DxT

The Case for TV- Part 1 (#5)

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Show Notes:


Firefly TV Show 12 Reasons to watch:

Link: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/12-reasons-love-television-show-firefly


What Is Firefly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)


Firefly on Amazon:

https://amzn.to/3b2tPJx


Where to find:

Hulu and Amazon, or a friend with the DVD's. Community TV Show (#SixSeasonsAndAMovie!)


Funniest Show Ever:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/hp8spicychicken/25-times-community-was-the-funniest-show-on-tele-qd27


What is Community:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_(TV_series)


Community on Amazon:

https://amzn.to/3bdQmTG

Where to find:

Netflix (as of quite recently), Hulu, and Amazon. Or that friend with all the DVD's


Links to Studies we discussed, or you may find interesting


Having friends is healthy -

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/01/cover-friends


Having friends makes things feel easier -

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291107/ TV


Can help Mental Health-

https://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/why-you-should-keep-watching-tv/


Peak End Theory (Colonoscopy Study reference)

https://positivepsychology.com/what-is-peak-end-theory/


Books you may like based on this episode:


Firefly Big Damn Hero-

https://amzn.to/2RvGMUz


How To Win Friends And Influence People-

https://amzn.to/3aXuFY2


Episode Transcript

Daniel: [00:00:00] Guys welcome to the dead by tomorrow podcast. My name is Danielle winter and my cohost is Andrew Monroe. Any Jeffersonian, we're going to explore topics that are too important to wait until your last day on earth. As we introduce each topic, we encourage you to remember that some tomorrow will be your last.

So each new day could be your final chance to really blend.

Andrew: [00:00:25] Hey guys, welcome back to dead by tomorrow. Thanks for connecting with us. This is Daniel and Andrew. And we have a new series for you. We'll be talking about TV and entertainment, and specifically it'll be a three parter. This time, the first part will be about how you can benefit from TV entertainment.

Our second part will be how this can help you increase passion, and you can dive deeper into your passions through entertainment and TV. And finally, our third part will be about the risks of overindulgence in entertainment and TV and how to watch out for that and what to do. Thanks for listening. And we look forward to hearing from you soon.

Daniel: [00:01:04] Hey, Andrew, what is your favorite TV show?

Andrew: [00:01:09] Oh man. So I have a few, my two that come to mind off the top of the head is Firefly, the unfairly and unjustly canceled. Sci-Fi series. And then the second would probably be community the TV show that also had its own ups and downs with its production, six seasons and the movie baby waiting for that movie.

Daniel: [00:01:32] And you could almost even argue on Firefly and this might be a total rabbit trail, but. It's in a lot of ways, so good because it's stopped at the height of its greatness and never had an opportunity to decline and trail off. Like some of the other TV shows do, which there is a psychological idea behind stopping something at its peak, because that's what you're going to remember it as you're going to remember as its greatest form or kind of its last impression.

So I don't know, Firefly. Maybe we don't want more.

Andrew: [00:02:07] That is probably accurate. There's some studies they've done that relate to if you have a, an experience and if you, okay. So like specifically they talked about, colonoscopies and colonoscopies is like really not fun. So what they do, the colonoscopy is actually finished, but they will.

wait until the variant, like they're pulling out the scope and they leave it there for a little bit. And because it's less discomfort at the very end, they'll extend the very end of the procedure and extra five minutes, because then it'll make you think the whole procedure was actually better.

You ended essentially on a high note and it negates the discomfort you felt throughout the rest of the colonoscopy. yeah, maybe because they ended on that highway, we worship it as well as it did, but I don't know, man. I still love it and it started off or out. It's not like a whole lot of [00:03:00] runway to get really good to leave us hanging.

that

Daniel: [00:03:03] will be helps a lot. That's fair. Yes. Very helped a lot.

Okay. Wait, so we're talking about TV, we're talking about entertainment. Within 20 seconds of the episodes. Somehow, we ended up on colonoscopies. yeah. Sorry about that. How did that happen? No, it's actually perfect. To be honest, because it brings us to one of our overall points of making this episode, which is, we're essentially trying to say, what is the benefit of TV?

What is the benefit of entertainment, especially for talking about life goals, taking this approach that you could be dead by tomorrow? So you want to really. Yeah. Maximize the time that you have. Yeah. I think TV fits in and the fact that it is the kindling to relationships

Andrew: [00:03:50] is Holy man. Yeah. That's exactly

Daniel: [00:03:52] it.

Andrew: [00:03:54] it opens a door for you, right?

Daniel: [00:03:55] Yeah. Yeah, we start out by something, that's it a really easy question that almost anybody you talk to is going to have an answer to what's your favorite TV show. It opens up other avenues, other opportunities. that's, I think that's one of the first points that we have to make with what is the benefit of TV it's to help.

Build the relationships.

Andrew: [00:04:17] So it's fun that you mentioned that I was actually trying to get Shalomi to watch Firefly the other day. And we ended up watching serenity and posted it on Instagram. And everybody was like, Oh, that shows the best. And she didn't get it. She thought the show was fine, but she didn't understand the passion I had for this show.

And that was actually the argument I made for it. And this is before this conversation, so I wish I would have had to have this first and then talk to her, but Oh, So we were talking about, I was like, look, it's not just about the show. It's about the community that I've formed around this show over the past 10 years.

it started with the show. And then I found a friend and, Daniel and I had this really fun experience seeing the movie and then watching the show together with all of our friends. And then that led to conventions, like comic cons, where I would meet people that shared an interest in that.

And it was all these doors that never would have been opened without having this joy for Firefly. And I wouldn't have been able to make, meet these people with. Jane hats and blue sun tank tops and all these things that signified that they were part of that community. I wouldn't have been there without having seen the show first.

And it's become this much larger experience that actually watching the shows only a small portion of it.

Daniel: [00:05:25] Yeah. TV is really a lot of times just a gateway into further social interaction and engagement, which brings me to my next question. Is there a. A benefit to having friends. is that something that we should all want?

We desire relationships,

Andrew: [00:05:40] Okay. I feel like you're leading the witness a little bit there,

Daniel: [00:05:44] to be honest, if we're saying the benefit of TV here is building relationships. I think we got to at the very foundation to find that having relationships actually is something you should care about.

[00:06:00] Andrew: [00:06:01] No. Absolutely. I think if you are looking to move forward in life, you've got to have those relationships. There's a quote that I think has been missed, attributed to a whole lot of different people. So I have no idea where it's actually from. I think it goes something along the lines of, if you want to go fast, go alone.

If you want to go far, go together. And that's what relationships do you sure you can accomplish something by yourself? A lot faster. But if you want to do something really meaningful, if you have longer reaching goals or projects you're working on or something you desire, it is a lot better to have support, have a good community around that.

And that's where those relationships are important. And it's really hard to build relationships anyways. especially post-college, it's hard to meet new people if you don't have something to talk about. And that's where these TV shows come in is building your community.

Daniel: [00:06:52] Yeah. I've always heard that as a, there's an ancient African proverb, but it creates, it comes from a lot of different places.

And I think there's truth to that. Almost all of us have probably experienced, maybe heuristically, but it's really interesting in that if you go and do some further with, just to see, okay, what does the research say about relationships? Is there actually. Biological backing to this idea that you can go further together or that, it's easier to do more together.

There's actually support for us. So the university of Virginia did a social support. Experiment where they essentially gathered these groups of people and they took them to a Hill and they did these several different experiments to have the individuals estimate the steepness of the Hill. And so there was just, them saying how steep they thought it was.

There was a factor where they would actually use a board on the tactile side of things, estimate the steepness of it. And they had people do that when they were looking at the Hill alone. And then they also had them estimated whenever they were looking at the Hill, when a company by a friend, by somebody that they spent time with and had a relationship with, what's fascinating about it is on the actual, tactile side of things.

It was the same regardless. And that makes sense. And what I'm saying by the tactile side of it is, that's not just your estimation of it psychologically. That's, physically, how steep do you think it is? And I think none of us have really experienced something where when you're walking up the stairs alone, you estimate it better and do it physically better than when somebody else.

And like all of a sudden you missed the step because you totally misestimate it. I'm sure we've all fallen on the stairs, but that's not a common thing, but psychologically, essentially estimating how hard is it going to be and saying, how steep is this almost across the board. People viewed it as less steep when they approached it with a friend and the stronger, the relationship with that person, the better [00:09:00] outlook.

So it's not just a proverb, it's legitimately something that happens within our brains. If we're approaching something. With a friend we're viewing it as an easier task.

Andrew: [00:09:11] And so that kind of goes into a lot of what we're talking about are challenges, right? We're not saying necessarily go climb a Hill, but one of the goals of why we're talking about this is how do we pursue challenges in life, I guess what you're saying to say, if you have friends and not just a Hill, but challenges in general are gonna look better based on that study. Is that right? Yeah.

Daniel: [00:09:29] 100%.

Andrew: [00:09:31] And that's good because it's hard to take things on when you think it's impossible, but when you think something's possible, It probably is.

There was a similar kind of study that I was going for. And I think you touched on it at some point as well, but it talked about loneliness. Not only are we able to go further with these challenges because it's easier to know, take them on if we have that group with us based on what you said, but also just being lonely, doesn't give us the time.

it's scary. I was reading men's health. So I think it was a week or two ago, they about one of the single most dangerous factors they'd seen was actually that loneliness was one of the leading causes of death in men. And we're just really not good at making those connections.

People were lonely and were sad because that were lonely. It's a downhill slope where we're suddenly not achieving those goals and we're not pushing towards challenges and were dying at a younger age because of it. And that's terrifying to me.

Daniel: [00:10:33] Yeah. So you read in men's health and I actually read a few similar things.

studies from Brigham young university, the study from John on Kappa CBO. Oh, I butchered that. You know what, if you want to check them out, it's C a C I O P O. Also, if you want to tell me how to pronounce that'd be great. But essentially the studies from both of these people talked about exactly what you're saying.

This idea of loneliness. Is bad for your health. It's bad for your mortality. There is among the Brigham young study, they talked about the risks of having social isolation. Usually isolated is comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and its double that of obesity.

Andrew: [00:11:15] it crap,

Daniel: [00:11:16] obesity, that's a big one because the leading cause of death in the United States is heart disease, which a lot of times an underlying factor there is obesity.

So that's huge. I think right now, this is an important time to think about this. As we are in the midst of a quarantine, pretty much nationwide, there is going to be a lot of opportunity. For loneliness, but there is hope there too, because it's not necessarily being surrounded by people that prevents loneliness.

You can actually still feel extremely isolated if you're surrounded by other people, but it's the social connections that you have. Having those things in common, it's talking to those things and speaking about those things, [00:12:00] that's what can actually make you feel connected with other people. And there's a lot of opportunity to do that, which brings us all the way back around to, okay, what is the benefit of TV?

And I think we have firmly established now relationships, chips are a good thing. It's something we should desire. And if TV helps us with that's a benefit.

Andrew: [00:12:17] Absolutely. it's really cool that the study included not necessarily being physically around people, but it's actually having those friends, because before you said that, I was like, Oh, I know what I want to say.

Next thing you know, we're bad at conversation, but that idea that self-isolation does not actually mean loneliness and being with people does not actually not mean loneliness. Like you can be lonely. With people in your life and you cannot be lonely with no one physically in your life. There was a guy on, I think it was world of Warcraft and he, the guide, and this was sad, but it reminded me of that.

not all communities can be found in person. He had no one show up for his funeral. I think his mom, and maybe like another couple of family members and a friend, and they showed up to his funeral and that was it. But on world of Warcraft, he had a 5,000, 10,000-person strong wake in gain from all of his games in the game.

And like 10,000 people save a lot of people that is not a small number. I can't reach a 10,000 people if I tried, I don't have that kind of connection. And he wasn't unhappy. He was happy with the life he's living. He had devoted a lot of his life to a video game, which, that might come up in episode three or I'm sorry, part three.

He still, he wasn't lonely. That's for sure. So it's cool.

I want to bring it back around though, because, I told you my favorite shows, but I want to know what yours is. What would you say if someone in the bar is asking you what your favorite show is?

Daniel: [00:13:46] All right. So my favorite TV show honestly, is probably also community, which probably makes sense because we're really good friends.

Andrew: [00:13:55] I wonder how that happened.

Daniel: [00:13:57] Yeah. So I don't know that okay. I was about to say, is that a chicken before the egg sort of thing, but we were friends before community. So I imagine we both like it because of some of the experiences we had growing up, which. We're both suckers for anything that has a strong Gromit try and Hobbit for life.

Andrew: [00:14:16] Troy and orbit in the morning.

Daniel: [00:14:19] Yeah. So community is probably my favorite TV show. And that's cool because it's one of those shows that has a decent amount of popularity, but it's, it hasn't reached anything like the office or parks and rec, which I love both of those shows, but whenever you've got one that is a little bit more niche, it can actually really jump, start a relationship.

So I think about there's a guy that I, Manage at work who lives in Florida. And so I've met him once I live in Texas, not super close to Florida,

Andrew: [00:14:51] a little bit of a flyaway,

Daniel: [00:14:52] a little distance. so I met him in person once, but the fact that we both love that show. Created an instant, [00:15:00] deeper level of connection than several of the other people in that office.

And so it just gives us something to talk about. It gives us an interest that we both know we have, so that if somebody from the show does something in real life, I'm going to send him that link. Or he's going to send me that link or we'll make little jokes and things like that. So it bought me some instant social capital with this individual.

And there've been a few others where that happened, but that's why having a favorite show like community can be. Can't be pretty

Andrew: [00:15:28] cool. And that's a great example because that was a workplace relationship. You're not talking about making a new friend, but you are talking about something that can literally affect your career.

You now have somebody that instead of them maybe working against you or resenting you have somebody who's on your side in the workplace almost instantly.

Daniel: [00:15:47] Yeah. Yeah, whatever else is going on with that guy, at least he likes community, so he can't be all bad.

Andrew: [00:15:54] Exactly. And that's how we work as people, honestly, it's the halo effect.

If you have a trait that somebody likes, if you're tall or if you're good looking or in this case, you'd like community. You're going to give that person, or you're going to receive more leeway from that person. And like you make a mistake, or if he made a mistake in a negative relationship, you might turn that mistake into something more than it is.

You might be like, Hey, I'm really going to ride you harder. He's going to try and get you in trouble for that. But in a more positive relationship where you have shared something, like a TV show interest or some kind of entertainment interest, you're talking about getting that leeway where if it was a legitimate mistake, Hey, I get it.

Mistakes happen. Let's do better next time. Instead of trying to turn it into something, it wasn't, they're giving me that benefit of the doubt because they liked you as a person. And if we can do that with all of your coworkers and bosses, you're going to go

Daniel: [00:16:42] far. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's some of the appeal to broader entertainment, fields and values and things like that.

And so I know, community's a smaller one for me, but another huge one for me is the NBA. Basketball. I love it. I love the math AVS watch every game. I'm actually a season ticket holder and just love basketball in general. And so that's one that they're, it's lot easier to connect with a broader group of people.

And again, going back to the workplace have gone to a couple of games with coworkers. That's another super easy conversation. Topic going opposite of work at church. Working with some of the kids are a neighborhood around the church. That's another really easy connection point is who's your favorite NBA player.

And whenever they tell me a player and I know who it is, and I can talk to them about that's just an instant, like we've said, credibility that gets built up really quickly. And so if you want to build relationships quickly, find out what entertainment. Interests someone has, and obviously be true to yourself.

Don't watch desperate Housewives. That's probably something I would never watch. Don't watch that just to build a relationship with somebody else.

Andrew: [00:17:57] Yeah. You still have to be authentic, right?

Daniel: [00:17:59] Yeah. [00:18:00] Oh, it's still gotta be authentic, but there's good. There'd be overlap somewhere. and I feel like that TV entertainment world is probably one of the broadest areas that you could look to, try to find some overlap and build that initial connection point.

Andrew: [00:18:15] you're a great example for me on the NBA because, I don't really watch much sports. And for a while, I was really against watching it because of your interest. I was like, Daniel, won't stop talking about this. I guess I'll look into a little bit and thought catching maps games like you are, I'm still not invested.

But I know love Steph Curry, because you were like, Hey, look at this guy, look at his workout programs. Look at his dedication, look at his background. I was like, wow. He is a really cool guy. So now somebody is having a conversation about basketball. It's not much just me checking out. And I'm like, Oh, Hey, I know about Steph Curry.

And there's a few other players I know about Luca and Luca is really interesting and what he's doing for the Mavs and where he came from, where he's going and how he trains. It's the same thing. Like I might not be able to talk about last night's game. But I can talk about some of the players and get a really interesting conversation going and still last 10 minutes.

how long do you need to know if he likes somebody 10 minutes? Isn't that foot in the door that gets you a relationship or at least the start of a relationship?

Daniel: [00:19:12] Yeah,

Andrew: [00:19:13] for sure. That's really cool.

Since we have talked about community, I'm going to go ahead and do a free ad for them until they want to sponsor us here. But they just came out on Netflix as a victory. According a few days ago, maybe a week ago, they are on Netflix now, which means no ads, high quality streaming. And I'm pretty sure if enough of us watch it on Netflix, it'll trigger Netflix into spending money and making that movie happen.

Daniel: [00:19:41] Oh, that is a good point. Alright. Yeah, we got to put hashtag six seasons and a movie for sure.

Andrew: [00:19:48] And for the people who don't know what we're talking about community, here's some reasons why, because again, this is now a sponsored ad. Okay, this is now an unsponsored ad.

Daniel: [00:19:56] Yeah. We are not getting any money from,

Andrew: [00:19:59] from his joy and happiness from that got the director.

It's just Whedon, right? Or no, I'm sorry. Dan Harmon is the director and he has done some really cool shows. And if you want to go look up Dan Harmon, you will probably find something that he's done that you're like, Oh yeah. Okay. I'm in Alison Brie. Isn't it? And she. Has really transcended into stardom and a lot of Netflix specials.

So if you're unsure who Alison Brie is, you can go look her up and be like, Oh yeah, I liked that person. Childish Gambino, the phenomenal rapper and actor is that's where in my mind he got his start in the entertainment industry period, like Donald Glover was on community. And then he got his rap career started after that guy building his audience as an actor.

And I might be wrong about that, but. Right there. That's three people that I'm like, yes, I will watch them all day, every day. alright. Unsponsored segment over.

Daniel: [00:20:56] All right, Andrew. So what would you say to [00:21:00] our listeners who like us are probably in a shelter at home kind of situation environment? Maybe you're starting to feel a little bit of that isolation that we talked about might be having a little bit of the attacks on them mentally. what's some advice that you could share that might help turn that a little bit and brings in some.

Entertainment.

Andrew: [00:21:21] let me hop up on my pedestal real quick. Then I actually found a study that talked about how watching movies and TV can help benefit your mental health. And one of the main things they were talking about was actually anxiety and I could be off, but from what I understand, a lot of people, their health right now is not like they're going crazy because they're locked up and they're about to go.

Stephen King on somebody they're just really anxious and it's causing them to not be able to pursue certain activities or improvements in their lives because they're too anxious about whether or not they're gonna have a job or whether or not this is going to live. This applies outside of this whole pandemic we have going on.

This is a day to day life. I think we're anxious people. If you don't have a good lock on it. One of the things that you can do for anxiety is actually watching movies. Really? Any movie that has a good message is probably going to do that for you. It's going to help trigger emotions in you that are different than the anxiety and help you see bigger picture.

Because a lot of the times when we're anxious, we're just, we're drilling too deep on a certain problem. Now that said, if you want to take it a step further and get the Andrew advice on this, there's actually. A feature on Netflix now where you can watch a movie with your friends that are not with you.

I'm an Amarillo and you're in Dallas. We could actually hook up on Netflix accounts and watch a movie together. You pair that with maybe a zoom meeting. You're able to have a movie night with friends. still being physically isolated. This does two things. One you're getting that loneliness factor taken out.

You're helping boost your mood and boost your mental health by being with friends and two, you're actually getting that mental health awareness that comes from empathizing with a character and seeing other people's problems and seeing how they solve them. And that gives you that bigger picture.

Mindset that allows you to pull yourself out of that anxious gutter that you can get stuck in when you're by yourself with your own thought, moving out on Netflix and hanging out with your friends virtually is the way to go there.

Daniel: [00:23:16] Yeah. I love that. getting an experience. I think what you're talking about is basically like catharsis through media and utilizing the telecommunication capabilities that we have in today's day and age to make sure that you're staying connected.

And there are a lot of. Really good apps that exist out there. But I think whether you've watched the movie together and see each other on video, or whether it's just agreeing to say, Hey, let's watch community through communities coming back. Let's watch it through together. Monday night. So the night that we knocked out a couple episodes of community, and then we just get to talk about how much we loved that episode and the things that we forgot about, and it still is generating conversations.

I think it is. [00:24:00] It's a tool that we can utilize. And the Daniel advice here is to be careful about just dinging, going into show hole and doing that. Yourself, try to find a way to involve others, to still make it a reality

Andrew: [00:24:19] tool. Absolutely.

Daniel: [00:24:20] Is as much as I Hey, the show tiger King. Like it's creating a lot of conversation opportunities and I don't necessarily love it for me.

it's really hard for me to watch a show that doesn't have any redeeming characters or qualities to it. That's why this is probably going to be the most unpopular thing I say in this entire episode, but I can't stand breaking bad. Don't like it we'll never watch it. This, I

Andrew: [00:24:43] didn't know. We had that in common.

Daniel: [00:24:45] Yeah.

Andrew: [00:24:46] I don't like breaking bad either. And everybody loves. So I watched the first season because I wanted to have that relationship aspect with people, but that's where it's come to. I'm like, yeah, I don't like that show. We can talk about it. I watched the first season, but yeah, I didn't dig it.

And that's usually where it goes is why I don't like to show him the compensation.

Daniel: [00:25:02] Exactly. It still gives that opportunity for the conversation. Even if you don't like the show, even if you didn't finish it, because now I can talk to somebody who loves breaking bad, it's their favorite show and they can tell me about why they love it.

And all of those things that made it really special. And I can say, Hey, I gave it a shot. I gave it a chance, but these were the things that just didn't resonate with me. And I get to learn about them as a person, they get to learn about me. So that's what I would say is make sure that you're finding ways to have conversations, to connect with people about.

Whatever it is that you're doing to keep yourself entertained during this time.

Andrew: [00:25:36] Yep. And absolutely feel free to send us the hate mail on this. It'll still open up dialogues with us and we'll chat with you, but also, sorry to all those breaking bad fans. I didn't realize this was going to be an anti breaking bad thing.

Nope. Podcast.

Daniel: [00:25:48] All right. So that's all we've got as far as the benefits to TV and entertainment. what we want to explore a little bit further next time is. Where do you go? if TV and entertainment is the shallow connection point and the kindling, how do you get to that deep connection? How do you get to do, the logs of the flame?

That would be a strong relationship. What factors come into play there? And that's where we want to talk about passions. We want to talk about those deep interests, those things that you gotta really get to know somebody a little bit further to dive into. And so that's what we're going to go into next week.

And we hope that you come and join us.

Andrew: [00:26:25] Oh, man. I'm excited about that conversation.

This was dead by tomorrow with Daniel and Andrew. Thank you for joining us. And we look forward to connecting soon. Thanks.