TrueLife - Pop Culture - Students of Christopher Newport University

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/A museum doseAloha fellow disruptors and pop culture archeologists—Today, we’re cracking open the vault of American myth-making with not just one, but three brilliant minds who aren’t just studying history—they’re remixing it, re-curating it, and calling it out in real time.Straight outta Christopher Newport University, meet the powerhouse crew behind the exhibit “Made for the Moment: Glimpses into American Pop Culture.” These are museum studies renegades who know that culture isn’t something you passively consume—it’s something you confront, question, and sometimes completely dismantle.Aster McMillion is a curator of chaos and clarity—activist, researcher, and walking collage of academia and rebellion. Picture Gloria Steinem crossed with Indiana Jones if they were dropped into a Warhol print and handed a bullhorn.Andrew Brown is a tour guide through the simulation—part art historian, part cultural codebreaker. He’ll take you from Rothko to Rage Against the Machine without missing a beat, all while interrogating who gets to shape “the canon.”And now joining the fray is the brilliant Lizzie Childress—or as the revolution knows her, Lizzie. She’s a triple-threat honors student, history major, political science and museum studies double-minor, and student leader of more clubs than there are TikTok trends in a day. Lizzie’s not just studying curatorial power—she’s practicing it in real time, zooming in live from the exhibit space itself. She’s Phi Alpha Theta meets Schoolhouse Rock meets punk rock historian.Their event? A full-on excavation of the American psyche—from Elvis to drag queens, from Barbie to TikTok backlash. This isn’t just nostalgia. It’s a reckoning.So if you’ve ever questioned the gospel of Disney, longed for the days of Blockbuster, or wondered why memes feel more powerful than newspapers—this is your show.Grab your joystick. Crack your Capri Sun. We’re tearing back the curtain on who’s really writing the script in American culture. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. I hope the wind is at your bed.

back. Who doesn't love pop culture? I know I do. And I got some incredible young minds who were at the forefront of bringing to us the ideas of pop culture. I call this one a museum dose, ladies and gentlemen. So to my fellow disruptors and pop culture archaeologists, today we're cracking open the vault of American myth making with not just one, but three brilliant minds who aren't just studying history. They're remixing it, recurating it, and calling it out in real time. Straight out Christopher Newport University meet the powerhouse crew behind the exhibit made for the moment glimpses into American pop culture. These are museum study renegades who know that culture isn't something you passively consume, it's something you confront, question and sometimes completely dismantle.

Astor McMillan is a curator of chaos and clarity, activist researcher and walking college of academia and rebellion. Picture Gloria Steinem crossed with Indiana Jones if they were dropped into a Warhol print and handed a bullhorn. Andrew Brown is a tour guide through the simulation, part art historian, part cultural codebreaker. He'll take you from Rothko to rage against the machine without missing a beat, all while interrogating who gets to shape the cannon. And now joining the fray is the brilliant Lizzie Childress, or as the Revolution knows her, Lizzie.

She's a triple threat honor student, history major, political science and museum studies double minor, and student leader for more clubs than there are TikTok trends in a day. Lizzie's not just studying curational power. She's practicing it in real time, zooming in live from the exhibit space itself. Thank you all for being here today. How are you guys doing?

Thank you for having us. We're really exciting to be here. Yeah. Thank you for the very good. That's a really great introduction. It got all quiet for a minute. I'm like, whoa, we went deep on that. No, it's deep on that one.

So tell me a little bit. Let's start off with Lizzie. And maybe you can get, or whoever wants to start, why don't you start off and tell me what exactly this exhibit is, what you guys are doing there, and give me some background on it. Yeah, so our exhibit is titled Made for the Moment, and we have a little of subpolymptive glimpses into American pop culture. And so with the exhibit, each person, or like,

So we did this as a class. And each person, we were able to pick a lot of different items that represent some different era of pop culture. And then we each curated a little exhibit for it. So we picked and chose which items we wanted to display to the public to kind of define our little pop culture area. And then we had a lovely exhibit design team and installation team that they put all of the things together in the lovely cases.

And we can do like a little rotation and show you them if you'd like. And like separated them into the different categories as well. So we have like six different subsections of pop culture, kind of some of the overarching things over the past few decades of American history. Nice. I would love that. Like let's, and maybe everybody can say a little bit about their part, but I would love a little tour. Like that would be so awesome to get to walk around and see. And maybe each individual can show me like what it is that you did there.

So let's let's do that. Yeah. All right. Well, let's turn off with the tour. We think they're off of the tour. Yes, awesome. Okay, perfect. We can first go to my section.

So I was fast with doing board games. I had around, I think, five to choose from that we got off of eBay, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and some from Dr. Solomon's own collection. It was nice enough to lend us. I ended up choosing Scrabble, Yotsie, and Shootsy, and Shoots and Ladders, all three pretty classic board games that kind of span across the ages. And then with each lot, we were tasked with curating them in the shelf and then writing a shelf label as well as an attached essay that, of course, counted for a grade. But it was a really fulfilling process.

It was a really interesting experience, especially if you want to kind of get an aerial view here. See there were pieces left in here done by actual players. So who knows when this is from, but Rick and Celeste have their score here on the card. and I'm so doing time seeing these classic board games, especially coming from as far back as the 1960s. Okay, so let me ask you this. When it comes to these board games, what do you think these board games says about the attitudes of people?

Like, can we extrapolate what people were like or what some things fun they were, what they did on their downtime? Like, what are your thoughts on these board games and the way they worked in culture? Yeah, definitely. It's really interesting looking back, like I said, to the 1960s when these were created and manufactured mainly.

There's a lot of emphasis on morals and values, especially with the younger audience and younger generation, teaching them to do their chores and to not talk back, and they would progress in the Shoots and Ladders game. And then if they did something like naughty or not nice, they would be pushed back down a few slides. So in terms of development, this was definitely a learning experience for a lot of young children.

And then moving forward into more strategy games for older audiences. It's interesting to see how Scrabble was used as a form of entertainment. And I think it carries over into today's modern age with these apps and with these games like Wordle that we still have on our phones and use on a daily basis. We're still kind of fascinated with the art of wordplay

and amagrams and stuff like that. So it's interesting to think about how a lot of these games are really timeless. And I know I grew up playing shoots and ladders in the early 2000s. And it goes as far back as, you know, ancient India. So it's a game that came from way back when that we still utilize today. Do you think that the games of those times, like those particular board games,

were a way in which to teach child about the rules of society as well as having fun? Yeah, absolutely. I think that a lot of play. I looked into a lot of different play styles, childhood development, is structured in a way to teach young children about what they're to be expected to do in society. And it's interesting when these things are very meticulously curated and gendered, especially. We have a section that you'll see in a minute titled gender play. And it's interesting to see what is marketed to what audience, you know, even different areas in the world. Of course, we didn't really branch out beyond the United States. But in my research, it's interesting to see how different countries experience that phenomenon.

Yeah, that's amazing to see. So you stayed in the U.S. Would you say that it seems to me a lot of these games are recognized around the world? Like you could go to Sweden or maybe if you had a foreign exchange or you could go to the house. You could probably see Yatsi in there, definitely scrabble on some level. Did you notice that as well when you were doing your research? Absolutely. Especially with Shoots and Ladders, it has a richest world across.

It went from like India to Germany, you know, to Africa. So it's interesting to see how it traveled throughout the world. And a lot of these games are now, formerly Milton Bradley, now owned by Hasbro, are translated into thousands of languages. which is across the world. It's so interesting to see the world of board games and culture teaching us about centralization. You wouldn't expect it. It does. It does.

Awesome. Well, let's pass the mic around and see what the next particular window has to offer for us. We can just do like an overall tournament. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Okay. So like this section that is within, that Andrews thing is within a, we hear, oh yeah, like I'll angle it.

So this is going to be the evolution of the is one of our six subsections of the exhibit. And moving over the next one that we have, which is our background for today, it's going to be the ad scene on TV section. So this covers a lot of things like Sesame Street and Coca-Cola and Disney and the Flintstones. And then the next little subsection we do have

is the gender play section that Andrew was just talking about. So we have a whole bunch of different kinds of books and like kind of you can see the progression of the books as they as like kids been aged. This is kind of the way that things would differ. And then we have some other toys as well. It's like the Beanie Babies and the GI Joe and the American Goal and the cabbage patch dolls

just to kind of show the different aspects of play during history. And then this, oh, I'm in my AirPods case. This is an extension of the as seen on TV section with the Disney section. We have this lovely little record that unfortunately didn't fit in the display case. So it is out here for the public to kind of see,

not touch because it's really old and kind of damage. And then over here, we have our next little subsection is entertainment technology. So we have all these different things from the viewmasters to like different forms of music. So the Walkman all the way up to the iPod. Is that a nano or something? I don't know.

And then we have a bunch of different kinds of cameras and stuff as well. And then our next little subsection we have is music mania. And my activity is in this so we can come back back from not going to the last one. So this one kind of ranges from like Elvis to Woodstock and the Beatles and like all of that kind of like those big music movements that we have in the United States.

And then our last little subsection is going to be in the news. So this features things like the moon landing, the first American moon landing, and then also the JFK assassination as well as World War II. So just some of those kind of like big things that like you wouldn't, they're like historical events that you wouldn't really, I wouldn't, at least for me, I wouldn't really think of them as pop culture, but like they are, they did have such a big impact on America and its culture. But then, so for me, the specific part of the exhibit that I curated was the little Beatles section. So I had a selection of items that were provided

by Dr. Solomon and his personal collection because a lot of most of the artifacts, actually all the artifacts either came from Dr. Solomon's personal collection or they were things that he purchased with his own money off of eBay for us to do. Very sweet because he did not have to do that. He's definitely transformed this course into like a real world curating type of thing so we can get that experience before we go on the job market. But so I picked three records to highlight from the Beatles that I thought kind of expressed like more of their pop culture yesterday and today, which was, unfortunately, it's the suitcase one, not the original butcher family. Kind of a bummer, but, you know, it's okay.

As well as Yellow Submarine and then the Sergeant Pepper's The Lee Hearts Club Band record. And then there are just some other, like, magazines and, like, a collector's guide to, like, collecting Beatles artifacts as well, because that was such a major thing in America was collecting all of the different Beatles things. And as well as, like, there's a little member of Fan Club pin and a photograph. There was a, like, like, Ringo Star when they first came to America in, like, 19. 54 maybe. He like randomly pulled up next to this car of high school kids and took a picture. And then they got together like 50 years later and recreated the picture just for like for like, I think a book he was writing.

So yeah, it's like to show how the Beatles have really like still stretched across pop culture. And I mean, I say that as someone who still listens to the Beatles today, like not having grown up in the 1960s at all. So yeah. It is absolutely fascinating. And I love I love that you did, you chose music. because I'm not sure that there's anything more powerful than language, than song and performance and music when it comes to cultural revolutions. And if you just look at the different albums there, the Lonely Hearts album,

you can just see like this incredible transformation that's happening in the world. And, you know, people are discovering mushrooms and they're discovering LSD and they're rocking to Jimmy Hendricks, you know? and what can you can you bring us up a little closer on those on those album cover so that the guest can kind of see this whole transformation happening right here so like this yeah I'm sorry yeah the yesterday and today one would have been like one of the earlier albums of the Beatles when they were still in that kind of like typical like oh just coming over from England kind of innocent type of stage that's on like one of the magazines as well from they first came over but then that kind of transitions into the like we're psychedelic yellow submarine sergeant peppers only hearts club band so yeah it is it is a is so amazing to see. In some ways, okay, let me ask you this. As someone who's curated this particular event and you chose music as a part to do, do you see where we are now as a parallel to that time? Or what are some similarities and some differences that you see in your world today versus that time? I would say, like, I think some similarities are definitely like the kind of hysteria that can surround

music because, like, you'll have like these artists that will, like, pop up and that everyone's, like, going like feral for them or like one song releases and like it's like all over ticot or Instagram or social media or something like that so I think that kind of like crazed hysteria is there I don't really think the longevity is still here because like you know in the past like stuff like woodstock and like the Beatles and Elvis like that's timeless like we still talk about those artists today like in our time and that's like decades after like they were at their most popular but I know like today we have like such a quick like a nature of just such quick changing fads and trends so like an artist can be popular for like a week and then like

like something like something new comes out and then that's popular for like a week and so and like people can like come back and research like their popularity so it's just very like kind of like um not volatile I don't know it's just very like like like ever changing as compared to like a kind of like a longevity of like just like steady like yes we all know who this is and we all like this person but yeah okay so like let's say that I come in there with my daughter and my son my daughter's 11 and my my son is like five and you have this beautiful setup that you have right here can you tell me and my family a little bit about it like pretend like we're there and we're for the first time trying to understand what music is and you are the curator can you give us like what tell us

about this beautiful piece over here what would you tell us okay um i oh gosh okay this is kind of hard so i don't know i mean i guess i'm i'd probably start by asking you guys like what kind of music you like to listen to. Like, so I don't know. Yeah, well, let's do it. Let's do it right here. You know, first off, it's a great question and thank you for asking. I really love these pieces behind you.

I've been listening to like a little bit of some Fleetwood Mac. You know, I kind of grew up with like the Hendricks and the doors and so. And lately I've been revisiting that kind of stuff. I also like a little bit of punk rock. But yeah, I'd see I'm kind of a throwback. And it seems like there's some of that stuff in that cage back there. Yes, yeah. So within this exhibit, it does like the whole music,

one as a whole focuses a lot on like kind of music of the past and like you know some of the more like popular highlights of like Elvis and then the big craze that was woodstock which was just in the middle of like the summer of love like hippie movement kind of thing and the Beatles as well which kind of like they were an English group and they came over to America and just sparked this like mass hysteria so it's just it's like kind of it just focused a lot on the past but I feel like a lot of these characteristics do carry over to the present and like with like the development of music as we see it today and children's music and stuff like that as well. Like a lot of the songs that you hear were probably inspired by like many of these artists

and like this time period as well. So like like, you know, the more popular, I don't know, like there's like lots of, I feel like kind of psychedelic artists now or like people just have the freedom and the creativity to do whatever they want with music. And that probably wouldn't have been possible without these people of the past, like pioneering that for us. Well done. I think me and my kids got a bit of an education right.

Thank you for that. That's super awesome. All right, let's take the next leg of the tour here. We have one more student that's awesome, it's got a beautiful presentation. So I am a project manager. I was not, I did not have a lot to curate this year. I did my curation last spring, so spring 2024.

So I curated for that exhibit. And then now I was brought back as a senior project manager. So instead of having a specific lot and museum like role, I oversaw all of the other teams and made sure, like, I was helping Dr. Solomon starting in the fall, like the end of the fall semester. So back in December and then early January before we met as a class for the first time. And it was fun getting to see the exhibit progress from a different point of view. Sorry, I'm out of breath holding the camera up for the tour. knocked me out for some reason. But I, so I oversaw the education and assessment team, the project manager, or the PR team, and one more that I cannot remember off the top of my head. I believe it was the installation team. So I helped and oversaw all of them and just like checked up with them throughout the

semester. I was a behind the scenes person for the curation of the. exhibit and just like an advisor to the newer curators as they were going through the process of creating this exhibit. So my role was a little different than everyone else's. It's awesome. It's cool to get to play different positions and thoroughly understand what it takes for everything to work in conjunction with each other.

Like there's a lot of moving parts and it's easy to. Now let me ask you this. As a curator, are there people fighting for like the best space? like, no, I want the upfront space up here. Have you seen my piece? Like, it seems like, you know, whenever you're dealing with artist on some level, there's this little bit of like,

I want this piece or that piece. Is that something you have to deal with as a curator? I think it was a little bit of fighting, not fighting, but there was a little bit of, attention when the curators this semester were picking their lots. I think the Beatles and Elvis and Woodstock, the music ones were all very popular.

groups of groups of items. And so there were, there was some discussion about who would get which, which lot. But I think there's always just, there's always, there's always, there's always a fight for the best spot. And I don't think we had necessarily fighting or like tension over who was displayed where because we had, Andrew was part of the exhibit design team, and he was able to put together the design and layout of the exhibit in a way that was cohesive and it made sense, and it put everyone in their own spot, and everyone was highlighted in their own way. Yeah. It's so interesting to me. You know, when people go to a museum, most people see it from the point of view of the visitor. And when you do that, you're like, oh, I'm going to go to this museum. and learn different things. I'm going to learn about this, or I'm going to get to see this.

But maybe the three of you could tell me what you learned by what it means to have people come in, because you see people go to different things. You're like, oh, I thought they'd go over there, but maybe they went over there. So maybe each of you could just take a moment to tell me what you learned about the people coming in and setting this stuff up that the normal person might not know. Yeah, I'll start. I think it's really interesting being on the curation side of things. I grew up going to a ton of museums, and you don't really think about lighting or wall color or where things are positioned within the space. A topic that we discussed a lot this semester was wayfinding, which is a fancy word, but it essentially just means how people walk around the space. And we definitely did a lot of trial and error with how people move around the space, what draws their eye into certain sections of the room, because we do just have.

have one room. So we were really intentional with where we placed the items on the exhibit design team, how we installed the vinyl lettering, what the colors were, what the theme was of those colors. So a lot of different aspects that go into how people, you know, progress through the exhibition and how they move around the space, definitely. Right. Lizzie, what do you think? I was really interesting. So for like the day that the exhibit opened, it opened at one of Christopher Newport's, like we have like a pie day, which is like a kind of a research conference where like different students can present the research that they've been working on all throughout the semester.

And so our exhibit opened like that same day because most of the stuff happens in the library and our exhibit is in the library. So I signed up for a shift to like kind of, you know, stand in the exhibit and like watch people come in. And most of the people that came in were like, had been invited by like, you know, friends, whatever, like not very many people. It is kind of like a little off hallway in the library. Kind of have to like be looking for a study room to find where we are because there's not a lot

of signage of about it outside of this room. But I like like my roommate came and she's not really like very much like a history person or a museum person like at all. And it was really cool like getting to watch her like walk around through the exhibit and stuff like that. Like she was really and like one of my friends in the class curated the World War II section and like she was like my roommate was looking at that section and like we have there's a in within that section we have an atomic bomb like guidelines kind of thing like it's like a little pocket size and people would carry it around like the guidelines and like I would. telling her like oh you should go look at that because it's really cool and like that was just really

fun to see kind of like her eyes light up and like this historical like way that she never really does when i'm talking to her about what i'm learning in all three glasses um and then also as well like there was one story of um that i was told by some people who were in here um like there was an like i think an older man came in and was like looking around and he saw the g-i joe doll and like the display case and audibly gasped and was like just going on and on about like how much it reminded him in his childhood and then we have like a little like I don't know what that's called I guess it's like a frame yeah frame like thing where you can put a sticky note like on it with like your favorite pop culture memory and like kind of reading through all of those and seeing like what like this exhibit has brought back like nostalgia

wise for people is really fun as well like getting to see how it impacts the public I think was really cool to learn for me awesome Dr. David Solomon we love you what an amazing individual thank you so much for all this man I'm so grateful and I know that these students are as well. It's such a treat to get to spend time with you and get this in here too. I have I also, I got some guests that are asking questions. Are you guys

okay? Maybe taking some questions? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Now, I think that you guys have a whole different, like I'm almost 50 years old and I think you guys are considerably younger than me. So it's going to be awesome to get to hear some of the differences and so my audience has a different idea too. So the first question is

in a world where TikTok trends last 15 seconds, how do museums compete with or complement that kind of instant cultural consumption? That's a really good question. I know this semester we did a lot of discussion about pop culture as a whole and how trends cycle through. I'm not entirely sure how museums are going to adapt moving forward. I think our exhibit specifically, we really tried to capture the more nostalgic aspects of pop culture instead of the 15-second trends you see on Instagram and TikTok and everything.

And I feel like there's a place for that in museums. I feel like it could be incorporated into a museum's like mission and like education plan, but maybe not like the central aspect of an exhibit or museum. Yeah. And I know that there are a lot of institutions that are utilizing these social media platforms to their advantage. I think it's funny you discuss the gap in age because there are a lot of Gen Z interns that are coming in and utilizing what they see on their social media feeds in order to better support the reach that they get, the audience that they get, and the people that end up

coming in to these institutions. So it is definitely a blessing and a curse. I think there's a lot of work, like Astor said, that can be done on the end of these museums in order to, you know, stand firm in what they're presenting in these fad times when things are so fleeting. And it'll be interesting to see how that evolves as time progresses. Yeah. I definitely think, like, I feel like the kind of 15 second trends, I feel like they could be a good marketing strategy for museums to, like, utilize as long as, like, they keep their content inside, like, their museum, like, the same.

And, like, they do their rotating exhibits and stuff. But using the trends as marketing to get people to go, I think is a good thing. Because I interned at the Poe Museum this past summer through a program at CNU. And while I was interning there, like, someone made a video about, like, the main curator. I was just an edit of him talking about, like, chairs or something like that. And it got, like, over a million likes on TikTok. And people, and I was just really funny to me that that was something that, like, caught momentum and I think probably got people to start going to museum.

So I think it can be useful for, like, boosting attendance, but it shouldn't be, like, take away from the main point of museum. Yeah. Those are awesome answers. It would be epic to see some sort of like dynamic displays. You know, I think that for the younger generation, like they really want to be part of the actual event. And it seems if you look at some, some of the museums or art installations are kind of

moving in that way. And some of the art installations and museums seem to be merging in some different aspects, what I think is amazing. We got Dr. David Solomon chiming in over here. He says, what were the most satisfying? and challenging parts of the project. Who wants to take that one first? I would say the most satisfying

was getting to see it all come together because I was in charge of taking pictures of all of the lots while they were still in our workroom before anyone had chosen them and before we had started work. And so seeing it go from just a bunch of random items on a table to on the shelves,

curated with shelf labor, goals, like the transformation is amazing and the fact that we did it in two and a half, three months is incredible because we're all very busy students. I would say the most challenging part was also the time crunch because we are all busy students. We all have other academic and personal and work lives that we have to attend to. And so getting this all done in such a short amount of time, I'm proud of everyone, like all of the curators and the other project managers and very thankful for David Solomon to help us along the way and everything. I think echoing Aster's sentiment, it was definitely a challenge getting it all done in the short

amount of time. Normally when you're looking at these institutions with bigger budgets and, you know, bigger staff, they plan exhibits, you know, two, three years in advance in order to get everything assembled in a timely manner. And it was interesting to see how successful we were at it. It was so gratifying to see everything come together before the due date. And it was a real team effort. Everyone pitched in. Everyone had their own, you know, part that they were really, really good at. And it was just a really fulfilling experience overall. Yeah, kind of echoing those same sense. It's definitely the most satisfying part was watching it all. They come together, like seeing it like just like go from the pictures of the lots and the shared Google

drive that we all had to like the six, like the six different sections and like all of the this wonderful room that we're in right now. For me, the most challenging part was picking what I wanted to put out on my lot, because there were so many cool things within there that I was like, I want to show like all like six of the records that I got, but I cannot fit six records and two magazines and a book in like one shelf of this exhibit.

So like kind of figuring out like, because like as the curator, you do kind of have to pick and choose what you want the public to see. So that's like a really important and challenging role as well, like figuring out what aspects of the history you want to like share with people and educate them on. I think that's fascinating. You know,

on some level you want what you put out there to be contagious. Like you almost want to infect them with an idea that is nostalgic. And that's a tricky thing to do. I mean, you're looking at color schemes and then you're looking at dates. Do I put them in this order? Do I put them in that order? What's your like maybe you can talk about your strategy for that?

Like what is it? Do you want your nostalgic piece to infect people? Or is that like the wrong? terminology? What do you think? I know for me personally, especially with the board games that do bring back such a sense of nostalgia because we play them growing up. Yeah. And that's why we have a lot of our fondest memories, I think. I definitely wanted there to be some takeaway when people came in and when they looked at these

pieces, as we all did, we want someone to take away a little piece of our exhibition. But I also want there to be reflection, I think. I think that can be the most impactful thing about an exhibition like this. And I think in including all of these pieces of physical media as opposed to everything being digitized, it was a really effective way, especially for our generation who is growing further and further away from these pieces that are actually and, you know,

able to be held in our hands to kind of reflect and think about how beneficial they are to keep, you know, in society in this growing, age of digitization of everything. That was really well said. I agree 100%. Let me ask you this one. This one comes to us from Betsy, and she says, in your opinion, is there a tension between preserving the past and participating in the now? Can museums do both?

I think the entire purpose of museums is to do both, because it's like bringing you the past in the now. So you can like connect. And I think a lot of like movements that are trying to happen in museums currently is like making it so that the past is more so connected to the present. So people can understand like why they're here and why they're learning about this. Because if we can't like it's like, it's like, you know, it's always the phrase like history like repeats itself or whatever. So like it's kind of like an endless cycle. Like we don't learn about these things that happened. We may just continue to repeat them and if we don't like learn about like all of these things that have happened and how they're affecting us now and like what decisions in the past like have led to today.

I think I don't really know where we'll end up if we like kind of just stop talking about the past. It's like more so just like trying to connect it to the now. And I think that's the most important. Yeah. I love that. You know what? Go ahead. I feel preserving the past is so important, especially like the more obscure things of our history need to be preserved.

And people need to be educated on. them. And museums can do a great job by connecting the past to the present and making it more accessible to all parts of the population as well as making it interesting because some people just are not interested in learning about history. But if the museum can present it in an interesting way that connects it to something more modern or something that they will understand, it's a way to get people to learn about the history and understand where our society has come from. And hopefully that will help us understand where we're headed to in the future. Yeah, really well said.

And it brings up my next question of walking through a memory or walking through a museum is sort of like walking through an actual novel, you know, and what kind of responsibility do you have as curators? Like you could create a theme if you want it to. If you think if you have a popular museum that's catering to maybe, you know, children between the ages of five and nine, and you have stories of rebellion, you've got David over there with the sling and you've got these, you know what I mean? Like you can create the future stories of heroism and the minds of the youth. Is there a responsibility for curators to build these themes for kids to walk into to live a better life? Yeah, it's a really interesting topic that I think a lot of curators are having,

a discussion around, especially when things like funding come into play, because there are outside sources that want to push an agenda, especially in an institution that is so easily accessible to a lot of the younger generation. And I do think that it is a curator's responsibility to be as unaffected and uninfluenced as possible by any biased sources, because it is a responsibility that a curator has to portray these stories in a way that's both easy to to understand by these younger generations and also as true to the truth as possible. And that's something that I really admire curators who work with those topics because it's hard when you're discussing the history of this country being built on the backs of slaves and things

like the Holocaust that bring in genocide. And it's like a tricky line that you have to walk when it comes to balancing what, you know, you can show to, you know, like someone like your son, is five years old and what is the actual truth of the of the matter. So, yeah, it's very, very interesting. Yeah. It's it. People may not know how, how tricky it is, but, you know, especially if you have money on the table and you have a, like a wealthy donor that's like, listen, man, you want that

new wing, right? That's what we're going to do. It's kind of crazy. What do you do? But it's a metaphor for life. Who do we got over here? Okay, Lighter Horn. What's up, Lider?

Thanks for being here, man. You're an amazing human. He says, I discovered the Beatles. Dylan and the 60s in 1996 and probably abandoned the contemporary culture a little too much faced with the wealth of the past. That's an interesting thing for you guys to think about too. Maybe you are turning people on to things and ideas they've never had before. What do you guys think? I think it would be really cool if we like turn people on to like ideas that they never really had before. I know, I feel like for, I mean, for me personally like when we were going for the

lots and stuff, it was very stylish. I haven't thought about a lot of these things like since I was a kid or like didn't even really know about a lot of these things and stuff like that. So I think it's like really cool like how this can like really, you know, bring up that kind of nostalgia, like aspect that we've talked about a lot already. But I think it is really cool about like influence people's ideas as well. Like, you know, like showing them something that like they can still like participate in now even though it's like decades after it was really popular. You know, the thing with nostalgia is it's something you can feel. Like you would mention the man that came in there and he saw the G.I. Joe and immediately he's back into his life of like,

yeah, playing with G.I. Joe. And same thing with Barbie or Big Bird or Barney or listening to the Beatles on some level. Is there, how do you define nostalgia? Like, how would you describe nostalgia to someone that maybe be young or what are your guys' thoughts on that? That's a tough one. It's a super tough one. It's a super tough one. I don't know. I feel like when I was, when I first saw these lots, specifically some of the toys we had over here. We have a Rubik's Cube tucked in the corner back.

I was obsessed with that as a child. I could solve it within two minutes or something. It was crazy. But I hadn't touched one since I was like 10 maybe. And so seeing that, I was just like, huh, like that's a part of my childhood that I completely forgot about until I saw that moment, like saw the. item. I think items hold such memory for us, whether it's like the specific item from our past

or an item that looks similar or just like a recreation of it. I think nostalgia is just, it's so powerful because it brought back so, like seeing one single piece of plastic basically, just brought back hundreds of memories that I completely forgot about. So the nostalgia is just like a wave of memories, I guess. Like for me at least, that's how I'm I felt with the Rubik's Cube. It's a beautiful answer. Yeah. And I think that nostalgia is so closely linked to the curatorial experience because it's

about creating that experience for people. Again, when they come into this exhibition, we wanted them to be transported back to a time, you know, when they first discovered the Beatles or when they last picked up a Rubik's Cube. And it's interesting to try and to find something like that because it's, I think, different for everyone, you know, I, no one has the same memory when it comes to something like a board game or, you know, listening to a song. It's all about a personal experience. And it's both really tricky and also really easy to incorporate that into something like this. Again, it's like blessing and a curse.

It's like hard and easy to do, like a lot of things in curating. Yeah. And I think one thing about nostalgia too is that like it's kind of hard to define because it can go like over the span of so many different years and like you can be nostalgic about specific things from different time periods like like like looking like for me personally like the view master and stuff like we have who lives in the exhibit and I like like seeing those was like remember and I was like remembering like when I would like play with a view master in my house and like I could like hear the like little click and spin and stuff and I'm like looking at it and I'm thinking about those memories and I'm like like maybe eight or something in that in that kind of time but then like for the Beatles

and stuff like that brings back a lot of like more recent nostalgia for me because I started listening to them and like end of middle school like early high school and And my dad and I would always put on the, it was like the one music we would like both kind of like and like could agree on. So we would put it on when we were drive. We would drive to Tennessee to like see his family and stuff. And so we would just listen to the Beatles and like Peter Asher was like ranking all of the songs like and I was, we don't like Peter Asher in my household. I don't. I think he's kind of annoying. Sorry. It brings back like that nostalgic from like just like a couple years ago, like not even too long ago. But I think that's, and again, like what Andrew's saying,

again, is really closely linked with the curatorial process, because you want to, like, give people nostalgia from, like, any kind of time period, not just, like, you know, the 1700s or, like, late 1900s. Like, you want them to be able to feel it, like, from, like, throughout their life within the exhibit. I think one other thing that we, we discussed nostalgia a lot this semester when we were doing the mission statement and just the early stages of the exhibit. We have pieces from the JFK assassination as well as World War II. And so there was the question of do we even want to bring up this nostalgia because there is good and bad nostalgia and some of like some people are affected. We're affected negatively by those events. And so it's like

this is a really heavy topic we're bringing into our exhibit. How can we address this in a like in a manner that is appropriate. And so like that sort of the negative side of nostalgia was like a fine line we had to walk as well. And it was a big discussion we had. Yeah. I love all those answers. And it's it's fascinating to me to see some incredibly intelligent young people working with the symbols of society that can change the structure of it. You know what I mean by that? Like it's the symbols that we collectively imprint on that can fundamentally change the way we see ourselves and through this world. And if you look at uprisings or you look at the different propaganda through the time or you know, nostalgia, like all of these events and the ones behind you,

the music, the totems, all these things have a way of having a collective imprint on all of us. And when we see them, feel something. And I'm so thankful for you guys that are back you're researching it and studying it because I think you hold in your hands the future of the vision of the world. Like if you can really begin to harness what nostalgia is, if you can really begin to understand like the youngian idea of a man and his symbol, watch out because the museums are going to be epic with you guys behind them, you know, and I'm so thankful for it. David Solomon again, he wants to know, in your research on your objects, what was the most surprising thing you found out about an item.

Let's take it all the way around the horn here. I think for me, I think it was surprising to learn about the process. All the games that I had were produced by Milton Bradley. And it was interesting to learn how he came about making these different board games, because at the time, it was the Great Depression, and he was looking for an escapism and a way to lift the national mood. So I think the first game he created was something similar to Scrabble

or, like, it was some board game that he whipped up and then started just distributing to people around him in order to put their energy into something other than this depressing, you know, national mood of the Great Depression. and it then grew from there and even taking inspiration, like I mentioned at the beginning of the show, from things in ancient India and these board games that have been timeless classics. So it was really interesting to learn about the process that those all came about into the modern society at the time.

I love it. I didn't know that. Thank you. I think for me, the most kind of shocking was just like learning more about the different records and stuff within that. the collection because like you know i've seen the covers and i've listened to the songs but i never really did like a deep dive into them and like the suit case cover of yesterday and today like i did not realize that the original one of that was like the butcher baby one until i googled it and the butcher baby one came up and then like i learned about this whole like recall product like it was like a couple of days and everyone was like what is this this is horrible and so they had to immediately recall it and like replace it with this like new image and then like now like the butcher baby ones are like really

really rare and like really cool and collectible for a lot of people and like I think there was like a couple different variations like there's like you know the butcher baby and there's butcher baby ones that have like suitcase one pasted on top of it or something so like if you feel like I think there was like some kind of thing where you could uncover it and find the butcher baby one and there's just like the regular suitcase ones that they started printing and like the yellow submarine one was like the film I haven't seen the film and I really want to see it but like the back of the record like I thought was really cool because it's like

describing all this stuff and like placing it like it talks about like like all this, it talks about like Adam Eve and the Bible like on the back and then like leaning up to like the American Revolution. I'm like, these were some very odd historical markers to have picked out like frame yellow submarine like in the blue knees and stuff like that within. But that was just kind of really cool to learn about. It's so fascinating to me to get to see and hear about all of it and just to see the way in which the world doesn't, it doesn't really, what do they say?

The world doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. Okay, here we go. This one's coming from Nick. he says, are you worried that museums could become the next platforms for state-sponsored or corporate storytelling, especially in a culture obsessed with branding? Yeah. Yeah. We discussed a lot of that during in class.

And it is really scary to think about how easily these things can be bought by, like, the elite, their wealthy class. But I think everyone in the museum field, that we've interacted with at least has the same kind of sentiment and thoughts about it, about standing firm and not giving out to as hard as it is, external funding that may influence the museum's mission. And it's unfortunate that a lot of museums

are nonprofit institutions that rely so much on funding that's so hard to come by because it would be a whole lot easier if it was just given a whole bunch of money that you could do whatever with in order to be, you know, uninfluenced by someone who's super biased, but that's just not the case, unfortunately. Yeah, it's an interesting time that we live in. Yes.

I got to. When I say the word authenticity, like, what is the relationship between museums and authenticity? That's a crazy question, but it's on my mind. Who am I going to not ask it? I think curators and museums have to be. be authentic towards like the history of the item and like how it was intended to be viewed and what it like it's intended purpose as well. I feel like museums like if they aren't authentic towards

the history then they're just spreading this information and that can lead to a whole lot of confusion and chaos. I also think curators have to be authentic to themselves like in the way they write their shelf labels or mission statements, like they have to be authentic to, like, to the history, but also to themselves and to their morals and everything. Yeah. I like it. Lizzie, what do you think? Yeah, I agree with what Astor said.

I think, yeah, I think, I mean, authenticity is kind of like a whole, again, the whole purpose of a museum. Like, it is one of the museums are like kind of the main way that the public can be, like, fully educated and, like, can kind of, I would hope that they can trust that they're getting, like, a good education from a museum when they go. And that is like where the role of authenticity really comes in because like museums aren't presenting things in authentic ways and curators aren't often are not presenting things in authentic ways.

Then we just get a bunch of like out like what Asher said like a bunch of like misinformation and just kind of things being spread. And like like misinformation, especially in today's time, like in amongst public people that like you know like just like the people in America that people are like we are the governing body kind of ish. I don't really know anymore. But like, um, like if we have, if we're like basing decisions and things like off of that or with like misinformation that we have in our minds, that's not good. And museums should strive to be like the number one leader in authentic information as they are so closely tied to the public. I love it. That's a beautiful

answer. Maybe if we just shift back to this actual exhibit, like how much longer is this exhibit going on? Is it, do I got to get earlier? What's going on here? It'll be in Christopher Newport. University Triple Library until about January, February, 2026. So this exhibit will stay up through the summer and fall semester. And then starting next spring semester, there will be another museum studies class that will have their own exhibit with their own theme and items. And they'll take down our exhibit and put their own up. So it's just a site. It's a continuing cycle of different exhibits and everything. It's awesome.

It's awesome to get to see that the full cycle from set up to fall and, you know, to move new stuff in there. As we're kind of coming close to land in the plane, I just wanted to take a minute for each individual to maybe talk about where they can find you, what you have coming up. Maybe we can start over with Lizzie. And maybe you could talk about, you know, maybe just in summary, like what you've found to be the most beautiful part of what you've done so far in this. and then where people can find you, like your Instagram page and what you got coming up,

and then we'll just go down the line. Yeah. So the most – I don't even remember what the first question was. I'm so sorry. It's almost fine. I was my brain. My brain is not – Right.

What was the first part of it? What do you feel was the most beautiful part of this experience? Yeah. Okay. I mean, we've already kind of said it, but just like seeing it all come together. Like, I never would have – I mean, going into college, like, I thought I wanted to be a teacher. And like I slowly like realized that museum work and like curatorial work is like what I want to do with my life. And I never thought I'd get an opportunity to like practice that before going in the real world.

So like this has like been a really satisfying process to kind of like go through it all and like, you know, practice like having to like pick your favorites of items, which I have a very sentimental person. And I hate picking favorites of objects, but having to do that. And like just seeing it all come together like with the essays and like the shelf labels that we wrote with them. Like that was just really, that was probably the most satisfying thing for me. What I have coming up, well, I guess my Instagram page, yeah, is just my personal one. It's just like at Lizzie. I don't know, if you search Lizzie Childers on Instagram, you can probably find that I have a bunch of information. It's like CNU honors and whatever.

So like there's a picture of me. So if you, I don't know if they see this video, but I look the same in the picture. I really hope. And then I guess what I have coming up, nothing like super. super crazy right now. I'm going on study abroad this summer, but like I'm public history class here right now and we're working on virtual exhibits that I'm currently procrastinating on and it was whatever. I'm going to finish it at some point soon. But they'll be going up in our at Christopher Newport University's Torgler Center for the Fine Arts in 2026 for VA 250, which I don't know if

anyone outside of the history world is aware of that, but just like celebrating like, you know, the 250th anniversary of like the American Revolution, all that stuff. I'm writing an exhibit about salt and like its importance in like colonial Virginia and stuff and so that along with a bunch of other exhibits from people within that public within my public history class will be up on display and the tour starting in June 2026 and they'll be there until October 2026 so very very cool yeah that is awesome I think for me the most rewarding and the most beautiful part is seeing everyone's reactions and seeing everyone's feedback about the exhibit

It's been, like we've said, a thousand times really rewarding to see what everyone thinks and how everyone's been perceiving the experience that we put together. And it was such a great group of people, all of our peers and all of our classmates really worked well together, which made the experience a lot more fulfilling and easier overall. And thanks to Dr. David Solomon, we've had such a smooth process with getting everything together. and we would not have been able to get as many items on our own without his help. So very, very thankful for him. As far as me, I am hoping to intern at a few local institutions over the summer. And I am currently an intern for the Tour of Fine Arts Center, like Lizzie was discussing. And we have a really cool installation and exhibition coming up next year.

But right now we do have a ceramic show on display with a lot of different international artists. We're a fairly small institution with only one main display room. So if you happen to have any local listeners in the Newport News, Hampton Roads area, it's a super cool exhibition, free to attend, and it's really neat. You should come check it out. Awesome. Looking forward to checking it all out. I would say one of my favorite things for this process was one,

getting to get to know everyone and getting to work with everyone. He had a great group of people and getting to take a class with Dr. Solomon again was fantastic. And it was a great year with him. And then one of my, like my second favorite thing was during the installation process, I was helping install some of our gendered play items. And so it was I set up like the American Girl doll. And I grew up on American Girl Dolls. And so it was fun getting to kind of play with the. American Girl doll, not play, but like interact with the American Girl doll again. And that was just

a fun time. And then other aspects of the installation process, I was like, wow, I haven't held this item since I was like five, ten, you know, like a young child. So it was another nostalgia factor for me. And then I'm graduating in a couple weeks. I will be graduating from Christopher Newport University with a degree in classical studies and museum studies minor. And I'm going off to graduate school at Brandeis University up in Massachusetts for a master's in ancient Mediterranean studies. So I will hopefully be able to continue some work in the museum field when I'm up there as well. That sounds amazing. Congratulations. Thank you. Well, I'm super thankful for all of your time today. It was really cool to get to check it out. And I think that the future's in good hands. I love

the way you guys describe what you're doing. And I love the items that you chose. And I love the backstory behind it and what you learned about it. So hang on briefly afterwards. I'll talk to you briefly. But to everybody else within the sound of my voice, thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a beautiful day and go check out the museum. That's all we got. Thank you so much.