a failure. Hey Cole, it's Porter from St. George, Utah. And I wanted to say I was really excited when I saw that the new season of Dissect was going to be about because the internet, it's one of my favorite albums. And I loved listening to the podcast and seeing how Glover has reinstated the importance of human connection, especially in a time when we can. can't have human connection. It's nice to be reminded of the importance.

I'm Chelsea from New Jersey. The biggest takeaway that I've got from the album is the illumination that the internet is being used to further isolate us and perpetuate the systems that keep us down. It demonstrates fear, anxiety, and depression, things that when we feel, we feel we need to hide. This album forces us to realize a need for growth and connection. We're forced to realize we need to free ourselves. We have to get off the bus. Hey, Cole. My name is Boulpre. I'm from Vancouver, Canada. My biggest takeaway from Because the Internet is you can't be scared of the future. You can't be scared of the unknown.

And I know it's this timeless boy. And once you jump into it, you don't know what's going to happen next. And my biggest takeaway from this album is, you just got to do it. You just got to take that leap of faith. And it doesn't matter what it is. You just got to do it. You can't be scared. I know there might be a lot of shit that goes on.

but you can't be scared. And that's what I've learned. And thank you so much for this podcast. Hey there, my name is Emma from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Because the internet brought me meaning to every single time I question in my relations and my existence. I've found answers and comfort many times. I believe it's a perfect loop of questions and responsibility

that everyone should consider to listen and analyze. It is my favorite music album. I also fear the monopolization of power and the lack of knowledge and interest. Thank you. My name is Ryan and I'm from Ontario, Canada. My biggest takeaway from because the internet is that we all die and that we've been living our lives through the internet for so long. One of my biggest fears in life is that I'm never going to have any kind of legacy on the world after I die.

And that's what's so interesting about because the internet. Because when things are on the internet, they're on there forever, right? It's a scary thing. thing to think about. My name is Anand, and I'm from Toronto, Canada. And the takeaway that I got from because the internet is that it's best to be honest and true to how you feel and what you think, despite what you may see on the internet and how people feel, or if they feel different from you or want you to feel a certain way, it's important

to, like, know who you are and be true to that. And a big fear of mine is not being able to make an impact or any kind of difference in the world before I'm done here. Hi, my name is Andrew and I'm from Seattle. I was initially confused on why Cole decided to cover PTI on this podcast, but this season made me realize that the album is actually more timely than ever. During this pandemic, it's easy to hop on the computer to talk to your friends, but those interactions can also feel very empty because they're not physical, but through a webcam

where we can't even make eye contact. I think one thing that I feared, that a lot of us probably all fear, is being alone. And that's a deep feeling that can't be resolved easily because it's hard to be 100% yourself from others. But I guess this fear also gives me some solace. Everybody fears being alone and I guess that gives us all something in common. Hey, my name is Evan from South Florida. And a year that has been lonely and somber because the internet provides insight on how all humans are connected in this vast universe through examples such as a spider web and droplets in the ocean trying to reach each other.

And how Donald Glover portrays these themes through his own. music and artwork is beautiful to me. My biggest fear in life is that I won't live a meaningful life and leave a positive impact on the world. Thank you, Cole, Camden, and everyone else who worked on this amazing season. I'm Olivia from North Carolina. Childish Gambinos because the internet brings light to the idea that the internet allows us to share our experiences. We can laugh, cry, mourn, and feel joy together. Although connection is so prevalent, we can still feel feel alone. But even in loneliness, we're alone together. I'm afraid of lacking connection with myself and others. I'm afraid I won't ever do anything that really matters. I'm also afraid my

voice sounds really weird on this recording. Hey, I'm Lee from Virginia. I started listening to Dissect during quarantine to deal with the loneliness, which is what I fear. When I saw y'all were doing BTI this season, I was really excited because it's been one of my favorite albums since I got to music. Flight of the Navigator is my favorite song like ever. The biggest takeaway I had is that Gambino and I have similar thoughts on how the internet makes us lonelier because it's not a real connection. My name is Russell and I'm from Toronto, Canada. My biggest takeaway from because the internet is that it's our innate feelings of isolation and loneliness that actually serve to connect us all. By recognizing our inherent need for connection and love, we can start to see that we're all

much more similar than we think. On top of that, it's never too late to act on that information, and we can always improve ourselves and build those connections if we try. The internet gives us the perfect tools to do these things, so we must learn to use them effectively before we allow them to strip us of our humanity. My biggest fear is feeling like I didn't do enough to save a collective future. My name is Lou Borell, and I come from the UK, and my biggest takeaway of, because the internet is growing up and how it frightens me so much. If it's affected my mental health, I'm not doing too great, but I know that I have to deal with it, whether I like it or not.

Although it is a fear of buying, it's not my biggest fear. My biggest fear is actually not being loved. Hey, I'm Greg from Cerritos, California, and what I've come to realize about because the internet is no matter how accessible other people seem to be via social media and smartphones, when you lose that certain connection with a certain person, you can lose a sense of self and feel more alone and isolated through the meaningless scrolling of feeds from an illuminated screen. And one thing I fear is not being alone, but getting to a place where I get so comfortable with that loneliness that I don't let anyone back in. I'm Sasha from Northampton, and because the internet showed me a whole world of music that I'd never heard before. It also introduced me to the creative process and career of Donald Glover that still inspires me to this day.

Season 7 of Dissect really made me think about how all we're going to die someday. And as so corny as it sounds, we really need to cherish every day that we have. Cherish my family, my dog, everything I've got. Thank you. My name is Connor from Sibolo, Texas. Possibly my biggest takeaway from Because the Internet is that vulnerability has and always will be a choice. I wish I could say I understood that message when I first listened to the album in 2013, but growing up and listening to Dysect has helped me truly understand Donald's message. Something that I fear is that I have no value.

I fear that love is not something that I deserve, but Donald lets us know that we have worth and value through vulnerability and human connection. Hello, my name is Marco, and I'm from San Jose, California. My biggest takeaway from Maca's Internet and this season of Dysect is that the only love that's reciprocal is love of self. We can talk all we want about our friends and family that love us, but nothing will take away from the fact that they don't necessarily need to. If the only guaranteed love is self-love, this should be enough to live a full and happy life. One thing I fear, though, is taking for granted the people who do choose to be there for me, who show me this optional love, and that I won't be here long enough to repay them for it. My name is Ernest, and I live in Florida.

Gambino's because the internet came out when I was a senior in high school. It's soundtracked my first year at college and a new city. away from the comfort of my hometown. It captured the isolation and the need to seek connection perfectly and gave me the ideal music for those heady thoughts so many young adults think about when venturing out into the world. Love, relationships, honesty, identity. And when he announced the Deep Web tour and I saw that he'd be making a stop back in my hometown on my birthday, I knew there was something cosmic at play. Thank you, Donald, and thank you Cole and the Dysect Team. Hey there, Cole. My name is Ryan and I'm from the UK. I've been a big fan of the show for a short while now and I've loved binging previous series over the past few months.

But this was the first series that I decided to listen to week by week and I must say that doing this has really given me the inspiration to give more of my time, energy and thought to the world that Glover has presented, just as he intended. I hope to give more of my energy to the art that I love from here on in. I also loved that no exit episode. I never thought that my own biggest fear, that of spiders, would cause me to confront myself from the way I see race. Keep on doing what you're doing, man.

and congrats on another tremendous series. Hey, my name is Enrique and I'm from Portugal. I feel like the biggest lesson that I can take from this timeless masterpiece is that you shouldn't take life so seriously. The last song on the album sums it all up. Don't feed the troll, don't overthink life. Lastly, my biggest fear like the boy is ending up alone and feeling alienated from my surroundings.

Thank you for all the hard work you've put. put into this amazing podcast. Hey guys, this is Renee from Toronto, Canada, because the internet has always been my favorite album since it came out. I now have the bootleg vinyl, a huge painting in my room, and I tattooed to represent the album. And I was happy to hear that dissect finally was, well, going to dissect it. My biggest takeaway from the album or your dissection is the no-exit aspect of it, being one of my least favorite songs of the.

album. The loop within the loop within the loop was mind-breaking. And my biggest fear is that. Thank you dissect. Thank you, Cole. And thank you to go, Camden. What's up? I'm Karoo. I'm from Oakland. My biggest takeaway is that we're connected. We're alone and we need to move forward so we can't grab onto something before letting go. My biggest fear or a couple of them is not being needed or being forgotten or being a detriment to those I hold close, unneeded baggage. It keeps me up at night. My name is Eli and I'm from Texas.

The biggest takeaway I got from because the internet was that just because we're alone on this journey of life doesn't mean we have to be alone. through it. We all experienced loneliness and I know after seeing my my grandma passed I had a huge fear of dying and being alone but music really helped me through because the internet helped me through Charlie Gambino helped me through this and I know we don't have to be alone in this journey. Hello, Dysek, my name is Milton and I'm from Portugal because the internet made me realize that even though the world may feel as cold as it does that we are never truly alone, and that we should value every relationship we make along. Funny enough, one of my biggest fears is not being enough for the other person in a relationship.

I feel that one day they will grow tired of me and leave me alone once again, but I feel like everyone has this fear. Hi, my name is Ili and I'm from Bath in the UK. My biggest takeaway from season seven and the part that resonated with me the most was the idea of people as water constantly seeking each other. I think it's a really profound and important idea, especially during this period of time in which the entire world is being impacted by a pandemic. So I think that idea, as well as the boys' feelings of being alone, wanting someone to be with until 2005, our feelings we will share and we should be okay with discussing. And the one thing I fear is not reaching my full potential or looking back on life and wishing I did more. My name is Noah and I'm from Fort Myers, Florida. Connecting with an audience has

always been my largest goal in life. I seek to create things that let people connect, with me, with each other, and with themselves. But coming from one of those small towns that no one ever seems to escape, my dreams feel unachievable at times. My head is a box of worries, constantly screaming over each other. I'm scared of the regrets I'll leave behind when I die. Donald Glover's work lets me tell those voices to shut up. BTI reminded me, I'm a man made of thoughts I ain't too ashamed. These thoughts create loving relationships with those around me, and we all know there is love in every moment under the sun. As long as I do what I want to do, the regrets I have on my deathbed won't matter. Hey, I'm Chris from Cerritos, California. Back in 2011, Donald said,

it took me a long time to figure out who I was and like who I was. Once I figured it out, you just have to be that to a millionth degree. Being products of our environment is true today more than ever. I found my personality being composed of other people's traits from real life and social media. I'm still not exactly sure who I am, but I'm working on it, which is a major theme and the opening line of the album. But like its Instagram notes said, no matter how bad you mess up or mistakes you've made, you're always allowed to be better and grow up if you want. Hi, Cole. My name is Tracy Bridges. I'm from Macon, Georgia, and my biggest takeaway from season seven would be that everybody needs to learn how to look at each other through the actual

eyes and not through a phone screen or a computer screen, because once you understand that, like, people are actually people and not just the images that you see online, you understand that there is value in everybody. And my biggest fear would be losing my family's connection. Thank you and keep doing dissect. Hi, I'm Jim from Australia and I'm 13. My biggest takeaway from BTI is how important a true connection to another person is. I related to the story so much that after finishing the screenplay, it really made me rethink the relationships in my life and how important they are to me. I know that I'm not going to find a real relationship in high school, but it made me look. It made me think about who I am and if who I am is who I want to be, if that makes sense.

Also, my biggest fear is finding out that nobody really likes or cares about me. I'm Kieran from Ireland. To me, because the internet on the world Donald Glover has created, reflects the beauty of utility of life. Life in the internet era has made us the most connected we've ever been, but also the most loneliest. The tracks and screenplay lead us to the realization that nothing lasts forever, not love, not the internet, not even us. It emphasizes that what we do here with our time, the connections we make,

and the change we enact, whether we're good or bad, is what truly matters. It's what will drive us forward. As alluded to, in the purpose of the track 305, my fear is being forgotten. Hello, my name is Elijah, and I'm from Portland, Oregon. When because the internet came out, it was during a time of my life where things were not looking very hopeful.

But as I listened to the album more and more and watched all the films associated, with it, it taught me that the only person that we truly have our entire lives is ourself. So while we have that chance and while we have ourselves, why don't we make ourselves the best we can be and truly learn to love ourselves? But the album also taught me that it's not quite that easy. You can get lost in the human experience and lose who you are. And that's actually my biggest fear. Is to lose who I am and get lost. Thank you, Donald, for this album. Mitchell, Atlanta, Georgia. My friends and I were chilling in 2014, jamming out

to sweatpants when my one friend looked me dead in the eyes and asked me the question, yeah, you got some silverware, but really, are you eating though? At the time, I was perplexed by the bar, not really sure how to respond to such an ambiguous yet bouncy line. Was I eating in that moment? Was, and how can I live my life to the fullest? At the end of the party, we all deserve to eat, silverware or not. Thank you, Cole, for externalizing ideas I've listened to for years in the words of meaning. Gambino's genius personifies our collective internal struggles. How we must work to better ourselves because we all die and therefore live together. The one thing I fear is that the boy was and will always represent my broken generation, but that's because the internet.

My name is Nick and I'm from Virginia. Because the internet has always been my favorite album of all time, and at the darkest points in my life, I often found it being there for me when no one else was. My biggest fear in life has always been dying too young and losing everything before it even begins. My biggest takeaway from dissect has probably been that while in the end nothing actually matters, you have to make the most of it while you can because this is a very very, cruel world and that could all be gone just as fast as it began. Hey, I'm Robert from Kansas City. My biggest takeaway from my favorite problem ever is the initial question that holds so much weight to me.

Who am I? The internet is a place where everyone wants to show off their perfect self and in the real world I find myself constantly changing who I am and how I act depending on who I'm with or around. I fear that I'll keep pretending I'm someone I'm not and that I'll never truly reach my full potential. Hey, Cole. My name's Ani from San Jose, California. I was really thrilled to hear that you were covering BTI this season because it was my favorite album during my senior year of high school, which coincidentally was also when I felt the most lonely.

I didn't know why the album resonated with me back then. Maybe it was the one-liners, but after hearing it broken down this season, I realized it characterizes one of my biggest constant fears. I'm afraid at the end of the day, the connections I have are fake or will go away, and I'll be left lonely forever. I'm afraid that social media is accelerating this for me and others I care about. But BTI and your analysis give me hope in that by recognizing the fear of loneliness, maybe that's how we can seek out genuine connection by being more open. and sharing our feelings and opening our hearts to love. Thanks so much for the great season, Cole. BTI gives me comfort despite how it shows how scary the modern world can be. This album helps me and I feel that I have no control over the universe by showing me I'm not alone because Donald

gets it. The internet makes us more isolated despite everything seeming to be so public. I find it easy to empathize with the boy even though I don't have a mansion or a fiscor. One thing that I fear is whatever evolves from the internet. Hi, I'm Rita. I'm from New Jersey and this season has definitely made me realize that everything Donald Glover does is intentional. He thinks everything through and it just really has made me come to appreciate him more and more as an artist. One thing that I am scared of is dying without being successful in some way or another. Hi, I'm Michelle. I'm from Shanghai in New York and I think that BTS's exploration of existentialism and this relationship between life and death really spoke to me.

And with my sex formal analysis, I felt that I was able to gain a much deeper understanding of all its nuance layers. I think that BTI is truly a work of art and its profound narrative accurately depicts this fear of loneliness. I think many of us, I myself included, can all relate to. Hi, my name is Patrick. I'm from West Texas, and I've been a long time Donald Glover Child the Shkambina fan and had never seen BTI as his best project until now. I think the concepts and ideas of connection and how the internet can make or break that for us and that we all need connections as humans means, whether it's with loved ones, family members, friends, whoever it may be, we need that in order to survive in this world.

It's an idea that really hits me harder now more than ever. Telegraph Avenue is definitely one of my favorite songs. Don't know why it just hits me different. Love the work y'all are doing. super appreciated keep it up my friend my name is theodore jones i'm 15 years old from portland organ i've been a fan of this album for years and throughout season seven i've truly connected with bt i and the boy's struggle with self-discovery gambino's message that you are buying your friends one way or another made me do a deep evaluation of who i'm keeping around in my life my biggest

takeaway however was the term existential asthmatic featured on the song zealots of stockholm it truly resonated with me i struggled to find a reason to keep going or keep breathing just like the boy. Thank you, Cole and your team for all your hard work. I'm Mark from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and because the internet came out at a time when I was really exploring rap music and getting into it, and this album helped to shape what my music tastes are,

and it's a really essential album to my life, and this season of Dissect just showed how much effort Donald Glover put into that album, and it made me appreciate it so much more than I already did. and one of the biggest fears I have is the future and what it has to hold. Hey, my name is Jared the Rat Bastard and I live in the United States. Because the internet to me is about the balance of feelings and conversations and the places those two things lead us. It's easy to get lost in this place and some of us are right now.

Anytime I feel that way, I come back to this project and each time I come out having learned something different. Thank you, Cole, thank you, Cam, and it's just an excellent season and I can't wait to see what's coming next. Tom from Sydney, Australia, I got married this year, and the one thing I fear is not being a good husband, partner, and best friend to my wife.

Weddings reveal friend from foe, and they test you. I'm fearful of the love leaving. I'm fearful of losing a really good woman, and I'm fearful of not being enough from her and my future family. Hi, my name is Andre, and I, am from Champlin, Minnesota. I have been a long time a fan of Gambino, but even though I loved the music, I never really felt that BTI was a super cohesive album until this season of Dysect

showed me just how expansive the world of BTI is and how the album is only a small part of that. And it's been a really introspective journey re-listened to the album with that context. and I think one of my biggest fears is that everyone that I know only pretends to like me. Yo, this is Carl from Southern California, and to be honest, I fear failure and mistakes the most, despite how excellent I am at both. This fear deterred me from taking risk, yet it also brings forth so many what-ifs in my mind, you know? I see too many public else taken on social media to the point where I, I might just have to start scheduling breaks, you know, like daily breaks or something until I can strengthen my mental.

Anyways, thank you for the time and the analysis. By the way, Ludwig was wiling for thinking that he had to prove his musical, talented Gambino. I mean, Gorison's the goat. My name is Mike, and I live in North Carolina. The deepest insight I gained from because the Internet relates to the continuum of time. Like the boy, we all must confront the existential dilemma of discovering our ever-changing, identity as each moment slips into the past and the future unfolds and pulls us closer toward our eventual demise. I fear that our lives occur without meaning as cycles of conscious experiences in the

present that split to form both the past and the future. Hello, my name is Keaton and I live in Richmond, Virginia. My biggest takeaway from Dyshex Season 7 would be that we all die alone, so the only guaranteed love that we have is self-love. And the only way we can learn to be ourselves is to accept, what we are now and to start believing in the future that we want. The best way to achieve this future is by forming connections with others and to start working for the common good of humanity. With all that being said, I would say that my biggest fear would be whether or not we have enough time to save ourselves from calling any more irreversible damage to the environment and also to each other. My name's Drew, I'm from Baton Rouge. Right now, the biggest takeaway from Because of the Internet that I

sit with the most is the prompt to constantly interrogate connection. What connection means to me, relationship with it and how that manifests in real life. You can't sulk about a connection that failed, died, was misinterpreted, or hurtful, but on the flip side, you also can't rest on a connection that's the opposite of those things. You can't live your life on a bus, stationary if you want to grow up or in any direction. But I fear that despite that constant interrogation, I'll still never figure out connection or what it even is to me. When this season of the Dysect podcast came on, It was the first week of college. And I'd give myself a new version of myself to be.

I was swag. I was hip. It was different than I was when I left my hometown. But now I'm kind of scared and frightened that when I go back, I'll be the one that I was before. But, I mean, as Donald Glover changed, I guess I must change too. Hello, Cole, Cam, the Dicek's death. I'm August from Chesapeake, Virginia. My biggest takeaway from this season is the value of human error.

The other lyrics of BTI, Donald Glover, indulges in the intimacy that comes with being open. From a failed threesome to fears of commitment and its darker admissions, Glover provides a space for his listeners to feel less alone because of these imperfections. My biggest fears are living long enough to lose the people I love and being judged without empathy. Thank you both for making this season. This is my favorite album, and your insights gave this beautiful work of new meaning to me. My name's Rob. I'm from Dublin, Ireland. the internet, it's a very important album to me. I'll always remember my first time listening

through it and relating to the honesty and vulnerability shown by Gambino. The way he perfectly captures the fear of being alone, that I struggle with myself sometimes, it creates a comforting feeling that I'm not alone in this mindset. I'd say my biggest fears of the future itself and how unpredictable it is, but I know that things moving on and changing is important, so be still my broken bones as I travel on. My name is Sam Walters and I'm from Athens, Georgia. My biggest takeaway from because the internet is that true human connection many times has to start with a disconnect.

This may be a life-changing event or an epiphany of sorts, but it could just be yourself in the way. Life has a way of showing priorities through the evolution of your social psyche, and often it reveals the nuanced differences between love and dependence, motivation and maturation, or between hatred and fear. My biggest fear is being forgotten. Hey, what's up, Cole? My name is Brom, and I'm from Alabama.

My favorite episode of season seven was no exit. I used to just glance over the track until hearing you go in depth about it. And honestly, it's stuck with me more than any other track on BTI. You know, because we tend to live our lives just like the boy, a life with almost no change, living in a continuous loop. One thing I've always feared is death. It is a fear that I've had to learn.

to cope with over the years. I've been waiting for you guys to do BTI for a while now because it is one of my favorite albums of all time and your podcast has only solidified that. Keep up the great work guys. I can't wait for next season. Hey y'all. It's Aidan Gonzalez from Austin, Texas. I feel like what breaking down because the internet was able to do for me was that it made me feel not as alone even in a world where we put so much out there we let people know everything, our small details, in life, but they only see what we want them to see. We want them to see only the good stuff, really, but it's okay to be feeling vulnerable sometimes or sad. You know, it's okay. It's a part of life. And I feel like a part of my life is that I have this fear of failing, but, you know,

it's all a part of the journey of growing. Hello, my name is Solomon. I'm 26 years old. I go by Punk to Kid. And this outlook on, because the internet has given me whole new view on artistic storytelling in general. The first entry I ever put in for you guys was for Flower Boy. I was on my first album and this one I am actually working on my second and you have been helping me make my art better by doing these these overlooks of these albums and I just want to say I thank you and I hope you have a wonderful day. Hi my name is Ramsey I'm from France because the internet is a very important album for me on a deeply personal level. It is an honest and profound

testimony of our age. This season of Dysect helped me understand the hidden depth of this masterpiece. I think BTI reminds us that all we have is each other, but I'm afraid to see this idea replaced by egotism and a purely cynical form of irony to common types of behavior on the internet. I would like to thank Cole and Camden for this amazing season. My name is Arnold. I'm from Loretum. My biggest takeaway from Because the Internet is this album spoke to me, man, in many ways that I can't even explain thoroughly. Every lyric just spoke to me in one way or another, and I just related to it so much, and I love this album. To the Day I Die, it is my favorite album of all time.

Thank you, Donald Glover, thank you, Childish Gambino. My biggest fear is, you know, I just won't be enough for that special someone, and that scares me. Hi, my name is Rex, and I'm from Colorado. My biggest takeaway from because the internet is to not assume. Below everyone's online, seemingly flawless persona is a human, a non-perfect, most likely struggling human. My biggest fear is being alone, a fear that I feel that me and Donald Glover slash childish Gambino share.

Anyone who's out there listening to Dissect right now, feeling alone, keep your head up. It gets better from here. Hello, my name is Kays. and I have from Brooklyn, South Dakota. My biggest takeaway from because of the internet is how everything blends perfectly, from the lyrics to the screenplay, to the music behind the lyrics. Everything blends in a way that makes you see the bigger world that Donald Glover is trying to imagine and show everyone. My biggest fear is not leaving anything behind of significance to

humankind. Hi, I'm Chris from Montana. All stemming from my initial curiosity on why some of the tracks had Roman numerals in front of them on my first listen, BTI became this never-ending rabbit hole I could continually plummet down. After much research and many questions about the project, it had occurred to me that the process of trying to gain a deeper understanding of this work mirrors the same process of truly trying to understand and connect with another human. It takes an open-minded, persisting curiosity and honesty to truly connect with someone else, accepting them for their flaws in all, and perhaps be able to help each other in this existence to be part of the less alone. Amongst a laughly long list of other things I have learned from this process,

That has been my main takeaway from Because of the Internet. Hi, I'm Brandon from Phoenix. Because the Internet has held a special place in my heart since experiencing the Deep Web Tour, having it score my life's relationships and events, listening to it over and over again, not sure why I continually gravitated toward it. Season 7 of Dysect helped me understand why, and it really couldn't come at a more perfect time. For me personally, I've been taking this year to really try to learn about myself. I just want to thank Cole, Camden, and the team for unpacking all of its meaning and really invigorating me to continue on my path.

Thank you, Donald Glover, for Because the Internet and giving us this opportunity to eat our vegetables. Hey, what's up? I'm Prism, the poet from Nashville. So this season was so good. My biggest takeaway was that the Internet is just an extension of what was already inside of us. and we as people have the power to consciously choose what we want to represent when we put it out there into the world. But if we don't, it's going to turn into something nasty, which it already has, so we probably need to correct it. My biggest fear is that people aren't being transparent and aren't being real, so I think we need to be intentional and conscious. My name is Amanda, and I'm from New York City.

My base takeaway from BTI is that we come into this world alone and die alone, so we should make meaning out of the time we have here with others, but most important, importantly with ourselves. We should be vulnerable and not be afraid to open up and we have to be comfortable with who we really are and not use the internet as a form of validation exclusively. Our identities are always changing and shaped by those around us and it all means nothing when it's not real and it's hiding behind our online personas. I fear that one day I will fall in love and lose myself completely to another person and possibly lose my own identity in the process. Hello, my name is Alan of the Childestan from Oakland, California. My biggest takeaway from Because of the internet are the themes of existentialism, showcasing the boy's story and even Donald's personal life at the time. Questions such as, who am I, why am I here, culminate into a beautiful narrative where storytelling is as important, if not more important than the music. The work on BTI is nothing short of phenomenal and deserving of all the praise it receives.

Hello, my name is Dennis and I'm from Cleveland, Ohio. Because the internet is my absolute favorite album of all time and my love for it, only grew with the season of Dysect. My biggest takeaway from Because the Internet is that while being true to its time, through incorporation of then modern jokes and references, it predicts some big discussions of today's time. Roscoe's wetsuit is basically the entire meme culture

where things are posted, reposted, and shown off for no real reason. All the while, the album tells a story that almost anyone on the Internet can relate to in some way or another. My biggest fear is that I'm so insignificant in the scope of this massive world, that I'm just going to be forgotten. also spiders I hate spiders

Hi I'm Griffin from North Carolina and because the internet has been my favorite album since the first day I played it It just spoke to me in a way that literally nothing else has Because I could relate to the emotions And feeling so alone when we should be so connected It's the realest piece ever And it gave me the courage to be me

To be real and honest with everyone And to just remember to stay on my own shit And fuck with these clones think Just remember you the shit But act like it don't stink It's the medicine I need to get through each day and Mr. Donald Glover, you're my hero. So thank you, Donald, for everything, and thank you dissect.

Also, my biggest fear is letting my family and best friends down. My name is Ryan Cruz, aka TVMA from Wichita, Kansas. And no matter how lonely I get, there's always someone feeling the same way. Through that emotional tinnitus, we're all connected, through our mistakes and our achievements. I'm scared of being alone. But loneliness itself is an illusion. In reality, I'm not alone.

You're not alone. We are not alone. when we're all alone together. We can hide behind a username and make an album, screenplay, a podcast, or whatever, or we can face inward and move forward in this new world we've been weaved into. Together, along with our mistakes, we're all connected. And it's all because the internet. Hey, I'm Ryan from centers of California,

and my biggest takeaway from because the internet was the idea of it was in the box. Gambino referred to himself as the son of Kanye because he's able to move without the label of rap over his identity. He was able to create without being put in a box and that idea always stuck with me because it's so easy for me to label myself Sometimes I don't even realize I'm doing it and it's really hard to get out of that box I want Gambino created this world and used all these mediums and rejected the labels people tried to put on him It really showed me how potential we waste by limiting ourselves because of others Being stuck in a label that I hate is something that always scared me

But this album taught me that we can always be more than what people think of us We just have to try My name's your memory and I'm from LA My biggest takeaway from BTI is to make sure that we all have the correct priorities in life. A lot of people are just craving attention from others and will do anything to get that. What I think is more important is to develop personal, meaningful connections with people that truly appreciate you. In the world filled with distractions, we have to focus on the things and people that allow us to continue growing as human beings. My biggest fear in life is not living out to my own expectations and what I know I can do for myself.

If you make intimate connections with others, they can motivate us to achieve our full potential. Thank you to everyone at Dysect for making me appreciate Donald Glover even more. Early this summer, I suffered a burnout. As an international graduate student of America of Trump, during a pandemic, made me feel really vulnerable, isolated, and disconnected. It was paradoxical. I dedicate most of my time in the US thinking about how to connect the disconnected, using technologies.

The summer was one feebly. deep, unmotivated with myself, feeling the days passing and feeling death. I was particularly feeling unworthy, waiting to fully fail to my lover, to my teachers, to my people. My mind even wonder about what if I was an event or deserved. That feeling of human disengagement was the peak of an infernal summary in Phoenix, born it physically, mentally, and emotionally. My name is Dylan. I'm from Aurora, Illinois, and my biggest takeaway from, because the internet and this season of Dissect is Donald Glover's true creative genius and his skills in writing, being able to

take from his real life infusing it with his creative fiction to give us such amazing art. The level of talent it took to make a great music project and a great script simultaneously with all the Easter eggs and details that I was completely oblivious to, even while listening to this album religiously for six years, I'm still mind-blown by how deep the story is. And my biggest fear is dying without getting a chance to do something meaningful or chase my dreams. My name is Gabriel and I'm from Brazil. After all these episodes, my mind is even more blown by the ways that Gimino can transmit the feeling of senselessness in life.

And how our connections can be the antidote to all these existential questions. Even though life is the biggest troll, it doesn't mean it's not worth it. People hate what they don't understand. And I've always been afraid of not being understood. I still am to this day. Yo, this is Jay Poker Bean from the Poker Beans. I like to say that Gambino is a very talented artist, but this album I probably won't ever listen to again. Don't get me wrong, it's a very dope story and lesson, but the only reason I listen to this podcast is because I knew you would deliver.

You did a great job dissecting this album, but the album for me didn't stay or finish strong like it started. Check this, so I've been telling my friend Thomas to listen to Dissect for years and he hasn't. So, yeah, I wanted to put him on blast, and I don't fear anything. life because fear puts your life on pause. Don't let nothing control you. Holla. I'm Megan from Georgia, and season seven of Diasik has really helped me discover my love for childish Gambino's dedication, messaging, and overall artistry on a completely different level, and really view music in general at an entirely new depth. Gambino has always made me feel seen and less alone by touching on a number of my biggest fears, such as lack of identity, never being enough, or always being alone. But if BTI has

taught me anything, it's that it's okay to feel those things, human even. Maybe that's what connects humanity after all. Hey Cole, this is Stephen from Graham, North Carolina. Thank you so much for dissecting one of my favorite albums of all time. BTI expresses almost everything that I have thought about in my life, my struggles, my hopes, and my dreams, and my fear of the future and existentialism. The fear of death is a reality that we all face, but BTI made me feel like I wasn't alone, and your analysis was symbiotic to the album. Thank you so much, and I can't wait to see what you have in store for next season. My name's Brian, and I'm from Maryland. Because the internet has always grabbed me in the way that is more than just an album and changed my perspective on what albums and art can be, I don't think

we'll ever see another project that integrates music, script, videos, and real world experiences and performance as seamlessly as this album did. He really created a world that we can live in whenever we need to, and I'll always be grateful to have that. I get afraid about my thoughts being misinterpreted or miscommunicated and that there's nothing after death. Hi, my name is David and I'm from Florida. My biggest takeaway from the cause of the internet is that although you can live life and view the world with an existential and meaningless view, you get to choose whether you want to live with that mindset. Nothing matters, so why live and nothing matters?

So let's live to find meaning and the meaning is. My biggest fear is to end up as a numbing job working on fulfilling nymphied. Thanks for a great season. My name is D.RSA and I'm from Chicago, Illinois. Because the internet means a lot to me, because I can relate to a lot of the experiences and feelings expressed in the songs and the screenplay. The moments of maintain amusement, social awakening, existential angst, and realization all hit close to home for me and my life. I understand, contemplate, and try to figure out what the true meaning of life is, and this album really resonates with that feeling. My biggest fear is finding out too late what comes after death.

My name is Miles and I'm from Chicago. My biggest takeaway from because the internet has to be Donald Glover's exploration of the internet's impact on the ways that we connect, not just with each other, but with ourselves and the world as a whole. His call for truth and vulnerability isn't just a challenge to the facades we see daily on the internet, but a signal for change and maybe just even a better world. In that spirit, I'll lend out a hand and tell you that I'll lend out a hand and tell you that I'll tell you that I'll I'm afraid of being left behind. I'm Adam from Columbus, Ohio.

One of my biggest takeaways from Because the Internet is that there isn't some inspiring, happy way to live life and die. Life doesn't give you a Hollywood ending. You just live, and then it ends one day. All we really have is each other and the cruelty of our modern systems. My biggest fear is a life of unhappiness, be it becoming a slave to labor, or not finding a place to belong.

I don't know how to make a future in a world that doesn't have one, let alone be happy in that future. But I guess nobody really knows, huh? Thanks for all the hard work, you guys, and keep it up. Hey guys, my name is Nick, and I'm from Denver, Colorado. BTI reminded me of a quote I read in high school from the Christian monk Thomas Merton about how he one time walked a busy street corner and was just overcome with the beauty of humanity's interconnectedness. He wanted to walk up to everyone else that was blind and shake them and tell them the good news. This album is Donald Glover's good news. Yes, we will die someday, and yes, we are perpetually alone.

But that's not a bad thing. We are all alone together, whether we like it or not. My biggest fear in life has always been not aligning with and loving this true self, this alone self, that was explored on the album. I've worried about that for as long as I can remember. But with the beauty of this album and Cole's analysis, I've realized that this just is not as daunting as it seems. I am already me. I just have to realize it. Hey, Cole, this is Celine from Sacramento, and I just wanted to say thank you for dissecting this amazing album.

I've been going through a hard time recently and listening to the breakdown of because the internet and Gambino's existential crisis in the album sort of helped ease those feelings. One of my biggest fears is being alone and when I was at my lowest, I stepped out of my comfort zone and went to a childish Gambino concert all by myself and it was amazing. The concert was in Oakland, so Telegraph Avenue is close to my heart now because of that experience. Thank you for the season and I hope to hear more episodes from his other albums in the future. Hey guys, I'm Horyam Shrestha, 19. I'm from Nepal. And the biggest takeaway from BTI for me, I think, is growth, hope, and connection. Like, with the pandemic and everything, I've been going through some things lately, and I've had to grow up real fast, you know. But I think I can connect to the boy on that, like, especially that part in 2005, where the first wheel just keeps looping and the boy slowly loses his innocence as the world around him turns in shambles.

Because I remember listening to this song five years ago, and I just thought it was some love song, but apparently I was clapping for the wrong week. reasons, but like Donald said, like you're allowed to grow from things, like you're allowed to get better. So that gives me hope. Hey, Cole, Pablo, from Chicago. My biggest takeaway from season seven is our need for meaningful connections. I recently turned 30 and for the first time last year, I connected with someone at a level I had an experience before.

Telegraph Avenue ties it a love for me. From turning 30 and dealing with the existential distress of settling down to putting your all on the line for a connection you deemed real and authentic. The boy driving from LA to Oakland as if everything depended on that trip is how I feel when I'm not ready to accept change. People are here, but they're also not. Our world is superficial, and as stated throughout VTI, we most move on whether we like it or not. I fear meaningful connections and the lack thereof. Hi, my name is Dar Gray. I'm Irish.

I love this album because it makes you so aware of the tragedies of life, but also reminds me of its beauty. My main takeaway from it is that we can even do it. well and try to reconnect with the past, or we can use our newfound experiences to move forward and carve a future for ourselves. I mean, the future is uncertain sure, but if you don't jump out of the front site, then we're going to miss out on it. These are risks worth taking. Personally, I'm scared of missing out in the fun, and that's why I'm going to live my life for the full. Peace. Hey, my name is Gabriella and I'm from Florida. Because the internet is an album that I've grown up on. Starting from even when 2005 was released as a single, it's an album that I find

myself drawn back to for some of the themes that it brings up. And Dysect Podcast Season 7 has really helped me understand some of what Donald Glover was trying to express through the story of the boy on questions of love and freedom and permanence. And that's definitely one of the things I fear is the permanence of the internet is that something good for humanity. Hey, my name's Tawanga, currently residing in Emmington, Alberta, Canada, big fan of the podcast. One thing I really took away from this season in particular is how much you can really live with something and still not really understand it fully. I love this album when it came out, but in particular the song, 2005, along with the remix, stayed in my rotation forever. Forever. To learn all this underlying context about infinity was mind-blowing for me.

Ironically, I think my deepest fear is forever being misunderstood. My name is Joseph Martin from Rosebid, California. Because the internet came out my senior year of high school, a time when I was about to get thrown into this world without a clue of what I wanted to who I was. Being introduced to some of these topics and ideas on the album such as life, death, loneliness, and the internet as a teen was the first time I really started to look inward and ask myself hard questions. It was the first time I was honest with myself. The first time it started to make sense.

Seven years later, in BTI is more relevant than ever. I've learned how terrified I am of making connections with people and now realize how important it is for me. how important it is for me to be present because that's all that really matters, the connections I have with those around me. I don't have it figured out, but I know who I am and that I have to keep on learning, because the internet changed my life. Thank you, Donald. Hi, my name is Camden Ostrander from Aspen Hill, Maryland. I've had the honor and privilege of writing for this season of Dysect. If you've been listening this season, well, then you've

heard from me. This entire experience has been a dream, a great, a goal for a long time, and now I'm really excited for what's to come. But I'm also terrified. See, I'm afraid of the future. I'm afraid this was too late, that this isn't enough. I'm afraid that what I'm about to say is going to come off lame or won't connect or that I won't get to say anything else. But I'm going to try. When I was 17 and saw Donald Glover post those Instagram notes, I wrote one of my own. Among half jests like, I'm afraid I will fail Spanish, I wrote, I'm afraid no one will understand this, and I'm afraid Donald Glover will see this and hate it. I still feel that way. I'm terrified of making mistakes, of being frozen in those

imperfect moments. I'm afraid there's someone better for you, for this, for me. I'm afraid Cole Kushna hates me. I mean, ask him how many scripts I turned in on time or how many incessantly minute diatribes he read. I'm afraid this doesn't matter at all. So here's what I believe to be true. Who we are is because the internet. The reason we're here is because the internet. We are the experience of our infinite dynamic fluid connections hurtling forward in time. We need to to reach out to each other, to realize our connections, as these leaps of faith and interwoven bonds are the producers and conduits of meaning. It's December, and the specter of a new year looms before us. Yet, as we've seen, at each ending, there are beginnings. Because we're in for a lonely

winter, but I want us to be able to connect, especially over the internet. Hopefully, Dissect has helped progress these ideas, but we have to take what we've learned here and move forward, creating a new again. I want us to be able to start over. We have to plant seeds and build better structures to provide and shelter our future. We are responsible for creating and maintaining our worlds, and we need to make them a space for all of us. We have to fight for what we want to keep. just hope we fight for each other. I also wanted to remind you, and I hope the experience of Dysect reminds you, that no matter how bad you mess up, no matter how low we all go, we're always allowed to be better. At least, I hope so. We've got to save that. That's the future we need to

create. This season of Dysect has been a moment, an incredible experience. One, I cannot thank you enough for. Thank you, Cole, for the incredible opportunity and guidance. Thank you to my family, my parents, my loved ones, my partner, and everyone who's ever supported or connected with me. Thank you to royalty, and thank you to the boy, childish Gambino, and Donald Glover. We've got plenty of ideas and a lot of magic to offer. You know how to reach me.