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

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

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

1. A woman that helps a man not be depressed anymore by helping him feel life again (stupid).

2. A quirky, independent free spirit that is fun and does exist in real life (good)

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

Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests. 

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

Remember Shuffle goes yap for yap with a real yapper with returning guest @Gluten_Daddy (Isaac Eger) of the Coexist Inc podcast to discuss the 9/11 Truth Movement in various forms. They start with three pieces of media from the 2000s that attempted to process the trauma of 9/11 through truther conspiracy theories. Using Michael Moore’s Farhenheit 9/11, Dylan Avery’s Loose Change, and Peter Joseph’s Zeitgeist a jumping-off point, they then turn to some unique aspects of these conspiracies and the people who ascribe to them, the internet’s role in conspiratorial thinking, and the state of conspiratorial thinking today.

Isaac's podcast, COEXIST INC. can be found here : https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/coexistinc/episodes/Ep--77---Whats-the-Deal-with-Jerry-Seinfeld-e2jtqob

⁠Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.

In Remember Shuffle’s most experimental, least researched, and most freewheeling episode yet, we turn to the world of Chess in the 2000s. We discuss the game’s international growth in the decade, some of its more colo(u)rful characters, and talk about the *meta* of the game.

Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests. 

Disclaimer: we know this one’s a little different and a little shorter. Your hosts have been busy travelling and/or hosting guests this summer. While we hope to have some really exciting stuff dropping soon, we hope this one will tide you over with a bit of that Remember Shuffle energy!

The Shuffle Boys return to the world of American military propaganda to review Ridley Scott’s 2001 film “Black Hawk Down.To fully appreciate the ghoulishness of this movie’s version of events, we start with a quick history lesson on late 20th century Somalia and the actual events that the film attemprs to depict. En route, they return to the well of some of the key themes of both the End of History and Post 9-11 bloodlust eras

⁠Alternate name for the episode was “Stolz der United Nations” but the reference is too obscure, but shout out to the Inglorious Basterds heads who would have liked that

Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests. 

My name is 2007. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair:

•  There Will Be Blood
• No Country for Old Men
• 3:10 to Yuma
• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

2007 was a banner year for the Western genre. The Shuffle Boys get into what each of these films was offering the culture in 2007, and spend the first half hour covering the Frontier’s effect on American national mythology and political culture for our overseas listeners. They then do their usual thing and do a deep analysis of the two best Western films of the decade, “There Will Be Blood” and “No Country for Old Men.”

Shout out to Greg Grandin’s book ‘The End of the Myth’ as a source for the history of the frontier.

⁠Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.

To skip ahead to each movie:

00:00:00 Intro

00:39:39 There Will Be Blood

01:02:43 No Country for Old Men

01:23:37 3;10 to Yuma

Remember Shuffle presents our Hawk Talk, or Hawk Doc--the Shuffle Boys return to the world of 2000s video gaming to swoop in on the THPS franchise. They discuss the real world impact of these videogames on the growth of skateboarding, their phenomenal soundtracks, what made the games great, how they fell off, and the place that they now hold in peoples’ sense of nostalgia. They also trace the life of the birdman himself: Tony Hawk - a fascinating example of Gen Xcellence who continues to thrive online as a self-aware meme. 

Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.

More information on the Fredericton Bouldering CO-OP can be found here: www.fbcwall.com

I want you to listen to me as hard as you can.

⁠It’s 1999 and every movie is about sitting in a cubicle feeling unfulfilled and numb to life. We delve into the 18 months of the 2000s before 9/11 and their flailing attempts to diagnose their ennui. Is it my furniture? Is that the problem? It’s gotta be my coffee table, that’s the problem.

Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.

Remember Shuffle finally turns to the presidential election that started it all (and by “it,” we mean the end of the world), the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. With the help of returning guest @Gluten_Daddy, the Shuffle Bois first attempt to reframe this election in order to look at it without the hindsight that comes with knowing about its dramatic finish. What does an election look like in the age of the Neoliberal consensus? How did third parties affect the race? What was Donald Trump up to at the time? 

They then turn to the controversial finish to this election: the recounts, the hanging chads, and the judicial coups. They ask questions like: what good is the democratic party? Could the Jan 6ers have been on to something? How is the turn of the millennium personified in this election?

This episode also features a small gloating section for making it to 50 episodes. All jokes aside, thank you to all our listeners who’ve been with us and helped us get here.

Isaac's podcast, COEXIST INC. can be found here : podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/coexistinc
⁠Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.

00:00:00 Intro 00:14:25 Characters 00:28:45 Reform Primary 00:38:00 Republican Primary 00:45:13 The Campaign 01:13:55 Bush V Gore 01:47:00 Themes

Scarface is the ultimate, right? THE ULTIMATE.

⁠Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.

Once again we are getting Ziti pilled in this return to our series on The Sopranos. David Chase has said he wanted to make a show about trying to find happiness in an American context and Season 2 has a clear through-line of themes of American Existentialism. Tony’s adventures with ennui, religion, and consumerism as a gangster at the End of History. No worries if you haven't seen in a while, Season 2’s plot arcs are summarized: Sibling issues with Janice and Richie, Big Pussy is a big rat, and a lot of money making schemes. Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠ And on Instagram ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests. Andrea is @andreapozzana on instagram Link to Elvis Country map and Bust Out Math: https://remembershufflepod.wordpress.com/2024/04/20/the-sopranos-season-2-e48-pod-is-dead/

Chris Wade, of the excellent Hell on Earth and goated pod Chapo Trap House podcasts brings his expertise in the field of early 200s adult animation to Remember Shuffle. On this episode, the Shuffle Bois and Chris discuss the history of niche cable networks, the comic geniuses Mike Lazzo and Adam Reed, and the highly scientific field of generationology (Gen X content for the millennial baby boom echo). 

They then turn to reviewing four iconic Adult Swim shows from the time - Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Sealab 2021, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, and the Venture Bros.

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

Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.

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

Holy Colab it’s a Craporation. Those Good Old Fashioned Values join us to help sum up the hundreds of hours of Seth MacFarlane content that exists.  We take a wide angle, 40,000 foot view of Family Guy - its structure and style of comedy, cancellation and revival in the 2000s, and how it changed over time - before turning to three themes that we feel define Family Guy: postmodernism, media technology, and transgressiveness. 

Follow those Good Old Fashion Values:

Ty’s instagram: @Seltzer_Flower , and twitter @bobo_circus

Andy’s Twitch Link is AnonKaiju

Spencer is bugman_spencer on Discord if you have an alto saxophone

Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠ And on Instagram ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠ to interact with the show between episodes 

Please leave a rating for our show wherever you listen (especially Spotify, it’s ridiculous the impact it has)

The 2nd part of our 3 part series on the Lord of the Rings–one of the 2000s most beloved franchises. We get into the themes of the movie including Tokien’s own politics on Anarchy, Environmentalism and Class Politics. 

Give us a follow on Twitter

And on Instagram @RememberShufflePod to interact with the show between episodes

Do you believe in spells? In our 3rd “Type of Guy” episode, we look into one of the 2000s most annoying villains: The Pickup Artist. We give a synopsis of the book ‘The Game’, try in vain to defend their techniques, and explain why this particular villain emerged at this point in history.

We are joined by dating coach and podcaster Sabrina Zohar of the ‘Do The Work Podcast’, which you can find on instagram @do.the.work.podcast 

And the Do The Work Podcast here

TIMESTAMPS

51:30 Shift to traditional Remember Shuffle episode format

1:04:35 The Cube

*Vocal fry* this is hot. @Thank_U_for_Shopping joins the Shuffle Bois and turn to a major figure of 2000s pop culture: the socialite, reality TV star, and boss business bitch Paris Hilton. They trace her early life and experiences in the troubled teen industry, her reality TV stint in Arkansas, and her metamorphosis into the first instagram influencer. Along with tracing the ark of Paris’ life, they also discuss influencer culture, it girls, loud 2000s fashion, and Paris Hilton’s role as pop culture heel.

Follow @thank_u_for_shopping⁠ here:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/thank_u_for_shopping/

Follow @RememberShufflePod on Instagram:

https://tr.ee/cHmJbidwJ1

This is a bonus episode. We will be returning with a regular episode 1 week from now

We are joined by filmmaker Christopher James Bell (@UpdateTheGrids) to discuss the George W Bush presidency as well as Chris’ documentary on Means TV, “Miss Me Yet.”. We go a little rapid-fire, scatter-shot of the major events, wars, and crimes of the GeorgE W. Bush administration before asking Chris some questions about what it was like to make his excellent documentary about politics, war, finance, consumerism, marketing, and culture.  

You can find Chris on Twitter/X at https://twitter.com/UpdateTheGrids, as well as his link tree here with links to all his projects, https://linktr.ee/christopherjasonbell

Link to Chris’s doc on Means TV: https://means.tv/programs/missmeyet?cid=3337806&permalink=miss-me-yet-ep1

Get it now before the episode is inevitably taken down out of cowardice. A movie episode (in name only!) in which we use Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” as a springboard to discuss the Bush administration’s torture program during the global War on Terror, the attempt to use both girl-bossing and identity politics to whitewash the crimes of empire, and the rise of the contemptible and irritating “bearded operator” subculture.  While this movie might not be as popular or well-remembered as some of the other films we have done, it perfectly encapsulates the brain-melting feeling you got when you first saw the woke CIA ad.

Follow ⁠@RememberShufflePod on Instagram:⁠

https://tr.ee/cHmJbidwJ1

To make someone a martyr is to strip them of their humanity. Yet sometimes Pat Tillman is more than human, and becomes the greatest personification of the Global War on Terror. In Remember Shuffle’s first “very special episode” we cover “The Odyssey of Pat Tillman,” in biographer John Krakauer’s words. We trace his life from his childhood in California, through his enlistment, to his eventual death in a friendly fire incident and the ensuing cover-up. En route, we discuss the conflict between cynicism and idealism, the U.S. military as Kafkaesque bureaucracy run by Armando Ianucci-style incompetents, and the parallels between Pat’s value system and those of another group of warriors in Afghanistan.  

Trigger Warning: this episode will make you sad and make your tummy hurt.

It’s our Holiday bonus episode. Christmas is the time to tell podcasters the truth. A time to show up outside their window with criticisms of how their voices sound the same. We look at some of the cultural trends of Christmas in the 2000s, including The War on Christmas, Elf, Love Actually, and some TV episodes. 

Hello there! Welcome to The Shuffle Galaxy and our exploration of one of the worst franchise trilogies from the 2000s. Forget everything you know about storytelling fundamentals: characters, acts, arcs, emotions, and nuance—throw it right in the trash compactor– because in the child-like mind of George Lucas, what makes a movie great is an over-the-top third act CGI battle scene on whatever backdrop most resembles your childhood living room floor. George Lucas’s nine-hour monstrosity has so much wrong with it and we do our best to add to the  immense collection of existing criticism. En route, we discuss the trilogy’s lack of real characters, the films’ idiosyncratic style, and the total lack of any interesting themes. We also discuss the trilogy’s Pandora’s Box-like effect on movie making for the next twenty years and the toy and video-game tie-in products that were, honestly, pretty sick.

As a follow up the 2008 election, we return to late 2000s, early 2010s political culture to discuss the 2008 financial crisis, the government’s intervention in the economy, and the mass movement against it: The Tea Party Movement. A Mass Movement of Free Market ideologue’s who believe that the financial crash didn’t happen because of deregulation–but because we actually didn’t do the free market enough. A reading series of Glenn Beck explores their monstrous, dogmatic worldview, followed by the real world impacts of this mass movement. Shout out to Thomas Frank’s ‘Pity the Billionaire’ as it was used often as a source.

Alternate titles for this episode included: ‘Spend it like Beck-am’, ‘A Promised Rand’, and ‘Ayn’t Life Rand’

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

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

Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests. 

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

Welcome to the program, we got a great show for you today, Isaac Eger (@gluten_daddy) is joining us to discuss The Daily Show with Jon Stewart! Remember Shuffle takes a look at one of the most influential TV shows from the 2000s, responsible (for good and ill) for the current state of desk comedy. The Shuffle Bois break down the four distinct eras of the daily show: the leather jacket, 90s alt-comic era, the righteous anger era, the lecture series era, and everyone’s favourite: the dogshit era. En route, they discuss the historical moments in which the show aired - the late 90s, Gen X end of history; the right wing war fervor cancel culture of the Bush years; the smarmy lib media navel gazing atmosphere of the Obama years; and the Trump Derangement Syndrome era. They close with discussions on satire, civility, and class politics.

Isaac's podcast, COEXIST INC. (as well as our follow up once Jon Stewart returned) can be found here : https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/coexistinc/episodes/Ep--67--The-Daily-Show-Is-a-Flat-Circle-w-Remember-Shuffle-e2g2p97

Remember Shuffle goes indie this week for its obligatory “Spooky Season” episode and takes a look at 2001’s Donnie Darko. This indie film became a cult classic, spawning countless hours of internet sleuthing analysis, and is probably the biggest “cult” film of the decade. We break down the incredibly straightforward and simple plot of the film, discuss its themes of teen angst, alienation, fate vs predeterminism, madness, and creative destruction, and finally close with a discussion of the place of the 80s in 2000s cultural memory. 

Bryan Quinby of Street Fight Radio and Guys joins to cover one of the ultimate types of 'Guy': Guy Ritchie--and specifically his 2000s masterpieces Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. We cover the type of guy who loves this movie, petty criminals, and how none of the crimes in these movies are even illegal anymore.

check out more Bryan at patreon.com/murderxbryan

Jason Statham's wig: https://remembershufflepod.wordpress.com/2023/10/17/lock-stock-and-snatch-e34-guys-ritchie-with-bryan-quinby/

We turn, finally, to the greatest pop-cultural artefact of the 2000s—77 minutes of laying out exactly why Googling “what is the greatest show of all time” will return “The Sopranos”. We go over the Sopranos' greatest features, including the internal continuity that each episode has with its small details and imagery, like Curb Your Enthusiasm’s interweaving plots, but for drama. The episode is a first pass at explaining why the Sopranos is a 6 tool player at: plot, setting, characters, style, technique and themes–specifically of American decline, generational divide, toxic masculinity and class in The Sopranos.

This week we are once again joined by Mike Duncan as we turn to our favourite all-frills movie from the 2000s, Sophia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette.” We review this film that had mixed reviews at the time, but in retrospect is a masterpiece of ennui, decadence, and style. En route, we discuss different approaches to the historical biopic, malign the double standard of “style-over-substance” discourse, and muse on what different countries’ dogs say about them. 

Listen to Mike Duncan’s podcasts here:

https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/revolutions_podcast/

We came, we saw, we podcasted. Huge thanks to @Mike Duncan for coming on the pod to review HBO’s Rome with us. The most expensive TV show ever made at its time, and a beautiful show which actually put its budget to good use (unlike, a certain LoTR series). The show gets the Julius Cesar story so right (with a few funny anachronisms), and adds on a Forrest Gump like historical fiction. It immerses you in the values and morals of classical Rome and we love the voodoo magic of day-to-day Roman life.

Find Mike's podcasts at: https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/revolutions_podcast/

And get check out 'A Hero of Two Worlds' the story of Lafayette, and 'The Storm Before the Storm' for more classical history

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34184069-the-storm-before-the-storm

Ben's show notes: https://remembershufflepod.wordpress.com/2023/08/19/hbos-rome-with-mike-duncan-e31-lend-us-your-ears/

The Remember Shuffle crew turns the nostalgia dial up to 11 and talks about the rise and fall of Blockbuster. Every millennial’s favourite corporate monopoly, they talk about how Blockbuster’s business morons killed it in the 2000s, by white knuckling the company through 25 years of unprecedented American growth. They examine how Netflix supplanting Blockbuster is a fitting allegory for the ways the world has changed since the 2000s. Specifically, with respect to the almighty Algorithm, the loss of physical media, and how tech companies make our art now.

Ahoy hoy, shuffleheads! Today Remember Shuffle takes a look and 2003’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, the first entry in the best franchise that never was. To help us analyze this film, we are joined by Everett Rummage of the Age of Napoleon podcast. We discuss the uniqueness and out-of-place nature the film in the decade, how this film runs on vibes, the historical authenticity of the film, and why its failure to generate more than 200 million dollars in revenue doomed it to irrelevancy. 

We also discuss the a whole host of Napoleonic age topics ranging from the alcoholism of its political and military leaders, the contrast between wonder and enlightenment and the destruction of near-total war, and its totally alien views on masculinity--alright lads, Ship shape and Bristol Fashion!

Listen to the Age of Napoleon podcast here:

https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/ADL5280986787?selected=ADL7401113285 

Follow Everett on Twitter here:

https://twitter.com/AgeofNapoleon  

See the gimbal here:

https://wordpress.com/post/remembershufflepod.wordpress.com/87

Remember the Iraq War? It’s back, in prestige cable miniseries form. To discuss Generation Kill, Ben and Jordano are joined by two experts in the David Simon cinematic universe: Matt Lieb and Vince Mancini from Pod Yourself a Gun. They review the show’s realism, its “fuck the bosses” ideology, its ability to emphasize the total asymmetry of the Iraq War, and the general lack of Iraq War media in the years since 2003.

Check out Vince Mancini’s substack page here: https://substack.com/@vincemancini.

Eleanor Janega and Luke Waters join us (!) for a review of 2010's Robin Hood in our favorite guest episode.

A day in the life of a true Folkloric Geezer. 

Wake up and meet the wife Marian. isn't she beau’iful?

Time to take Much to stoolball.

Rev up the Marrymen, ye!

Quick stop at the Hostelry and load up that plate.

Get a pint.

Forest lookin' lovely today lads.

Just a bit of banter.

The Fair makes a 38-nil loss be’’er.

Pop down local pride,

Good ol' pie! Look at that!

Marian made dinner, lovely!

Pop down have a couple pints with the lads,

And finish up in the fortress of dreams.

See the Truth…Behind the Legend…We chat about this movie’s egregious class politics, its place in the trend of sword-and-sandals films and origin stories, and how making a gritty reboot of a folk tale is a dumb idea. 

6:15 for discussion on Robin Hood (2010) start. Check out We’re Not So Different at https://www.patreon.com/wnsdpod , and Eleanor's book at

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61089456-the-once-and-future-sex.

The Shuffle Bois are joined by Luke Savage (https://x.com/LukewSavage) and Will Sloan (https://x.com/WillSloanEsq) of Michael and Us to describe the least important election of the 2000s. Given that it’s the only presidential election since 1988 in which a Republican candidate won the popular vote, much of the episode is dedicated to the analysis of the greatest Democratic Party loser of all time, John Kerry. They also discuss some of the big themes of the election, including the pathetic loserdom of John Kerry, the rehashing of 1960s counter culture, and the increasing role of the internet in presidential campaigning.

Huge shoutout to our guests for coming on the pod! Be sure to check out Michael and Us (https://x.com/MichaelandUs) and Important Cinema Club (https://x.com/ImprtCinemaClub)!

Since we are now living in the era of the Sonic and Super Mario Bros movie, not to mention HBO’s The Last of Us, Remember Shuffle is taking a look at how the big-budget video game adaptation all began back in the 2000s. They review three films that, even if profitable, have been totally memory-holed by society: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Max Payne (2008), and The Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time (2010). They also do some quick rapid-fire reviews of Resident Evil (2001), Doom (2005), and Hitman (2007).

En route, they analyze how movie studios fundamentally misunderstand videogame source material in every respect, from character, to visual style, to gaming’s generally lowbrow nature. They also discuss Hollywood’s neverending search for IP that began in the decade, the obsession with the War on Terror in the 2000s, and how we are heading towards a singularity of popular culture.

Remember Shuffle returns to the world of videogames and discusses one of the best-selling PC games of all time and a pillar of 2000s video gaming, The Sims franchise. They describe the most iconic features of The Sims (simlish, woo hoo, pool accidents), analyze what drew people to this consumerist capitalist dollhouse simulator, and debate the best and worst ways to play this game.

There is no Spoonfeeding in this absolutely flawless, perfect film from outside the purview of the dumb decade the Shuffle bois do a podcast about, The Matrix (1999). Sadly, they cannot say the same for the film's 2000s era sequels - movies so bad, they retroactively ruined a great movie. Ben and Jordano look at how The Matrix, an End of History era sci-fi action, hacker thriller, kung fu movie changed the game in so many ways both then and now: from parodies, to memes, to legacy sequels, to the disconcerting number of people who truly believe we are living in a simulation.

Themes discussion starts at 1:04:30

It’s the second entry in Remember Shuffle’s “type of guy” series, and in this episode we are turning away from the meatspace hipster culture we discussed in the first entry and looking to the online world of atheism, bacon, and, of course, posting. The Shuffle Bois look at a particular kind of posting culture, the Epic Bacon Reddit Guy, a culture that flourished on Reddit (naturally).

They break down the Epic Bacon Reddit Guy’s sense of humour, analyze and trace their love of bacon, and deconstruct their political views and collective political actions, such as they were. They also discuss 2000s-era New Atheism, the pre-gamergate gender ideologies of Reddit, and realize that one of the last Epic Bacon Guy’s left on this earth is none other than the Poster in Chief of Twitter himself, Elon Musk.

Cold Open used is from College Humor.

Baconator: https://remembershufflepod.wordpress.com/2023/04/22/epic-bacon-reddit-guy-e23-tips-fedora-mlistners/

Remember Shuffle is going international. On this episode, the Shuffle Bois and a couple cosmopolitan guests take a look at the 21st century’s Most American Book and Film™: Eat, Pray, Love. They analyze Elizabeth Gilbert’s autobiographical memoir about a Karen finding herself in Italy, India, and Indonesia, and en route discuss the author’s selfishness and narcissism, her hilarious orientalizing portrayal of Italy, and her specific version of American protestantism in which you get to become God.

This week, the Remember Shuffle returns to the world of the sitcom to discuss everyone’s favo[u]rite show about a mid-level paper company, The Office. They discuss the show’s unforgettable characters including Michael Scott, the well-intentioned moron with a heart of gold, Dwight, the “white trash bushido” paper salesman, and Andy, the downwardly mobile failson.

En route, they discuss the changing setting of the sitcom from the domestic space to the workplace, the phenomenon of the Bullshit Job and how The Office identified it before it was common knowledge, and how small victories can turn even a boring office into a kind of utopian pastoral arcadia. They also discuss the decline of the show from one critical of meaningless work and office culture to one that embraced finding meaning in the workplace.

Our guest this week, Del Maticic, can be found on Twitter @maticiceronian. He’s the co-editor of a forthcoming book on work called “Working Lives in Ancient Rome,” co-edited with Jordan Rogers.

I only like Remember Shuffle’s earlier stuff. On this episode, the Remember Shuffle crew put on their armchair sociologist hats and do a new kind of episode. Rather than discussing a movie, book, or album, they cover a countercultural figure that rebelled against the mainstream in the 2000s, The Hipster. The first entry in our “type of guy” series, the Shuffle Bois discuss why The Hipster emerged in the 2000s, their philosophies of irony, nostalgia, and a priorism. Also, What are the 3 types of hipster? How brands tried to use hipster culture to wallpaper over their unethical business practices, mainstream culture’s appropriation of hipster culture, and why countercultures as whole are dead.

Pictures:

• https://remembershufflepod.wordpress.com/2023/02/24/the-hipster-e19-caring-is-creepy/

The Shuffle bois are joined by two of their favo[u]rite podcasters, whom you may know from Chapo Trap House, Hell of Presidents, or the recently-released Hell on Earth podcast, Matt Christman and Chris Wade. They discuss one of the candidates for G.O.A.T. 2000s sitcom, Arrested Development. They discuss its portrayal of both the “failson” and the media-career desperate American, walk through the show’s commentary on everything from the Iraq War to Southern California land development fraud, and ask the question, “why can’t streaming services seem to make sitcoms anymore?” They close out by discussing the historical rhyming between certain Arrested Development characters and certain historical figures from the 30-years war.

Special thanks to our guests, Matt Christman and Chris Wade. You can listen to their excellent Hell on Earth podcast here:

https://www.patreon.com/chapotraphouse

Some Remember Shuffle episodes are about influential, fundamental pieces of pop culture that help explain the pop culture landscape that we find ourselves in today. This is not one of those episodes. On this episode, the Shuffle Bois unpack and analyze Spike TV, the 2000s TV network for men, and one of its original brogram, The Deadliest Warrior.

After walking through Spike TV’s unhinged manifesto, the Shufle Bois scientifically deconstruct every aspect of the Deadliest Warrior: its three milquetoast hosts, its comically unscientific methodology, its most egregious robberies, its cavalier relationship to history, and its lasting impact on culture today, mostly through gun YouTube.

In a pod, in the cloud, the Shuffle Bois and special guest BillBurr Baggins leave the POW camp of life and talk about a hopeful, optimistic, escapist fantasy, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The first entry in Peter Jackson’s masterpiece trilogy, so many things make it great: its fundamentally sincere and positive message, the spectacular worldbuilding and execution of Peter Jackson’s vision, and its perfect pacing (despite its extended runtime).

We also trace the behind-the-scenes making of the film, muse on what the movie would look and sound like if other directors had made it, and discuss the film’s long-lasting impact on culture, whether that be through memes, the attempted cash cow that was the Hobbit trilogy, or the absolute trainwreck debacle that was Amazon’s “The Rings of Power.”

00:00 Intro 

04:16 Actual Topic Intro 

16:00 Plot Walkthrough 

34:00 Themes of LoTR 

41:13 How did the movie get made? 

1:02:00 Echoes in the culture 

1:09:50 It's reception in 2000s Culture

Huge shoutout to @treedar_ on IG for this listener topic suggestion! . Thank you to all those who send us recs. Remember Shuffle turns to the internet folklore and its most famous cultural output: the Slendered man. We talk about his origins, characteristics and some academic reviews of folkloric study.

Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests. 

Liminal Space example: https://museemagazine.com/features/2020/11/1/the-cult-following-of-liminal-space

Of the three presidential elections that happened in the Y2K decade, 2008 was, without a doubt, the most entertaining. It features a fascinating cast of characters: alien body-snatcher Hillary Clinton, sex rascal Bill Clinton, legend-icon-moment Barack Obama, foreign policy war psycho John McCain, and the ineffable Sarah Palin. She’s ineffable in that she can’t talk right. Put all these people on the national stage, and you’re guaranteed a spectacle only rivaled by 2016.

We walk through the marathon democratic primary between Hillary and Barack Obama, move on to the general election between Obama and McCain, and wrap up with the collapse of the economy in the Fall of 2008 and the ongoing aftermath of the election. En route, we discuss Hillary Clinton’s myriad weaknesses, Bill Clinton’s sex crimes, the media’s shameless support of Obama, John McCain’s total self-immolation of his reputation, Joe Biden’s failing upwards, and Sarah Palin’s inability to produce a thought or recall memories.

The Strokes rock. Period. Full stop. End of discussion. Here’s a 1:12:51 long discussion on how cool they are.

The Shuffle Bois discuss how bad rock music was in the late 90s and early Y2K era, which made what the Strokes pulled off all the more impressive. They discuss why the indie garage rock scene in NY blew up, the hilariously privileged background of the Strokes, and dissect some songs from their first three albums and why they’re great. They also have some connections to the 2020 Bernie Sanders’ primary campaign, which genre of Y2K rock you can have sex to, and the general uselessness of the UK and the blood debt they owe the world for giving us Adele.

Nowadays, the content mill churns out superhero fare at maximum capacity. Whether that’s the endless multicoloured sludge of the interconnected MCU across platforms, or the Justice league being released twice - with viewers being able to see both the soy Whedon and self-serious Snyder cuts, but what if we told you that there was a time before society took seriously movies based on baby brained picture books? And these two films from the Y2K era, more than anything else, changed that.

Today the Shuffle Bois are looking at Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight.” the two films most responsible for the legitimising of superhero content as “art.” While the hosts acknowledge that these films undoubtedly rock, they also discuss the half-baked Y2K politics of the films, the exponentially increasing gaping plot holes across all three films, and why Christopher Nolan is in fact a neo-feudalist.

On this episode of Remember Shuffle, the Shuffle bois return to the world of… well I wouldn’t call it “literature,” but maybe books? We’re talking about the ultimate mormon edging fanfic book: Twilight. We discuss how to write around sex and temptation through vampire metaphors (so as to maintain your mormon sensibilities), the attraction to danger and mystery that may or may not be universal, and the many, many toxic aspects of the Edward-Bella relationship. We also discuss the horrendous movie adaptation and its problematic casting choices, Donald Trump’s Twitter feud with one of the stars, and Twilight’s lasting impact on the publication of fan fiction.