I want to go to there. The Shuffle Boys are joined by Chris Wade of Chapo Trap House to discuss what might be the greatest sitcom of the 2000s, 30 Rock. After describing the viewpoints and games of this character driven show, the boys analyze the show’s big ideas around the degeneration of broadcast media, the intersection of race, gender, and class, and 2000s era politics. As always, they close with the echoes in the culture of this supremely unique and self-confident show.

Be sure to give Chris a follow @saywhatagain on Twitter, and check out his shows, Chapo Trap House, Infinite Cast, and And Introducing. 

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The Shuffle Bois return to you with another fun one, taking a look at three cultural products from the 2000s centered around where our food comes from - the muckraking non-fiction book Fast Food Nation, its dramatic film adaptation by Richard Linklater, and the lib documentary Food Inc. They trace food production from factory farm to bolted-down McDonalds table and analyze how these 2000s era works identified problems and offered neoliberal, consumer-based solutions. 

Huge thanks to Isaac Eger for guesting on this episode. Check him out @gluten_daddy on instagram, as well as his podcast, Coexist Inc., here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=6112951 

Isaac's podcast, COEXIST INC. can be found here :

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Remember Comedies? Remember Shuffle looks back at a now-dead art form and examines the mechanics of the 90 minute feature film comedy. Comedies typically age very poorly, but the simple grounded premise of Meet the Parents allows it to be immortal. We talk about what makes Meet the Parents funny and how it differs fundamentally from a movie like Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted. And because it’s Remember Shuffle, we’ll talk about class and the CIA. 

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Loiterers will not be prosecuted. Another ‘very special episode’ from Remember Shuffle, looking at the largest disruptor of military orthodoxy in the 2000s: Predator Drones. Predators give the ability to watch targets endlessly–before, during, and after strikes from hellfire missiles or operator raids. Obama ramps up the drone program significantly after his election as drones offer a technocratic solution to war that appeals perfectly to Obama’s liberal sensibilities. 

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It’s Satrap! Leonidas and 299 of his closest platonic friends make the ultimate sacrifice for western civilization by beating back Globo Homo. One of the 2000s most famous graphic novel adaptations features a not-so-implicit reference to our war in the middle east to fight for freedom. When analyzing this very dumb movie, The Shuffle Bois discuss the various binaries underlying the Clash of Civilization narrative (freedom vs slavery, democracy vs autocracy, East vs West, sexual degeneracy vs probity) and its long-lasting impact on the Alt Right and Manosphere ethos and imagery.

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Producer Dillan can be reached at [email protected]

Let’s fall into a Y2K-Hole. The Shuffle bois turn to the world of pop culture and consumer aesthetics with expert guest Colette Shade, author of “Y2K: How the 2000’s Became Everything.” Colette walks us through what the defining features of the Y2K era were, the history of the dot com bubble, some of the period’s most iconic styles and movements (Y2K Futurism, Frutiger Aero, Blobject, 2K1, Techno-orientalism, McBling), as well as various manifestations of the intense sexism of the time. 

Follow Colette on Twitter (@MsShade) and check her website out here: https://www.coletteshade.com/. Her tour dates are as:

1/8/2025 • 7:00 PM • Baltimore, MD

1/9/25 • 6:30 PM • New York, NY

1/15/25 • 6:00 PM • New Haven, CT

1/17/25 • 7:00 PM • Cambridge, MA

1/22/25 • 7:00 PM • Los Angeles, CA

1/24/25 • 7:00 PM • San Francisco, CA

2/1/25 • 6:00 PM • Washington, DC

2/6/25 • 7:00 PM • Baltimore, MD

Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠ it makes it easier to book guests.

2000s Aestetics websites:

https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Category:2000s

https://cari.institute/

Joined once more by Sam of @Thank_u_for_shopping (Follow her here: instagram.com/thank_u_for_shopping )

Our 5th entry in our ‘type of guy’ series. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype and real life people are examined in our breakdown of Elizabethtown, The Garden State, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 500 Days of Summer, and Scott Pilgrim vs the World.

We break the criticism into 2 different qualities that we have opposing feelings about:

We finally turn to the Boy Who Lived and discuss the Harry Potter franchise. The shuffle bois remind you of the plot of each of these seven books/films before turning to discuss their strength (their whimsical world) and their many weaknesses (their politics, their flat characters, and their complete lack of internal logic). En route, they discuss neoliberalism, racism, the corporatization of media, and most the lasting legacy of these books, turning an entire generation of people annoying.

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Btw, the term ‘Foreverism’ I mentioned is from Grafton Tanner

The shuffle boys return to the world of geopolitics and war with an episode on the most traumatic and devastating war of the 2000s: The War on Christmas. This label was a shorthand for a frenzy within the right wing media sphere around the changing nature of the Christmas season in the 2000s. They walk through some primary source documents from the time, explain what exactly this conflict was all about, and have some fun at the expense of the most histrionic voices of the right. Then they zoom out and look at the long history of debates around and changes to the celebration of Christmas all the way back to Early Modern Europe.

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This history of Christmas book we read from in the 2nd half is Stephen Nissenbaum’s The Battle for Christmas.

I hear you mon. The Shuffle Bois turn to the world of Azeroth (and their own adolescences, before their Twink Death) to discuss the one MMORPG to rule them all, World of Warcraft. They trace Blizzard’s rise from a much beloved small private company that went on a historic, untouchable, Michael-Jordan-in-the-90s-style run to a much maligned publicly traded subsidiary of another videogame company. En route, they discuss the mechanics of World of Warcraft, the corporate ownership structures that do and don’t lead to good art, and the massive real world impacts of World of Warcraft in the 2000s.

If you want to skip the non-2000s stuff, the theme song starts at 9:30.

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The Rob Pardo interview I mentioned was the Designer Notes podcast here: https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes/episodes/rob-pardo-part-1