Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to Dirty Briefs.
Speaker: I'm so excited to bring you this episode because you need more content in your life.
Speaker: There is not enough out there to sustain the voracious appetite that we are consuming all of this media.
Speaker: I need to give you more, more, more.
Speaker: In fact, as soon as this is over, I hope you go immediately to something else and then consume that and forget everything that you have just watched or listened to.
Speaker: Because isn't that the environment that we are in these days?
Speaker: I don't rewatch or listen to anything at all.
Speaker: When I was a kid, I used to watch things over and over and over.
Speaker: And maybe it's because I had less choices.
Speaker: It was whatever is on TV right now is what I'm going to watch.
Speaker: But there's a reason why those shows, albums, why those have stuck with me.
Speaker: There's a reason why I can quote The Simpsons like it's the Bible.
Speaker: Every time.
Speaker: I pull into a parking lot and I get out of the car with my wife.
Speaker: I say, remember, we're in the itchy lot.
Speaker: My wife is not even a Simpsons fan at all, but she knows that quote like the back of her hand because it is stuck with me.
Speaker: That show, among a few others like it, have shaped my childhood.
Speaker: I mean, last night I was at the comedy store and Pauly Shore was doing this show.
Speaker: And a friend of mine and I had a conversation about how many times we have watched Biodome, Son-in-Law, Jury Duty.
Speaker: I can still quote those movies.
Speaker: Ask me anything from the past few years.
Speaker: Ask me to make a joke that they said on the show or to even quote a single plot point.
Speaker: And I probably can't do it.
Speaker: At this point, all I remember from Breaking Bad is, say my name.
Speaker: We just eat it up.
Speaker: We eat it up.
Speaker: Do you remember when you were younger and you would buy an album and you'd be so excited?
Speaker: Like you would go home and you would just put it on.
Speaker: No distractions.
Speaker: You would lay in bed or sit in a chair and just be like, I'm listening to this album.
Speaker: You would put it in your Discman and that's what you would listen to for weeks or months at a time.
Speaker: Every time you got in your car, you just started that album up.
Speaker: You couldn't start it from the middle.
Speaker: You were like, no.
Speaker: I'm going to listen to it all the way through.
Speaker: I remember when I got Modest Mouse's album, Good News for People Who Love Bad News.
Speaker: And that was a band that I loved and I listened to nonstop.
Speaker: And they put out a new album when I was 18 years old.
Speaker: And I remember buying that album, going over to my friend Zach's house, and he and I and another friend
Speaker: We smoked some weed and then we just put the album on and we sat there, closed our eyes and listened to it.
Speaker: And then when it was over, we listened to it again because it hadn't spoken.
Speaker: It's spoken to us.
Speaker: We enjoyed it, but now we got to pick up on more nuances.
Speaker: Now we got to really let it permeate our system.
Speaker: And I don't think we do that anymore.
Speaker: At least I don't do that as often.
Speaker: Even when a band I love puts out an album and I'm like, oh, thank God I've been waiting for this.
Speaker: I listen to it.
Speaker: And maybe I listen to it again two more times over the course of the next few months.
Speaker: And then I'm like, nope, where's the next thing?
Speaker: Where's the next thing?
Speaker: I think part of the problem is
Speaker: is that we pay so little for what we are consuming.
Speaker: It used to be that I would go to a store, like a Sam Goody or an FYE or something like that, Waxy Maxi, Circuit City, wherever I was going to buy music or DVDs, and I would pay for this thing.
Speaker: If I bought an album for $19, I'm going to listen to it.
Speaker: Now, we don't even think about the money that we're spending because $10 a month for Spotify or $12 a month for Netflix, and we have every choice imaginable.
Speaker: So we don't actually invest in what we are consuming.
Speaker: I think it's great that we have options, but when is it too much?
Speaker: When my wife and I put on a streaming service and in our home, we have Netflix, we have Hulu, we have Amazon, we have Macs, we have Apple, and then there's always YouTube.
Speaker: There's that right there with six options that all have millions of hours of consumable content.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: It's not just like we look at a show and we go, let's watch that.
Speaker: My wife has a thing where she goes, well, let's look at all the other ones and see what else because she needs to make the best possible choice.
Speaker: She needs to watch the trailer to know if it's worth going into.
Speaker: It's difficult for her to even go into a movie because she's like, well, have other people said it's good?
Speaker: It's like, I don't know.
Speaker: Let's just go see it.
Speaker: I feel the same way a lot of times.
Speaker: What am I missing if I'm going to watch this one thing?
Speaker: It's too much.
Speaker: Too much.
Speaker: I think the biggest problem is like nothing sticks with me anymore.
Speaker: And that's what I was kind of going into before is that there are entire series that I've watched.
Speaker: And when people bring them up, I'm like, Oh, I totally forgot.
Speaker: I watched four seasons of that show and I'm not going to rewatch it because now there are a million other shows.
Speaker: There are TV shows that I love.
Speaker: Bob's burgers.
Speaker: Great example.
Speaker: I love that show.
Speaker: I've watched almost every single episode.
Speaker: How many times have I rewatched an episode?
Speaker: two or three.
Speaker: And that's because I was on the road and it came on when I was in a hotel room.
Speaker: That's the only time I rewatched things at this point.
Speaker: Oh, great.
Speaker: Well, Comedy Central only plays South Park in the office.
Speaker: So I guess that's what I'm going to watch as I try to go to sleep at night.
Speaker: I watched Back to the Future 2 this past weekend in a hotel room.
Speaker: And that's a movie that I've seen probably 15 times in my life.
Speaker: At this point,
Speaker: Unless you're a little kid and your parents are just putting the same thing on again and again and again, is any child re-watching stuff?
Speaker: I think about this because when I put out a piece of content, especially if it's something significant, like my last album or I'm about to work on a new special, people are going to watch it and they're immediately going to forget it.
Speaker: Is there a way that I can break through the mold for them to say, wow, I have to rewatch this again.
Speaker: I need to get my friends, my family together, and we need to all watch this thing.
Speaker: And then we need to sit and we need to talk about it.
Speaker: Is there a way to do that?
Speaker: Or is that, am I just dreaming a little too big and I just have to accept that people are going to watch it and then immediately forget about it no matter how good it is?
Speaker: That's, I think, the biggest thing.
Speaker: It doesn't matter how good something is.
Speaker: When there are a million more things to watch, why would you rewatch something that you already consumed?
Speaker: Why are you going back to the all-you-can-eat content buffet for the exact same dish when there are all these other cuisines that you can ingest?
Speaker: Part of me thinks it's because I'm an adult.
Speaker: Like, is this just what happens when you're a kid?
Speaker: You have all the time in the world to come home and just watch Baywatch.
Speaker: I used to watch so much Baywatch, by the way.
Speaker: I keep saying that watch, watch, watch, Baywatch, Baywatch.
Speaker: I've seen every episode of Baywatch probably six times because for a few years, I watched it every single day.
Speaker: And I don't think I would ever do that at this point.
Speaker: Is Baywatch even a good show?
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: But to, you know, a 8, 9, 11-year-old kid, yeah, there's hot people running down a beach and that's great content for me.
Speaker: But now as an adult, I have actual responsibilities to think about.
Speaker: And I think that is what takes me away from rewatching anything.
Speaker: When someone says a quote, they're like, Oh, you don't remember that moment.
Speaker: I'm like, no.
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: I watch a TV show and then I immediately put on another TV show.
Speaker: It doesn't stick with me.
Speaker: Thank God for series recaps.
Speaker: Thank God for remember last season because sometimes when they say show a season of something, when I watch that, if the next season isn't available yet in between, I will watch hundreds of hours of other TV shows.
Speaker: And by the time the series I was watching comes back,
Speaker: I don't remember it anymore.
Speaker: I have no idea what was happening.
Speaker: I don't know any of the plot points that have carried me through to where we are now.
Speaker: So I need to watch an entire recap just to remind me of what I saw.
Speaker: And then I'm like, what was that scene?
Speaker: I don't even remember that happening.
Speaker: Maybe it is because I have more responsibilities at this point in my life.
Speaker: Maybe I'm not supposed to remember every single thing that I watch.
Speaker: Or maybe we need to spend more time with the content that we are consuming.
Speaker: Maybe we need to listen to an album five or six times to truly resonate with the message, with the sounds of how good it is.
Speaker: How many times in your life have you heard certain songs or certain albums that stick with you?
Speaker: When was the last time?
Speaker: an album made you really feel something to the point where you're like, I'm going to listen to this again and again and again until it is a permanent part of my psyche?
Speaker: Or are you just going to say, great, I listened to that.
Speaker: It was good.
Speaker: Now on to the next thing.
Speaker: Give yourself time to sit
Speaker: With the things you consume.
Speaker: Because I'm not going to tell you to stop watching or listening to so many things.
Speaker: That is, that's just unreasonable.
Speaker: It's not going to happen.
Speaker: So instead, allow yourself to watch one thing and then sit there for a few minutes and just think about it.
Speaker: Put an album on front to back.
Speaker: Some artists, some bands, musicians are still creating full albums that are supposed to be listened to in an order to really give you a roller coaster of emotions as you go through it.
Speaker: Other bands aren't.
Speaker: Other bands are like, here's a single, here's a single, here's a single, and that's the best way to do it.
Speaker: And that's a scary thing for me as a comedian because so many times people are like, well, my attention span only allows me to listen to things or watch things for 48 seconds at a time.
Speaker: I'm trying to build bigger projects.
Speaker: I want an hour that has a slow build all the way up and then it hits this moment and then it comes down for a smooth landing to make you feel many different things.
Speaker: I want you to laugh.
Speaker: I want you to cry.
Speaker: I want you to feel motivated.
Speaker: I want you to be kicking and screaming with excitement in certain moments and then be thinking,
Speaker: deeply about other parts of it.
Speaker: That can't happen in a single clip.
Speaker: I need to build on subjects, on premises.
Speaker: So I hope when you watch something of mine or when you listen to something of mine, you will give it the time to really think about why you enjoyed it or maybe why you hated it, even if you didn't like it.
Speaker: Don't immediately just go, no, next thing.
Speaker: Why didn't you like it?
Speaker: What did you learn about yourself from watching it that will have you make a better choice next time?
Speaker: I really hope that you will come see me live because that is the best way to experience me.
Speaker: I just had a great week on the road in Texas.
Speaker: And when you watch this, I will have just been in Arizona, which means this week I'm going to be in Eureka, California.
Speaker: for two shows at Savage Henry Comedy Club.
Speaker: And then next week, I will be in Palm Springs at Agua Caliente, September 8th.
Speaker: And do not forget, I am hitting Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Fargo, North Dakota at the end of September.
Speaker: So look for those dates, hoopercomedy.com.
Speaker: Follow me on social media because I'm still...
Speaker: releasing daily clips because that's what the nature of this business requires me to do right now.
Speaker: But if you enjoy your daily lollipop, those are back and I'm doing lollipops.
Speaker: So if you need something to suck on every day to add a little bit of sweetness, follow me at Hooper Hair Puff and go get your daily lollipop.
Speaker: I know you're going to immediately listen to or watch something after this, but I hope this speaks to you a little bit when you move forward.
Speaker: I love you all so much.
Speaker: Now, go watch that content.
