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Topic: Dropped Themes  (Read 17399 times)

agentanalogue

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Dropped Themes
So I'll preface this by saying that I think The F-Plus does an amazing job making interesting observations about their subjects, particularly where recurring themes in communities can be tracked from one subject to the next, and also where an individual may have a pre-occupation that comes up over and over in different settings.

But every now and then I feel there's a buried lead or dropped thread in terms of what the content is giving us.  I'm going to give two examples, and I'd love to hear other things people feel they've caught about episodes or communities that are interesting which didn't get explicitly stated in the episode.

1.  From "Today's Progress Was Yesterday's Form Field", there's a strong recurring theme of Suicide.  It's especially strong at the end when the various Emma sock-puppets are threatening to kill themselves and those they love if the Hadron Collider continues to run, but also at least once earlier one of the kids defending Anime says they'd have no reason to live.

What is with people who want to influence others thinking if they just threaten to off themselves hard enough it will win folks over?  Are we supposed to feel responsible?  "I'LL KILL MYSELF IF THE BALL PIT ISN'T CLEANED OUT THREE TIMES DAILY!!!"  "What's that? You will? then if I don't sign this petition I'M A FUCKING MURDERER!"

2.  In "Fear and Loathing of Las Chicas" (Still my favorite episode title) Mike Byk seems to come off as reaaaaally gay.  I find it sort of odd that the beginning and end bumpers for the episode focus so much on the idea that he's misogynistic when he really mostly seems to just ignore women.  It may be that we're missing more hateful content, but apart from saying they orgasm from their footwear, he barely says anything at all.  He's no Roosh V. or hell, he's not even Ewok Disco in terms of being women-hating.

But man... he's obsessed with male body types, the appearance and power of the male apex predator, dancing and yoga, clothing, hair styling.  At one point, one of the Ridiculists does sort of start to point that out, but it barely gets mentioned.

So how about the rest of you? Anything you think got missed as interesting linking-theme fodder?

Isfahan

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Dropped Themes #1
Well, as you said, the gay subtext of the peacocking article was pointed out, it's just that we didn't latch onto it as a talking point. Really, though, I think it worked well enough to point it out, leave it there for the listeners, and move on.

PurpleXVI

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Dropped Themes #2
When I saw the title "dropped themes" what it got me thinking was: Were there any themes that the F+ cast wanted/tried to do, but which just turned out too depressing/unfunny/otherwise undoable?

agentanalogue

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Dropped Themes #3
That would be an awesome thread too... I have always wondered about what happened to the "Sports" Episode Lemon teased in the Joan Ocean episode that never saw the light of day.

agentanalogue

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Dropped Themes #4
Well, as you said, the gay subtext of the peacocking article was pointed out, it's just that we didn't latch onto it as a talking point. Really, though, I think it worked well enough to point it out, leave it there for the listeners, and move on.
Isfahan, February 23, 2013, 02:58:33 pm

Fair enough... I think it just kept jumping out at me over and over so I latched on.

Acierocolotl

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Dropped Themes #5
When I saw the title "dropped themes" what it got me thinking was: Were there any themes that the F+ cast wanted/tried to do, but which just turned out too depressing/unfunny/otherwise undoable?
PurpleXVI, February 23, 2013, 03:03:57 pm

I tried to put together an episode I called "Autism Supremacy".  There was a lot of articles, easily found, about how dudes with various shades of autism considered themselves superior to "neurotypical" people.  Part of the difficulty with any material is I try to not read deeply so that I don't get spoiled during the reading.

Now, the first paragraph of any given thing was brilliant, full of fire and fury.  Sold!  I put it together.  The problem was that every article was a ten-paragraph screed that started off furious and then quickly lapsed into calm, composed discussions, and it was kind of embarrassing.  I think we wound up reading Eric the Soggy or something like that, and then stumbled across Storyprovider and that turned out (I think) quite brilliantly.  (A comment I'd made early on in that recording may make more sense now.)

Down10

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Dropped Themes #6
I would imagine that there are sites filled with hilarious gonzo material but also filled with so much hateful, racist and anti-semetic language that they aren't suitable to be read aloud in a podcast.


I don't need to give examples, but they're out there.