Chris 0:05

I don't know about your household, but mine was gripped with Love Island, which just finished recently. And unusually, it's one of the very few broadcast TV shows that my Gen Z kids watch. Whereas, when I was their age, there was appointment television, whether it was Top of the Box or the Soap operas. The Gen X, it's how we were brought up, and I think it's how we continue to consume our media. So we thought this would be worth looking into. If you're a bit puzzled as to the Love Island phenomenon, or you missed the days when the whole nation sat down to watch the same TV programme at once. That's what we're gonna dig into today. Welcome to the Gen XD Exchange. I'm Chris Perkins, Gen X parent, now 50 something empty nester.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

And I'm Lily Perkins, Gen Z Career Explorer. We swap insights on career choices, work, and life in general.

Chris 1:00

So whether you're a Gen X parent trying to figure out midlife challenges.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Or a Gen Z young professional or student figuring out adulthood, you're in the right place.

Chris 1:09

This episode isn't gonna be a dissection of Love Island and what happened in the last series. I'm sure there are dozens of other podcasts doing that far better than I could. But we did think it was a curious phenomenon for a couple of reasons, and it got us thinking about media consumption habits of our respective generations, and we're gonna start with Love Island and then move on to some other things which maybe could tell us something about how the different generations are consuming media, and no doubt, like a lot of the topics we've covered, we'll find some things that we have in common that we didn't expect. So, Lily, this has been a new experience for me. I've watched a lot of reality TV from the days when Big Brother started off, but have never really been captivated by Love Island the way you and Charlie have up until this season, when we were getting daily updates from Charlie. Yeah. And I'm just curious as to how this has become such a phenomenon for your generation.

Lily 2:05

Yeah, well, I guess you're also not the only parent that I know that has also become slightly involved in the world of Love Island. Okay. A couple of my friends' parents have been saying, like, oh, we're not interested, this is just trashy telly. And then I'm hearing that they're stood in front of the TV in the living room curiously watching and asking questions. So it does seem to be gaining some popularity with the parents. But essentially, the premise of the show is all these people head, all these singles head into the villa, and there's uh recoupling ceremonies, and you have to find connections with people, and whoever wins gets to split a 50k prize, but there's all sorts of challenges and obstacles in the way of these couples and that prize. So it's very interesting. You mentioned Big Brother there. The earlier seasons, I've actually been going back and re-watching the earlier seasons, and they're a lot more Big Brother style, where it's a lot more organic kind of drama. I think the producers are a lot less involved. In early Love Island, you have pretty unregulated drinking, sex on TV, the smoking area, which isn't something that they show now, but you would get a lot of goss in there. Whereas now it's kind of evolved into this influencer central, high-budget production, you know, Maya Jama's the whole session, she's very glam, and you have a huge audience. It's a pretty obviously pretty gen Z heavy audience, but uh you do get a good mix of generations viewing it now.

Chris 3:40

So the only other thing I can really relate it to in more recent times is traitors, which mum and I did watch and really, really enjoyed. Uh, your generation, and I think most of the rest of the country was really into that too. And the celebrity version maybe got a lot of people into it who hadn't watched the previous seasons. But it's unusual in that we don't really have TV programmes on the main broadcast channels, which everyone watches, like we did when I was your age. I think it's it's interesting how things have moved on since then.

Lily 4:11

I think the reason why these types of shows like The Traitors and Love Island have really become so popular is they kind of are a cross between a reality show, but also like a game show. Um, like you're watching these people, real people develop real friendships and relationships, and then they're also going through these challenges, and it's kind of like gamified. So I feel like that's maybe a part of why there's like this bridging between the generations. Like you guys watch the traitors and you really enjoyed it. But you're right, it's not like people are really watching, but in my generation, I don't think people are really as invested in like soap operas and things like that anymore. But that seems to be the type of show that we can all kind of agree on and sit down to watch, I think.

Chris 4:57

What is interesting is whether this path we're starting to go down is gonna lead us to end up with things like Squid Game and Hunger Games. Is that gonna be the the ultimate in game shows that everyone engages with?

Lily 5:11

Probably. It seems like the stakes for these kinds of game shows and reality show crossovers are getting higher and higher, whether it's like money or your career or whatever. So, you know, I wouldn't I wouldn't write it off that we'll end up in some sort of dystopian Hunger Games reality. But who knows? The underlying thing is that people get emotionally invested and people want to psychoanalyse the contestants and you know analyse the friendships and think about who's being fake versus who they think's genuine. And I think a lot of people in my generation, especially with it being so popular with young women, I think we see a lot of things that we've experienced in our relationships, whether it's romantic or friendships or whatever, we see that playing out on the screen and it becomes quite easy to project your experiences onto these people. And I think I've done the same with the traitors and stuff as well. So I think that's probably another reason why we can all crowd round and have some have an opinion and something to talk about with these shows because we're projecting our own experiences onto them.

Chris 6:12

Yeah, you're watching and you're thinking, what would I do in that situation? How would I behave in that situation? Or you're just looking. Yeah, or you're looking aghast at people thinking, why have they just done that or why have they just said that exactly in front of potentially millions of people, which is kind of crazy. I think one thing that struck me, what you were saying about getting emotionally invested and all of the kind of tests that they they throw in there is we saw some of the bombshells.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah.

Chris 6:41

People that come in part way through when people are coupled up, whose role seems to be to deliberately be divisive.

Lily 6:48

To stir things up and to nestle their way into existing relationships, yeah.

Chris 6:53

Yeah, and I was saying to Charlie, I'm fascinated by the psychological profiling that must have gone on for them to select the contestants and select the bombshells who come in and shake things up.

Lily 7:06

Absolutely, it's really interesting.

Chris 7:08

Is there any discussion amongst how kind of emotionally manipulative it is? Because they're doing this deliberately when contestants perhaps are genuinely starting to feel something for each other, and then there are these tests to try and pull them apart. And that maybe is a bit voyeuristic, but also I guess we can be really salacious and we like to watch all of that stuff, and you know, it's like keeping the worst contestant in strictly. You just love to see a disaster unfold in front of you. Is is that an element to it?

Lily 7:36

If it wasn't for the bombshells and the people who come in with the intention to step on people's toes, is a very common, common phrase. I'm not afraid to step in anyone's toes with that. Like if it wasn't for these people, ultimately the show would be very boring if everyone just coupled up straight away and was like, oh well, this is perfect and I'm so happy. But as the show has become more popular and people are able to build careers coming off of it, especially if they are someone that comes on and gets a lot of screen time because they're stirring things up and being, you know, annoying, stepping on toes, you kind of question, is this someone who genuinely has been watching this guy or girl at home and going, Oh yeah, I really have the hops for him or her, and I'd quite like to get to know him, or have they just identified he's the weakest link, he's my ticket into the villa, uh, and potentially my ticket to 50k. So, you know, yeah. There's the element there of trying to observe for yourself whether you think someone is genuinely interested in this person, if they've been cast by the producers, or even told by the producers in some cases, you know. You wonder have that has someone ever been told, I know you don't like this person, but we need you to go in there and target them because that's gonna make good telly. Yeah, so that's why there is such a big difference. If you go back and watch the earlier seasons, it's much more interesting because you hear the early contestants openly discussing game plans and saying things to each other, like, well, you know, I don't fancy her, but there's an elimination tonight, so I'm gonna have to crack on. Whereas now it's a lot more people are kind of predicting what they think the public is gonna want to see and what's gonna get them the most votes from the public because the public votes have a big element.

Chris 9:18

How many seasons have there been now? Do you know?

Lily 9:21

That was the 13th season just been.

Chris 9:25

So a bit like where the apprentice went is the contestants coming in know the score, they know how to play the game in there to build a social media following or become an influence or whatever. So they have a vested interest in making themselves interesting or provocative or whatever. It's not necessarily go in and try and find love.

Lily 9:47

Yeah, the producers of the apprentice know that person doesn't have a soul, that they have no business, no background in business, they have no business plan, they're a bit of an idiot, but they're gonna be hilarious when we stitch them up in these challenges. So it's kind of the same thing. It does make you wonder why is it that we've got this appetite for stupid people, like people like to make jokes about Love Island contestants, but I think it does apply to the the traitors and the apprentice as well. You get a lot of people on your screen and you just kind of think, How was this person cast? Because they don't really seem to know where or what's going on.

Chris 10:23

Like there would there was one person in particular that Charlie was telling us about. Um, who was the the Scottish girl was Ellie, is that right? Ellie, yeah. So was it it was it Fraser that they kind of had a Finley Finley, yeah, and everyone was really frustrated. Yeah, he seemed like a complete idiot. And you think you just uh I said to Charlie, he's just an emotional toddler, and he just had no but she left the show early for him, she was kind of in the running to win, and then you know, so that's another thing that like makes you wonder, you know, if she's leaving with him, they must have some kind of genuine thing.

Lily 10:54

And they from the looks of it, it's only been a couple of weeks since the show ended, but they're still cutting about together on social media and stuff. But yeah, you do kind of wonder why we have had this changing appetite from like scripted shows and soap operas and series to now wanting to see actual people. It's kind of like you're right, voyeuristic, like laughing at other people, or if someone goes on and they're a little bit vulnerable, uh people do tune in to see people being like taken advantage of by others. So it's interesting how our changes how our tastes have changed and why it seems to be that Gen Z are tuning in to more of that kind of television compared to like actual scripted dramas.

Chris 11:36

Yeah, and I think everyone has become familiar enough with the reality game show format that they know behind the scenes an element of it is contrived. Situations are created by the producers to make good TV. But there will be, no doubt, plenty of moments that are kind of genuine conversations uh between people, particularly given the premise of the show, is for people to kind of hook up with each other and relationships come from.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Exactly.

Chris 12:03

And it's also created its own vocabulary for the nation, hasn't it? It has. A very few terms of which I understand, but I'm sure you can fill me in.

Lily 12:14

Yes. I'm interested to see how true it is when you say, Oh, I've I've seen a snippet here and there. I think you're maybe telling a little bit of a fib. And I imagine that you've been sat down with Charlie most nights, pretending you're not watching it, but you've been tuned in. So I want to test you on your Love Island vocab and try and gauge how much of a Love Island secret fan you are by how many you get right.

Chris 12:39

I think I've seen a lot less than you think, but I did get daily updates from Charlie who tends to be a little bit more than a lot of people.

Lily 12:44

So you keep saying, so you keep saying, yeah, daily updates, daily updates, as in turning the tetley on and watching it for yourself. So let's start off with one I think you've already mentioned, I think on the last one. What does it mean? What does mugged off mean?

Chris 12:58

I think for people of my uh vintage, that means chucked. You have it's it's been called off. Someone has said no, you're not for me.

Lily 13:10

Particularly if it's in quite an embarrassing way, you know, if someone in, you know, you've been told you have this really strong connection with someone, they go to Casa more and then come back with a new girl, and it's like, well, you were telling me one thing and now you've made me look like a bit of an idiot. So particularly if it's quite a humiliating grafting.

Chris 13:28

Is that when someone is working really hard to get someone's attention to try and attract them to their putting on kind of their their best persona to try and get someone interested?

Lily 13:40

Exactly. But I think they don't say it so much in these seasons, but they used to say like applying factor 50 or something like that. Right. Uh to be like laying it on thick, like doing the thing. What does the ek mean?

Chris 13:55

Well, I think that's more familiar and kind of general parlor. So that's just something that is slightly creepy and it's like, okay, they that's they've just overdone it.

Lily 14:03

Yeah, not feeling it anymore. Um and then when people say in the villa that they're closed off.

Chris 14:11

So this I have heard. So this seems to be guys or women saying, I'm not closed off to maybe exploring something with you when they're already with someone else. It's kind of like I'm open to seeing where this goes because I want to keep my options open. Would that be right?

Lily 14:30

Yeah, pretty much. So someone could say that they are closed off. In which case it's like exactly. I'm not closed off to get to know someone else. But when people the thing that's kind of caused a bit of debate with the general public is like if you were saying to your your partner like, oh, we're closed off, why would you not say we are exclusively dating? Which some people do say, but then why would you not say we're boyfriend and girlfriend? So there's been a lot of um confusion about kind of the levels in Love Island that our relationship can operate.

Chris 15:00

So it's kind of a love island specific term, which is now becoming more widely used in the outside world.

Lily 15:08

Well, not so much, but it might be heading in that kind of direction. To me personally, I think it's a bit avoidant to say like, oh, we're closed off, to then say we're exclusive, to then say we're boyfriend and girlfriend. Like in real life, I think it's kind of normal for you to date someone for a bit, be getting to know someone, and then become a couple. But anyways. Okay. Um, type on paper. This one's pretty obvious, I think.

Chris 15:28

So would that be in the context of you're not my type on paper in terms of what I would go for, but I'm interested in you or attracted to you.

Lily 15:36

Exactly. Or on the flip side, he's my type on paper, but I'm just not feeling any kind of spark. Like in theory, this person should be good for you, but something's not right or vice versa, exactly. If someone has been pied, what does that mean?

Chris 15:52

Is that another one for chucked? Someone's been broken up with.

Lily 15:57

Yep. And again, that's kind of a similar, like, oh, you've chucked me in a bit of a like humiliating, embarrassing way, especially given that we're on bloody national telly. Um, so these ones are quite similar. What does it mean if someone has a beg or a melt?

Chris 16:12

They are just a bit of a try hard. Is it that they are really going for it and it's probably not gonna work because they're just going so over the top to try and get someone's attention or affection.

Lily 16:25

Yeah, this is one that I love to say when I'm like texting my pals watching an episode like, oh, he's been so big, she's been so big. Someone who's been a bit desperate, maybe accepting the bare minimum, forgiving their partner for doing something wrong. Amel is the similar kind of vibe, someone who's been a bit pathetic. So I think given the fact I don't I think you guess all of them right. So and I really haven't watched that much.

Chris 16:52

I promise.

Lily 16:54

Trying to save face. No, some of them are pretty easy to work out by themselves, but I think I think you might have watched more than you're letting on, but I'll I'll let you away with it at home.

Chris 17:05

Well, it certainly has been an interesting phenomenon, and as I said, I think the traitors is a similar thing where it's got everyone into it, and it's unusual now, isn't it, for a program to only be available at a certain date and time because so many things the whole series drops at once, or you can watch the first episode and then the rest of the series is available on one of the streaming services. There really aren't very many things where you have to be sat in front of the TV at a certain time, or you can catch up later that night, but you can't watch it in advance. It's what we used to call appointment television. You had to sit down and watch something at a certain point in time, and that seems to be something that every now and again still gets everyone on the sofa in front of the television because they want to talk about it with their friends either.

Lily 17:57

Don't want it to be spoiled on social media nowadays, you want to watch it in the moment.

Chris 18:01

Yeah, you don't want to see the spoilers, you all go through it together with your friends, or you're speaking to work colleagues about it the the next day, all of that kind of stuff. It is that daily or weekly ritual, which we just don't seem to have otherwise. It's becoming increasingly rare.

Lily 18:15

But I think that's why these are we these things have become so popular. People maybe miss that in a way. Everything's on demand, everything's instant and convenient now. Like you say, if you want to watch a new series, you can binge it all in a couple of nights if you want to, because you've got the whole box set available. But for this kind of show, you want to be involved in the conversation. It's it's almost like a ritual. Like you're sitting down at the same time every night. I quite enjoy the routine. Like, if I've got a free, if I'm free at half nine on a weeknight, it's quite nice to be able to sit down before bed, chill out, have some popcorn, watch some naft telly, and then also coming online and seeing what other people are saying about my favourite contestant, my least favourite contestant, seeing all the memes, seeing all the clips and the drama and all the rest of it. I think people are kind of like craving that shared experience and being part of the conversation. And now that we have social media, it's not just like oh, you're chatting to your neighbour about you know the like soap opera episodes last night. You're seeing the views of millions of people all over the world.

Chris 19:19

Yeah, and I didn't realise until you mentioned it that it's a kind of viewer vote that starts with getting people coupled up and then obviously it's a viewer vote when you get down to the final. People still like to be involved, like I'm a celebrity and strictly the you know the viewer vote to kind of get people to the end. But the in-between bit, I take it the viewers aren't voting on things, you are just observing.

Lily 19:43

Oh no, there is there's lots of voting in between for eliminations because you have people coming in, people going out, so that's another part of it. All the voting, whether it's from the contestants or you know, mostly the public, that creates a lot of hype. And I think that's what people want to get involved with.

Chris 19:59

Yeah. I think what is interesting around the fact that it is a daily thing for Love Island, it's appointment television, is that because the norm is that everything is available on the streaming services, like when we'll talk to our pals about what are you watching and you're having conversations, swapping tips about you know good shows, when you find something that someone else is watching, you have to start by saying, How far along are you? Yeah, because you don't want any spoilers. If you're onto season four of something and they're still on season one or two, you know, or you've got to think about what happened, what can I talk to them about from what they know without giving things away anything away, rather than everyone is watching it at the same time. The only other thing I could remember that really kind of captured everyone that was going out on a Sunday evening was line of duty, which is a police.

Lily 20:49

Oh, yeah, I remember you guys talking about that a lot.

Chris 20:52

Really gripping, and and everyone was watching it at the same time to try and find out, you know, who was right at the centre of this kind of uh ring of corruption inside the police force. But it just doesn't happen very often.

Lily 21:05

Yeah, even with TV shows, like you say, it's just all available at the one time. I do appreciate stuff coming out, but then you don't have the viewership that you would have had with line of duty, for example. So in line with the line of duty thing, I I'm curious to know what other TV shows, like cult shared cultural moments Gen X had as well. Because obviously we've got Love Island, we've got the traitors, but what did you guys have?

Chris 21:30

So probably the biggest thing uh as kids, as teenagers, was Top of the Pops. Yeah, I've heard you talk about Top of the Pops all Thursday, 7 30 pm, yeah, half hour program. This was before MTV and all half an hour, everyone sat down to watch Top of the Pops to see the charts, and you'd see maybe half a dozen acts. That was the only music that was really on television. There was another program called The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC Two for my. More sort of uh indie acts.

Lily 22:02

So this was in the days before MTV when you just have like a constant 24 hour stream of music. Yep, there was none of that.

Chris 22:08

There was no cable, no satellite. I mean, I can remember the days when there were only four televisions.

Lily 22:13

Oh, three, three.

Chris 22:15

I remember the launch of Channel Four, which was a really, really big deal.

Lily 22:19

That's crazy.

Chris 22:20

So what that meant was there just wasn't the choice that we have now.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Yeah.

Chris 22:23

So everyone, and there wasn't social media, there weren't home computers, the gaming console thing was really only just getting started. So there wasn't a lot to do. The whole family tended to sit down and watch television in the evenings.

Lily 22:36

Well, I think that's interesting. You know, when you talk about the fact that my generation doesn't really seem to like sit down and watch broadcast TV anymore, I almost feel like for me, you have like the decision fatigue side of it because there is so much choice now.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah.

Lily 22:50

I feel like it's almost like a mental effort to like go through the TV guides and try and pick something to watch. Even with streaming services now, there's so much on there, and so much of it is just total crap or slop that I would honestly quite enjoy just having three channels to choose from now. And if there wasn't anything on that I that I liked, I just would go and do something else. Whereas now it's like rubbish.

Chris 23:14

Yeah, if you think if you were a commissioning editor, one of the three or four TV channels that we had, everyone was vying to get their programs made. So the commissioning editors could be really fussy, and you would hope they would choose the best stuff. So there was a lot of stuff that just never got made. Whereas now you can probably find someone to pick up just about anything. And all of the streaming services just want content. They only need a few hit shows. Everything else can be slots. Because when you switch on the home screen and you've got a menu of hundreds and hundreds of shows to look at, it looks like it's an amazing service and it's great value for $9.99 a month or whatever. Whereas when it was just three national broadcasters, they were able to choose kind of the best of the best. So I guess the other big things were the soap operas. So Coronation Street, EastEnders, and then Brookside came along on Channel 4. That was a bit different, aimed at a younger audience. So everyone watched the soaps. There was a time for years before we had kids when Mum watched all of the soaps, and therefore I would watch them with her. So they were two or three times a week, always the same time, the same evening.

Lily 24:24

She's always loved a bit of crap, Taylor, hasn't she?

Chris 24:27

Well, some of them actually are really, really good writing, good acting, good production. Some of the soaps have done some amazing storylines that have really shifted how people have thought about things like AIDS and uh or reduction. Yeah, uh domestic abuse, but because they've got an audience, they've got a platform, and and that doesn't happen so much now. And then there were other big things like you know, live aid, which were amazing. It was just a one-off thing, everyone stopped and watched.

Lily 24:55

Eurovision. I think some of those, like I know you've mentioned the the soaps back then were probably a bit better than they are now, but for some of the ones you've mentioned, like Top of the Pops, for example, I think it's kind of ironic that GNX have such an issue with reality TV and they are always talking about how it like makes you stupid to watch these shows. When I can imagine some of these shows that you guys had being probably equally ridiculous and having equally like vapid or stupid themes.

Chris 25:29

They would have a mix of artists on, but if you think the really the only music programming was half an hour on a Thursday evening and everyone wanted to be on top of the pops, because if if you performed on top of the pops on Thursday, yeah, you would sell more records on Friday and Saturday, and then the charts were compiled, it could shift the course of an artist or even a song just having a top of the pops performance because millions of people watched it.

Lily 25:54

But then again, that's the same with uh, you know, the same with Love Island. Like if you go on and act maybe a bit thicker than you are, or if you go and act like more of a drama starter than you are, you know, that has potential to give you hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of followers, and then you can start your own hair brand or your fashion lane or whatever. So is it somewhere in a premise? People know how to play the game.

Chris 26:18

Well, I guess in that respect, sometimes not a lot's changed. There were moments uh on top of the pops, like when Boy George and Culture Club first appeared and everyone was taken aback. There were moments in the soaps. I remember like the first lesbian kiss pre-watershed was an incredible moment. It's what you would now call going viral. Yeah, it was a moment everyone spoke about because it was groundbreaking, and I guess it still happens, it just could be Love Island or it could be someone on TikTok. Let's talk a bit about how we discover new things, because I think we probably have different approaches to that. So for mum and I, it's probably a bit of browsing, and obviously the streaming services say if you liked this, you'll probably like that. So you watch them, but a lot of it comes from conversation with our friends, you know, what are you watching? What would you recommend? Because there is so much to choose from. You're looking for something where you've maybe got personal recommendation. How does it work for you? How do you decide what you're going to watch or or maybe who you're going to follow?

Lily 27:21

For me, I do generally trust your guys' recommendations, and it's normally things that you've been recommended from your friends. But because there is so much stuff out there on every streaming platform, every TV guide, whatever, I feel like I usually like to do a bit of research before I start watching something. So that is usually through like social media. Can I find a little clip or like an advert on YouTube? Can I go on Reddit or Letterboxd? It's really popular for films. So I'll maybe go and see what people are saying on there because I'm quite fussy. And if I'm sitting down to watch a film, especially if it's like a two-hour-long commitment, I want to make sure it's something that I'm gonna enjoy. So social media going and watching a clip or two to see if it would be my kind of thing, like verifying that on these review apps and websites as well. Whereas I think for you guys it is mostly recommendations from friends.

Chris 28:17

Yeah, and and a bit of browsing and uh seeing what what's getting talked about. How long do you give something before deciding whether to commit to it? So if it's like a series, which is several episodes, several seasons, how long do you give it before you think, no, this isn't for me or this is worth sticking with?

Lily 28:37

If it's uh series, I'll give it to the second, maybe third episode. I never judge it by the first episode because I think the first episode can usually, you know, be it's like a pilot or they're just trying to like set the scene. Like, for example, Severance was has been one of my favourite TV shows I've watched. When I watched the first episode, I wasn't 100% sure if it was gonna be my thing, but I'm very glad I persevered. And then for films, it really depends because sometimes you do switch something on and within the first minute you're like, wow, this is what this is an absolute load of shit. Like I am really fussy about how like I like a realistic film, it's different if it's like a comedy and it's supposed to be a bit cheesy, whatever, but I don't really like cheesy sounding dialogue, unnatural sounding dialogue. So if I switch it on and I hear two characters having a conversation and it's like total spoofy cheesy when it's not supposed to be a funny, spoofy cheesy kind of film, I will pretty much switch that off straight away because it just does my head, and I don't like to watch it and go like, oh, I'm watching a film. Do you know what I mean?

Chris 29:46

Yeah, I can't remember what it's called, but there is a test for how long before a woman appears on screen.

Lily 29:51

Yeah, is it the Beckdale test you mean? Yeah, when how long for a woman to be on to appear on screen and does she have a conversation and she's not talking about a man basically? So, like if a woman is basically appearing late into the film or whatever, and then the first thing she says is like, oh my god, I can't wait for my date later on, uh like if she's like a male-centered character, essentially. So I also yeah, I like when women are written realistically and they have some substance, and it's not just like they're there to be props to like the main character. One thing that really frustrates me, like you see it quite a lot in like an Adam Sandler film, for example, and I get that they're comedies and it's all tongue in cheek and whatever, but like the most average-looking, sometimes not even super funny character, and then his wife is like Jennifer Aniston, or like some total smoke show Hollywood bombshell, and he's cutting about in like gym shorts and like a greasy t-shirt, and he's cast himself to have like this smoking hot, amazing wife who's like obsessed with him. That's one thing that definitely takes him out of it too. So, yeah, Beddil test and how the women are written.

Chris 31:01

Yes, in real life, we would say he is punching above his weight.

Lily 31:04

Exactly. She wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole.

Chris 31:07

But in those kind of movies, the male character thinks it's totally normal to have a exactly.

Lily 31:12

Especially if he's, you know, producer, writer, director. He's like, let me just catch it. Yeah. Yeah. So that too. How long for you?

Chris 31:20

It's interesting what you were saying about whether something is a slow burn. And you remember Shits Creek getting us through lockdown?

Lily 31:29

Yeah, definitely, yeah, yeah.

Chris 31:30

And that took a few episodes for us to get into it. And then it was just compulsive viewing all the way through to the end and quite sad when it finished.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Yeah.

Chris 31:39

So I think the days of me watching a 22-episode season are long gone, like mad men, which was great at the time, but like six, eight, ten episodes is is great. And I'll give it a couple of episodes to one up. I think they try and pack a lot into the first episode to get you to watch the second episode.

Lily 31:59

Yeah.

Chris 31:59

By the second or third episode, I'm not into the characters or the story thing. No, I'm I'm not gonna spend any more time on this.

Lily 32:05

Me too.

Chris 32:05

And with movies, I think there's only one I've never walked out of a cinema when I've uh been to see a film. There's only one movie I think I'd stopped watching, which was Memento, because it was just so mind-bending. 20 minutes in, I didn't understand it.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

I thought I can't.

Chris 32:24

Maybe it was just I was in the wrong frame of mind or it was late at night. I was talking about it to a work colleague earlier today, actually. I might go back and re-watch it and give it another go. The only other film I nearly walked out of is a film called Do the Right Thing. It's a Spike Lee film, and for the first 80 or 90% of it, it's just so boring. I'm like what it's about the hottest day of the year in New York, it it's set in the Bronx, I think, and nothing much happens.

Lily 32:52

Yeah, if you're gonna do a film where nothing happens, there needs to be something going for it. I like that type of film.

Chris 32:58

But then something does happen. Does happen. Yeah. The ending is amazing.

Lily 33:02

I quite enjoy a film like that. I'm quite happy to sit through quote unquote boring, but if I'm like drawn in by like the dial, if I think there's like really nice realistic dialogue or like the costuming and the set design is interesting to look at. But yeah, I think the only film that I've been tempted to walk out of the cinema was that Bob Dylan film with Timmy Timothy Shalmay. I just thought that was absolutely rubbish. I don't understand all the heck to that go. And all the is it Timothy Shalmay go for that? I thought it was a lot of crap.

Chris 33:31

But talking of discovery, another thing I'm curious about is how you discover what's going on in the world, uh news-wise, because you're pretty well informed and pretty well up on things, but I don't think you consume mainstream news the way that mum and I, Gen X does. So we will typically have BBC News or we might watch Sky News. We are on the apps for some of the main newspapers, although we haven't bought a print version of a newspaper for a long time. Where are you getting your news from?

Lily 34:03

So it's actually a bit embarrassing to say I don't really watch the news or check my like news app as much as I used to. When I lived at home, and especially when I was at school, waking up in the morning, when I would eat my breakfast, I'll usually watch the news in the morning 50 minutes while I'm eating my breakfast, and then used to be quite good at checking my like little BBC news app. Like if I got a notification pinging through, I'd go on, have a wee nosy. But that was kind of before TikTok was a big thing, especially. Whereas now I feel like you do get a lot of news through your social media, it kind of finds you rather than you're actively seeking it out. And I think it is a bit embarrassing to admit I've gotten a bit lazy and quite comfortable with the fact that like if something's going on, it won't be a lot. Like if I log into my social media, I'll probably it'll be one of the first things that I see. So I don't really have to go and seek out the news anymore. But I also think with that, you know, the downside is that's how so much propaganda and fake news and all kinds of rubbish gets spread about. So you have to tread carefully.

Chris 35:07

Yeah, verifiable sources.

Lily 35:09

Yeah, if I if I see something and I think that's crazy, then I'll go and Google it and like fact-check it afterwards, you know, try not to believe every first thing that I see. But yeah, I definitely don't seek out news the way that I used to when I'd like sit down in front of the tele and watch it in the morning.

Chris 35:23

I mean, and now we have a 24-hour news cycle, but we're not on a news channel all the time. But I guess you could be seeing things that break in real time if you're on TikTok or if you're on someone posts a video from the scene even faster than we would necessarily see them on the main news channels. But then I think there's so much now is about whether it is verifiable and truthful.

Lily 35:46

And I tend to same with AI now too. Like you see stuff and you're like, is this a real it's gotten so realistic, you're not certain if it's a real video or if it's something that someone's produced for views.

Chris 35:57

Because you you can't tell if something's been edited or if they've generated someone's voice. Yeah. So I do tend to trust the mainstream news outlets for that kind of thing.

Lily 36:05

Yeah, which is fair enough. I would too. But on that note of Gen Z being updated in real time, like you could argue that is one of our strengths with the social media liter literacy. We do have like a really strong awareness of culture, cultural movements. Like, I imagine my generation were probably made aware of like the Black Lives Matter movement or the Me Too movement, maybe before you were, before it was on mainstream television. And I think as well, the fact that we have access to what's going on all over the world and hearing we're able to hear perspectives from people who are in that country or in that city or area or whatever, having all access to all those diverse perspectives is definitely one of the strengths of Gen Z. But then I'd like to hear what you think, like on the flip side to that, Gen X's strengths would be.

Chris 37:00

Yeah, absolutely. I think you are probably hearing more authentic voices from people who are on the ground experiencing things, whether it's like in Gaza or Ukraine or um anywhere else. Uh I would admit everything that I'm consuming through mainstream channels has gone through a journalist reporting it and a news editor making decisions about what to clip up or or what to show. And yes, they interview people sort of, you know, at the site of an earthquake or whatever, but it's not the same as someone whose wits.

Lily 37:32

Taking their camera in the moment.

Chris 37:33

Exactly. Um and there's pros and cons to that in terms of it maybe being more reliable in terms of being uh verified, but there is that time lag. So really important events we're maybe not seeing as quickly as you. And I think we miss out on some cultural phenomenon, you know. As the quiz showed, in terms of kind of Gen Z trends and those cultural moments, I don't get any of those because I'm not really consuming them. And the news editors at the BBC are deciding that that's not worth talking about. So someone's made the decision on your behalf that this is what we're going to show you, whereas you could literally consume anything and everything through the channels that you have access to.

Lily 38:14

The only, well, not the only, but one of the main like unfortunate things about being so involved in that culture and like seeing all the memes and the emerging trends and all the rest of it is my generation's attention span is certainly not the same as your guys's. So, as per usual on this podcast, on this episode, we have discovered plenty that we have in common, plenty of pros and cons for each generation.

Chris 38:40

Yeah, I think our attention spans are shrinking as well, just because of the pace that everything moves at now. So, what could we learn from each other? What is the one thing you would borrow from me and Gen X in terms of how you consume media and news?

Lily 38:59

I think actually I've not thought about my news consumption quite a while. So this conversation's kind of been a reminder that it is important to seek news out from different platforms and not just expect to have things handed to, because especially with the way social media and AI is working and developing, I feel like what ends up on your algorithm might be kind of selective, and in a weird way, we might actually start missing out on things and missing out on perspectives that might kind of come full circle in the in the bad way. So I think maybe for me going back to getting my news from like a variety of different sources, and then also I like the fact that you guys like get your media recommendations from actually speaking to people in real life and getting recommendations from each other, and I think maybe that's a nice point of connection to have between friends and family. I enjoy hearing what you guys have got to recommend to me every time I catch up with news and news of started initial. So I think doing a bit more of that instead of going onto an app and oftentimes having like an AI-generated summary of like based on your interest, this is what we think you would like.

Chris 40:14

Yeah. Don't let the algorithm choose for you. Exactly. Either yourself or another human. Yeah.

Lily 40:18

What about you?

Chris 40:20

I do put a lot of store in the journalistic integrity of mainstream news channels. It's like they won't take anything at face value, they will kind of verify the source, it goes through a process to make sure it is factual. Uh, that's important.

Lily 40:36

They have to question that as well.

Chris 40:38

Yes.

Lily 40:38

Yeah.

Chris 40:38

But I also think this idea of more diverse voices and more authentic voices and what's happening on the ground unfiltered is definitely something I would borrow from where you're getting kind of news and and facts from. And on the entertainment front, I think what the last decade or two has shown is there is a massive amount of undiscovered talent out there that wouldn't ever have made it onto the three or four TV channels that that I watched, or to break new music if you couldn't get onto Top of the Pops.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Yeah.

Chris 41:11

Or you couldn't get your record into the shops because you had to go to the shop to buy a record or get it onto the radio. There was no doubt a huge amount of talent that never got the exposure that perhaps it served. Whereas now you don't need a record deal or a radio station. You can upload something to SoundCloud or YouTube and you know you can become a phenomenon, which is a great thing in terms of kind of democratising it.

Lily 41:34

Yeah, you can get on Love Island and launch your clothing brand, whatever you want. Yeah. When we talk about squiggly careers, this is a good way of making that happen.

Chris 41:41

Absolutely. And as far as the creative industries are concerned, if you think about the number of script writers and camera and sound operators and costume and makeup people that all of the streaming channels now need for all of the stuff they're putting out, it creates huge opportunities in the creative industries until we reach the point where everything is AI generated. And I hope we don't reach that point for a very, very long time. Or ever. There are lots of opportunities for people to be creative, which just didn't exist when it was kind of a closed shop when you only had a few TV channels and a couple of big radio stations, and you would go to the cinema to watch a film because now it's kind of everywhere.

Lily 42:21

Yeah, it's a really interesting point. I like that. Thank you. You're welcome.

Chris 42:25

So we started off uh talking about Love Island, and that undoubtedly has been a cultural phenomenon, and I'm sure there will be more to follow. And there could be other programs that will get millions and millions of viewers. I think what I take from this conversation is it is it'd be worth engaging in some of that a bit more to broaden my horizons in terms of kind of what's going on, certainly understand things from from your perspective and pay a bit more attention to voices that I wouldn't otherwise hear out with the kind of mainstream media, which is what I was brought up on, which is what I still habitually consume.

Lily 43:03

Yeah.

Chris 43:04

How about you, Lil?

Lily 43:05

For me, like I said, just being a bit more intentional about seeking out information rather than relying entirely on what the algorithm's gonna show me and getting back into that practice of just not like believing everything that I see on my feets and investigating things a little bit more. So yeah, being more intentional. I feel like I end up saying that quite a bit at the end of our episodes. I didn't need to be more intentional quite a lot in my life, but don't we all?

Chris 43:35

Indeed.

Lily 43:35

So there we go.

Chris 43:37

Well, if you've enjoyed this conversation, please do give us a five-star rating or write a review for the podcast. That helps it get out to more people, and we always really value the feedback. For our next episode, we are gonna be talking about sabbaticals. Not just extended holidays, but actually taking a big period of time off and doing something intentional with it. So listen out for that one.

Lily 44:07

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Gen XE Change.