The TikTokification of comedy

I fucking hate TikTok. I hate “short-form content” in general, which means I loathe YouTube Shorts, Instagram/Facebook Reels and anything anyone feels the need to send me that is in a 9:16 aspect ratio. So if you’re considering it… don’t. I won’t watch it.

My reasons for despising short-form content are numerous and varied, so I won’t go into all of them here, but one thing in particular vexed me so when I stumbled across it yesterday that I felt the need to get this particular rant out of my system. And that is what I call the TikTokification of comedy — or, to put it another way, the divorcing of comedic moments from context purely so that idiots can quickly and easily steal them and share them on their mindless social media.

I’ve actually been thinking about this for a while. The first time I was particularly conscious of it was when I started seeing that a number of comedians had started upping their YouTube presence. And all their videos had a few things in common. Take a look at these thumbnails:

All of these are completely transparent clickbait. And while a certain amount of clickbait is a necessity on a platform as saturated with material as YouTube is, I really detest the whole “half a sentence” thumbnail format. I didn’t click on this one, which has almost certainly floated across your YouTube recommendations at some point, either:

This, to me, is the YouTube equivalent of the Twitter engagement bait (that thankfully seems to have died a bit of a death… along with the rest of Twitter) where a brand would go “[our brand] is _________” and expect people to “fill in the blank”. And people, dumb consumers that they are, absolutely would. And it didn’t matter whether they were filling it in with obscenities or bootlicking nice things, it was engagement. It made the numbers go up. That’s all that mattered.

It’s the same with these comedy clips. I like all of those comedians above, but I don’t want to click on their videos because it’s rewarding manipulative behaviour, and also encouraging the main problem that I want to talk about today: encouraging people away from enjoying a creative work in its entirety and towards a grab-bag full of “best moments” that completely lack their original context.

Good stand-up comedy makes the entire show into an event, and runs a narrative thread through the whole thing. Not all comedians do this, but the best comedians, in my experience, make you feel like you’ve enjoyed a complete story by the time you’ve left the room. Sure, there may have been some deviations along the way, and the story may not have made all that much sense… but there was still a sense of narrative progression. A beginning, middle and end, if you will. For some great examples, check out Rhod Gilbert’s show Rhod Gilbert and the Award-Winning Mince Pie and pretty much anything by Eddie Izzard.

When you slice a show up into little bite-sized bits, you lose that context. Sure, the individual moments might be funny on a superficial level, but you lose the added depth of them being part of something bigger. And that’s a real shame. And this leads me on to the real reason I’m writing this today: my discovery yesterday that Friends, a TV show I absolutely adored during my formative years, has its own YouTube channel.

And yes, you guessed it, the Friends YouTube channel looks like this:

The stand-up comedy thing I can sort of forgive. While I much prefer seeing an entire stand-up set and enjoying that feeling of context and narrative, there are sometimes just single jokes or routines that you want to share with someone. And you can probably make the same argument about Friends.

But for me, and regardless of what you and/or the general public might think of it now in 2023, Friends was always about more than just the jokes. Friends was a phenomenon. Friends was about us spending 10 years alongside these characters in an important, turbulent part of their lives, and watching them grow and change. Friends was about us simultaneously being envious of these twentysomethings somehow being able to afford massive apartments in Manhattan, but also feeling like the moments they shared were relatable in their own ways.

And an important part of the entire experience was context. While Friends actually starts kind of in medias res, halfway through a member of this pre-existing friendship group telling a story in their favourite coffee shop, it still makes an effort to introduce us to everyone through the way Rachel enters the picture as a formerly estranged friend of Monica.

We feel included. We feel like we’re learning who these people are — and over the course of the subsequent ten seasons, we really get to know everyone. And while the age of the show means that life in general is quite different for most folks right now — look how infrequently anyone on the show uses a mobile phone or a computer, for example — it’s still relatable to anyone either going through that “20s to 30s” part of their life, or who has already been through it.

These characters grow and change as a result of the things that happen to them and the simple act of getting older. They enjoy amazing high points and some heartbreaking low points — although nothing too heartbreaking; this was a primetime comedy show, after all. But everything that happens helps to define these characters and make them more than simple, mawkish, two-dimensional representations of a single personality trait.

Slice all 236 24-minute episodes up into one-minute chunks, though, and you have content. You have individual moments that, in many cases, simply don’t really work as standalone “jokes” because they rely on you knowing and understanding the characters and their relationships. And you have no sense of that ongoing growth and character development, because all these clips are posted in a seemingly completely random order determined by whatever the person running the Friends YouTube account felt like putting up today.

I realise this is a bit silly to get annoyed and upset over, but it’s frustrating to me to see something that I loved so much in its original form and its original context be treated as fodder for the mindless content consumption machine of 2023. It irritates me to think that there are doubtless some people out there whose only contact with Friends will have been minute-long clips on YouTube, and through those they will likely have formed a totally different opinion of the show than someone who watched it from start to finish.

Is this elitist and gatekeepery? Not really, since Friends itself is easy enough to watch in its entirety via either streaming services or undoubtedly cheap DVD box sets that no-one wants any more. It’s just the latest symptom in a disease that blights society, where no-one believes they have “time” for anything any more, so watch badly cropped minute-long 9:16 clips on double speed while they’re doing their daily quests in Mindless Gacha Bullshit X, rather than settling down, taking some time to relax and just enjoying something in its entirety.

I hate it. Hate it. And while I’m aware there’s nothing stopping me from doing what I describe above — I think I even still have my Friends DVD box set somewhere — it’s exhausting just to be around all this short-form garbage, and frustrating to live in a world where seemingly no-one has an attention span longer than a TikTok video.

1962: Great Title Sequences (From My Living Memory)

Re-watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine recently has made me more conscious of something that had been on my mind for a while: the fact that TV doesn’t really seem to do lengthy credits sequences any more.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as in the case of Star Trek you’re sitting there for a good few minutes watching swirly space and Patrick Stewart as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard and Avery Brooks as Commander Sisko (still in season one at the moment) and, consequently, without a credits sequence the show itself has a few more minutes to play with. But does that few minutes really make a difference? Perhaps when the show is a short 20-minute affair, but when it’s 45 minutes or more there’s a strong argument for saying the writers should maybe look at where a few bits can be snipped.

But anyway. Whether or not credits sequences are a good thing isn’t really what I want to talk about today, since that would be a short discussion — yes, they are — but what I did want to talk about is the ones that have stuck in my head over the years. A good credits sequence is strongly iconic and does a good job of summing up what the show’s all about — either literally, by introducing characters, or sometimes in a more abstract sense by using representative imagery.

These are in no particular order. Given how I’m attempting to call them up from my living memory, they’ll probably in roughly chronological order, but I am making no promises. I’m simply going to provide them for your delectation, with a few words about why I like them, why they’re important to me or why I simply find them memorable.

Henry’s Cat

I hadn’t thought about Henry’s Cat for the longest time, but a brief Twitter discussion with the fine Mr Alex Connolly the other day reminded me of both its existence and its terrible but strongly iconic credits sequence.

I honestly don’t remember much about Henry’s Cat beyond the title sequence and the little bit of an episode I watched out of curiosity on YouTube the other day. But I do suspect it’s rather a product of its time, and not the sort of thing that kids are watching on TV these days.

Count Duckula

Whoever uploaded this gets bonus points for including the “Thames” logo at the beginning. Ahem. Anyway. Count Duckula was brilliant. And I’ve watched a few episodes recently and it’s still genuinely quite amusing thanks to some wonderful voice work and characterisation… not to mention its baffling premise of a vegetarian vampire duck voiced by David Jason.

Unlike Henry’s Cat, the Count Duckula theme and intro has stuck with me all these years. However, I did not know until two minutes ago when I looked at Wikipedia (to make sure it really was David Jason who voiced Duckula) that Count Duckula was actually a Danger Mouse spinoff series. TIL, and all that.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

You can’t really get more iconic that Star Trek when it comes to title sequences, and there’s really not much more that needs to be said about The Next Generation — aside, perhaps, from the fact that when you look at it, it’s actually rather basic. Once the credits themselves start rolling, it’s little more than text and the Enterprise occasionally hurling itself at the screen.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

I didn’t like Deep Space Nine all that much when I was younger; its relatively “static” nature of being set on a space station rather than on an exploratory starship made it feel a bit more “boring” to the young me. Revisiting it recently has made me realise (or remember?) that it’s actually really rather good — and certainly a lot more consistent than The Next Generation was in its early seasons.

I like the theme very much. It’s one of those pieces of music that just sounds satisfying. What I did find interesting, though, was when they changed it very subtly starting in the fourth season:

It becomes faster, I think it’s in a different key, the orchestration is different and the accompaniment is less “bare”. It accurately reflects the show’s noticeable change in direction from the fourth season onwards, not to mention the changes in the cast: Commander Sisko becomes Captain Sisko, The Next Generation’s Worf joins the crew and Shit officially Starts Getting Real with regard to interstellar conflicts.

Friends

Friends was everywhere when I was a teenager, and I didn’t mind because I enjoyed it a whole lot. The credits sequence was simple and straightforward, accurately summing up each character with a selection of season-unique snippets of their most iconic moments. It was fun to try and identify which episode each of the snippets had come from… you know, if there wasn’t anything better to do.

Angel

Ah, Angel. Probably one of my favourite TV shows of all time, next to its companion piece Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which is also one of my favourite TV shows of all time, but whose credits sequence I never really rated all that much). Angel’s intro was great in that it reflected the dark, brooding nature of its title character, but it also allowed the show to pull off one of its best features: the unexpected and surprising fact that while it wasn’t afraid to deal with some seriously dark themes, it was very happy to poke fun at itself and show the silly side of the supernatural as well as the scary. The intro helped with this in that it set the expectation for a very “serious” and dark story, then in true Whedon fashion, it often subverted these expectations with the actual content of the episode.

Yuru Yuri

(This was the best video of the intro I could find that hadn’t been snagged by YouTube’s copyright laws. You’ll just have to deal with the Spanish subtitles.)

I love Yuru Yuri. It’s such a delightfully mundane and silly anime; very little actually happens in it, but by the end you have such a wonderful understanding of these loveable characters that it doesn’t matter that they haven’t done anything of note. The opening titles complement it perfectly, introducing the characters visually and setting the energetic, joyful tone for the rest of the show.

Love Live!

You’d hope a show about music would have a catchy theme tune, and Love Live! doesn’t disappoint. This video (which repeats several times; you’re not going mad) is from the first season and, like any good opening sequence, neatly summarises the show and its characters without them actually “saying” anything (although one could argue the lyrics of the song have a certain degree of meaning). Also it’s just plain catchy.

Akiba’s Trip

One thing I really like about Japanese games is that they treat them the same as anime — and that means that a big deal is made out of the opening credits, with music that is often released as a single in its own right. Akiba’s Trip had a particularly strong opening with a catchy theme song, a good introduction of all the characters and, again, a summary of what to expect from the next few hours of your life.

Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory

The Neptunia series has some excellent songs throughout, but the opening theme for third game Victory is one of the stronger ones. It does a great job of capturing the games’ energetic, joyful spirit and acknowledges their origins as a parody of the video games industry at large through heavy use of electronic effects and synthesised sounds. It also makes a point of demonstrating the extremely strong friendship between the core cast members — they may not see eye-to-eye about everything (or anything) but they stick together and help one another out.

Omega Quintet

Last one for now, otherwise I’ll be here all night and I quite want to go to bed. I wrote a few days ago about how I like the fact Omega Quintet treats its episodic story just like an anime series, complete with opening and ending credits sequences. Here’s the opening sequence, which you see not just at the beginning of the game, but at the start of every chapter. It’s as delightful as the game itself.

1886: The Order

(Couldn’t resist, sorry. This post has nothing to do with The Order 1886.)

Spent the evening round at my friend Tim’s house this evening. We played some multiplayer games and just hung out a bit. It was pleasant.

On the multiplayer front, we gave ZombiU a go properly now that I have a Classic Controller Pro or whatever the Wii U Xbox controller knockoff is called. It’s much more playable than the cumbersome, weird Nunchuk and Wiimote setup we tried it with last time, and made for a far more enjoyable game.

ZombiU’s multiplayer mode is a lot of fun. There are two distinct ways to play: a Capture the Flag-style mode and a variant on a “Horde” mode. Neither of these are conventionally implemented thanks to the focus on asymmetric play: one player has the Wii U GamePad, while the other has some form of more traditional control scheme (preferably a Classic Controller Pro) and plays on the TV. The GamePad player is essentially playing a top-down real-time strategy game, while the player on the TV is playing a conventional first-person shooter.

It’s a simple idea, but very effective. The GamePad player is able to summon zombies of various types into the player’s game by tapping the screen, though there are certain limitations: firstly, different types of zombies cost a certain amount of resources, which increase gradually over time; secondly, you can only have up to eight zombies summoned at once; thirdly, you’re not able to just plop zombies down right next to the player: red zones on the map (including a mobile one in the player’s immediate vicinity) show where you’re not able to summon one of your minions. Each time you place a zombie, you creep closer to a level up, which allows you to unlock new zombies and abilities; in other words, the longer the match goes on, the more difficult it gets for the “Survivor” player.

It’s definitely worth a try. Not sure how much “staying power” it has, but we played it for a good while this evening and it was consistently fun.

Having the opportunity to spend some time with Tim this evening got me thinking, though. It’s been a while since we were able to hang out together, and with two of our regular board gaming group now considerably busier than they once were — one with a new house, another with a new baby — it’s getting more and more difficult to find opportunities to spend time together and do fun things. This is all part of “growing up”, of course, but, to sound like a petulant child for a moment, I don’t like it all that much.

Over the last few months, I’ve found myself feeling quite a bit more isolated for various reasons. I haven’t seen quite a few of my “real life” friends for quite some time, partly because they’re busy with their own real lives — there are several new babies in my circle of friends, for example — and also partly because my own social anxiety makes me feel like I’m being a bother when I consider asking people if they have time to hang out.

There are lots of things I’d like to do with people, but I’m not entirely sure if the people I know now would be interested in doing them. I’d like to play board games with a wider circle of people, for example; I’m envious of my friends elsewhere who have groups who can meet much more regularly than mine. I’d like to play some role-playing games — both silly ones like Maid: The Role-Playing Game and more traditional ones like Dungeons & Dragons — but I’m not entirely convinced I know anyone who’d be up for it. And I’d like to shamelessly copy my friends Mark and Lynette in having a regular “anime and cocktails” evening (perhaps with less emphasis on the latter, as I don’t drink much these days) during which we watch several different shows with markedly different themes. I am at least thankful that I can share Final Fantasy XIV with Andie.

Chances are I do know at least a couple of people who would be interested in some or all of the above, but it’s sometimes difficult to know how to bring these things up — or, in some cases, how to ask to join other well-established friendship or activity groups who would be into this sort of thing. It’s even more daunting to contemplate the prospect of finding completely new friends, so I have to wonder if I’ll continue to be stuck in this faintly dissatisfied situation, never quite able to truly share some of the things I enjoy with other people?

1876: Connecting Flight

Good morning from Dublin! Today has been a very long day. Technically it’s already “tomorrow” but I haven’t yet made it home from Boston (my connecting flight leaves in a couple of hours) so I thought I’d take the opportunity to scribble a quick post.

This PAX weekend has been pretty much everything I hoped it would be. I had a great time with my friends, I saw some cool stuff at the show and I picked up some fun swag.

Most importantly, we successfully carried a number of formerly Internet-only relationships into the offline realm. Doing this is always a nerve-wracking experience — regardless of whether said relationship is platonic, romantic or anything else — and so it’s always a pleasure when things come together and we all get along.

I actually wasn’t too worried this time around, though. Something brought us all together in the world of Final Fantasy XIV and the fact most of us have been together for nigh on two years now says something positive about us and what we mean to one another. There have been tough times, as with any relationship, and people have come and gone over time, but the people with whom I spent my weekend represent a core group that I have always very much enjoyed spending virtual time with — and it turns out I enjoy spending real time with, too. It’s just a pity we’re all so scattered.

“I’m glad everyone is exactly how they seem to be,” said one of our number last night, possibly slightly fuelled by a beer or two. “It means that everyone’s genuine. And that we’re all as fucked up as each other.”

That latter point is key, and not necessarily a bad thing. Almost without exception, we’ve all had Shit to Deal With to varying degrees over the years, and our adventures in Eorzea have provided not only some much-needed escape at times, but also an outlet through which we can talk about the things that have been bothering us with like-minded individuals.

And that is immeasurably valuable; in an age where it seems people are drifting further and further apart from one another for various reasons, it’s comforting to have a group that is pretty much always there for you. I know I’m grateful for these friends, and I’m sure they are too.

Now coffee is calling, closely followed by a connecting flight, a taxi ride back home and then almost straight back out (hopefully with time for a shower first!) to go and teach clarinet to kids. It’s all go, huh. I shall sleep well tonight, for sure.

1744: Congratulations to Cat and John

It was the wedding of my friends Cat and John today up here in sunny Aberdeen, Scotland. It’s pretty rare to have a horrible wedding — though I’m sure they happen on occasion — but I am, unsurprisingly, pleased to report that it was a jolly nice day, with a pleasantly short ceremony (in which I did indeed read the shit out of the poem I’d been provided with, and was subsequently complimented by all manner of people I’d never met before throughout the rest of the day), a tasty meal that struck a good balance between being posh and actually being edible, and an enjoyable evening of ceilidh music and dancing. (I must confess to not having indulged in much of the dancing, primarily because I don’t really enjoy it but also because my trousers were at risk of falling down partway through Strip the Willow.)

Cat is one of my oldest friends that I’m actually still friends with. She was the first person I ever met at university, and something of a fixture in my life throughout the course of my undergraduate studies. We haven’t seen each other all that much for the last few years — primarily because she lives in a whole other country (yes, Scotland totally counts as being a whole other country) — but it was nice to see her today and it be pretty much like the intervening years simply hadn’t happened; the only difference was that she was wearing a big, impractical dress and had a different surname.

The fact I’m friends with Cat reminds me of one of my secret proudest moments. It may not sound much — particularly if you’re not someone who has suffered with social anxiety — but it was a big deal to me.

Let me explain.

Prior to starting university properly, I had signed up for a pre-term music course, during which I’d have the opportunity to play with members of the university symphony orchestra, as we indulged in some intensive rehearsal and study over the course of a single week, culminating in a performance of Shostakovich’s 5th symphony and Beethoven’s 7th symphony. I had never performed a full symphony before, and here I was preparing to perform two of them after just a week of rehearsal. It was challenging, but fun.

What was more challenging to me, though, was the prospect of meeting new people. I’d already established in my mind at secondary school that I wasn’t quite sure how to go about making new friends or meeting new people, so I was quite nervous about going to university. (I had also contemplated, as I’m sure many people had, making up a cool nickname for myself, but never quite had the guts to go through with lying to potential new friends about what “everyone calls me”.)

So it was that I found myself in the lift after the first day of the music course, heading up to the 15th floor of Stoneham Halls of Residence to get a bit of rest. Also in the lift with me was Cat — although I didn’t know who she was yet, aside from the fact that she was in the string section. As the doors closed, I decided that I was going to bite the bullet and actually try to make a new friend. So I introduced myself. And, as often happens when I take a social “risk” like this, I was surprised to discover that I didn’t die, wasn’t punched in the face and wasn’t showered with acid from my conversational partner inexplicably turning into a giant, acid-spitting snake-like creature. Instead, I found out the name of someone, got to know them a bit and had a ready-made excuse to escape when I reached the 15th floor. Ideal.

Over the early days at university, I came to know Cat quite well. Having grown up in a school where interests were divided quite sharply along gender lines — it was also the days before being a geek was “cool”, although the relatively recent introduction of Sony’s PlayStation meant that situation was changing — it was quite surprising to meet someone of the female persuasion who not only tolerated the presence of video games, but also appeared to be genuinely interested in them. We spent many an hour sitting in my room playing Final Fantasy VIII and Point Blank together — to date, I’m not sure I’d ever be able to name Rinoa anything but “Cat” — and we had a most enjoyable time getting through our music (well, English and music in my case) degrees together.

In short, she’s one of those friends that will almost certainly be a constant presence in my life for many years to come yet, and I’m really happy to see her so happy today. I wish her and John a long and happy life together, and that new life for them starts today.

Thanks for a great day, Mr and Mrs Cowe. Have a very happy life!

1569: Life Gets In the Way

I was chatting with my friend Lynette earlier about various things, and the subject turned, as it often does, to anime. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to turn into a lengthy spiel on how emotional the ending of Angel Beats! was — though I did watch the last episode today, so expect some thoughts on that shortly. No, instead, it’s going to be about the frustrating feeling of discovering things that you really like when it feels like it’s almost “too late”.

I don’t mean that I’m too old for anime or related media, of course — I really hope the day never comes when I feel like I’ve “grown out” of the things I love today — but rather I feel like the opportunity to enjoy and share these things with friends has been, to a large degree, mostly lost.

I mention this because of my aforementioned conversation with Lynette. Aside from this blog — where, as we all know, I’m pissing in the wind — Lynette is one of the few people I have the opportunity to enthuse about anime with on a fairly regular basis. And it’s somewhat frustrating to both of us that we’re several thousand miles apart and consequently unable to get together regularly for cocktails, popcorn and a few episodes of some favourite anime series, perhaps educating one another on recent discoveries that we want to share. It’s something we’d both really like to be able to do — indeed, we have done it before, on the occasions when I’ve had the opportunity to visit her and her husband Mark (also a close personal friend, and also someone with whom I can enthuse about anime) in Toronto.

This is one unfortunate side-effect of the whole “global village” (hah, bet you haven’t heard that term since a ’90s issue of PC Format) thing the Internet has brought about. It’s never been easier to find like-minded friends who share the same interests and passions as you, but the thing people don’t mention about that seemingly great development in socialisation is how frustrating it is to not be able to get together with those friends on at least a semi-regular basis. (Unless you’re loaded enough to be able to simply hop on a trans-Atlantic flight at a moment’s notice whenever you fancy it, in which case I think I hate you a little bit.) I have friends literally all over the world — America, Canada, the Middle East, Japan, Australia — who I would love to hang out with and do all sorts of mutually enjoyable things with (no, not that sort of thing, pervert) but am unable to do so. I’m fortunate enough to have these friends in the first place, of course, but by gosh, I sometimes wish they were just around the corner so I could drop them a text, invite them over for an anime evening and subsequently have an enjoyable time.

Why not ask your local friends, you might wonder. Because my local friends all have their own passions and interests — and, with us being the age we are (we’re not in university any more!) a lot of them are doing distinctly “grown-up” things like grouting their bathrooms (whatever that means) or having children. I certainly don’t begrudge them any of those things, but it can be sad and frustrating when it’s difficult to get people together for anything more than the most cursory of social occasions. Life gets in the way, in other words.

So, uh, anyone local want to hang out and watch some anime? We have popcorn.

1221: How Do You Make Friends Again…?

One of my earliest and most enduring memories of my time at secondary school is also, coincidentally, the first time I was consciously aware of what I now recognise to be a longstanding case of social anxiety.

It was the first day of secondary school. Everything was big and new and scary — I’d come from a small village school in which the entire school population was roughly the size of a single year group in my secondary school. I’d chosen to go to said secondary school because a lot of my friends were going there, and also my brother had attended there some years previously and had come out of the experience as what is generally accepted to be a Good Person. Also, a lot of the people who had been bullies to me in primary school were going to a different secondary school, so I knew that I wanted to avoid that one like the plague.

But I, as ever, digress.

It was the first day of secondary school. I was sitting in my new seat in my new tutor group, and our tutor, Miss Quirk (yes, really), had tasked us with spending a few minutes getting to know the people around us.

I gazed around me. I was sitting next to a boy named Murray whom I didn’t know. In front of me was a girl named Claire, whom I had instantly fallen in love with due to her long shiny blonde hair and the fact she wore short skirts with tights — something which I found (hell, find) inexplicably attractive. (Hey. I was eleven years old and easily pleased — but to be fair, she did remain consistently stunning throughout our entire school career.)

Behind me was my sometime best friend from primary school, Matthew. I say “sometime” because he wasn’t always my best friend — he was a somewhat fickle chap rather prone to occasionally deciding he’d rather hang out with the “cool” kids, whose opinion of me tended to flip-flop back and forth on an almost weekly basis. Needless to say, I ditched him fairly soon into my secondary school career as a result of two events: one, him sneezing so hard he snotted over his hands and then ate it — mmm — and two, him deciding that sitting in his chair, miming masturbation and bellowing “I’m a wanker! I’m a wanker!” would be somehow amusing. (To be fair, it was sort of amusing, but perhaps not in the way he intended; needless to say, I didn’t really want to be associated with him after that.)

Anyway. Our seating arrangements were the way they were in order to encourage us to interact and get to know each other. We’d been deliberately seated next to people we didn’t know to encourage us to break out of our primary school “cliques” and widen our friendship circles — a theoretically sound idea that even at that tender age, I could see the benefits of.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t act on it. Given the prospect of being thrown into enforced interaction with someone I didn’t know from Adam, I froze up. I had no idea how to begin a conversation, how to get to know this person. Frantically, I turned around to gaze at Matthew (a pre-“I’m a wanker! I’m a wanker!” Matthew, I might add) and looked at him pleadingly.

“I can’t remember how to make friends!” I said quietly to him. He just laughed and motioned for me to turn around and talk to Murray. He obviously hadn’t taken my statement seriously, and that was frustrating, but I had little option but to try. It was a terrifying experience, though, and obviously I didn’t set a particularly good first impression on Murray, because he became a complete bellend who bullied me on a regular basis. (I got my own back by punching him in the face just as the principal was walking around the corner and, although I was punished for lashing out like that, the unspoken consensus between my parents and the teachers involved was that he probably deserved it — and to be fair, he didn’t bother me again after that.)

That first day and that pitiful statement — “I can’t remember how to make friends!” — stuck with me, though. Because I can’t remember how to make friends. It just sort of happens. I have made friends with people over the years, of course — the friends I made after I abandoned Matthew following the “I’m a wanker!” incident (such as Edward James Padgett, who has been mentioned in this post since it was first written, he just didn’t see it); my university flatmates; my fellow students on my music course (though not on my English course — I didn’t really get to know anyone on that side of things); and people I’ve worked with — but if I’m thrown into a new situation with unfamiliar people, or simply decide that I want to get to know new people who perhaps share my interests… I still have no idea how to do this.

This is, as I’m sure you can appreciate, frustrating, particularly as at the age of 32 I finally feel that I have found a number of geeky “niches” that I fit nicely into, and would like to share these experiences with like-minded people. I greatly enjoyed spending time with Mark and Lynette while we were over in Canada because they are both My Kind of People who enjoy the things I do — but I also found myself somewhat envious of them for having a group of friends they play Dungeons & Dragons with, watch anime with while drinking cocktails and all manner of other things that are in keeping with their interests.

This isn’t to say I don’t have friends, obviously. The friends I see most frequently are my regular(ish) board gaming group, and I wouldn’t exchange them for anything, since I really, really appreciate the time I spend with them indulging in our mutual hobby. However, we do have our own incompatibilities — two of our number are really into football, for example, while the rest of us either have no strong feelings or actively hate it. (I fall into the latter category.) Similarly, I very much like Japanese video games, while several of the others cling to common misconceptions about them and thus either refuse to play them or have little interest in exploring them and having their misconceptions disproven — though at least they are patient and willing to listen to me talk about them. Conversely, a couple of our number are big into Skyrim, a game which I found almost unbearably tedious after a while. To continue the pattern, I’m a big fan of anime and would really like it if I could have a semi-regular viewing session with a small group of people, but no-one from that particular group is biting for various reasons — some don’t like or don’t see the point of sitting and watching something together as a group; some aren’t interested in anime.

You get the picture, anyway. I obviously don’t begrudge my friends these incompatibilities we have — everyone is different, after all, and thus has their own tastes — but I find myself wishing on a regular basis that it was a bit easier to find additional friends (note: not “new” friends, because to me that implies a degree of “replacement”, which I don’t want) who have common interests.

Actually, let me qualify that somewhat: I find myself wishing that it was a bit easier to find additional local friends who have common interests. It’s obviously no problem whatsoever to find new friends on the Internet who have similar tastes to me, and I’m very grateful for the fact that I do have so many people on the Internet that I can rant and rave about how awesome Ar Tonelico is or how much Kana Little Sister made me cry or whatever. But as much as I appreciate these friends in far-flung corners of the world, it’s not quite the same as having someone you can just pop over and see at short notice, hang out and do some things that you both enjoy.

So, uh, anyone want to hang out, play some games and watch some anime?

1100: The One where Pete Watches ‘Friends’ for the First Time in Quite a While

I went through a phase a few years back of watching just two or three different TV series over and over again on a cycle. They were my passive-consumption “comfort food”, if you will — things I turned to when I didn’t really want to do anything, but didn’t really want to fall into that pit of depressed ennui that normally ends up with staring at the wall for hours at a time. Those shows included Spaced and Black Books, which are two series I still own the DVDs for and will never get rid of, and Friends, which I have never owned a complete collection of but have had scattered home-recorded VHS tapes and a few purchased DVDs and videos over the years — also, for many years, it was on a constant cycle of repeats on E4 alongside Scrubs.

Friends is something that I’ve watched so many times now that I can pretty much recite it word for word along with any episode that’s on. It kind of fell out of favour with the public in its latter stages as many people saw it as outstaying its welcome, but I enjoyed it consistently all the way through. As I say, it was comfort food; you knew what to expect with every episode. It was never anything adventurous, but the characters were both relatable and attractive, the situations they got into often personally relevant, and the quips and jokes memorable and, yes, genuinely amusing.

I started re-watching Friends again the other day having come into possession of a complete collection, only this time around I’m watching the “extended cuts” that came out a few years back. These aren’t Lucasesque “special edition” versions, they’re simply about 5 minutes longer per episode, with numerous scenes restored to their full length and, in many cases, adding a whole bunch of additional context and depth to the characters and setting that simply wasn’t there before due to the constraints of the TV scheduling.

I’m really enjoying them so far. This extra footage means that watching the show again after a few years’ break strikes a wonderful balance between the comfortably familiar and the brand-new — and, given how well I know the original versions, I can immediately recognise when something is new. In many cases, scenes that had rather awkward and obvious edits on TV now make much more sense, and in some cases there are scenes that I simply don’t think were even there at all in the first place — Joey’s first meeting with his colourful agent Estelle, for example.

More than the pleasure of getting some “new” Friends to watch, though, I’m overwhelmed with the feeling of comfortable nostalgia that watching this show always infuses in me. I’ve spent so much time with these characters inside my TV over the years that I feel like they’re my friends, too — a fact helped by the fact that I still, to this day, tend to group people in my mind according to which one of the main cast they most remind me of. (Shh. Don’t tell anyone.)

One thing I’d forgotten about is that the show appeared to coin the term “friend zone” back in its first season, where Joey uses it to describe Ross having waited too long to make his move on Rachel. I shan’t get into any of that endless discussion over people who use the term “friend zone” today because it’s inordinately tedious and frustrating, but I wonder how many people remember where it actually came from and its original context. A few years back, I would have deemed it unthinkable for someone to not have knowledge of Friends, but a lot of years have passed since then.

And yet, I struggle to think of a recent TV show I’ve been quite as attached to as Friends. I’ve enjoyed various American comedies that have come since — How I Met Your Mother was originally sold to me as something of a successor to Friends in many ways, and I have major soft spots for Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock — but for me, nothing will ever be quite the same as the time I spent with Monica, Phoebe, Rachel, Ross, Chandler and Joey. However well (or otherwise) you think it may well have aged, there’s little denying that for many people of a similar age to me, Friends was and is a touchstone of popular culture that will always carry at least some degree of personal resonance.

#oneaday Day 984: Stagging

I’m away for the weekend. Specifically, I’m in the middle of nowhere in Worcestershire for my friend Tim’s stag weekend (or “bachelor party” as you Americans prefer to call it). We’re having a weekend of drinking, board games and shooting each other (but mostly Tim) with Airsoft guns. Sounds like fun.

Of my friends who have got married whose stag dos I’ve been to, none of them have done the stereotypical “get hammered in Amsterdam, hire hookers then leave Stag Boy in an embarrassing position to be discovered by the police/his parents after several hours of considerable discomfort”. And I’m actually quite grateful for that. Although everyone jokes about that being the way that stag dos are “supposed” to go it never struck me as particularly fun — especially not for the Stag, who will probably be left rethinking his friendships in the hours between being chained to the lamppost and having to explain to the nice police officer why he is naked and covered in margarine.

My own stag do was relatively stereotypical — paintballing in the daytime followed by drinks in the evening — but I chose to invite my female friends also, and nothing embarrassing happened. Not that I remember, anyway. I remember it being a rather fun night — there are certainly a bunch of photos suggesting it was lurking around somewhere — but I didn’t leave it thinking “wow, my friends are a bunch of bellends.” Which, again, I’m quite grateful for.

A stag do should be an opportunity for the groom-to-be to have some time with his closest friends — regardless of gender if he so desires — and have a memorable “send off” before married life. That looks like exactly what this weekend is going to be, so I’m going to take the time to relax and enjoy it hopefully as much as Tim will.

Bed now. The drinks have been flowing freely and we’ve been playing Cards Against Humanity for the past few hours. Hilarity, as usual, ensued, but I’m more than ready for sleep now!

#oneaday Day 954: I Love Cock

“Cock” is possibly my favourite word in the entire English language. I don’t care if you’re using it to refer to a rooster or an erect penis (I always felt that “cock” implied “erect”, as does “dong”, “schlong”, “wang” and numerous others; meanwhile “winky”, “dick”, “willy” and “tallywhacker” imply flaccidity, but I digress) — it’s just a fantastically satisfying word to say.

You have to say it right for it to be satisfying though. Try it with me.

Take a deep breath, in through your nose. Now open your mouth a little as if you’re going to cough up a big ol’ flob and pronounce a nice, crisp, hard “C” sound. Immediately follow with a round, fruity “O”, where your mouth makes the perfect shape of the letter it’s pronouncing, leave a short gap, then follow up with the “CK”. Ideally, you should throw back your head slightly while doing the “CO–” bit and give a pervy smile while doing the “–CK” bit. Advanced “COCK”-ers should feel free to add a crescendoing “mm” or “nn” sound beforehand for added amusement. “mmCOCK!” “nnCOCK!”

Lest you feel I’ve lost it here, let me explain my love for this gloriously expressive one-syllable word. It came about back in secondary school. Some friends and I were hanging out, and I, for some reason, happened to pronounce the word “cock” in the manner described above, and everyone fell about laughing. According to my friend Craig, it was hilarious because it, I quote, “sounded like a porn star saying it.” (It sounds even more like a porn star saying it if you also say the word “SUCK” in the same manner as the word “COCK” described above.)

Anyhow, the word “COCK” became our go-to insult or space-filler when there was a lull in the conversation. This use of the word, completely devoid of its usual context, came to a head one summer when my parents had gone on holiday and I was left alone in the house for the first time. My friend Woody and I had recently discovered Final Fantasy VII and, having both finished it possibly several times by this point, were doing a communal playthrough together, fuelled by tequila which we had decided we would attempt to drink despite the fact that both of us felt that it tasted like what a glass of water would taste like if you dropped about fifteen cigarette butts in it. As night fell, we decided that The Thing To Do would be to switch over and play Resident Evil 2 very loud while absolutely munted off our tits. (We also left a metronome ticking outside the room our friend Ed, who had flaked out early, was sleeping in.)

For whatever reason, during our Resident Evil 2 session — and remember we were absolutely twatted by this point — we then decided that The Thing To Do would be to turn to each other and repeatedly say the word “COCK” in the manner described above to each other while attempting to continue normal play. Normal play was already somewhat difficult due to the amount of alcohol we had imbibed coupled with Resident Evil 2’s cumbersome controls, so it largely degenerated into just the shouting of the aforementioned syllable over and over and over again.

I don’t know for how many hours we kept this up, but it was certainly a long time. Probably at least one hour and possibly more. I’m pretty sure that we somehow got most of the way through the game while repeatedly bellowing “COCK” at one another, because I have a vivid memory of collapsing in a drunken, exhausted heap after failing to kill the final boss and waking up the next morning in an awkward position with the PlayStation still running.

So there you go. That’s how much I love cock. I’ll go all night with it.

(Aside: WordPress recommended “wine tasting descriptors” as a tag for this post. I’m not sure I need to make any further comment than that.)