Show Notes

• The Perils of Pauline





• Musketeers of Pig Alley





• Jolene





• The Irish Unification of 2024





• The Troubles 





• Feed





• The Expanse 





• Post-Avatar Depression





• Ready Player One





• Artemis 





• Kaiju Preservation Society 





• Snow Crash





• Toss a Coin to Your Witcher





• Shield of Sparrows





• Murderbot





• Dead Cat Tail Assassins





• Holonovel 





• Neuromancer





• Environmental Storytelling

Transcript

Generously transcribed by Savannah. Volunteer to transcribe a podcast.

Chris:  You are listening to the Mythcreant Podcast with your hosts, Oren Ashkenazi, Chris Winkle and Bunny. [Intro theme] 

Bunny: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Mythcreant podcast. I’m Bunny. And with me is−

Oren: Oren. 

Bunny: And−

Chris: Chris. 

Bunny: And, you guys, lately I’ve been realizing that like every time we criticize a popular story, I feel like Pauline. You know what I mean?

Chris: Oh yeah, totally. I definitely know who Pauline is. 

Bunny: I keep expecting Blinky Bill to show up. Like, come on, we’re gonna end up on the train tracks if we’re not being careful. 

Oren: Is Pauline Jolene’s cousin? Is she also worried that someone will take her man? 

Bunny: No. You know, Pauline? Pauline stole Jolene?

Oren: There are sapphic versions of that song, so don’t even worry about it. 

Bunny: Yeah, what if we start feuding with another podcast? It could turn into a real Musketeers of Pig Alley situation, right? 

Oren: Yeah, absolutely. 

Chris: Yes, absolutely. 

Oren: Were there also− How many Musketeers, did it say there were three but actually four? That’s a Musketeers reference I get. 

Bunny: I know one of them’s called the Snapper Kid. 

Chris: Wait, one of the Musketeers?

Bunny: This is one of the Musketeers in The Musketeers of Pig Alley, which was a 1910s movie about gang violence. 

Chris: Oh yes. The very classic Musketeers of Pig Alley.

Oren: Look, it’s old. It must be good. That’s just how these things work. 

Bunny: And The Perils of Pauline, which was another 1910s TV serial, and I bring these up very cleverly because we are talking about pop culture and fiction. And one thing that fiction referencing pop culture often does is that it is set in the future and pretends like pop culture from a hundred years ago is still the hot thing on everyone’s mind.

Oren: It’s the Star Trek thing where they’re like, ah, the greatest people in their field: Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Gababoobadeeboo! And then you−our new character that we’ve just met−it’s like, wait, hang on. Who is that one in the middle? That’s just some rando that’s a Star Trek person.

Chris: At least Star Trek tries. I still remember when they got in big trouble with the UK or Ireland because they added an event. 

Oren: Yeah, the Irish Unification of 2024. 

Chris: Created a political incident where that episode was taken off the air in certain countries. 

Oren: That was a big deal at the time. That was not a good thing to have on TV. 

Bunny: Oh my gosh. 

Chris: And that’s, again, just because they were trying to make a list of important events, and they needed something to happen in the future, and they made the mistake of choosing something real. 

Oren: Personally, I don’t think that was a mistake. I think that was on purpose.

Chris: You think they were trying to make a political statement? 

Oren: I think so. Nowadays we tend to−this is vastly oversimplifying it−but we tend to think of Ireland as a pretty peaceful place. But let’s just say that when the episode we’re talking about was made, the violence was a lot more recent than that.

Chris: Wow, okay. (not sarcastic)

Oren: So, I think that was on purpose. 

Bunny: Most people only learn about the troubles in Ireland from like, I don’t know, Peaky Blinders. 

Oren: A lot of people think about that era as being way longer ago than it was, which is interesting. But I do suspect that Star Trek episode did that on purpose.

Bunny: Fascinating, I look forward to your manifesto on this. 

Oren: There we go. 

Bunny: Anyway, drop in the comments if either anyone got my timely references to The Perils of Pauline and Musketeers of Pig Alley. 

Oren: I was worried because Disney Plus keeps trying to give me this new show called Pauline to watch, and I was like, is that what this is? Should I have watched that? 

Chris: Oh no, there’s all this buzz about a show! Quick, we gotta go watch it!

Bunny: Ugh, exhausting. I’m glad I’m not in some sort of position where I would be expected to keep up with TV shows because I’m on some sort of podcast and then just simply don’t.

Oren: We hates it, Precious. 

Bunny: So, the topic of this podcast is pop culture and fiction, both referencing real life pop culture and creating your own pop culture. And I struggle with this a lot−which is why I decided to lead an episode about it−because most references to real world pop culture and fiction feel really cringey and obnoxious to me. And, most folks do not spend a lot of time fleshing out their own pop culture if it’s separate from real life pop culture. But I do think hypothetically, probably, both can be done well. 

Chris: One thing that I’ve seen a lot of in recent years, for obvious reasons, is shows especially that want to, or sometimes books though, that want to replicate internet culture in some way. Right? Within the story. And a lot of times it is bad. I still laugh at the Mira Grant book Feed, because the main characters are bloggers, but they’re really big bloggers. Like the top social media influencers we have today except they’re blogging, and they follow this politician who I think is−they say he’s a Republican, but it doesn’t feel like the audience is for Republicans. It’s one of those really optimistic works where you see, “I’m totally unbiased because I have a good Republican character, and see how reasonable he is?” 

Oren: This was a little more believable in 2012 than it is now, but even at the time it did raise my eyebrows a little.

Chris: So then they’re following along and covering his campaign, and unfortunately I know about blogging, so when Mira Grant