The Underground — Issue #80
Everything you need to know about in this weekly: A video about how all movie trailers are the same, the origins of human beings, comedian Jim Gaffigan takes the ultimate hot wing challenge to see if he can back up his food game, and a look at the next season of Mr. Robot.
At Social Underground we go beyond the mainstream stuff and see what’s underneath the surface. What should we get into, listen to, read, eat or watch? If there is something in our culture that needs attention that’s our job: Show you the underground things that you need to know about: Books, music, television, movies, comedians, art, and whatever else we can find to get you into something you never knew about. That’s The Underground.
1. Watch RedLetterMedia explain that all movie trailers are the same. For some reason, all trailers are almost identical even if the plots are completely different. The BRAAAHMS, the lasers shooting into the sky, the one-liners, and the pauses all make trailers seem like they’re all edited by the same guy. Next time you go to a movie theater, watch the previews. If it’s for a Marvel film, you’ll probably get a bunch of action movies before it. Try to see how they all manage to follow the same formula. I swear, after Inception came out, all movie trailers copy it.
2. What happened before recorded human history? As much fun as it is to watch Ancient Aliens and hear speculation about aliens building the pyramids, the real answer is that’s completely stupid. A lot about human history has been erased. Some of it wasn’t written down, a lot of it was destroyed, and some of it is still unknown. If you look back at the sacking of Rome, you’ll expect that a lot of history was lost. The same is with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. People just like to destroy things. It’s happening now with ISIS going around and destroying things all over the middle-east.
The video below goes over some of the history or humanity. One of the best parts of the video is how cities began by using agriculture. It led to humans not having to wander around finding food and shelter when they could grow it all and keep their families together. It’s amazing to see how fast everything got within the last few generations. Instead of farming, we just have to use our computer phones and order a pizza. Huzzah for science!
3. Food comedian Jim Gaffigan does the hot wing challenge and it’s just as hilarious as you think it is. Gaffigan has managed to make an entire career out of talking about food in his stand-up specials. His entire stage presence goes into talking about his life, his weight, his kids, and how food ties it all together. I can’t even look at a Hot Pocket without thinking about his bit on them. I would also never eat one unless my entire fridge was empty and that was all that was left. Who am I kidding, that thing would be eaten in 3 bites because I have no will power when laziness rears its head.
What this show is about is bring in famous people to be interviewed while going through one wing that is hotter than the one before it. It starts off easy with Saracha, but then delves into the fire with wings I wouldn’t try for fun. Watching others suffer as they eat them is a joy though. Sean Evans, the host, manages to eat the hottest wings all the way through. He must line his stomach with candle wax like Homer Simpson. I rarely put hot sauce on my Taco Bell, so I’d probably die in the challenge.
Watch Jim Gaffigan embrace his flop sweat as he eats wings covered in lava.
4. A Mr. Robot documentary to get you ready for the much anticipated season 2. Mr. Robot is coming back pretty soon, and it hopes to build upon the award winning first season of the show that caught everyone off-guard because the name of the show was pretty strange. Trust me, I tried getting people into the show before it aired, but people were put off because the name sounded like a Saturday morning cartoon show or something. Luckily the show took off and was renewed quickly.
The crazy thing about the show is that it managed to cover topics or happenings in the real world before they even happened. Sometimes within a week or two after an episode airs, you could see breaking news on CNN that is eerily similar to a plot on the show. I literally said, “This just happened on Mr. Robot!” a few times last year. It was really fascinating that something like that happened, but it’s also scary that all the things on the show can be done in real life. That’s how close the show is to real world applications.
There’s multiple scenes in the show where you’ll see a screen full of coding and think it’s all probably fake, but the consulting crew on the show say it’s all real. That adds to the realism of hacking in this show. If you look at hacking in Hollywood that happens in other movies or shows, you see that everyone is just typing fast to screensavers. Plus, no one ever uses the damn mouse. You cannot do all of that hacking without using the mouse. Stop it, Hollywood.
Check out the recap special below to refresh yourself on the show, get an inside look on how it’s made, and get a glimpse of what’s to come in the next season.
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.
Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com