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Welcome to I’m Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today, a conversational, culture-savvy podcast for folks trying to make sense of a world that has gone sideways. We’re here to unpack the issues that boggle our minds, all rooted in a little history, a little culture, a little humor, a little group therapy, and a little humility.
Chris Bevolo (00:02.446)
Hey, welcome everybody to episode 13 of I'm not even supposed to be here today. Conversational cultural savvy podcast for folks trying to make sense of a world that has gone blippity blue. We're here to unpack the issues that bother our minds all rooted in a little history, a little culture, a little humor, a little group therapy and a little humility. am Chris Bevolo owner of Bearing 287.
an organization fighting the good fight to make the world a better place for all, and the sponsor of this show. I'm joined as always by my co-host, Des, who is a social impact comm strategist by day, and who spends her nights remixing history to make sense of the present. Hello, Des.
Good morrow, Christopher. How goes it?
This episode is gonna flow like the spring river that's broken free of the ice and is cascading down through the mountain. I feel like a free flow episode is ahead of us.
blessings. Spring as well.
Chris Bevolo (01:10.286)
Spring, spring has sprung. Spring has sprung. We are going to, in the spirit of that, that wasn't even an intentional segue, but wow. See when you're just, when everybody's on the same page, what happens. Spring has sprung, so what does that mean when you get the hell outside? This episode is gonna be all about saying screw you technology, screw you virtual world. We're going back to the analog, we're going back to in real life.
We're gonna have a lot of fun talking about that. But first, shall we talk about our new little TV? To TV adventure that we share. I don't know anything about your opinions on this. All I know is that you've said that you've watched it and that is DTF St. Louis. So why don't you, why don't you give me your perspective on DTF St. Louis. By the way, for people don't know that's on Sundays on HBO. (Not sponsored)
Yeah.
Desiree Ep13 (01:59.062)
yeah.
Desiree Ep13 (02:08.13)
Yeah, it's just, I mean, to me it's that new kind of windy show of like, what does it all mean? Where like, who did what? Like, what was the catalyst? It's almost like a Tarantino film where like you introduce stuff kind of out of order and then at the end it all kind of makes sense. That's what it kind of feels like. We hope, right, that it all makes sense.
Yeah.
We hope. We hope it's gonna make sense. I find it, when it started, I thought it would just be a dark comedy, a dark comedy slash like a murder mystery. And as the episodes have gone forward, I've been pleasantly surprised each episode because it really gets a little deeper into the humans involved.
And each episode, maybe there's a little bit perspective, you're like, maybe it's that person. But it's not like an over the top kind of crime thing that way. It's just, it's very subtle. And you also come to be really, really empathetic with these characters. Nearly all of them, I find. They're weird.
Yeah, yeah, like everyone has kind of their, like, I don't, I don't know if I want to call it a flaw, but I mean, in some ways it's like, that was kind of a flawed decision. but then you kind of learn like, was for a reason, but you're like, so yeah, let's, let's see how that all shakes up, shakes out.
Chris Bevolo (03:35.95)
I will give some highlights, probably more frontal male nudity than any other show that I've seen. Like it just ponders that stuff. Not necessarily, I mean, I don't know that either one of us appreciate that, Des, but I'm not sure anybody would appreciate it to be honest, because it's not attractive. Is that fair?
I mean, is, yeah, but is it an HBO show if there's not full frontal, full male frontal? Like, is it even an HBO show?
but they really stay on it like for a long time to the point that it's not even uncomfortable. It's just like, there's that again. We're gonna see that again. So that's cool about it. Linda Cardellini is one of the main characters. She's super fascinating. Jason Bateman. I feel like I'm in Jason Bateman world because we just plowed through Black Rabbit, which is actually really good. And he's amazing in it.
He's really good at this. He's very soft spoken in this. It's just a really weird, the motto that has been used over and over in the show is "everybody looks normal from across the street." So it's kind of like, you don't really know what's going on in your little St. Louis suburb.
True true true.
Chris Bevolo (05:01.314)
So would we give it a recommendation to watch?
Yeah, it's one of those shows where like you kind of like watch it in the moment. Like, I don't know if people are really talking about it. Like, I don't think I've seen anything. Yeah, it's an interesting watch. I originally thought it was going to be one of those like, you know, can't miss TV where you talk about it over the, almost said wine cooler over the water cooler at work. But you know, who's doing that anymore? So yeah, I'd recommend it just for a twist or turn. I might.
I my opinion at the end, but who knows.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a good watch, but it's not for everybody. I'm sure there'll be some people are like, what the F is this? Like this.
Chris Bevolo (05:46.144)
not for me. So, but it's good. We like it. Okay. So there's your recommendation. Let's talk about the world and virtual and digital and in real life. And again, it sounds like we're making this up because we say this like every other episode. We pick the theme for the next episode. So we always record this. We try to on a Monday, get it out to you on a Wednesday. We usually pick the theme somewhere in the prior week. So
For example, we picked the theme for this last Wednesday. And then the world, again, just hears us manifesting and aligns to this. last Wednesday, like, let's see, we've been kind of flirting around the idea of breaking free of our phones and moving off technology. Let's really dive into this cool idea of taking back the analog and taking it back in real life. And then sure enough, I think this was
Thursday? Thursday or Friday? I'm gonna go ahead and read this, because it's worth reading, because it feels like about time. So March 25th, when was that? Wednesday? Thursday? Thursday? What was Thursday? I don't know. March 25th, a Los Angeles jury delivered a landmark verdict that safety advocates have been waiting for for a long time. Meta and YouTube were found negligent in the design and operation of their platforms.
Concluding that Instagram Facebook and YouTube were quote "deliberately built to be addictive." Jury awarded a plaintiff who was a 20 year old woman six million dollars in damages; now she asked for a billion so she didn't get nearly that but but the stories I've read have talked about look. It's not about the money. It's about the actual This is just the first there's like an avalanche of these things. So You know one of these
showing up as guilty is, and I don't know if it's guilty because I think it might not have been in criminal court, it might have been the other thing, which I can't think off the top of my head. Anyway, the story that I'm reading from is from NPR. It goes on to talk about how, you know, there are internal documents that are really revealing. One document said, quote, "if we want to win big with teens, we have to bring them as tweens." Another
Desiree Ep13 (08:05.858)
.
Chris Bevolo (08:11.16)
Internal documents show that 11 year olds were four times as likely to keep returning to Instagram compared to competing apps, even though the platform's minimum age was 13. Like Mark Zuckerberg goes straight to hell. I'm sorry, that guy is, he's just evil. He's evil, he knows this is evil. And the final thing was folks are really comparing this to big text, big tobacco moment. And I think that that's really apropos.
Scott Galloway, again, I heard him in reference saying, know, usually this stuff is put right, but it can take a long, long time. Like it took us 30 years from the first kind of accusations that tobacco and nicotine were addictive to get all the way to that one memorable moment where all those tobacco executives raised their right hand in front of Congress and lied through their teeth.
and basically lost all that money, lost those lawsuits. And now here we are, right? Unfortunately, we've lost a generation. We've, mean, a generation is going to be probably my kids and a little younger who grew up with this with no, you know, everybody's like, yeah, sure, this is great. So that all happened, Des, proof, proof in the pudding. And then,
Again, karma is just looking down on it. I don't know if you had this experience, but this weekend, it was so ironic because we had friends in town, and when they come in town, we always go out and do things. So we don't just sit around and look at our phones. Sometimes we go golfing. This time it was all of us, so men, women, golfers on golfers, and we went to the Mall of America, because they're from out of state. They love to go to the Mall of America. And I was there for five minutes.
and the in real life trend smacked me in the face. First of all, place was packed. This is a beautiful, beautiful Sunday. It's like 65 here and the place looked like Thanksgiving, like Black Friday, like just packed. So people are out. They're out of their homes, they're off their phones, they're out and about in a mall. And then the first place we go is Urban Outfitters and right in the front,
Chris Bevolo (10:28.846)
The first thing I noticed was a stand of Kodak cameras, like the old Insta, Insta, what are they called? Insta cams or whatever, because Gen Z loves that. They love the camera, which we'll get to in a little bit. the trend of cameras is picking up, not phone cameras, actual cameras, just cameras. That's growing. And then right behind that, and you probably, most people know this about Urban Outfitters, massive display of records.
vinyl records. And I know that my middle daughter is huge in the vinyl and vinyl continues to grow. So right away within five minutes, I'm like, look at this. Look at this. Everybody is wants to get away from their phones and their technology, Des. Do you have anything like that in the last few days that hit you?
RIP
Desiree Ep13 (11:19.298)
Yeah.
Desiree Ep13 (11:22.958)
nothing like that. I mean, I guess I've noticed those items at urban outfitters through the years, but maybe the way it was set up was like more in your face. but I, what's been kind of circulating on my feeds was, is, or what I've been thinking about honestly, is getting back to community. So there has been for the last, it feels like several years, there's been this conversation around the, the loss of third places. Like what are.
Where do people go? What do they do? Yada, yada, yada. And I will say I've been kind of on the hunt for probably the past, God, I think it's been like eight years at this point where I've been kind of on the hunt to find my tribe, my crew again. It doesn't help that I've been like a nomad for like four of those years. That does not help at all.
but there's something about that idea of like this place that I go to, that that's where my friends are, that have been different iterations of that throughout life. So yeah, essentially that's what we're kind of talking about is like, A: getting off our devices, like the obsession that we've had, you know, for the past like decade, 20, almost 20 years, but since the iPhone came out and social media, terrible, AI is terrible, what have you.
And so I started thinking more about like, okay, God, how did we make friends back in the day? How do we meet people? where do we go? Because we're being fed in through the algorithm of like, you need to like find your third places. then there's also like all of these different groups and ways for people to connect that are popping up. But to your point around us, like, okay, there's spring, know, it's warming back up. We can get back outside, especially for those of us that have been in colder climates.
and that there's also some life changes with us, right? Like you have more free time. So you're looking to now you're like, well, what do I even do with my day? My evenings and then to me, I am moving to a new city and mostly for that reason of like the opportunity for community. there's like all of these different things that I've been kind of popping by, but I'm gonna back up, think back to the last time that you just,
Chris Bevolo (13:20.49)
Okay.
Desiree Ep13 (13:42.264)
hung out with your friends, hung like just how easily you found community. what, what was some of your earlier iterations? Like for me, it was, I'll say in high school and college, it was going to the coffee shop. Like that was essentially was the third place. You're going to run into everybody from campus. So like someone's going to roll through or in the community or what have you. But that was a spot. Then as I got a little older and moved to Vegas,
there was a restaurant that was downtown. It was like a restaurant's kind of bar, but essentially like the bar kind of replaces that coffee shop. But now I find myself like, God, where do I even go? So would love to hear examples from you of like, where have been those places where you just would go, maybe this was like pre-marriage life back in the day, maybe it was college or even high school, but where did you go?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean, it's so funny to think back to that because you'd never thought of it this way. You never thought like, I'm going to go find community or I'm going to go and you just did it. It was just the way it was because it was pre-internet, right? So college and the beginning of my career was pre-internet. Right. I was around and I was around in the, in the dark ages. Right. the first thing that pops to mind, it were sports leagues and sports clubs. So, I mean,
Mm-hmm.
Chris Bevolo (15:03.946)
I played sports when I was in high school, but when I was in college, I'm not a college athlete or anything, but basketball all the time. Joined basketball leagues, would always go play pickup, pickup basketball at the gym all the time. And a lot of times that was not with friends. It was not with my buddies. When in high school and before then it was always a group of us. We would always go to the local gyms and play. But in college, we were all spread over the place. And so I'd go to the gym.
like two or three times a week and just hang out with people there. That is a perfect example of just like that's, those are my people, right? It's interesting to me because I just saw a TikTok recently, maybe we talked about this, where there was a 20-something woman and she was like all conspiratorial. She's like, hey women, have you ever heard of this thing called pick up basketball? Do you know that guys get together and they just meet in a random gym with random other men and they just
play and they follow the rules and they make teams and they just do this on their own. And she was just flabbergasted. So that's the best example I have. But there are others. There are clubs, a lot that reminds me of college and joining clubs. And trivia night used to do trivia night all the time. And then even up until even up until COVID to bring it a little more recently, we had a board game night.
Yeah. .
And we had two of them going because when I turned a certain age, and I'm not gonna repeat out loud, I was like, okay, I'm gonna go back to the things that bring me joy. And one of them was playing games with people. So we had a serious group of me and three other people, my daughter and two really close friends. And for 18 months, we got together and played once a month, a really serious board game. And then we had another one that was couples.
Desiree Ep13 (16:50.606)
The bars, of course.
And that was all kinds of party games, right? And then that, of course, COVID put a stake in that. But those are all things that, that from college all the way up until more recently was where I would find... that and the bars. Of course, there was always, there was always, there was always the bars.
Okay, so COVID. So did essentially like obviously everything halted because you know, we were all at home quarantining and all that stuff. But have you found that any of that stuff has picked back up at all?
I think it has, Des. You know, I remember writing about COVID and one of the trends we saw happening that we projected might stick around for a while was something we called smaller life spheres. people just, not only did they have to stay in their homes, but even coming out of COVID, people were less comfortable traveling. They were less comfortable, you know, like, I'm not gonna go across town for dinner. I'm just gonna find something close by.
Cause it was just all, were all just kind of like, I don't know, sticking to our home base. I feel like that has taken a long time. mean, COVID was over, well, still with us, but like in a serious way, it's been three years now, three or four years since like, and certainly since 2020, it's been five or six years, right? And so I think it's taken that long. I think that's part of what's driving people to say like,
Desiree Ep13 (18:15.054)
Thank you.
Chris Bevolo (18:28.654)
I need to get away from my house. I need to get away from my phone. I need to get out there where people are. The only other thing I'm going to throw in here as a variable is age. And I don't know if that's right or not. I just know that for me and many others that I know up until the point of my late twenties, I went out all the time. Clubs, sport, I was on softball, basketball, golf, like all of that stuff.
Okay.
And then for a lot of people, you get to a point where you're like, you mean if I don't go out Friday night, I can enjoy my entire Saturday? I don't sleep in till noon? And you start calming down. And then some people have kids and that changes everything. And so I know that as you get older, folks tend to kind of nest more and they kind of stick more to home. I think in general, I don't think that's true of everybody. So I'm not trying to paint a broad picture.
Yeah.
But I try to separate for myself how much of this is just history and technology and COVID and how much of it is me going bald and having a gray beard. I think there's a little of that in there to be fair, but it's still, I still want to get out there and we'll talk about what we're going to do and what we are doing. But yeah, what about you?
Desiree Ep13 (19:47.612)
Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely, I mean, age is a factor, life stage, lifestyle, your identity. Yeah, a lot of those play a factor in this. And for me, I've definitely slowed down, but like I'm always looking for the party. But to your...
to your point around the factor of age. Yeah, and like as I'm, you know, I'm in my early forties now and I'm like, I didn't think I would know. I'm I'm gonna still be, I'm noticing a difference now. So no, I'm not trying to get out as much as I used to. But also it takes a little bit more effort than like when you have a community. So kind of rolling back to the COVID time where essentially, you know,
We all change a little bit. we, you we hear about like, I got a little bit weird or we went insular and I like, find myself, went way insular. So pre-COVID, I had some pretty steady things that I did. You know, outside of work, I would, you know, after work, I'd go to the gym. And then usually on a Wednesday, I met up with one particular friend. We always did like a, just a catch up after work. Like, okay, how, you know, how's everything going? What's, you know, what's the update on this or status of that?
Thursday there was a huge group of friends that would always just meet up in a restaurant and in fact it started out as two separate groups This was in a smaller town. This is like a college town and so I had like my crew of folks. We would always meet up at this restaurant I kind of hang out like it was just kind of like this known thing like just show up after five
And then we noticed this other group of folks that we didn't really know. Maybe there were some faces we recognized, but we didn't know them. And we noticed that they were also showing up at the same place on Thursday nights. And so eventually, you know, the groups ended up merging and then it just became this huge like super group. And so it was just like so much fun, like pop in because you never know who is going to show up. And also, especially with it being a smaller town.
Desiree Ep13 (21:56.541)
And you like, you know the owner, you know the chef, you know, the, you know, the bartender. So like everybody's friends and it was a really unique experience of like, you walk into this place and like, you kind of bounce around different tables and you sit down, you go and say hi, and you join the table, which like in a normal place, like in a city, like you don't do that. There isn't like all of this commotion.
and then like on Friday nights, we always met up at this, one pub. would meet some folks there and then I had dinner standing dinner date with these other group of friends. And then after that, I knew that I can meet this like third group of folks. And so that was great. And then for me, my Saturday and Sunday was like, I'm laying low. Like my social battery was filled during the week. cut to moving to a larger city though. And that got a lot harder to do. Like I've made friends. would meet, you know, meet people out and about.
Mm. Thank
but it was really hard to really get that organic kind of meetup thing going happening again because there's so many different options. There was so many different, this was Nashville, it's poppin', there was a new restaurant opening every week, feels like, and everyone lives in different neighborhoods, so it's a little harder. So I started thinking about this idea of proximity. And so I'm curious for you, like,
Again, emphasis on our proximity with your crew, with folks that you've met up with, the game nights, were they a part of your, did they live nearby, were they neighbors? Did you know them through like other things? Like how, how, how, what role did proximity play for you or didn't play for you?
Chris Bevolo (23:34.895)
I mean, obviously back in high school, I was in a smaller town. So it was just a smaller, I mean, it wasn't super small Ames, Iowa, which is like 30, well, I guess it's like 60,000 people. So not a small town, but, but everybody in high school, was one high school, for example. So we'll count that in college, it was almost universally through college, though I remember I had spheres. I had like my college dorm and then
out of my first year in the dorms, a friend set that was my college friends. I still had my high school friends, the bulk of which were still in Ames, some going to college, some not, but they weren't in my college friend set. Then I my work friends sphere So I worked at a place called Drugtown, people laugh, that's an actual place. So that was this sphere of friends. So it really depended on like where I knew the people from.
. Okay.
Once I moved to the Twin Cities though, what kept me in those things I was talking about before, sports leagues and trivia and that kind of thing, was the lingering effect of those spheres So like the college friends, a lot of them were up in the Twin Cities. High school friends, almost all of my high school friends that I was close to gravitated to the Twin Cities. So that's how I got involved in the softball leagues and stuff like that.
But then that kind of petered again as everybody started having kids and couldn't do all the things. And then it became neighborhood before, I mean, let's be honest, before Trump. Once Trump hit, the neighborhood stuff really started to fall apart. Sadly, it just did. Like it survived maybe the first term, barely, but then it just, after the first term, it just fell apart.
Chris Bevolo (25:28.994)
because there was groups of people in our neighborhood that would get together on the regular and it was a mix of politics. And like in the good old days, people didn't give a shit about that. And then it got to a point where one group did and then it was like, this is awkward. And so it just stopped. So politics stopped a lot of that. And so, and now it's just, you know, we're out in a suburb, Des. I mean, one of the things that I'm really looking forward to is
Yeah.
Desiree Ep13 (25:52.253)
Mm-hmm.
As I think I've spoken about, have a place up in a little, outside a little town in the northernmost town of Wisconsin called Cornucopia. And that is a community. Like it's a community known of artists, of kind of bohemian, hipster people. And we've met a lot of them and I can't wait to be up there more and be a part of that community where you do walk into a bar and everybody knows each other. I really want that. We tried to do that here and the
.
Chris Bevolo (26:25.742)
My suburb, Tonya and I are like, let's make this our hometown bar. And it just didn't stick. But once we get up there, that's gonna stick. And we have that little bit in the town that she's from that's nearby because she grew up there. So her family and friends are already there. But I can't wait to get to that. I really can't wait to get back to kind of small town feel. Not that I'm against a big city, but if you want community, it's easier to your point.
Yeah. So when you mentioned suburbs, right, that was one of the moments that kind of broke this idea of like how we're kind of civically engaged or engage with each other as a community, because like you're so separate. So there's this book.
Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, who is a, like a researcher professor on this whole thing. He put out a book like decades ago, I think it was like what the seventies eighties, something like that, that was talking about the kind of the decline of civic engagement where he's talking about how, like, you know, people used to bowling alone, people used to show up, you know, bowling alleys were like a third place. You know, people were involved with their churches, with their different civic groups and all that kind of stuff.
Right.
but then if you're looking at the history, you know, these different peak moments when we first were kind of growing as a country, you know, most people were outside of the South and like the crazy like exploration of the West. But if you're looking at the original part of the country where groups of people were more constant, closely concentrated together that that idea of walking outside your door, seeing people, seeing your neighbors, go to the store, go to the cafe, what have you.
Desiree Ep13 (28:08.235)
It was, it all just kind of happened organically and naturally, right? Because you're all like right there lumped together on top of each other, especially if you're in the cities. But then the invention of the suburbs where everything got sprawled and spread out, you're in your little like mini like subdivision or whatever, your little cookie cutter. I mean, I wasn't. But you lose that proximity to like that closeness. Like as a kid, you might still have it because you go outside to play. But as an adult,
You lose quite a bit of that unless you really make that effort to make connections with your neighbors or what have you. And so I'm seeing this cycle of all of this where then as gentrification was becoming more of a thing and cities were being revitalized, young folks, artists, queer folks were moving back to the central cores of cities and finding community, making more vibrant, robust. And then of course,
capitalists, finance bros, people with money, come in and they ruin it with their Whole Foods and all that kind of stuff. But there was something that I had predicted. This was, I'm trying to think if this, this was pre-Trump, but it was pretty close before that where I was like, you know, people are now being priced out from, you know, from gentrification, folks that really created the vibrancy of these communities. They're being priced out. And so where do they go? And I noticed a trend of folks, so this was in Tennessee.
And I'll notice a trend of folks moving to these smaller communities. I'm talking about like counties, like, know, the place by the- you call it like such and such county, right? And I noticed that a lot of folks like business owners and folks that were really like big in creating a lot of, you know, what Nashville is today, but like more like, so like the Tomato Art festival, like that's like one of the biggest favorite, you know, festivals in Nashville. One of the creators of that, you know, she,
Right.
Desiree Ep13 (30:01.525)
or her husband, ended up moving to the small town in Cannon County, know, it's Woodbury. And I noticed a lot of different folks, like professors who were reloc-, who weren't teaching anymore, maybe they were retiring, whatever, what have you. And I noticed this trend of people. So to your point around like you're finding more community and connection in Cornucopia and these smaller towns that are filled and vibrant with arts and what have you, I'm like, I think that's kind of the next tip. I'm not saying you can't get that in larger cities.
you
Desiree Ep13 (30:28.097)
But it's a little harder, but then also like a lot of folks have been in the suburbs, like forget it. You're kind of cut off because otherwise, especially if you have kids all your days, your evenings are spent as like trucking around whatever kids sport or whatever they were involved in, like, you know, trucking them around to that. And then maybe you had like some group play dates or your church or what have you, but everything was pretty secular. anyways, now there's like all of this conversation around how do we get back to community?
And I've seen so many different, I'm curious from your algorithm, are you seeing any examples of where there's different businesses or entrepreneurial opportunities that people are coming up with that are about bringing people together again?
I don't see that much of my algorithm, but I'm not seeking it out now that we're talking about it, my phone sitting there guaranteed because I was literally researching the subject and I sent you this, Des, but I happened to have a spare moment and I flipped on TikTok and there was a TikTok about Chick-fil-A and Chick-fil-A apparently has this thing where if you go into their stores,
Mm-hmm, your guess.
Chris Bevolo (31:41.24)
They have a coop. If you ask for a coop, they'll take all your phones and put them in a coop. And so they're cooped up and then chicken coop, cooped up, get it? And then you sit and you eat with your peoples without your phones. And so they're trying to encourage this, right? So that's the only example I have that comes to mind. I don't know if...
it.
Chris Bevolo (32:05.868)
I mean, everybody knows the suburbs have always been kind of branded as soulless. And I think there's a lot of fairness in that. I've been fortunate or smart in that two of the three houses I've owned. Well, that's not true. I guess the first house I owned was a townhome. But the three houses I've owned, real houses, two of them have been cul-de-sacs. And that's a different beast. Because a cul-de-sac is like a little enclosed thing, or if you live in a circle. But you can go back and look at people, you know, like,
there's no front porches anymore in suburbs and now they're starting to come back. Like that's probably a decade or two where people are starting to build those. It's just that thing where everybody's, everybody's, you're not out and about, right? But I will say even in our suburb, we have people that have dinner clubs, poker clubs. We have events in our cul-de-sac that are annual events, Christmas party, last day of school breakfast. There's stuff like that that we do.
. .
But it is few and far between. It's not the regular like Friday night get together. We had that one at my first house that was a cul-de-sac. We did stuff with neighbors all the time. But you could really tell the difference with the middle house that I had in between the two cul-de-sacs. We knew our next door neighbor, we knew the neighbor across the street. And I don't even know who the diagonal neighbor was.
Yeah.
Chris Bevolo (33:33.1)
I don't know who the neighbor over here across that street was, and I barely knew the diagonal neighbor over there. So it is much harder, I think, in that environment. But I can't say that my algorithms show it. I do think it's funny, I was gonna quote this, speaking of algorithms, because in some of the research we did, you see all the ways that people are...
trying to get back to analog. And where's this quote? think it's hilarious because gosh, where is it? Now I've lost it, of course. Hold on, bear with me. It's really good because the irony just made me laugh out loud. But now, of course, I can't find it. It was about how
gosh. You know, like searches, hashtags. It was about hashtags for analogs and how they're just skyrocketing. And I'm like, it's funny that the way that people get to this content is through their phones. here it is. "On TikTok and Instagram, hashtags like #analog #analoglife, #analoghobbies have generated millions of views as young people document their transition from screen dominated lives to tactile present moment.
Desiree Ep13 (34:41.837)
still.
Chris Bevolo (34:56.312)
pursuits." So there's something in that that's nefarious. Like, I don't know, maybe it's a good thing that the hashtag and the virtual is a portal to it. But it's sad that it's being cited as successful because there's millions of people posting online about it. This is something that's like, wait a second, cognitive dissonance should be posting online if it's analog.
Yeah.
Desiree Ep13 (35:18.795)
Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, that's that is interesting. I mean, I mean, that's the way we're going to get info now. It's like that's just how we're to get the invites. But what I'm seeing on my algorithm is and the first one I ever saw, this was two years ago, was called Time Left. And the concept is called like dinner with strangers where they exist in major cities. I think they've really grown over the past two years or.
probably in every major market in the US. But the concept is you join this app, this group, you sign up, you just kind of give them a few vitals about like maybe your neighborhood or what you do for work or your interests. And then they use their algorithm to pair you with a group of total of eight to meet for dinner. So eight strangers. So you meet up, it's every Tuesday and you get your texts, a, no, they're all different.
Same group? OK. OK.
Yeah. So each Tuesday, you don't have to do it every single Tuesday. It's more like when you're available. But the idea is that you meet up, there's a restaurant chosen, you sit down with eight total, like seven other total strangers and you just like, meet people. So it's a way to meet friends and kind of naturally more naturally push us together in a world where we don't have that automatically anymore. and then I've seen other groups. was another one that I had joined, that's called.
God, I actually just had to end it. But anyways, there's several different versions of these groups where there, it's again, an app that brings you together. Just recently, there's one for gay folks to meet up for dinner on Thursdays, major cities. And so I'm seeing all of this. I'm also seeing postings because I spend, because of my no madness.
Chris Bevolo (37:07.15)
I have this Finsta, this fake Insta account where I just follow different things for each city of like restaurants, events, groups, bands, like music venues, films, just to see like, okay, what's going on? What can I go check out maybe this weekend or something like that? And I've noticed an uptick in the silent book readings. Like, so people meeting up to just like read together.
I've seen these lectures at a bar where you'll, sometimes they're maybe a professor in the area that gives a lecture on something and you come and it's usually at a brewery or something like that. I've seen other dating versions where you create a PowerPoint, let's say you have a friend that's single, so you create a PowerPoint about how they're wonderful to kind of push them out there, but all of these different little ways.
So I was just curious if you've seen any other examples like that, or even just like run across a list.
Yeah, I mean, well, my wife, Tonya does a book club. She's done a book club for years, an actual book club, right? So they get together. And I think that's, they stuck through the virtual versions of that. I'm sure they didn't meet during COVID, but I mean, that's a perfect example. And I do see that.
Chris Bevolo (38:31.438)
The other thing that I have done a couple times in the last 10 years, but I really vowed to do more is pick up your or somehow subscribe to your local community education catalog. So if, you know, like usually it's a school district that'll send it out and it would be like community education and that thing's full of stuff, right?
It's not like, go get your degree and whatever. It's here's a class on how to fix your engine. Here's a chess club. It has clubs in there. So it's a great way to find a group of people that have a shared interest and just try it out. You don't have to commit to anything big. But it's always fun for me to pick that up and look through it and go, my gosh, look at that. So the thing that I have to find and I vowed to find it is
I love strategic board games. told you like we had this thing and then it kind of disbanded. Those that happens all the time. It happens all the time in Minneapolis, game nights, board game nights. So people just show up and they play these games. They might play Magic: The Gathering, they might play whatever. I don't know that there's any of that near me, because I'm out in the suburbs. But that's a perfect example. You'll find those in your community education thing or just go online and find them.
.
That's the kind of thing that I'm looking for. The thing that's interesting to me is I'm so scared, Des. I'm scared of the dinner with strangers. I just, you gotta admit your own flaws, right? All the other things we're talking about, there's a point to the gathering. Book club, it's to read the book. Sports, it's to play a sport. Or you might go to a- might join a bowling league or a golf league. It doesn't have to be competitive. It could just be,
Desiree Ep13 (40:11.04)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Bevolo (40:26.04)
for fun, right? Trivia nights to play trivia, game nights for game night. Man, would I be worried about dinner night because
The whole point of dinner night is just to have a discussion. And how do you have a discussion these days without touching the world that lives around us? And as soon as you touch that world, like you could be touching the third rail, inadvertently or vertently. Some people will do it like intentionally, right? And if you're the way things are today, if you're paired up with somebody who's just like vehement,
Yeah.
Desiree Ep13 (41:04.941)
Mm-hmm.
and it comes out, how do you get past that? Like, I don't know if that's a self-select you could do in the dinner of strangers, like, strangers, but only half the world. I only want this half. Otherwise it could blow up. I mean, it's sad to admit. I'd like to think I could get by it, but it's also not going to be enjoyable for you. Even if you're just like, I'm just going to roll with it. Let this person go to town on politics and I'm not going to go there. But then you have to sit there and listen to that. So that scares me about that one.
you
Chris Bevolo (41:38.414)
I have to look up dinner with strangers.
Well, well, it's called Timeleft It's, it's not the, it's not the best one. they just have some infrastructure stuff to figure out. but I mean, the point is, is that like not talking politics. So, so like, why does it automatically have to go to that? Like I, I've started them like, I'm going to walk away. I don't, I'm not.
Okay.
Chris Bevolo (41:54.85)
I know, I know.
Chris Bevolo (42:01.166)
you
talking about any of this. So the group that
It doesn't have to, it doesn't have to, but even if you vow to not even talk about anything that's like one degree away from politics, so all you have to say in my world would be Minneapolis. And that's one degree away from a lot of stuff. Even if you can figure out how to do that, there's no guarantee other people could. And so that's where I would worry. But anyway, I don't mean to distract us with the negative, but it just popped in my head.
So this other group is called Bass. This is one that I actually ended up joining. The other one I just kind of did as a trial randomly and I didn't care for it because it was a little too like up in the air of like who's gonna be at the dinner. And so I tried this other one, it's called Bass. And what they do is kind of similar but they actually do an interview with you to really assess who you are. It's almost like a...
Like an inner, like an application. Like, I guess some people get denied. don't know. but what I loved about it is that the first dinner I ever went to and like all their dinners to set up this way is that you get a set of cards and you have like five envelopes and they all have questions for discussion. So that you were all talking about these, like just kind of higher level things. that really, that I remember the first one I ever went to, we shut the restaurant down.
Chris Bevolo (43:18.555)
Mm-hmm.
Desiree Ep13 (43:26.069)
I went in, I was so nervous because of like, who are these people I'm supposed to sit here and talk to? Like, do I even have the energy? And like what you had mentioned earlier about like just frankly, just being afraid of going. So there's that part about like, what's the conversation is gonna get into politics, yada, yada, yada. The other piece is that like, I feel like, you know, we've gotten deeply weird and even just like interacting with strangers, we're like, I don't know how to do this. Like, I feel like a robot. I don't know what to say. Or like I get shy or what have you.
So, tuck myself up in the car, then finally like, all right, let's go, go in. I'm Jack Donaghy. Go in, sit down. It's a little awkward at first, but you have this round of like everybody kind of gives their own, their intros, and then you ask the first question. But like I said, by the end of the night, were like, this one girl was crying, because we were really like sharing these intimate things. And I like, I walked away and I'm like, wow, that was incredible. I didn't know these people at all, like, but.
Yes. So,
we all got to such like a really deep bonding. And so again, like all of these like opportunities to like not talk about that thing. So then it got me thinking about because of what you had mentioned about like, I almost don't even really wanna just talk to people, because it's gonna just end up in that. I've been seeing a lot more about like play.
.
Desiree Ep13 (44:43.223)
So essentially we're at this idea of like adult friendships. How do we make them? A lot of people are asking questions about that. Even Simon Sinek, think his next book is gonna be about like making friends as an adult and what it takes. And this idea of like just getting together to do things for fun and be silly without it having to be this like, we're having dinner, we're having drinks, we're catching up, we're talking live to each which can always like spiral. But like whatever happened to and can we get back to the idea of like,
Mm-hmm.
Desiree Ep13 (45:13.783)
Hey man, like we're watching TV or we're gonna watch the show, like come over or hey, this is really nerdy but like I just got this like Play-Doh set. Do you wanna come and like make Play-Doh? And it's like, actually, yeah. Or like color or just like these things that you just do together as a group. I'm seeing like movements around that of like just hang out with each other. It doesn't have to be this like set formal thing.
You know, how can we just create more of this kind of stuff organically where you are just being in each other's presence and like having that as community.
Yeah, that's great. I mean, we have friends that do a little more formal, but they do movie in the yard and they have a big inflatable.
screen and they invite everybody over and there's food and there's drinks and then we watch some ridiculous like this summer we'll have a theme so like they'll do like Burt Reynolds movies and then each week is a different or maybe it's like once a month I can't remember but there's usually like four or five over the summer and and they're always they're not serious film they're always fun film weird films and it's a blast like it's always fun it's interesting that you bring up the cards thing
We just did this with the friends that came over. So here we are, you got three Gen Xers, you have one, two, three, four, five Gen Zers in the room. And we're like, we just got done with dinner, like, what are we gonna do? And Tonya, the therapist always wants to play therapy games and she's got this game called Hygge which if you look up Hygge, H-Y-G-G-E, Hygge's a whole way of being. It's like a Norwegian Scandinavian thing
Desiree Ep13 (46:54.349)
you
And I read an article about it like, one way to think about is when it's winter out and because it's Norway and Norwegian or whatever, and you just get together in front of a, you know, like with hot chocolate in front of a fire and you just, you just celebrate like the warmth of being together. So it's a whole thing, but there's a board game called Hygge and it will be like random questions. And it's just like, what's the worst vacation you've ever taken or what's the best vacation. We didn't play Hygge We played a version of that called The Delve Deck
D-E-L, like you delve, and there's four sets of cards and they start really easy, like you're not delving very deep, so it might be like, what's your favorite way to make eggs? And everybody talks about that. But then you can go deeper and it gets really deep and it may be like, what's one thing you're just horrible at? Or I'm trying to think of some of the questions we had, like,
what would surprise everybody in the room to know about you that nobody else knows. And so we played that for two hours in that mixed generation. So here you had a 17 year old, you had a 21 year old, a 24 year old, a 24 year old, a 23 year old, and then us Gen Xers, and everybody was into it. Everybody was into it. And so, you know.
Okay.
Chris Bevolo (48:26.082)
just have a Hygge party, have people come together and just say, you know, pull out the cards that are political ahead of time if you don't want to go there, which is probably smart, and just have fun with it. It was great.
I'm behind you, party.
Desiree Ep13 (48:39.277)
I love that. And so as I'm thinking about, you know, both of us going into this next chapters of our lives, we'll, you know, we're already in it. You know, let's make a pledge to do things differently, to do the things that's uncomfortable, do the thing that's playful, you know, final, and then we'll report back to each other. Like, you know, as time goes on of like all the different things that maybe we've been afraid to do and nervous to do, or like just
thought was like dorky. Like for example, this was probably like 10 years ago. Um, but I was like, I want to have a super soaker like fight battle royale in the park with a bunch of adults, right? Like almost like dodge ball style. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to do that again. That was a blast. Like everyone showed up everyone, like all ages. It would, it ranged from boomer down to young millennial at the time.
And it was a blast. then like, you just go hang out. Stuff like, okay, I remember being in a pla- in plays And then we would just like go to someone's house after and just hang out. And like, eventually someone brings out their guitar, brings out harmonicas and we were just kind of riffing singing like, I don't know, Jason Mraz or something back in the day. But it's Jason Mraz remembered like peak or like during the, during the peak of like a John Mayer. what a, what a time.
What?
Chris Bevolo (50:01.186)
I do.
Desiree Ep13 (50:07.581)
Anywho, that's what I'm gonna tell, like that's what I'm gonna commit myself to do is I've been out here being a voyeur, kind of seeing, trying all these different cities to see like which one can I find community or maybe even make community. I thought it was gonna be Chicago, but I'll be honest, it's overwhelming because there's so many options. Like each night there's like 15 different things we can do. I need something a little smaller. I'm kind of like you, I'm going back to that Cornucopia.
You know, I'm moving to like Santa Fe, New Mexico. There's already a thriving arts, artsy community. When we were there last year, we met people immediately and kept running into people. And then it dawned on me. was like, that's what I'm looking for. So then what am I going to do while I'm there -- I'm going to get out of my comfort zone. I'm going to just talk to people, see what kind of energy comes back my way. And then just start inviting people to do random stuff. Like even just like going for a walk or hey,
Hmm
Chris Bevolo (50:41.908)
man.
Desiree Ep13 (51:03.309)
Couple of y'all just come over, I'm gonna do a taco night. Just come over and just get back to that normalcy of hanging out, being silly, listening to music, just cutting up and not being so worried. Because if anything that we should have learned from especially these ICE raids this past year is the spirit of community and people showing up for each other, showing up for their neighbors even if they don't know them. I'm like, okay, how can we manifest and create more of that in our day-to-day lives about like,
just showing up, being there for one another, getting outside of our comfort zones. like, I don't know, getting out of this rugged individualist, alleged idea of what America is, but that we are more of a communal society than we let ourselves on to be. How about you?
Well, we have to be, right? As humans, we have to have that connection. We just have to have it. And I think that is, again, if we go back to the beginning of this episode, when we talking about, we're finally seeing some accountability for the social media and tech giants who built these addictive services and products, right? But it took a long time.
I think it's the same kind of thing of people realizing, hey, time out. I don't really get fulfilled from social media. Like that's not really, I have 4,000 friends, they're not friends. Like we would joke about that like a decade ago. But I think Gen Zers are actually feeling that way. The ones that have lived with it since the very beginning are maybe some of the most from the research I've done.
dying to get out of that and wanting to live and connect. And here's the thing, they are, like, we can stereotype all day long and people talk about how, the kids are addicted to their phone. First of all, adults are addicted to their phones as much or more than kids. We'll start there. Second of all, all of my kids go out and do things and their friends go out and do things. And if I'm not mistaken, a bunch of friends were together at the Mall of America, like,
Chris Bevolo (53:08.782)
5,000 people. So they're not just, some people are. The people that couldn't go out before all of this digital stuff who just stayed home are staying home, but that's the same, right? I think like we overemphasize the digital because it's true, but there still are doing things in real life. I think it's...
the realization of all of us that we just have to get back to this. And I'm committing to, I'm probably over committing, I have a lot. I think I said in the last podcast, or one of the last podcasts, maybe we were talking to Diana about organizing, that one of the things I'm really looking forward to is getting involved in an organization or movement around a cause. Because one, I wanna do, I wanna give back, but also,
you
I love the idea of a group of people that are aligned on that. And I imagine who those people are. And yes, I'll meet them around a cause, but I imagine I'll become friends with some of them and we'll do things outside the cause. We will have people over to play Play-Doh or game night or dinner or whatever. Shout out to our friend, Jeff.
Desiree Ep13 (54:27.469)
bowling
Jeff is inspiration to me because I don't remember how long ago, but he joined a bowling, a lawn bowling league. And I talks about it all the time. It's like his big passion. So it doesn't have to be like, oh, I got to get in shape so I can go play basketball again. As much as I'd love to do that. Lawn bowling, I'm sure it takes some, sorry, Jeff, I'm sure it takes some like athletic skill, but it's an example of what you can do with just picking up a.
Yeah.
Chris Bevolo (54:54.638)
concrete ball and starting to play. You don't need to know it. You don't need to be an athlete. You can just have fun. So there's just a lot and I'm going to have to like, I don't know how I'm going to do it all. I wrote down as you said, let's commit. I can share what they are, but there's probably too many. I get, if I get two of these, I'll be happy. Three, I'll be thrilled. I probably won't be able to do all five.
I, speaking of our like friends at the pod, an inspiration for me was Melissa. She threw a party a couple of years ago. It was almost like a, it was a dinner party ish, but it was a melding of all the friends. So it was a murder mystery dinner party. it was her coworkers work friends like me and a group of us, her friends from her Pat, like all through the years, her husband's friends, like everybody coming together. And at first I was a little nervous. I went because I'm like, it's.
like Melissa's a homie, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna know some people because some of my coworkers are gonna go. But the idea, so it was such a fun, fun night because you get the card of like the character you're supposed to play and then you show up in character dressed and you are in character all night long. And at first you're like, how do I even do this? I'm like, it's kind of awkward. And there's not nudges for you to go speak to the people that you have no clue who they are. So first it starts out super awkward, but by the end of the night,
I was cutting up with like some of her husband's like friends and we were just, I ended up running into one of them at a dental office and she was like, are you? like, my God. So just go do that thing. One thing I'm going to do is there is this really cool point at the top of a hill in Santa Fe that is great for sunsets. And if this doesn't already exist,
Thank
Desiree Ep13 (56:40.203)
I'm gonna do like little sunset DJ party, maybe every like Thursday or Friday, something after work, where like, I'm just gonna start doing it, have the music, invite some people and like just see if it grows, because I've watched other people do that. Like that's kind of my commitment of putting myself out there of like what I want to receive in the world, I need to actually put that out there too. So that's gonna be one of my commitments. But yeah, to your point, going to these organizations, you absolutely will like,
Yeah.
Desiree Ep13 (57:09.569)
meet up and go out to dinner or what have you afterwards. mean, that's how I met Diana, that's how I met most of my friends in Las Vegas. And so I'm gonna get back into that as well.
I got to do the board game thing, Des, that one of the Delve Deck questions was, what is one thing you believe you wished more people believed? And I said, I don't know if the word was believe, but it was just like, where do you feel isolated from everything else? And I said, like, it's a sad story. Every Christmas I buy a new strategic board game that I think looks cool.
Nobody plays. I can't get anybody to play. So each year I get a new one. So I have like 10 of them. I've never played. And I said this in front of the group because Tonya doesn't like the strategic. She likes games, but not the strategic board games. So we can't play. And the group that I had together hasn't been able to get back together. So I'm just like, And what was cool was one, so many people around that this is a family we hang out with all the time. They're like, I'll do that. I'll do that. Let's let's time. Let's find a weekend. Let's do it. Let's spend two days. I'm like,
and
Chris Bevolo (58:15.05)
Okay, cool. Like I'm not even thinking of the younger generation, but they're all down. And they remember when they were smaller when we play these games. Remember this one? And that one I'm like, yeah, we still have those. Nobody will play with me. They're like, we'll play. And so getting that together, but I'm going to find a game night. The idea of going to a bar where there's just random people with random games. I'll probably have to bring somebody with me the first time, but that sounds incredible.
.
Like other than the person I'm going with, I won't know anybody. And once I do it once or twice, I won't even need that person. That just sounds like joy. It just sounds joyous to me. So that is my commitment. I got to find one. I know they're around. It's just how far do I have to go, right? And also I don't want to go like to the University of Minnesota where it's a bunch of students and creepy old guys like, can I play? There's a neighborhood game nights everywhere. I just have to find one.
Yeah.
Desiree Ep13 (59:05.321)
I'm like, ugh.
Desiree Ep13 (59:10.401)
There you go. All right. Work.
So that's one of five. I'm not gonna say the other ones out loud, because I don't want to commit to them publicly.
It's like bring back the art of banter. We're just bantering with strangers. You can like work that muscle back out or back up so that it feels like more natural again. But shall we wrap?
Yes, yeah. I think we should wrap. So, wow, look at that. Free flowing like a spring river that broke free of the ice and is tumbling over the mountains. I think that's what I said at the beginning. We'll see if it's the same. But that was great. That was great. So let's wrap. Thank you, Des, as always. And thank all of you so much for joining us. Hopefully this helped you cope in some way with the world around us. Get out there, commit to something.
Find your people, find a new group of people, bring together an old group of people. Just get out there and live life. Get off your phone, get out of social media, live it. Please like and subscribe to the show wherever you watch or listen to podcasts and give us good ratings, particularly on iTunes, where it helps more people hear us. Visit Bearing287.com or follow me on Substack to access other helpful content.
Chris Bevolo (01:00:25.07)
I'll be launching some new content, Des, soon, I'm hoping next week. So watch for that. And of course we have the 1985 report and all the good stuff that's gonna continue to go. I am Chris Bevolo on behalf of I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today and Bearing 287. Thanks for joining us. We will see you next time. Bye.