GT Radio - The Geek Therapy Podcast

Finding Your Place


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#355: Marc, Josué, and Link discuss fitting in, and finding places where you can be your authentic self. We cover several examples of media that conveys the exquisite nuances of navigating real and fictional social spaces.

Transcript

Marc Cuiriz 0:11
Good evening, everybody. This is one of your wonderful co hosts Marc Cuiriz here on Geek Therapy radio. We’re here at Geek Therapy. We believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. Joining me today on this lovely evening is the illustrious link Keller,

Link Keller 0:33
yo,

Marc Cuiriz 0:34
and the ever inspiring Josué Cardona.

Josué Cardona 0:39
Greetings.

Marc Cuiriz 0:41
How’d you guys like the new intro today?

Link Keller 0:44
It’s good.

Josué Cardona 0:45
You’re leveling up,

Marc Cuiriz 0:46
you know, I

Link Keller 0:47
sultry, even.

Marc Cuiriz 0:49
I noticed that. And this kind of goes in fitting with today’s topic. But I noticed that for a while a lot of a lot of the times my intro would want to mimic Josué and kind of how he does the intro. And I always saw that as my way of trying to sort of blend in with everything kind of kind of fit myself into everything. But today I’m on my drive home. I was like, You know what, I kind of want to give it a Sardonyx kind of vibe, you know, just kind of be really out there and kind of stand out for myself and kind of differentiate my intros from Josué’s from Link’s, has Lara ever done an intro?

Link Keller 1:35
not if she can help it?

Josué Cardona 1:37
I don’t I can’t remember a single time

Link Keller 1:40
once and she she beat us all up afterwards. So never again. I’m just kidding. I think that’s great. You’re, you’re individuating Isn’t that lovely?

Marc Cuiriz 1:53
Exactly. So. So this kind of goes in hand with the topic that I chose for this week. And this, this topic came up. When I saw Spider Man across the spider verse a couple a couple of weeks ago, I’m not going to really get too spoilery I’m going to try and actually avoid all spoilers about it if I can, but really just kind of touch on a major theme with in the movie, which was fitting in and having to find your place in society in the world, in your own social groups and sort of going on that journey and discovering kind of where where does someone like where do you fit in, in your life and things like that? So I’m kind of curious as to sort of what you guys have experienced with when it comes to like, figuring out where you fit in with things or what sort of journeys you guys have gone on. Either in the past or currently things like that.

Josué Cardona 3:06
Link, you fit in everywhere, right? Always.

Link Keller 3:08
I’m a social chameleon, which I am learning may also be a sign of autism. But that’s another episode we’ll get into. Yeah, yeah, I’ve had you know, as a as a kid, I moved a lot. So I got really good at making myself socially open to people to make social connections and, and to fit in with groups. Very much in high school. Like I hung out with nerds, but I also hung out with the Goths. And occasionally the stoners and didn’t, you know didn’t quite make the full drift cycle into like the sports and theater side. But yeah, fitting in, it is a great topic for this because there’s so much good media, talking about those kinds of stories because it’s true is like there is skill and effort involved in learning how to connect with people to get that feeling of fitting in and there are times when you do fit in but you don’t feel it. And so that’s I think an important thing to talk about as well.

Josué Cardona 4:31
I think it’s really interesting that you used the words blending in at the beginning marc, because you’re like, oh, you know, I’m gonna do the same thing everybody else does. So I don’t stand out. And it’s like the overlap between like the blending in and the fitting in. Because it’s making me think how I did not want to do anything that would make me stand out. But I did that because I did not want to fit in I didn’t want I wanted to be invisible, I hated everybody, I didn’t want to fit in. I was like, How can I? How can I? How can I blend in the most, so that nobody tries to bring me into their group. I hadn’t hadn’t thought about it when we were that way, as we were, you know, coming up with this. With this, I do, I do have that chameleon aspect, which, which is very unconscious in many ways. Like, I adopt things from different groups, and I completely don’t do it on purpose.

Link Keller 5:40
It’s totally like a human defense mechanism is like we we rely on each other. And so it is like, beneficial to be able to read social cues and then replicate them as a way to be like, see, I’m part of the group, please don’t throw me out into the wilderness.

Josué Cardona 6:01
Again, I may be wrong, but I didn’t. I don’t want to do that. You know, like, if I’m speaking with someone who has a particular accent, my accent starts changing. If I have I started adopting words that I didn’t mean to adopt. At some point, my life changed. And I knew I was like, Oh, shit, I sound just like this other person now laughing How did what? How did that happen? That’s, I don’t know. That is that is a way to fit in. Right? Like, you have people dressing up a particular way or doing something right to fit in with that group right like, I don’t I don’t know, did you? What did you do to fit in with the goths and the stoners at your school? Or were you just yourself? And they were just so accepting.

Link Keller 6:53
I mean, we’re talking about high school. So no, the nobodies that accepting. I not not so much like the the social signifiers like clothes and things like that, mostly because I spent a significant amount of my youth and adulthood uh poor, so I, you know, I buy secondhand clothes, and I prefer comfort over fashion. And so not so much that that social signifier to other people, but you know, my go to move is I sort of I sort of circled group, make a little circle I’m observing, I’m seeing who is talking to who I’m seeing what jokes are being utilized. I’m seeing what media people are talking about. And that was the in. So talking about music with the goth kids, that was the in. I wasn’t playing Pokemon at that time. But Pokemon Pearl and diamond came out while I was in my senior year of high school, and the nerdy kids who hung out next to the library were all on their, you know, on their DSs playing. And I’m just like, tell me all about the new Pokemon. I’m interested in this. And you know, at that point, had actually made some legitimate friends who are like, Okay, I need you to actually get a DS and get Pokemon and play with me. And I’m like, Okay, now I know I’m in because you’re actually asking me to engage more than just talking about the thing. It’s like, No, I want you to play the thing with me. But yeah, I mean, you know, I, we talk all the time about how media helps us understand each other and ourselves better. And, and that has always been my go to have like, you know, Oh, I see that you’re, you know, reading a book or you’re listening to something on your headphones. What are you listening to? And using that away to engage with people or, like, you know, did you see that cool new sci fi movie everybody’s been talking about? Like, what did you think about that, and using that as a way to, if not build, like, deep meaningful friendships than at least creating that social connection where somebody feels as though I’m at least an acquaintance and therefore could potentially make the...

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GT Radio - The Geek Therapy PodcastBy Geek Therapy Network