Hem Brewster: Bezos, Musk, and the Enshitifcation of Existence
This week on 5 Random Questions, podcaster, producer, and gamesmaster Hem Brewster talks about the enshitification of existence, how good-hearted humans can still cause damage to nature, the universal language of swearing, and more.
Answering the questions this week: Hem Brewster
I run two actual play podcasts as both producer and as the gamemaster. One such show is called The Lucky Die, and has been telling a single story for over 8 years. I also produce our other shows, including 2 audio dramas, as well as our talk show, Four Top Threes. At this point, I am a full timer podcaster. Continuing the roleplaying games theme, I have also created my own roleplaying game and written standalone stories for other people to play, plus written articles around the challenges of acting and producing for an actual play podcast. I am also a voice actress, having appeared in The White Vault and Dark Dice plus many others, as well as having a background in mechanical engineering, worked at a virtual tabletop company and I have also worked with beluga whales. Headshot (the headshot thing isn't uploading https://blighthouse.studio/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Web-Hem.jpg)
Further reading for this episode
- YUNGBLUD
- Gander: The Social Media You Want, Built in Canada
- The Justin Timberlake Sci-Fi Movie With One Of The Best Time Premises Ever | GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT
- Wuhu Xinhualian Beluga Ocean Park | Captive Cetaceans Wiki | Fandom
- Four Top Threes Podcast
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Transcript
Hem: But it is also kind of funny how much, like, for example, English has slipped into Icelandic.
Speaker:Hem: So my partner and I have like a really good set of friends here that we play D&D with.
Speaker:Hem: And they're always very good to me. Like we do the whole session in English,
Speaker:Hem: but apparently they did anyway.
Speaker:Hem: So I sometimes walk in and I'll just hear them talking in Icelandic.
Speaker:Hem: And suddenly you'll just say like, hell, fuck.
Speaker:Hem: It's really funny just to listen to. You just get context clues based on the
Speaker:Hem: English with the English pronunciation thrown into the Icelandic. It's very funny.
Speaker:Danny: Hi, and welcome to 5 Random Questions, the show with unexpected questions and unfiltered answers.
Speaker:Danny: I'm your host, Danny Brown, and each week I'll be asking my guests five questions
Speaker:Danny: created by a random question generator.
Speaker:Danny: The guest has no idea what the questions are, and neither do I,
Speaker:Danny: which means this could go either way.
Speaker:Danny: So sit back, relax, and let's dive into this week's episode.
Speaker:Danny: Today's guest is Hem Brewster. Hem is a full-time podcaster and a producer and
Speaker:Danny: games master of two actual play podcasts, and the talk show Four Top Threes.
Speaker:Danny: Hem has also created her own role-playing game and written standalone stories
Speaker:Danny: for other people to play.
Speaker:Danny: As a voice actress, Hem has appeared in The White Vault and Dark Dice,
Speaker:Danny: plus many others, and has worked with Beluga Whales.
Speaker:Danny: So Hem, welcome to Five Random Questions.
Speaker:Hem: Hi. Wow, I really disin you a lot, huh?
Speaker:Danny: I actually left some out as well. You've got an amazing buyer.
Speaker:Danny: I left some out just for, like, you know, brevity for the introduction.
Speaker:Danny: But no, no, you know, never feel bad for want of a better description of your bio.
Speaker:Danny: So, yeah. And as I shared in the intro there, I think it's fair to say you're
Speaker:Danny: obviously heavily involved in the role-playing stroke actual play genre scene.
Speaker:Danny: So how did you get started in that?
Speaker:Hem: So like the origins, my origin stories go back to when I was 14 and we did a
Speaker:Hem: play-by-post forum back in the days.
Speaker:Hem: God, it's almost like 20 odd years now and I don't want to go any further in my age.
Speaker:Hem: But yeah, we had a play-by-post forum and we just played different characters
Speaker:Hem: in our own homebrew world. There were no real rules. We just roleplayed a lot.
Speaker:Hem: And then a few years later, a friend of mine came back from university and said,
Speaker:Hem: hey, I want to play Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker:Hem: I'm like, oh, that sounds nerdy. I'm in. And I haven't really stopped roleplaying since then.
Speaker:Hem: So, yeah, it's been a massive part of my life as this hobby.
Speaker:Hem: So for better and for worse, I guess.
Speaker:Hem: But, yeah, it's been around for absolutely ages. I've done almost any kind of
Speaker:Hem: role-playing game I'm into, but I haven't LARPed because I don't have the network
Speaker:Hem: for that and I'm kind of lazy.
Speaker:Danny: Well, and the cool thing is it's also, I mean, I'm a nerd at heart and it may
Speaker:Danny: have been seen as, like, nerdy, you know, maybe when you first started.
Speaker:Danny: And maybe it is today, but I feel it's also gotten more mainstream acceptance,
Speaker:Danny: for want of a better word, with people like Henry Cavill, who's very open about
Speaker:Danny: his role playing in Warhammer 40,000, love of that, etc.
Speaker:Danny: Do you feel that's the case or is it still viewed as a sort of nerdy thing?
Speaker:Hem: So I think in the younger generations, for sure.
Speaker:Hem: But I think the older generations are still just like, I don't understand it.
Speaker:Hem: I don't want to be a part of it.
Speaker:Hem: Go away. but it is becoming better but it also really does depend on the circles that you run in,
Speaker:Hem: like I know we know that there are Jox Machina we know that there are nerd like
Speaker:Hem: Jim Bro nerds who love playing Warhammer and love playing role playing games
Speaker:Hem: but there are some who aren't,
Speaker:Hem: it's like a it's a feeler question like hey do you play D&D and then it's like
Speaker:Hem: no I play this role playing game like my fellow nerd.
Speaker:Danny: Awesome and it's an idea wisebreaker for sure
Speaker:Hem: I mean, do you play?
Speaker:Danny: I don't. No, I do. So I don't play D&D or like the tabletop version.
Speaker:Danny: I do like to play video games.
Speaker:Danny: You know, it's got more like, and I was thinking back as well,
Speaker:Danny: when I first started playing video games, some of my favourites in the 80s on
Speaker:Danny: Sega were like the Shining in the Darkness games, which are more role playing,
Speaker:Danny: but they're not D&D, I guess.
Speaker:Danny: So that's where my sort of nerditude, if you like, started, you know,
Speaker:Danny: 80s, showing my age now. You mentioned your age before, but you're doing it 20 years.
Speaker:Danny: So yeah, showing my age there. So it's, yeah, like you say, I feel it's one
Speaker:Danny: of these things that when you find your community, everybody knows what it is.
Speaker:Danny: And sometimes you have to explain it. Other times you don't.
Speaker:Danny: So it's all good. It's all good.
Speaker:Danny: And one of the other things I mentioned there, which I love.
Speaker:Danny: So you mentioned that you work with beluga whales and that's part of the same family.
Speaker:Danny: It's my favourite whale, which is a narwhal. and obviously these live in like
Speaker:Danny: cold water traps so arctic and antarctica i know you're in iceland so are they
Speaker:Danny: native to iceland or were you on like an expedition
Speaker:Hem: There they're not um so uh i'll
Speaker:Hem: state this is i used to work with beluga whales i i no longer do that um but
Speaker:Hem: yeah like so beluga whales aren't native to this particular area they're kind
Speaker:Hem: of like further north they're in much colder climates than this um but unfortunately
Speaker:Hem: these two beluga whales were uh they're part of the beluga a park somewhere
Speaker:Hem: in China or Shanghai. I don't remember which.
Speaker:Hem: I used to, but it's been so long since I've done this with them.
Speaker:Hem: And yeah they were in captivity and have been since they were like six
Speaker:Hem: months old so they they can't go out into the world
Speaker:Hem: they'll just die so even though it's a terrible situation for
Speaker:Hem: them to be in they do need to be in human care um so
Speaker:Hem: i work with them um there's a sanctuary
Speaker:Hem: um here on the island that i live in uh and they
Speaker:Hem: their intent is to put them out into like
Speaker:Hem: a little enclosure that's kind of like in
Speaker:Hem: the sea but also within the island itself it's a
Speaker:Hem: very weird explanation but we have a harbour and the harbour has like
Speaker:Hem: lots of natural caves and lots of like natural like bays within it
Speaker:Hem: um so one of the bays is cordoned off just for the blugas and
Speaker:Hem: the hope is to get them out into that so they can have a much more
Speaker:Hem: natural lifestyle and one that isn't like performances they aren't like doing
Speaker:Hem: shows i mean they don't do that now um now that they're here in in iceland but
Speaker:Hem: they used to um so it's like a multi-step phase to get them out into the base
Speaker:Hem: they can have a much more natural lifestyle so that's the hope for them um but
Speaker:Hem: yeah They're not particularly native to the area.
Speaker:Hem: These poor girls have not had the best chances, but they're doing the best that they can with them.
Speaker:Danny: Oh, that's good. And it's nice to know that they've got the natural environment,
Speaker:Danny: but you're sort of releasing them step by step as opposed to just saying,
Speaker:Danny: okay, you're free, off you go, because like you mentioned, that can do more harm than good at times.
Speaker:Hem: Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, I want to say killer whale, but we know that's not what I mean.
Speaker:Hem: The one from the Free Willy movie, actually, same bay. And they put them out
Speaker:Hem: in the bay and then they released him out into the wild.
Speaker:Hem: And then just couldn't really survive very well, kept hanging out in their boats.
Speaker:Hem: So it wasn't like the best experience. And they learned from that.
Speaker:Hem: And they kind of come to realize that, you know, if an animal has been in captivity
Speaker:Hem: for essentially its entire life, we as humans can't teach it the behaviors it
Speaker:Hem: needs in order to be able to survive out in the wild.
Speaker:Hem: And it's sad, but we could either keep them performing or we keep them in as
Speaker:Hem: close to a natural habitat as possible.
Speaker:Hem: So that's kind of like the process of where they're at you know question mark
Speaker:Hem: never say never perhaps release but the honesty would probably be these guys
Speaker:Hem: particularly probably would never be um yeah.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah it's like you say it's human wants to protect but human also does harm
Speaker:Danny: by protecting so you'll have to keep us up to date um i'd love to you know peer
Speaker:Danny: updates on how it's going with the below because like i say i know that's like
Speaker:Danny: the the sort of bumpy head wheels like they've got the big bulbous head they
Speaker:Hem: Have like a big mushy melon on their head and they're so squishy it's so wild.
Speaker:Danny: Oh so when i like to say it's which i never knew until
Speaker:Danny: i was looking in because i know the name beluga but i never i forgot what they
Speaker:Danny: look like and so i was checking it out and i realized oh that's that's related
Speaker:Danny: to my narwhals so it was awesome that's like a lovely connection for me so yeah
Speaker:Danny: please do keep me updated and i'd love to keep my my listeners updated speaking
Speaker:Danny: of being updated it's time to update our random question generator onto your screen.
Speaker:Danny: So if you're ready, Ham, shall I bring up the random questions you're ready for you?
Speaker:Hem: Let's do it.
Speaker:Danny: Let's have a look then and see what we're doing.
Speaker:Danny: Okay, I feel I know this one because of what we just spoke about.
Speaker:Danny: But question number one, would you risk your life to help a stranger?
Speaker:Hem: Yeah.
Speaker:Danny: That's it, question two.
Speaker:Hem: Yeah, pretty much like one of my job that I wanted to have was when I was growing
Speaker:Hem: up, I wanted to be an emergency medical technician in the British Army, combat medic.
Speaker:Hem: But at last, I have somewhat shitty eyes and that precludes me from being able to be in the army.
Speaker:Hem: Then I went into nursing and started helping people that way and it was incredibly rewarding.
Speaker:Hem: Then I went on to mechanical design engineer for MRI machines and that was also incredibly rewarding.
Speaker:Hem: I came here to help Beluga Wales and ended up doing health and safety for the
Speaker:Hem: Beluga Wales sanctuary. Yeah, very much so.
Speaker:Hem: If someone is in danger and I'm actually able to help, because you do have to
Speaker:Hem: come over a little bit of like, I don't want to hurt myself.
Speaker:Hem: But yeah, I would very much do that.
Speaker:Danny: And it's one of these questions like very obviously well
Speaker:Danny: maybe not so much for your good self like hypothetical but is there a situation
Speaker:Danny: that you feel might be too dangerous even though you want to do good want to
Speaker:Danny: help and you might think that's more I may end up a harming myself and a person
Speaker:Danny: and then no one wins for want of a better description
Speaker:Hem: Um, I mean, yeah, I mean, so one of the challenges of living in Iceland is that
Speaker:Hem: the environment itself can be a vast, the environment itself can be incredibly challenging.
Speaker:Hem: And I'm no longer the steadiest person on my feet, eye issues.
Speaker:Hem: So yeah, if it's on like the other side of an old lava field,
Speaker:Hem: and it's up something really tall, and everything is sharp and jagged.
Speaker:Hem: I don't know I may have to reconsider that if it's also over the
Speaker:Hem: edge of the cliff because the island that we're on the little island
Speaker:Hem: we're on the edges of the cliffs are incredibly
Speaker:Hem: steep and they've got these little warning signs down that are
Speaker:Hem: like hey don't go too far you'll fall off and I go up to that side I don't really
Speaker:Hem: go any further I think it would definitely have to be a judgment call on whether
Speaker:Hem: I'd go on the other side of that sign to like stop someone falling off because
Speaker:Hem: I know how unsteady I am but I don't know I probably also just not think about
Speaker:Hem: that and i probably should just run oh god i'll help oh shit i'm off the cliff.
Speaker:Danny: Well, I appreciate they only put little signs up as well, a little warning sign.
Speaker:Danny: You've got maybe like 100, 200 more foot sheer drop and this little sign that
Speaker:Danny: says, okay, this is like, it's steep here, stay back or whatever the sign may
Speaker:Danny: say instead of a big hoofing sign that shows decapitation and everything like that.
Speaker:Hem: Yeah, I mean, a lot of the signs in Iveson for like protective areas,
Speaker:Hem: especially in places that aren't Reykjavik or in like the main cities,
Speaker:Hem: the signs are normally just kind of small, although they are fairly obvious.
Speaker:Hem: Like they aren't putting up whacking great signs that say warning you can't
Speaker:Hem: go off it because you kind of ruin nature and also if there's a yellow sign
Speaker:Hem: with some red writing on it and it's pretty big and it looks dangerous it tells
Speaker:Hem: you it's dangerous you'd like you you should be able to see that um so yeah
Speaker:Hem: like it's it's a little bit more common sense based here uh for that kind of stuff yeah.
Speaker:Danny: And you have a license leg uh well known for its hot geezers as well now are
Speaker:Danny: they random or they expected to be in some places so if you were uh if you knew
Speaker:Danny: someone was needing help would
Speaker:Danny: you know that could be a place where the geysers are or could they just
Speaker:Hem: Oh yeah yeah um so like most of the places
Speaker:Hem: where like the hot springs are or where the geysers are um they are
Speaker:Hem: okay it's fine i've heard
Speaker:Hem: every pronunciation of it ever and there's something different i think in icelandic so
Speaker:Hem: whatever um um so yeah like most of those are marked out you kind of do know
Speaker:Hem: where they are um so like the hot springs you know where they are um the geysers
Speaker:Hem: uh at least the like the big famous ones they go off almost on a clockwork schedule
Speaker:Hem: so you know when that's going to happen um so yeah like you kind of do know where those places are.
Speaker:Danny: Nice nice so there you go i feel that was a good gentle natural opening for
Speaker:Danny: the the first question for you and if you're ever in trouble dear listener and
Speaker:Danny: you're in iceland we will try get some contact information for him so you can
Speaker:Danny: reach out when him will be out there to
Speaker:Danny: you know put their life at risk and rescue you so you're all good
Speaker:Hem: What a hilarious question, though. Like, what if I said, nah, bug him? Well, exactly.
Speaker:Danny: Like I say, it could go either way. So that's the beauty of the show.
Speaker:Danny: It's like, you never know where it's going to go.
Speaker:Danny: And it could have just gone, like I say, that could have just been like a 10-second answer there.
Speaker:Danny: Yep, move on. Let's go. But I like that we dove into that as well.
Speaker:Danny: So nice way to start with your time in a random question hot seat.
Speaker:Danny: So let's have a look then at question number two.
Speaker:Danny: What scares you most about the future?
Speaker:Hem: Oh, blimey.
Speaker:Hem: I think mostly the, I said I'd try not to swear, but it's too late.
Speaker:Hem: Mostly the inshittification of existence.
Speaker:Hem: Everything is at the moment on some kind of subscription. You don't technically own anything.
Speaker:Hem: A lot of things are being fed to us through the algorithm, whether or not like
Speaker:Hem: discovering stuff naturally.
Speaker:Hem: Like if I go to my Facebook feed, it's just like sponsored, sponsored,
Speaker:Hem: sponsored, follow, follow, follow.
Speaker:Hem: One post from someone I care about. I mean, too far, I don't have a lot of friends
Speaker:Hem: on Facebook, so I don't really use it, but like one point still stands.
Speaker:Hem: I think it is like pretty much becoming like...
Speaker:Hem: And that, what do you call it? Like, you see that cyberpunk future hell where
Speaker:Hem: you don't own anything and everything is on a subscription base and technology
Speaker:Hem: is in every part of your life.
Speaker:Hem: That, I think, might be one of the worst versions of the future.
Speaker:Hem: Because there's going to be no getting away from it. And it's gradual, right?
Speaker:Hem: It's not like a sudden snap and then it's going to be here.
Speaker:Hem: Um you'll look up one day and realize it's happened but
Speaker:Hem: the in like the the road into it is going to be so
Speaker:Hem: like slow and insidious i think that's a
Speaker:Hem: big worry and concern for the future because i jokingly
Speaker:Hem: once said i think it'd be great for a little chip in her arm so that if you
Speaker:Hem: need to do an id scan if you need to pay for your stuff everything's just off
Speaker:Hem: on this one chip and now i think that may be a horrifying version of the future
Speaker:Hem: everybody knows everything about what i'm doing at all times um and there's
Speaker:Hem: no getting away from it so yeah i think that's like one of my concerns for the future.
Speaker:Danny: Well, it's like that. It's interesting you mentioned the algorithm because I
Speaker:Danny: know anytime, I used to love social media, different platforms and it just got awful.
Speaker:Danny: Like Instagram was great just for sharing pictures and now it's just videos, videos and videos.
Speaker:Danny: You know, you mentioned, I don't go on Facebook now apart from work stuff and it's the same thing.
Speaker:Danny: It's just all marketing advertisements, blah, blah, this, do this.
Speaker:Danny: But it's interesting you mentioned the chip. It reminds me, I think,
Speaker:Danny: Justin Timberlake was the actor in it. Or it may have been Jake Gyllenhaal,
Speaker:Danny: which are two different actors.
Speaker:Danny: But basically it was about, you had a chip in your arm that was a countdown as to how long.
Speaker:Danny: You could only turn 30. Maybe it was like Logan's Run. It was like the remake-y
Speaker:Danny: Logan's Run. I can't remember.
Speaker:Hem: It was like a modern reversion of it, right? They had like one year from when
Speaker:Hem: they turned 18, but they never got technically any older. They just transferred time between them.
Speaker:Danny: That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you could only get to a max of,
Speaker:Danny: what was it, 30 years old, I think? And then your time ran out or something. I'm not sure. like
Speaker:Hem: You got to like a maximum age of your biology and it would stick at that age
Speaker:Hem: um but you could in theory have like millions of hours because i think spoiler
Speaker:Hem: i don't even remember the name of the the movie but if i remember correctly
Speaker:Hem: at the end they ended up with like hundreds and millions of hours that they
Speaker:Hem: just start sharing to people like that was the crux at the end of the movie.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah and i'll leave a link to the movie because i did enjoy it i really enjoyed
Speaker:Danny: the premise and it may have even been a remake of logins run who knows which
Speaker:Danny: was a tv show from the 70s stroke 80s but i'll leave a link to the movie once
Speaker:Danny: i find out which one it was again yes
Speaker:Hem: Definitely let me know because i've been thinking about that movie a lot.
Speaker:Danny: But it's interesting you mentioned about the certification because
Speaker:Danny: like on reddit prime example no pun intended on reddit at the moment there's
Speaker:Danny: a lot of discussion about amazon prime and how they have just so recently um
Speaker:Danny: they made a change to their prime video subscription where every movie tv show
Speaker:Danny: and all that would come with ads unless you paid for an ad-free subscription like an extra,
Speaker:Danny: in Canada in a way, four bucks a month, three bucks a month,
Speaker:Danny: four bucks a month, whatever.
Speaker:Danny: And now they've just updated their terms again, at least in the US,
Speaker:Danny: I haven't seen this in Canada, where they're going to be charging extra if you want 4K on your Prime.
Speaker:Danny: So even though you pay for Prime, Amazon Prime to get movies,
Speaker:Danny: you've got to pay more to get ad-free. Now you've got to pay more to get 4K.
Speaker:Danny: It's just, and they're like, how much money does Bezos need to be happy?
Speaker:Hem: Yep.
Speaker:Hem: It's paying all the shareholder. It's not paying all of their workforce.
Speaker:Hem: Yeah, it very much feels like everything is being nickeled and dimed out and
Speaker:Hem: it's being done through subscription, which is just ridiculous.
Speaker:Hem: It is the olden days of having a TV, but you have to pay it back incrementally.
Speaker:Hem: And if you don't, then the TV isn't yours anyway, which I think is just awful, to be honest.
Speaker:Hem: If I'm paying for a service, I should be getting that kind of full service.
Speaker:Hem: And it shouldn't be, oh, the feature you used to have, that's now behind a paywall,
Speaker:Hem: especially when you're a big company.
Speaker:Hem: I mean, if you're a small company and you're starting out and you're trying
Speaker:Hem: to figure out your subscription tiers, fine.
Speaker:Hem: Like you get a pass up to a point, but like when you're an industrial machine,
Speaker:Hem: there should be no excuses.
Speaker:Danny: Is there one, because you mentioned there, obviously Facebook,
Speaker:Danny: that you don't really go on now.
Speaker:Danny: Is there one where like a service, a platform, anything that you love that you
Speaker:Danny: just can't abide anymore, or even though it's like, it may have,
Speaker:Danny: you know, done really good things for your life previously? I...
Speaker:Hem: Sort of um so i've never
Speaker:Hem: really been one much for social media i've been on it
Speaker:Hem: because i kind of had to be um one of
Speaker:Hem: the very first podcasts i ever did i was um an
Speaker:Hem: actual play and the guy in charge said you have to
Speaker:Hem: have a twitter account i'm like fine i'll make a goddamn twitter account whatever i don't
Speaker:Hem: care although that show fell apart twitter at
Speaker:Hem: the time when we were first first starting doing our own show
Speaker:Hem: um twitter was a fantastic way to get discovered
Speaker:Hem: um it's how podcasts were found like everyone
Speaker:Hem: was on twitter you make yourself a cool image you put some
Speaker:Hem: text in put a link in later on you started using more
Speaker:Hem: like you know hashtags and stuff a little bit later on maybe
Speaker:Hem: use a headliner app to like put video out with some text on
Speaker:Hem: it and they'll get people into your show um it used to be a great tool
Speaker:Hem: for discovery for podcasts i only
Speaker:Hem: miss that aspect um i quit
Speaker:Hem: twitter many many many many
Speaker:Hem: years ago um before everyone abandoned a
Speaker:Hem: ship um because it was making me miserable i'm like i can't be
Speaker:Hem: fucked with this i have too much to do in my life i can't be bothered um but
Speaker:Hem: the show kept its twitter account as far as i know i think it still
Speaker:Hem: has i miss the discoverability that comes with
Speaker:Hem: some of these social media platforms um but i
Speaker:Hem: think the age of that kind of discovery for
Speaker:Hem: audio at least is gone twitter is not a place for discovery for podcasts anymore
Speaker:Hem: because of the way it's turned out um instagram was never a good place to find
Speaker:Hem: because they just mostly did like flat images at the time and people were sharing
Speaker:Hem: pictures of like their life and their food and all this good stuff.
Speaker:Hem: So it also wasn't really a particularly good place.
Speaker:Hem: Facebook has never had a good return on being discovered.
Speaker:Hem: You have to pay so much and it has so little return if you're an audio podcaster, it's not worth it.
Speaker:Hem: And then you're moving on to now like TikTok, for example, or YouTube Shorts.
Speaker:Hem: And it has to be, if you're audio only, you're kind of screwed.
Speaker:Hem: You have to find some stock images that move and it's really bright and flashy
Speaker:Hem: texts and stuff. and that is,
Speaker:Hem: okay for discovery but effort versus reward is totally not worth it anymore
Speaker:Hem: um the amount of engagement the amount of follows that you get do not translate
Speaker:Hem: into listeners and that's really what you're trying to be doing it for um so
Speaker:Hem: yeah like i miss i miss the old times of things being easily found but i do
Speaker:Hem: not miss any social media.
Speaker:Danny: And i hear you i've pulled
Speaker:Danny: back drastically from social media use probably in
Speaker:Danny: about 2017 2018 i think um a
Speaker:Danny: for my mental wellness more than anything um and
Speaker:Danny: b but like you see it's like it just changed so much uh twitter was my favorite
Speaker:Danny: much like yourself for for my side for
Speaker:Danny: the community side there was so many good people on there um
Speaker:Danny: and you look at it now and it's like a grok led just dumpster
Speaker:Danny: fire basically yeah so yeah it's it's interesting how
Speaker:Danny: social media is very much just media now right
Speaker:Danny: with the social aspect taken out of it who knows maybe
Speaker:Danny: you know maybe something like a blue sky could get that feeling
Speaker:Danny: back i'm not sure i know there's a canadian version called gander that's
Speaker:Danny: currently in beta that's meant to be going back to that aspect and it's not
Speaker:Danny: about the algorithm or you know asking for privacy stuff and that so we'll see
Speaker:Danny: we'll see but i feel to your point like there's so many people that want quick
Speaker:Danny: hits fame etc that aspect is gone now unfortunately yeah
Speaker:Hem: It's unfortunately the rise of the new influencer and the rise of using social
Speaker:Hem: media as a business in itself,
Speaker:Hem: And yeah, it's advertisers and all this good stuff. Part of a stratification, I'm afraid.
Speaker:Hem: It's not fun. And yeah, I really wish the community side of that would come back.
Speaker:Hem: Unfortunately, you have to already know who your community is to be able to
Speaker:Hem: find other people in your community.
Speaker:Hem: Like most of our community, most of our roleplaying stuff, we're kind of very
Speaker:Hem: interconnected. We already know each other.
Speaker:Hem: And when someone new joins in we're like oh my god someone new
Speaker:Hem: um it's really difficult to be found because most communities are out
Speaker:Hem: there on places like discord it's a closed community that's where most people
Speaker:Hem: are now um because then you don't have the algorithm getting in the way you're
Speaker:Hem: talking about the things that you love and enjoy but it makes it really hard
Speaker:Hem: to be found um which sucks because we have stories to tell we have uh conversations
Speaker:Hem: to be listened to and it's really hard to get other people to hear them that.
Speaker:Danny: Is true that is true and as an indie creator that you know and you know yourself
Speaker:Danny: what it takes the amount of work it takes to to publish an episode never mind promote it
Speaker:Hem: Yeah it.
Speaker:Danny: Can be sometimes it can be you know disheartening if you if you like but then
Speaker:Danny: you remember well the listeners that we do have are the ones that want to be
Speaker:Danny: part of this and you know really value this so let's continue to put out great
Speaker:Danny: content that they can enjoy
Speaker:Hem: That's exactly that like um i had a conversation with a friend like many years
Speaker:Hem: ago talking about podcasting and stuff.
Speaker:Hem: And it was like, why are you doing this?
Speaker:Hem: Why are you podcasting in the first place? Like, what's your goal for success?
Speaker:Hem: Is it having lots of numbers? And if it is, then you have to play all the algorithm
Speaker:Hem: games and you have to figure out where to put your focus just to get the numbers up.
Speaker:Hem: But do you just want more numbers or do you want people listening?
Speaker:Hem: Because they are kind of different.
Speaker:Hem: They aren't exactly one for one. You want people who are going to stick around
Speaker:Hem: and continue listening and like continue engaging and making part of the community
Speaker:Hem: around your podcast or do you just want someone to listen to one episode and
Speaker:Hem: then move on because it looks good temporarily for numbers and figures.
Speaker:Danny: Yep. Again, like I said, 100% agree. As a creator, I 100% agree.
Speaker:Danny: One of the things I do enjoy about audio podcasting, though,
Speaker:Danny: is intimacy and the conversations are going to be had, as you mentioned, rightly so, Ham.
Speaker:Danny: So speaking of conversations, let's continue this one with question number three.
Speaker:Danny: Question number three. If you could acquire any skill, what would you choose?
Speaker:Hem: Oh, boy.
Speaker:Danny: Doesn't have to be legal.
Speaker:Hem: A lot picking no joking um it would
Speaker:Hem: be the skill to be able to retain other languages
Speaker:Hem: i have never been good at learning languages bright kids did great on scores
Speaker:Hem: tests math science history all the luck great um pretty good at school languages
Speaker:Hem: were never something that stuck with me um and that was not a problem until
Speaker:Hem: i decided to move to iceland um so i would very much like the skill to be able
Speaker:Hem: to learn another language.
Speaker:Hem: I am just incredibly bad at it.
Speaker:Hem: And it will take me many, many, many, many years to potentially master Icelandic
Speaker:Hem: enough to have a genuine conversation with my parents-in-law, for example.
Speaker:Hem: But now we live through interpretation and Google Translate.
Speaker:Danny: Well, that's it, because my wee daughter is using Duolingo at the moment.
Speaker:Danny: She wants to learn, I think she wants to learn Italian for some reason.
Speaker:Danny: Maybe she wants to move to Italy, who knows.
Speaker:Danny: But I took English and French, English, I took English at school.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah, as a Scottish person, I had to learn English.
Speaker:Hem: I'm so sorry.
Speaker:Danny: No worries. I took French and German at school, which I loved.
Speaker:Danny: But I think when I, well, I can't really speak it now because I haven't used
Speaker:Danny: it for like 20 plus years. and I always found it hard to take on like the guttural
Speaker:Danny: R's in German for example.
Speaker:Danny: For the languages that you mentioned Icelandic is there other languages you
Speaker:Danny: want to learn and what do you feel is the problem for want of a better word
Speaker:Danny: of retaining what you need to learn to speak that language?
Speaker:Hem: So I like you also did French and German at school. I actually took German as my GCSE language.
Speaker:Hem: I don't know how I passed with a B but i
Speaker:Hem: did and i never questioned it and never used
Speaker:Hem: german again um i would probably want to
Speaker:Hem: learn over the nice land i'd probably also want to learn german
Speaker:Hem: um because uh one of my closest friends lives out in germany and two of my other
Speaker:Hem: friends also live out in germany um and it's you know close-ish to english you
Speaker:Hem: know there's a lot of roots that we share and i've already have a basis in it
Speaker:Hem: um but i would probably also want to learn something like mandarin just for the sheer sake of like.
Speaker:Hem: There is probably a lot of advancement in technology and AI,
Speaker:Hem: for example, from China.
Speaker:Hem: And I just love to know what it actually means.
Speaker:Hem: I like being able to read and understand like the things that we're looking at.
Speaker:Hem: And translation is okay, but it's not quite the same as knowing.
Speaker:Hem: But I think my biggest issue with trying to retain any real sort of language
Speaker:Hem: skills is I don't really use it enough.
Speaker:Hem: Despite my partner, my husband being Icelandic, we don't speak a lot of Icelandic
Speaker:Hem: at home because we like to have actual conversations.
Speaker:Hem: And that's very difficult when you have a second language.
Speaker:Hem: Um so yeah we we speak primarily english here um and
Speaker:Hem: i am a homebody i don't actually spend a lot of time out of the house i work
Speaker:Hem: from home i'm a podcast is what i do um so yeah um
Speaker:Hem: icelandic is not like something that i use frequently
Speaker:Hem: or have to use frequently um but i also struggle with in english i'm very comfortable
Speaker:Hem: with like oh yeah so this is the tense and this is the order of the words and
Speaker:Hem: this is how this and how that happens but in icelandic the grammar rules are
Speaker:Hem: so incredibly different the sounds themselves they have lots of sounds that we just don't have,
Speaker:Hem: So they have like earth and if and like a bunch of e sounding things,
Speaker:Hem: stuff that is not natural to the English or Scottish tongue.
Speaker:Hem: There's a sound, which is a double L, which is a sound. It sounds like a beatboxing
Speaker:Hem: in the middle of a sentence and I'm just getting thrown every time.
Speaker:Hem: The words themselves, like if you were going to say like the potato,
Speaker:Hem: it's not like two separate words.
Speaker:Hem: It's the base word for potato with a different ending. and
Speaker:Hem: it all changes depending on like the like how the
Speaker:Hem: potato is being used if it's talking about the potato if
Speaker:Hem: you're talking to the potato whether the potato is male or female and i don't
Speaker:Hem: really remember any of this shit and i'm just like i can't it's just too much
Speaker:Hem: i'm i feel too old to start trying to figure this shit out um so yeah it's it's
Speaker:Hem: a lot of things and yeah like it just doesn't tend to stick um yeah well.
Speaker:Danny: No i mean that would throw me completely i i like straightforward forward things,
Speaker:Danny: you know, and so that would throw me in.
Speaker:Danny: It kind of reminds me a little bit about like the French language where it's,
Speaker:Danny: you know, gender based on the word and then, but it also kind of
Speaker:Danny: And I could be wrong, it's been a while. It's been a minute since I spoke French.
Speaker:Danny: But it also seems to follow like a going in reverse, you know,
Speaker:Danny: path where you're saying, instead of saying I walked down the road,
Speaker:Danny: it's almost like the road was what I walked down, you know.
Speaker:Danny: But that's, I mean, technically it makes sense, but it's just a really,
Speaker:Danny: really weird way of saying it. Is that the same for Icelandic then? Icelandic, sorry.
Speaker:Hem: Yeah, like, so you wouldn't say the potato. Technically what you say is potato the, but it's one word.
Speaker:Hem: And there are genders in Icelandic too. So there's male, female and non-gendered.
Speaker:Hem: And it isn't always obvious. It's very random on what is and what isn't whatever gender.
Speaker:Hem: And for example, you may learn the word for horse being hester,
Speaker:Hem: but there's 16 different ways
Speaker:Hem: of saying hester depending on the context in the sentence that it's in.
Speaker:Hem: And that just blows my mind. And for example, there are a couple of different
Speaker:Hem: ways of saying the number one. And you would just think it's one. It's not.
Speaker:Hem: There's loads of different ways of saying it. And I'm just like,
Speaker:Hem: I can't. But it feels like after they got to five, they couldn't be bothered with that rule anymore.
Speaker:Hem: So it's just like one. What would we do the numbers after that?
Speaker:Hem: It's a lot. And, you know, to be fair, most Icelanders, like,
Speaker:Hem: if you give it a shot, they're very receptive to it.
Speaker:Hem: But they're also very confused because it doesn't sound anything like Icelandic.
Speaker:Hem: It's very hard to, like, figure out what it is you're saying. So, yeah.
Speaker:Danny: Well, I think it's also, it sounds like I've heard some Icelandic people speak.
Speaker:Danny: Mainly on instagram reels there's a comedian on uh
Speaker:Danny: on instagram that shares some stuff um in iceland we don't do this if you want
Speaker:Danny: to do that and then he brings his little girl on now and again yeah yeah i've
Speaker:Danny: seen him yeah you've seen him yeah yeah but it feels like a very poetic flowy
Speaker:Danny: language which is nice um but i feel maybe sometimes you have to or maybe i'm
Speaker:Danny: wrong is it more guttural as opposed to flowy no
Speaker:Hem: It does it does i think it's kind of really good mixture of both like if you
Speaker:Hem: hear an icelander be angry holy crap is that guttural as hell um,
Speaker:Hem: But it is also kind of funny how much, for example, English has slipped into Icelandic.
Speaker:Hem: So my partner and I have a really good set of friends here that we play D&D with.
Speaker:Hem: And they're always very good to me. We do the whole session in English,
Speaker:Hem: but apparently they did anyway, so it's no biggie.
Speaker:Hem: But when we're just hanging out and we're at the cabin and we're playing role-playing
Speaker:Hem: games all weekend or whatever,
Speaker:Hem: I'll sometimes walk in and I'll just hear them talking in Icelandic and suddenly
Speaker:Hem: you'll just hear like, hell fuck it's really funny just to listen to you just
Speaker:Hem: get context clues based on the english with the english pronunciation thrown
Speaker:Hem: into the icelandic it's very funny.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah it's like um i don't know if it's like um i saw you know a few videos once
Speaker:Danny: where and then obviously i can't recall in a while if it was like um a chinese
Speaker:Danny: uh shopper or a um an asian shopper um where They were speaking in a normal
Speaker:Danny: language, their own language,
Speaker:Danny: but every now and again, an English phrase would come out, you know, and fit perfectly in.
Speaker:Danny: They wouldn't break paws or anything, but fit perfectly in and you knew,
Speaker:Danny: even though you didn't know what they were saying, leaning to that point and
Speaker:Danny: afterwards, you thought, well, now we've got a good idea, though.
Speaker:Danny: You know, so I guess it sounds similar to that, you know.
Speaker:Hem: Yeah, there's a lot of context clues in my existence.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah, no. Well, I'm with you. I would love to learn languages.
Speaker:Danny: Is I don't have the patience, especially at my age now.
Speaker:Danny: It's like, I've got other things to do that I could be doing in my life.
Speaker:Danny: I would love to learn a language so I could at least converse, you know,
Speaker:Danny: proficiently and respectfully in someone's language when I go visit their country
Speaker:Danny: as opposed to, you know, expecting almost them to speak English because,
Speaker:Danny: you know, I don't speak their language. So I'd love to.
Speaker:Danny: I don't think I can learn it. So I hear you and that'd be an awesome skill to
Speaker:Danny: achieve for sure. So, yep, I'm with you 100% on that one.
Speaker:Danny: The good thing with this podcast, though, it is in English, because that's the
Speaker:Danny: only language I speak, even though I'm Scottish. And I said at the start of
Speaker:Danny: this question that I learned English in school.
Speaker:Danny: I did not learn English in school. But the good thing about this podcast is in English.
Speaker:Danny: So it makes it super easy to change up questions and move on to question number four.
Speaker:Danny: And you mentioned this. I think you may have touched on this earlier,
Speaker:Danny: actually, either when we were chatting before your time in hot seat began or
Speaker:Danny: during one of your questions.
Speaker:Danny: But question number four, Ham. what is the first thing you notice when meeting someone new
Speaker:Hem: Uh oh blimey um probably their eyes.
Speaker:Danny: If they have any
Speaker:Hem: If they have any um because uh you know obviously i mentioned before like i
Speaker:Hem: i have a i very much uh wanted to be involved in in medicine right that was what i wanted to do,
Speaker:Hem: and part of that is because my eyes are so unbelievably screwed
Speaker:Hem: they have so many weird deviations to them so
Speaker:Hem: many oh my god i've never seen this before we need to write
Speaker:Hem: and study this down like many weird things wrong with my eyes and
Speaker:Hem: i think the way the eyes work is fascinating and it's
Speaker:Hem: incredibly inefficient there was
Speaker:Hem: no intelligent design i feel like it was accidental design when it
Speaker:Hem: came to the eyes they kind of work let's just move on um
Speaker:Hem: so like yeah like for me it's
Speaker:Hem: eyes also because like one of my eyes just is almost
Speaker:Hem: permanently lazy it'll just sit out to the left and i have to really
Speaker:Hem: focus to bring it back in um uh so
Speaker:Hem: yeah i tend to notice people's eyes a lot like um
Speaker:Hem: especially here in iceland most people's eyes are blue that's just the color
Speaker:Hem: most people's eyes are which is not a dominant eye color back in back home where
Speaker:Hem: brown is pretty much the dominant color um but it's pretty much blue here and
Speaker:Hem: i always just i tend to notice them a lot um especially if i notice a fellow
Speaker:Hem: glasses wearer i'm like yes you know my struggles uh,
Speaker:Hem: perpetually trying to keep these clean um so yeah i i pretty much tend to notice
Speaker:Hem: eyes um it's like one of the first things i notice about people no.
Speaker:Danny: First off as a fellow glasses wearer um i hear your struggles on keeping them
Speaker:Danny: clean um doesn't matter i've got some amazing spray cloths and everything and
Speaker:Danny: there's always a smudge left afterwards like come on seriously you know and
Speaker:Danny: you could put you could put them in glasses case not use them for a month and
Speaker:Danny: take them out they'll be smudged and you're thinking
Speaker:Hem: How did that happen it's like it's like the the inevitable law of the world
Speaker:Hem: you put your glasses down there is a smudge when you pick them up it doesn't
Speaker:Hem: matter if you only help them by the arm it's always there yep.
Speaker:Danny: Exactly so i feel your pain and i would give i would move hard enough and give
Speaker:Danny: up my first born for a good glasses cleaner or a good glasses of lens that stays
Speaker:Danny: how it was when you first got it.
Speaker:Danny: But I mean, they do say that eyes are the windows to a person's soul or the
Speaker:Danny: window to a person's soul.
Speaker:Danny: Do you find that when you first meet someone, you can tell by their eyes if
Speaker:Danny: you're going to be friends or not?
Speaker:Danny: Do they have that sort of, not trustworthiness, but can you tell what kind of person they are?
Speaker:Hem: A little bit. So I also grew up in a household that my brother has developmental issues.
Speaker:Hem: So I pick up fairly quickly if someone is someone who is okay with eye contact very, very quickly.
Speaker:Hem: Because not everyone is, right? it um it's something
Speaker:Hem: that i miss from doing uh role-playing games
Speaker:Hem: in person almost all my role playing games now are done
Speaker:Hem: through a screen and you can never look anyone in the eye um
Speaker:Hem: because either i'm looking at the camera and to
Speaker:Hem: you you can look in my eyes but i can't look in yours like that's we're never
Speaker:Hem: gonna meet and yeah like i always try to pay attention to like folks who like
Speaker:Hem: don't like obsessive like long eye contact or just don't do eye contact at all
Speaker:Hem: and yeah you can kind of tell from like laughter lines around their eyes how chill they are.
Speaker:Hem: I'm very much sure I know how many F's I have to give and I know where I'm going to put them.
Speaker:Hem: So you can tell sort of like, yeah, by the laughter lines, by like the way that
Speaker:Hem: they look around, how engaged they are.
Speaker:Hem: So yeah, I tend to learn a lot and I think...
Speaker:Hem: You know if i have to go on like from eye contact only
Speaker:Hem: do you think this person will be a friend like ah i don't know maybe
Speaker:Hem: it gives me a good
Speaker:Hem: clue on the kind of person that they are because yeah if they're always looking
Speaker:Hem: around they're either looking for an exit or they're just really encouraged
Speaker:Hem: by the world around them really interested in which case i'm like yes you and
Speaker:Hem: i birds of a feather um also if you are looking for the exit might also may
Speaker:Hem: be a bird of a feather because i'm not great in lots of people so we may be
Speaker:Hem: friends on the wall who knows well.
Speaker:Danny: That's it I mean, I'm an introvert, so I would never be great at parties, for example.
Speaker:Danny: So if you saw my eyes, I'd be looking for either the one single person I might
Speaker:Danny: know to have my safety net or just, OK, there's the exit. I'm going to have
Speaker:Danny: one drink and I'm out of here.
Speaker:Hem: Yeah, it is. I've been to those sort
Speaker:Hem: of parties, too, especially like work parties. We got forced to go to.
Speaker:Hem: It's like, I'm going to take my drink. I'm going to go against the wall and
Speaker:Hem: slowly inch my way out. And if I can get out without saying goodbye to anyone, this is a good day.
Speaker:Danny: What is it called? it's perfect for as we record this it's like St Patrick's
Speaker:Danny: Day today I think it's called The Irish Goodbye right where you just up and
Speaker:Danny: leave without telling anyone
Speaker:Hem: Yeah, funny enough, one of the guys he used to work to is Scottish and he used
Speaker:Hem: to Irish goodbye all the time.
Speaker:Danny: It must be a thing, like the Celtic connection, I feel.
Speaker:Danny: We either really get into it or we're out there super quick.
Speaker:Danny: But I do like the point that you made about holding eye contact and how comfortable
Speaker:Danny: people are with holding eye contact.
Speaker:Danny: There's a rock star kid in the UK that I've really gotten into the last 12 to
Speaker:Danny: 18 months called Youngblood.
Speaker:Danny: And any time you watch his videos, when he's meeting his fans or when people
Speaker:Danny: are interviewing him, etc., his eye contact is so on point. He never breaks contact.
Speaker:Danny: And loads of comments are saying we made the right person famous.
Speaker:Danny: This was, you know, young blood was definitely created by a woman,
Speaker:Danny: for example, because, you know, that's he's just so naturally engaged.
Speaker:Danny: So it was interesting you mentioned that point because I feel that was a perfect
Speaker:Danny: example of when I'm watching his videos, when you mentioned that,
Speaker:Danny: I was just thinking, yeah, that's Youngblood right there. So are you aware of Youngblood?
Speaker:Hem: No.
Speaker:Danny: If you want, no pressure at all, but if you want, just go on YouTube at some
Speaker:Danny: stage and just look out for some of these interviews or fan exchanges and you'll
Speaker:Danny: see and then you'll look at the comments afterwards.
Speaker:Danny: And it's all about eye contact and comfort and how he makes you.
Speaker:Danny: Like there's one there's one comment that I just it cracked me up and I still
Speaker:Danny: laugh thinking about it now so he was walking by and this
Speaker:Danny: sounded like a young lady maybe late teens early 20s by her voice and she just
Speaker:Danny: goes hey young blood and he turned around and gave her a look and says hey babe
Speaker:Danny: and the caption that came up says that time I got pregnant again by young blood
Speaker:Danny: just because the eye contact and the full 100%
Speaker:Danny: attention he gave her and it feels like that's what you know where you feel
Speaker:Danny: comfort to where you you really benefit you really value sort of people that
Speaker:Danny: that are super comfortable with eye contact
Speaker:Hem: Yeah i i appreciate eye contact especially
Speaker:Hem: for example when i'm running games um because like
Speaker:Hem: you know i i've run um i've run role-playing games
Speaker:Hem: at conventions for example and that is the one of
Speaker:Hem: the scariest things i've ever done in my life just turn up and five random strangers
Speaker:Hem: pick up characters and you're like hey you want to play a game um up
Speaker:Hem: to the point where i open my mouth i am very nervous i am trying not to throw
Speaker:Hem: up i feel really uncomfortable and then we start playing everything disappears
Speaker:Hem: and i really appreciate eye contact where we're playing because it tells me
Speaker:Hem: how the players are feeling and it's really difficult to pick that up across
Speaker:Hem: the camera for example um,
Speaker:Hem: if like we're playing and I can see like by your eyes that
Speaker:Hem: you're constantly looking at the door you're looking at your phone or you're looking at
Speaker:Hem: your watch you're probably not engaged um and
Speaker:Hem: I might need to do something to bring you in or because you're really bored um you
Speaker:Hem: can also tell a lot from like the body language like hey I don't think this
Speaker:Hem: person's into this scene so I'm just going to move on I'm not going to mention
Speaker:Hem: anything else just get out of the scene um so I kind of really miss like eye
Speaker:Hem: contact for that sort of stuff but I also get ironically when I am not my performing
Speaker:Hem: GM self I get really uncomfortable when people look at me too long,
Speaker:Hem: because I know my eye is over here and I know that they're trying to figure out which eye to look at,
Speaker:Hem: I'm like I'm sorry I can't do anything about this I'm sorry.
Speaker:Danny: What would be the advice would you just say look
Speaker:Danny: And I hope this doesn't come across straight. I apologise.
Speaker:Danny: Right now it does. Would you say look at the straight eye or look at the lazy
Speaker:Danny: eye? What would be the best?
Speaker:Hem: So for me, in my situation, it's always staring at the... It should be focusing
Speaker:Hem: on the eye that is looking forward.
Speaker:Hem: Because the other eye is kind of like over to the side.
Speaker:Hem: There's a bit of a gap sort of when my eye isn't.
Speaker:Hem: And it has really terrible vision on the one that's not straight.
Speaker:Hem: So I probably can't see anyway.
Speaker:Hem: Um so yeah for me at least it's always focusing on like the eye that's looking
Speaker:Hem: forward um like i spoke to a couple of friends about this and um i like asked
Speaker:Hem: them okay so when you're looking at someone like which eye do you focus on they're
Speaker:Hem: like we don't we look at both eyes i'm like you,
Speaker:Hem: okay.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah you're just saying that but yeah yeah it says no
Speaker:Danny: no that that i just like i was curious um i i i used to work with a person um
Speaker:Danny: that had a slight lazy eye and i was never quite sure should i look here should
Speaker:Danny: i look there so just curious i i never asked her idiot that i am but i was curious
Speaker:Danny: if you know there's a an etiquette so i guess it's the one that's looking forward as you mentioned
Speaker:Hem: Yeah because that usually tends to be the one that your brain
Speaker:Hem: is actually focusing through um so like
Speaker:Hem: um most folks when they look forward um
Speaker:Hem: their brain is taking two images and making it like
Speaker:Hem: one they have stereo vision so they can do death perception and stuff
Speaker:Hem: like that um so for the one it's like one uninterrupted field
Speaker:Hem: of vision um but for me it's my brain
Speaker:Hem: doesn't do that um it goes this eye gets to
Speaker:Hem: be in control right now so you will be looking through this
Speaker:Hem: one and everything else is just erroneous crap to it um so
Speaker:Hem: yeah like you could look in this one but you you'll be looking off center to
Speaker:Hem: me it's like i don't really mind um i've become very accustomed to it but i
Speaker:Hem: always feel like really uncomfortable when people are like excessive eye contact
Speaker:Hem: with I'm like I don't know what you're looking at and I feel really weird by
Speaker:Hem: my eyes so I'm just I'm just gonna look away now.
Speaker:Danny: Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate you answering that as well.
Speaker:Danny: And I appreciate your answers so far.
Speaker:Danny: Speaking of answers, Ham, it's that time where we've reached your final question.
Speaker:Danny: So are you ready to take up question number five?
Speaker:Hem: All right, bring it on.
Speaker:Danny: I think you've been doing pretty good here. So I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker:Danny: Question number five. What are some things that you shouldn't say when receiving a gift?
Speaker:Hem: Do you have the gift receipt?
Speaker:Hem: Generally, yeah. I think that may be one of the top things.
Speaker:Hem: Generally, any look sort of like, oh, this is not what I wanted. Be grateful. Stop it.
Speaker:Hem: Yeah, I think that's it, really.
Speaker:Danny: And have you ever done that I mean E I think the gift receipt is one of the
Speaker:Danny: greatest inventions ever oh yeah because now you don't know how much someone
Speaker:Danny: does or doesn't think of you you just go and exchange it if that's the case but have you
Speaker:Danny: ever like received a gift that you're thinking oh
Speaker:Danny: you've had to really put on a show so to speak
Speaker:Hem: Oh yeah absolutely um all the time,
Speaker:Hem: uh so yeah getting gifts that i um i'm
Speaker:Hem: not a very particularly um materialistic person
Speaker:Hem: um like i'd rather you just give me a cool compliment give
Speaker:Hem: me um a um an experience uh like you know something you know that makes memories
Speaker:Hem: tangible whatever it is um like i kind of prefer those gifts um but there has
Speaker:Hem: definitely been occasions where i've had gifts I'm just like oh wow this is
Speaker:Hem: awesome thanks I can probably use this and in the drawer it goes and it's never be seen again and.
Speaker:Danny: Then do you feel like sometimes if people are doing that do you think they can
Speaker:Danny: tell by the reaction do they say anything afterwards or is it just
Speaker:Hem: I think so I am not particularly good at lying directly to someone's face when I'm not acting acting,
Speaker:Hem: so like when I'm performing fine you'll probably never tell
Speaker:Hem: that I'm lying to you um but uh when it
Speaker:Hem: comes to real life stuff i i'm not very good at it um and
Speaker:Hem: i think yeah they can definitely tell so kind of
Speaker:Hem: like the rule generally here is that yeah because we're
Speaker:Hem: all of a certain age like getting surprise gifts unless you
Speaker:Hem: really know what you're getting the person um not really
Speaker:Hem: a massive thing anymore it's like okay so what do you want for christmas and
Speaker:Hem: then everyone figures it out everyone pays for it and then you get it at christmas
Speaker:Hem: and you're like woohoo this is awesome this is exactly what I wanted because
Speaker:Hem: I told you it was exactly what I wanted um yeah we don't have a lot of younglings
Speaker:Hem: in the family yet um so it's a
Speaker:Hem: very adult Christmas of like this is what I would like thank you very much.
Speaker:Danny: Well, that's it. You mentioned there about the age factor.
Speaker:Danny: And I feel once you get past a certain
Speaker:Danny: age, certainly with your family and friends, at least good friends,
Speaker:Danny: maybe work friends are a little bit different, but I feel they should kind of
Speaker:Danny: know you as a person in what you like, what you don't like, what you would like
Speaker:Danny: as a gift, what you wouldn't like as a gift.
Speaker:Danny: So I feel if someone came up and gave you a really crappy gift that's known
Speaker:Danny: you for 20 years, there's a slight issue there with that person's awareness
Speaker:Danny: of who you are as their friend and a person in general.
Speaker:Hem: Yeah, yeah. Like if I got my brother of my heart like an absolutely terrible
Speaker:Hem: gift, I know he'd be like, what are you doing? Is this a joke?
Speaker:Danny: Yeah, well, I know we've got two, I mean, I say two young kids, they're teens now.
Speaker:Danny: My son's going to be 16 in May and her daughter, she turned 14 this year.
Speaker:Danny: So they're well up there. But...
Speaker:Danny: We will get them gifts and you can tell when they're, you know,
Speaker:Danny: we think to be awesome as parents and as people that have raised these people
Speaker:Danny: since they were little nippers.
Speaker:Danny: So we kind of know what people they are. But then you can see,
Speaker:Danny: I really didn't want this dad or this mum. And you're thinking, really?
Speaker:Danny: You're grateful. Yep. Do you know
Speaker:Hem: What I got when I was your age? A clip on the back of the air and I was happy about it.
Speaker:Danny: Right, exactly. Oh, my grief. If I say that to my kids now, they'd be saying,
Speaker:Danny: oh, yeah, dad, back in your day. Was that when the police had pedal bikes and stuff, right?
Speaker:Hem: The old penny farming's going, right?
Speaker:Danny: Exactly. Well, in the UK as well, I remember police boxes, you know,
Speaker:Danny: they'd have police boxes in the UK.
Speaker:Danny: And if you got taken there by a policeman, not for any nefarious reasons,
Speaker:Danny: but if you got taken there, you knew you were in trouble and you were going
Speaker:Danny: to get out of a clipper on the ear and your parents were going to find out about it.
Speaker:Danny: You know, it doesn't happen now. And I feel maybe, maybe that should come back. Who knows?
Speaker:Danny: But no, no, I like that. And I feel like I say, I feel most people, you know,
Speaker:Danny: can hide it reasonably well if they get a gift they don't want but at the same
Speaker:Danny: time the person given the gift kind of should know if this is going to be a
Speaker:Danny: good worthy gift to that person anyway Yeah
Speaker:Hem: I do have the wonderful world of language barriers so I just need to smile.
Speaker:Danny: You can lean on that and then say something weird and Icelandic that makes no
Speaker:Danny: sense and you say well that's not what I said why did you hear that?
Speaker:Hem: Unfortunately Fortunately, unfortunately, my husband, very, very fluent in English.
Speaker:Hem: So are his brothers and sister. They're all very, very fluent in English, as is his dad.
Speaker:Hem: Other men with the family, not so much.
Speaker:Hem: I would always get ratted out.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah, small window of getting away with it. Yeah. Well, that's all good.
Speaker:Danny: And I feel that's a nice way to end your time on the random question. Hot seat, Ham.
Speaker:Danny: As is only fair, you've been in the hot seat for about 40, 45 minutes an hour.
Speaker:Danny: So it's only fair to hand over the question asking Baton to you.
Speaker:Hem: So I had a good think about this.
Speaker:Hem: I was like, what kind of random-ass question can I throw out here to you?
Speaker:Hem: And I settled on, who do you think you should call that you haven't called in a while?
Speaker:Hem: And why aren't you calling them after this show?
Speaker:Danny: Oh, double-ass question there.
Speaker:Danny: I guess, so me and my family, my immediate family, had a massive falling out.
Speaker:Danny: I'm going to say, what are we on, 2006, so you can tell how long it's been.
Speaker:Danny: Back in 2000 and I'm going to say three, so over 20 years and it was about
Speaker:Danny: So I used to live in the UK. I'm in Canada now, but I used to live in the UK.
Speaker:Danny: And I had a daughter with an ex-partner at that time. And I was living in England.
Speaker:Danny: So I'm a Scotsman, but I was living in England.
Speaker:Danny: My family, at least my mum and her husband, who's my stepdad,
Speaker:Danny: are very old school Scots, very racist against English people.
Speaker:Danny: You know, there's no good English person, according to them.
Speaker:Danny: So when my daughter was born, who was English, my mum was really pissed that
Speaker:Danny: I'd had a child with an English woman.
Speaker:Danny: And now had a half English daughter and we fell out massively and we didn't
Speaker:Danny: speak for so long and even now it's like very weird communications, if you like.
Speaker:Danny: So we don't speak anywhere near as much as a child and a parent should do.
Speaker:Danny: So maybe, and I'm going to say maybe and this is going to sound horrible,
Speaker:Danny: maybe paint me in a bad light and that's fair enough.
Speaker:Danny: Maybe my mum, but there's good reasons for that And I feel that's,
Speaker:Danny: you have that saying, right, where you can choose your friends,
Speaker:Danny: but you can't choose your family.
Speaker:Danny: And this kind of, that experience and that cause of that whole fallout is very
Speaker:Danny: much attuned to that phrase.
Speaker:Danny: So I would probably say probably my mum, but there's a reason for that.
Speaker:Hem: That's rough. And like parent-child relationships are, even at the best of times, can be very difficult.
Speaker:Hem: Like I had a huge falling
Speaker:Hem: out with my dad a couple of years after my mum passed and it was like all right
Speaker:Hem: do I do I try or do I not try and I eventually opted for trying but it took
Speaker:Hem: a lot of effort to get there it took a lot of effort to get back to the friendship
Speaker:Hem: that we had so I can very well understand it it is always a,
Speaker:Hem: It is always a choice to be like, no, I can't have that negativity.
Speaker:Hem: Because frankly put, we don't deserve it.
Speaker:Hem: Parents are meant to be supportive and screw them if they're not.
Speaker:Danny: Well, and that's the thing. I mean, okay, fine. You know, I'm your son.
Speaker:Danny: You can do all the crap that you want to me because that's what families do.
Speaker:Danny: You mentioned yourself. You can either get back to where you were or not.
Speaker:Danny: But because of that, she missed out on a grandchild. that she could have really
Speaker:Danny: adopted into her life, so to speak, and that will never happen.
Speaker:Danny: So it's just like, yeah. So it's a good question, something I've never been answered before.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah, I mean, maybe in the next few months I'll call, maybe not.
Speaker:Danny: It's just one of these things, unfortunately.
Speaker:Danny: And I appreciate that question, and I appreciate you sharing your own example there as well.
Speaker:Danny: What I also appreciate, Em, is you appearing on five random questions today.
Speaker:Danny: So for anybody, you've got a lot going on in your life. awesome podcast
Speaker:Danny: awesome you know beluga whale sanctuary stuff voice acting for people that want
Speaker:Danny: to know more about you your podcast your role playing uh what else you've got
Speaker:Danny: going on your voice acting work etc where's the best place to either check out
Speaker:Danny: your podcast and or all the things that you're doing too
Speaker:Hem: The best place would be to go to blighthouse.studio.
Speaker:Hem: That's where all of our in-house Blighthouse Studio podcasts are kind of linked
Speaker:Hem: to or housed in certain cases.
Speaker:Hem: We have a couple of actual plays, The Lucky Die, which is Neen Dee,
Speaker:Hem: and we have The Sprouting, which is called A Cthulhu.
Speaker:Hem: We have a talk show called Four Top Threes, which is why I reached out in the
Speaker:Hem: first place to chat to you, because anything with numbers in the title as a
Speaker:Hem: talk show, I should be reaching out to and saying hi.
Speaker:Hem: And that's hosted on that website but I also have something called In the Wild,
Speaker:Hem: because we're a group of like essentially six of us,
Speaker:Hem: and if we appear somewhere else or if we're in a project somewhere else I always
Speaker:Hem: put a link in our In the Wild section so you can find all the things that we
Speaker:Hem: do outside of Black House Studio because I love my friends and I want people
Speaker:Hem: to find the stuff they're working on.
Speaker:Danny: Excellent and that is very noble of you what a good friend does so I will be
Speaker:Danny: sure to leave the links to that in the show notes so if you're listening to
Speaker:Danny: this on your favourite podcast app or on the website make sure to check out
Speaker:Danny: the episode show notes and all the links to that will be there to check out
Speaker:Danny: Hem and all the good stuff our friends are doing too so again Hem thank you
Speaker:Danny: for appearing on 5 Random Questions
Speaker:Hem: Thank you so much for being an excellent host.
Speaker:Danny: Thanks for listening to 5 Random Questions and if this was your first time here
Speaker:Danny: feel free to hit follow and check out past episodes if you enjoyed this week's
Speaker:Danny: episode I'd love for you to leave a review on the app you're currently listening
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Speaker:Danny: this way it's very much appreciated until the next time, keep asking those questions
