Welcome to the 25th episode of the Hello You Podcast! Yes, that’s right, we’ve hit our quarter centennial celebration!
Somehow, we manage not to talk about this milestone all episode… If you can’t wait to hear what we did talk about, dive into the episode right now – here’s the link.
Alternatively, you’re more than welcome to check out the show notes below to mentally and physically prepare yourself for the onslaught of Salon-style chat that is HYP!
We started off, completely unexpectedly, riffing on the awesomeness that is Everything, Everywhere All At Once. What. A. Film. From a visual storytelling spectacle to a real moment for representation in cinema, EEAAO threads its way throughout this episode – especially the first 15minutes or so as we go on a deep, deep dive into it.
Interestingly, EEAAO is the noise Neil’s brain made after watching it for the first time. True Fact.
Language emerges as a theme from EEAAO, particularly the rapid language switching that it requires from viewers. We ponder on how much we take the privilege of belonging that language gives us for granted, and the absolute gift that EEAAO gives us to reframe our viewership experience.
Speaking of how language enables us to navigate the world around us, we dip into Thirteen Untranslatable Words and an exploration of how violence can be done to language when words become hollowed out. This is a regular thread for us, and we remember ranting about certain words about in Episode 2 of this pod’, which we then revisited in Episode 5, before exploring thoughts about linguistic colonialism in Episode 17 and understanding the anthropology of place names in Episode 22.
Louise drops a reco’ for Faith, Hope & Charity by Nick Cave & Sean O’Hagan, inspired by one of the untranslatable words, which happens to be Neil’s fave. We sidled into linguistic taxonomy and how categorising the world leads to our changed relationship with it. Meanwhile, Louise has just finished reading a Derrida tome, although is finishing reading Derrida, finishing reading Derrida?
Nipping through Algospeak and 1337 (Leet) speak, youth lingo, cockney rhyming slang and emojification, we investigate having conversations inside other conversations. Changing language to hide in plain sight is nothing new, but the change is now being driven by technology at an enormous pace.
There’s a natty segue into a fabulous podcast Louise shared – Emotion At Work – which features an incredibly strong theme around clarity. What do work cultures permit you to ask for, and how does this affect your experience? Clarity and compassion start to emerge, Louise puts her finger on a huge issue about the energy needed to navigate unclear situations and we deal with weaponised unclarity. Louise inspires Neil to explore an idea about how clarity is highly exposing.
“The courage to be clear creates psychological safety” is a beautiful jumping off point which helps us to deepen an exploration of clarity and its relationship to leadership. Thank you Louise ❤️ (before she then knits polyvagal theory into the conversation. Wow).
We finish up on the world of RSS, a technology that’s been around for 25 years+ but which isn’t widely adopted these days. Apart from by a stubborn few (yes, one of whom is Neil who ran two polls – one on Mastodon and one on LinkedIn – to give this conversation some semblance of empirical sanity), RSS seems to be largely forgotten. However, could it actually be our saviour from being “awash with content”, defeat algorithmic info-tsunamis and help us to take back control of our internet?
Neil says ‘Yes’ and Louise wonders if it is some kind of dark magic. But what do you say, dear listeners? Check out the episode and tell us what you think!
As always, the Salon is open for you, your friends, your nearest-and-dearest or those you’ve only just met on the bus to listen to. Episode 25 is now live for your delectation and delight – so pull up a chair, kick back and dive into the wonderful world of Hello You Podcast!