Dec 26, 2022
Doctor Larry is back talking about how parasocial relationships impact our daily lives, collective illusions compiling our shared reality, and some other stuff like family, working in entertainment and marketing, and relationality. This is the 1st half of the conversation from Dr. Larry Lyons - feat. Cancel Culture Club Pt 1.
We talk about Larry’s nephew Camden Coley (Karma’s World, Abbot Elementary, Mike) and the vibrancy of Black boy joy. We talk about the monetization of love and relationality, how our presence on the Internet results in our unwitting consent to toxic cultural developments, and get GRANULAR about what parasociety even is.
WTF is a demi lovato and why is Shift mad about that? Shift gives more details about the non-denominational fundamentalist evangelical performing arts cult he traveled across the U.S. with as a teenager in the late 90s-early 2000s, and describes how he discovered (in 2021) what the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato even are and that, as teenagers, they all directly and literally made millions of dollars by directly and literally causing abuse against Shift and the other kids in the cult to escalate to inhumane levels. Shift lays out similarities in evangelical fundamentalism and Hollywood, marketing and evangelism, and both sides of “parasocial” bonding.
Shift talks about our real world programming, dealing with people who accidentally virtue signal and warp their praxis into unraveling, and glory of discovering the gospel of Anne Heche (aka Celeste) in the wake of her sudden, tragic death.
Larry comments on the power of fits and fists in the comments’ sections and IRL, ponders the architecture of the ecosystems that divide people from experiencing life outside of their class' status expectations, and details people insisting upon keeping social traditions they know don’t work.
Oh, how glorious that brands and companies have effectively strived to exploit our most intimate vulnerabilities. Oh, how everybody has to deal with the impact of public relations whether they know it or not.
Liars and Grifters and Fakes? Oh, my!!
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Logistics Credits:
Producer/host: Shift Orion
Graphics Credits:
Shift Orion
Soundtrack Credits:
GMM Intro by Shift Orion
Everything Is Different Now by Wonderful Glass Cage
(in no) Time (back soon 4 round 2) - remix - by Wonderful Glass Cage
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About Sam Maloney and Warner Music Group sexual harassment and NDA abuse
Dr. Larry Lyons has lectured and taught courses in 20th Century American literature, sociology and composition at Rutgers and Princeton University. As an independent consultant, he provides writing, editing and creative services for clients in education, public relations, non-profits and the arts. He is also the founder and creative director of Brick City Varsity, a Newark-based photography studio and vintage clothier.