GenXtemporaneous

This is an oldie but a goodie that we are rereleasing while Marc celebrates his son's wedding.  Conspiracy theories are everywhere, so we wanted to contextualize them.  Please note, this is when we were still known as xtemporaneous and before we got our cool new podcasting equipment. If you want to hear more about conspiracies from us please see also:

Flat Earth: episodes 2 and 3

Anti-Vax: episode 4

Qconspiracy: episodes 32 and 33

Our key sources are below.

Does subliminal "advertising" actually work? It might:  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sold-language/201101/subliminal-seduction-gets-second-glance

Top Ten Conspiracy Theories:  https://www.livescience.com/11375-top-ten-conspiracy-theories.html

Bush Attack Ad with Rats:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV2Fl50_e8A

Some historical Conspiracies:  https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/588240/historical-conspiracy-theories

History of propaganda: https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/pamphlets/em-2-what-is-propaganda-(1944)/the-story-of-propaganda

For a tidy list of some of the conspiracies that got sucked into the QAnon master conspiracy:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon

In this episode Marc and Kristina welcome return guests Joann and Kelly who joined them on episodes 70 and 71 talking about the Tinder Swindler.  The four co-hosts discuss Inventing Anna, the rise of Scam Culture, who did it worse, Anna or Simon, and our thoughts on everyday "scams".  We appreciate you coming to listen to us each week and if you wish for more content from Marc and Kristina, please follow us on our patreon genXtemporaneous: after dark.    patreon.com/genxtemporaneous

Sources

Inventing Anna an American drama streaming television miniseries created and produced by Shonda Rhimes, inspired by the story of Anna Sorokin and the article in New York titled "How Anna Delvey Tricked New York's Party People" by Jessica Pressler. The series was released on Netflix on February 11, 2022.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqpe8La4nkk&t=319s

In this episode, Marc and Kristina discuss one of the key philosophical debates: what is good? They question what is moral and whether morality is an absolute or if it exists as a relative concept.  For example: is being mean always bad or is there a time when being mean is bad unless someone else is mean and then it is okay to apply meanness to exact revenge.  This episode will provide context for the "Anna Delvey vs Tinder Swindler are all scams equally as bad" conversation next week.  Thank you for coming to listen to us each week, we are grateful for your time!

Our new Patreon is up and running; if you want to hear Marc and Kristina get really honest, check us out there.  We will be providing you with at least 3 new episodes each month with content that is specific to our patreons including Video Thunderdome, Internet Archeologists, and more in depth discussions on specific aspects of our ad-free episodes.  Here is our link:  https://www.patreon.com/genXtemporaneous

We interrupt our true crime arc due to an unexpected illness of a planned guest.  To fill the gap, Marc and Kristina explore being seen, which, according to some psychologists, is a basic human need that has a basis in evolutionary science. In this episode Marc and Kristina dig into this concept and question why people don’t feel seen, how they go about being seen, and what happens when no one pays attention.  Crisis of meaning arc reactivated, everyone.  

After a couple of weeks palate cleanser (while Kristina did more reading and research) we are once again back into the True Crime arc and today we are discussing true crime amateur sleuths.  We are going to speak to the evolution of sleuthing, how sleuthing can help, how it can harm and overarching it all is what some online scholars have identified as a late modern backlash against experts.  We’re going to be asking the question: do they sleuth because they do not trust the prevailing authority and how does solipsism fit into everything?

Sources

Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer 2019 3 part docuseries about an online manhunt. It is written & directed by Mark Lewis and was released on Netflix on December 18, 2019. The series chronicles events following a crowd-sourced amateur investigation into a series of animal cruelty acts committed by Canadian pornographic actor Luka Magnotta, culminating in his murder of Chinese international student Jun Lin.

Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel 2021 4 part American docu-series directed by Joe Berlinger that chronicles the mysterious disappearance and death of Elisa Lam, a Canadian woman who was traveling in California on her own.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark 2021 is an American true crime documentary television series directed by Liz Garbus, Elizabeth Wolff, Myles Kane and Josh Koury, revolving around Michelle McNamara as she writes a book about and investigates the Golden State Killer.

True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray. 2016 a book about the strange disappearance of Maura Murray, a University of Massachusetts student who went missing after wrecking her car in rural New Hampshire in 2004.  

Dean, Michelle “True Crime Addict” and the Problem with Internet Sleuths. The New Yorker. June 23, 2016

Zhang, Sarah. WHAT IT MEANS TO NAME A FORGOTTEN MURDER VICTIM. The Atlantic, November 18, 2019

Banner, Adam. Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel’ and the problem with internet sleuths. ABA Journal. March 25, 2021

Jessica Maddox Professor Digital Media studies https://jessicamaddox-28868.medium.com/we-need-to-talk-about-internet-sleuths-5c498dfa70df

In this episode Marc and Kristina discuss a question suggested to us by a friend of the podcast: Is there a social contract that exists between celebrities and their fans?  We look at first what the social contract is from a purely political perspective (Locke, Rousseau and Hobbes at their finest) and then we apply it to celebrity to see how or if it works.  We are talking about a number of fandoms here including YouTubers Joel and Lia, Duran Duran, and in particular the fracas that erupted around Adele cancelling her residency in Las Vegas at the eleventh hour.  

Please join us on social media @seriousproduce and @marceatspeach on Twitter and @genxtemporaneous on Insta (where we go live) and genxtemporaneous for our facebook group.

We need some more time to research internet sleuths so in this filler episode, we are talking about the ultimate in crime and punishment -- Dante Alighieri's medieval masterpiece, The Inferno.  You'll learn a little bit about Dante, Medieval Florence, The Inferno and who Marc and Kristina want to damn to perdition.  Additionally, you'll see that Marc isn't the only one who can land a joke.  

Sources are Dante's Divine Comedy and years of tutelage under the great Larry Baldassaro, professor emeritus University of Wisconsin.

In this episode, Marc and Kristina start a multi-episode arc looking at True Crime.  They lay groundwork here, discussing how genre theoretically works as a social construct that serves a symbolic function and then we turn more practical and examine the way that True Crime, as a genre, has evolved over time in three parts: method of presentation, authority, and focus.  This episode will serve as a foundation for the next several episodes, so stick with us for more.

Sources