Episode 695 - Pop Culture
Jul 7, 2024
Pop Culture, and the way it's always changing… We fall in love with pop culture but it's constantly changing and new pop culture is always being created, which means that as time goes on less and less people will care about the same pop culture as you. And what you were into will become niche and obscure, even though at the time you fell in love with it, it was massively mainstream and all over the place! There are exceptions to this with things that are SUPER popular like Star Wars, DC and Marvel comic characters, Star Trek, and Doctor Who, who's new versions facilitate a life support for the old stuff or sometimes even a revival of it, but they also have an issue where they try and replace their classic stuff with the newer versions.
Topics and Show Notes
The term “Pop culture” stated as a sort of critical description of what was thought of as a low quality, disposable alternative to true culture, but we've long since embraced it and no longer see it as something lessor. Pop culture is simply the universal, current, contemporary culture that we all have access to. The two biggest factors in popculture are time and money: Time, because there's a constant turnover of content, people lose interest in things constantly so we always need new things; and Money, because the more money put into something the bigger it will get in popculture and also the more something can earn (because it's part of a popular concept) the more likely more of those things will be made (i.e superhero movies, Isekai anime etc). Older, previously created popculture still continues to exist but rapidly loses popularity and availability the older it gets. By its nature there is an extreme bias towards the new.
Here we're talking about how massively popular and universal things become niche and unknown. It can revive because mining older popculture to make new popculture is very lucrative and easy, but it's never the same when it does. Even perennially popular things like Star Trek, Marvel and DC constantly change with each new iteration. Companies like Disney re-release their older IPs in their original forms but the purpose of that is to maintain the popularity of their brand (and now the streaming service) to help market their newer stuff. Pop-culture is a ravenous beast that must consonantly be fed with the new and money.
What are some Pop-culture things you love but no one else does anymore?
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by The Scourge of Ninepoint - A mournful yet extremely respectful funerary sounding tune ramps up quickly into a furiously paced call to action and a desperate race against time!
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Snake in the office - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/jul/02/featured-comic-snake-in-the-office/
Featured music:
The Scourge of Ninepoint - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Scourge_of_Ninepoint/ - by BonesMcKay, rated T.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Episode 686 - May the fourth be with you
May 5, 2024
We recorded the Quackcast on the 4th of May, which of course means that it was “May the fourth”, the Star Wars celebration date! So we decided to talk about Star Wars, but instead of our usual rants about what we think could be done better we kept it to mainly positive stuff, focussing on what we loved about the films, mainly original series, which are the best ones.
Episode 685 - mantle
Apr 29, 2024
“Passing the mantle” is an interesting phrase. Many claim it comes from a biblical origin; the prophet Elijah was said to have passed his mantle to Elisha when he ascended to heaven, thereby symbolically transferring his authority… but honestly that seems a little silly and elaborate of an origin story, the sort of thing bad bible scholars in America loved to come up with in the 19th century. Mantles of office were commonly worn by kings, statesmen and even lord mayors today and the passing of those symbolises them gaining office and authority. It's a very ordinary, commonplace secular tradition.
Episode 667 - Interview with John Celestri and Merry Christmas!
Dec 24, 2023
Merry Christmas! Today we interviewed John Celestri, a new member of DD and a very cool person. John has worked as an animator on some of the coolest shows in the 70s and 80s. He was the guy behind Boba Fet on the Star Wars Christmas special, he animated She-Ra, He-Man, Rock and Rule, the video game Dragon's Lair and more! He's a true legend.
Episode 664 - Parody and satire
Dec 4, 2023
We're talking about parody and its evil twin satire. There are good parodies and bad ones but we feel the better parodies are the indirect ones that make fun of and exaggerate the theme or the vibe of something rather that simply doing a direct copy but with jokes; For example, Austin Powers and Kingsmen are indirect parodies of spy films, Blazing saddles is an indirect parody of Westerns, The Princess Bride and Shrek are indirect parodies of fairy tales, Galaxy Quest and the Orville (first season) are indirect parodies of TV SciFi shows etc.
Episode 662 - Drunkduck tales
Nov 20, 2023
Webcomic communities have different cultures, but why and where do they come from? DD's culture is pretty chill, we're reasonably neutral and accepting of a wide range of ideas and perspectives, we're egalitarian to a very high degree, we don't do cliques, we don't exclude, we don't tend to jump on culture wars… We don't like tribalism of partisanship. So why are we like that?
Episode 655 - Alternative Character growth
Oct 2, 2023
Last week we focused on character growth VS tropes to run characters but Tantz had the idea to look at alternative growth for characters who did NOT grow well (after the original trilogy). So in this Quackcast we apply that to various Star Wars characters. Tantz tackles an alternative path and form for Anikin and Darth Vader, re-imagining them as two separate people. I tackle Han Solo and Princess Leia, thinking of them both as a happy couple who adventure and travel together in the Millennium falcon. Banes imagines Boba Fet as the head of a crime family!
Episode 654 - tropes vs character growth
Sep 25, 2023
Today we're chatting about characters who're mainly based on tropes VS those that grow. You see this difference quite clearly in a lot of British comedy VS American comedy where characters are set up in certain ways, e.g. the nerd, the sassy one, the mature one etc- in British stuff they tend to revert to type, which is their most important trait, while in American stuff they tend to change and grow based on interactions and experiences. There are MANY exceptions though and one way isn't inherently better than the other.
