We’re Maxed Out, You’re Maxed Out, Everybody Is Maxed Out

Still Processing

The New York Times

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Arts

4.8 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2018

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week we're talking about why we're stressed out, why the country is stressed out, and whether anxiety has become a permanent condition. We consider the role technology has played in driving us to this point, from push alerts — so many push alerts — to Twitter to the "algorithmic gaze." Then we come back to culture and focus on a few works that either encapsulate the chaos of 2018 or offer a possible path for moving ahead. Discussed This Week: “Pony” (Genuwine) “The Middle” (Zedd, Maren Morris, Grey) “The Comfort in Stockpiling Dried Beans” (Tejal Rao, The New York Times Magazine) “The Man Who Knew Too Little” (Sam Dolnick, The New York Times) Annihilation (Paramount Pictures) “Southern Reach Trilogy” (Jeff VanderMeer, Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Ready Player One (Warner Bros. Pictures) Downsizing (Paramount Pictures) Angels in America (Tony Kushner) Angels in America (miniseries; HBO)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Jenna Wortham.
0:01.2	I'm Wesley Morris.
0:02.8	We're two culture writers at The New York Times.
0:05.2	I mostly write about how humans relate to technology.
0:08.4	And I mostly write about how movies and popular culture relate to humans.
0:13.0	This is still processing.
0:16.0	Okay.
0:26.0	So this week we're going to talk about why I'm stressed out, why you're stressed out, why
0:32.6	this country is stressed out right now.
0:36.5	Whether or not that's a permanent condition, whether it's been a condition that we haven't
0:41.6	really been able to acknowledge until now, we're going to look at culture that encapsulates
0:45.9	this anxiety that we're thinking about, that we're feeling and try to figure out what
0:50.5	we do with that and where it leaves us.
0:53.0	But before we dive into that, we need a conversation.
0:56.2	I'm dying to know what else is going on in your world this week.
0:59.0	I have something I'd like to propose.
1:00.9	It's low crazy, but it's going to be like the only bit of levity we have today.
1:05.2	Okay.
1:06.2	I was out.
1:07.6	A song came on.
1:09.5	No boy.
1:10.5	And for the first time in a long time, I really listened to lyrics.
	...

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