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A podcast from Teachers College, Columbia University about play and pop culture. Professors Haeny Yoon and Nathan Holbert take play seriously. They talk with educators, parents and kids about how they play in their work and their lives, and why play matters.
The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the speaker to whom they are attributed. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the faculty, administration, staff or Trustees either of Teachers College or of Columbia University.
Haeny Yoon:
Okay, welcome to Pop Off, a new segment from Pop and Play where we take a few minutes to chat about education, play, pop culture as it's happening in the public conversation. I'm your host, Haenye Yoon. And with me is, as always, Nathan Holbert.
Nathan Holbert:
Hey, everybody, I'm Nathan Holbert, and we've talked about this before, but our ideas for these Pop Offs is to have a moment to react, to deal with, wrestle with, kind of challenge things that are happening in the moment, that are happening as part of current events. So we haven't released a Pop Off for a few weeks, partly because of scheduling, and also partly because the past few weeks have been a little chaotic, a little stressful, have been, I think, probably emotional for many of us. Fear not, we are not going to use this Pop Off to suggest solutions to the Democratic Party to do better for the next election. We're not going to do that. You can go to social media to find plenty of those.
Haeny Yoon:
What?
Nathan Holbert:
But I think it's important for us to take a moment to reflect on, how are we doing in the aftermath of the US election? And I think specifically for me, I have found it important throughout all the time I've been doing this work to frequently ask myself, "What am I doing and why am I doing it? Why does the research that I do matter? Does it matter, in fact? And if not, what should I be doing differently?" And I think this election, I think most elections, are these really crystallizing moments that really put in your face, "Here's the state of the world right now. What are you doing as part of that world that we now understand and we live in?"
Haeny Yoon:
Ooh, can I stop you right there for a second?
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah, pop off. Go.
Haeny Yoon:
No, I think what you're saying is really important. "What are you doing?" I feel like the big question is, "What are you doing in response to this?" And I feel like a lot of people have a lot of ready-made solutions like, "This is what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to go out and do something. You're supposed to do pamphlets, you're supposed to-"
Nathan Holbert:
Knit a hat hat and go march.
Haeny Yoon:
Knit a hat and go march. Exactly. And I think there's a question of what is the appropriate or the right way to respond to something like that? And I'm sure, like me, a lot of people might feel guilty that they're not doing anything or "anything" quotes, air quotes, or they might feel like they haven't done enough or that whatever they're doing doesn't feel as important as the next person.
Nathan Holbert:
Listen, what we're here to do and say today is that's nonsense. Okay?
Haeny Yoon:
Yes. That's what we're popping off on.
Nathan Holbert:
We're popping off on that. First of all, that feeling of joy or relaxation or comfort as being bad or to be more direct on our particular topic, something like play as being frivolous or pointless under the circumstances, that's nonsense. We got to get away from that. And I think part of the reason that's nonsense is play can be healing and play can be an opportunity to be reflective. It can also be an opportunity to put things into action. So with that in mind, let's talk a little bit about our own, you could call it coping, or you could call it healing, you could call it playing. But what were some of the feelings, what were some of the things you felt you needed to do, let's say Wednesday morning or the following few days as we started to reflect on the state of the world?
Haeny Yoon:
Okay. So I've been thinking a lot about play and its inappropriateness and how people like to say that play is inappropriate for certain times. And I think about the process of grieving, which I'm sure a lot of our listeners are doing, is grieving. And so I think there's a certain way that people are expected to grieve and be sad. You're eating potato chips and crying into your water and doing all this stuff.
Nathan Holbert:
I love potato chips. I do that when I'm happy or sad.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah, that's true. True, true. Okay. So one thing that I did after that is I did the thing that seems like it would be least helpful is I watched a lot of true crime. I watched the Menendez Brothers, I watched the documentary and the series on Netflix. I just went into a deep hole.
Nathan Holbert:
Went deep.
Haeny Yoon:
And then there's this Casey Anthony documentary.
Nathan Holbert:
I don't even know who that is.
Haeny Yoon:
Where Casey Anthony, she's the one that supposedly killed her baby.
Nathan Holbert:
Oh God.
Haeny Yoon:
I don't know. Anyway, let's not be morbid here, but she claims she was innocent.
Nathan Holbert:
Wow.
Haeny Yoon:
But it's her talking about it, and I have no degree or no sense of whether or not she's innocent or not. This is not a Casey Anthony, free Casey Anthony campaign.
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah, right. Not hashtagging that.
Haeny Yoon:
Yes. But one thing that she did say related to this play, popping off on the appropriateness of play, is that she said a lot of people wrote her about how she seemed to grieve. And so there was a whole bunch of media clips and things like that showing her at a party, which, okay, your kid is missing, maybe don't go and go to a club and party, but who knows? Maybe that's the way to do it. But I feel like they showed her smiling or they showed her not crying during courtroom cases. They just showed her doing all of these things. And I think the larger picture is that she was supposed to look a certain way, and as soon as she didn't, then it was like, "She's a murderer."
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah. Oh yeah. This sort of performative need for others to see you react or grieve a certain way.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah, and I think play is such a, it can be such a freeing response, especially in times of trauma or difficulty or tension. Sometimes the only thing that helps is maybe to play. And I think about that with comedy too. I think I've shared this quote before with Jordan Peele, and how he talks about comedy. A lot of comedians will say this, Hasan Minhaj says this all the time too, that it kind of helps him deal with a lot of things that he's still working through. And I think about that with playful acts.
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
Totally. I agree with all of that. I think the need to perform the anxiety and the grief and the horror that you do feel, but the need to show it in a way that others can now see that you're doing it and then approve of your feelings. That's such a weird, twisted thing that we do in this culture.
Haeny Yoon:
It is, yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
I definitely have the, I don't know if this is a similar or different response to you, but my reaction is very much to be like, "I can't think about this because thinking about it is too horrifying or too upsetting. And so the best thing for me to do is to try to put it aside for a bit until I can kind of gather myself and then I'll start taking it on." And so one of the things that I did was I retreated to video games like I often do, just like the potato chips. I'll do that in grief and in happiness.
Haeny Yoon:
Hey, fair, fair. You and Neil both.
Nathan Holbert:
Neil, he's a man after my own heart. So what I did is there had been a video game that had been released called Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Listen, so nerdy. I know. I'm fine with that.
Haeny Yoon:
What is a Valguard?
Nathan Holbert:
Veilguard.
Haeny Yoon:
Veil.
Nathan Holbert:
It's not a very good title.
Haeny Yoon:
Oh, like The Veil?
Nathan Holbert:
The Veil. The Veilguard.
Haeny Yoon:
Got it. Okay.
Nathan Holbert:
And it's like the fourth or so in this Dragon Age series that I enjoy. And I knew I was going to eventually play it, but I usually wait until games go on sale, they've been out for a while. And I was like, "No, full pricing this. I'm going to go deep and I'm just going to really get involved in this story, this game." And it has been so fun for me, I've enjoyed it so much. And I think I was trying to reflect on why. Is it just because a good game or whatever? And I think what it is is these kinds of role-playing epic games, it's like "There's this big bad, there's this big problem and we've got a team together and we're going to solve it."
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
And it's not always like everything is moving up and everything is always positive, but there's this really clear set of actions that the characters are taking and that you're sort of getting to play through. And that creates a sense of control that I think is very much in contrast to how I feel about the state of the world right now.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah, it's like another world that you're kind of escaping to.
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
It's speculative.
Nathan Holbert:
It is. But I think the slight difference is that in the end, it didn't become a distraction for me. It's like it allows me to put into a solvable problem the state of the world in some ways. And so you feel like, "Okay, okay. No, actually things can be solved. There's ways to solve problems." And it's not necessarily helping us solve the state of the world right now, but it's giving you a sense that you can solve the state of the world right now.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. I feel like that's such a good reason why we should have more play in schools. Duh, fixed it.
Nathan Holbert:
Solved it.
Haeny Yoon:
Solved it. Because I feel like that's the one thing that we take away from young people. And maybe that's the one thing that is the thing that's in the box of their control of ways that they're going to solve problems, the ways that they're going to exist when maybe there's a lot of things pushing back against them. So I don't know why we don't let kids play more.
Nathan Holbert:
Well, I think we should, number one. And number two, I want to come back to that original question as we start to stop our popping off and start thinking about ways in which we want to move forward here. And I think one answer to this question of, "What are we going to do about it? How is the work that we are in engaged in as academics, as just freaking humans in the world, as neighbors, as friends, how is that going to respond to this or impact the societies that we live in?" And I'm curious for you, what are some of the things that you're doing? What are some of the things you're thinking as a way of taking play and of media to improve our society? Improve our world?
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. I've been trying to make things, and I feel like I've been kind of putting that on the back burner. So I did make a zine, which will be available in the show notes if you want to download it.
Nathan Holbert:
Yes, download it now.
Haeny Yoon:
But it's just kind of like a fun way for me to think about how you play through your rage. That's the title of my zine is Playing Through Rage.
Nathan Holbert:
Playing Through the Rage. You have it right here.
Haeny Yoon:
I have it right here. Okay, so I got inspired by this, so I'll probably get bleeped out for this. But there's this part where, okay, so I follow this Instagram account called Diet Prada.
Nathan Holbert:
Okay. Diet Prada.
Haeny Yoon:
Diet Prada. And basically it's about fashion, it's about a critique of fashion, said fashion, but it's also an appreciation of it. It's a really good account, I like it. But basically, they did this message to their followers and their idea was like, "Look, this is happening. Let's show them that if they have power, that they're going to have a really hard time holding onto it. And we're going to make stuff. We're going to make stuff. We're going to bleep it up."
Nathan Holbert:
Beep.
Haeny Yoon:
And we're going to put it out there. Make cool and interesting things.
Nathan Holbert:
I love it.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
I love it. Check out the zine, go to the show notes and download a copy. And hopefully you'll also include instructions for how to fold it because I really struggled with folding mine.
Haeny Yoon:
Okay. Didn't I fold yours for you?
Nathan Holbert:
You did it for me. That's why I struggled. I struggled so much that you had to do it.
Haeny Yoon:
I feel like, look, that is the challenge. Consider that a distraction. A playful distraction is figure out how to fold a zine into a tiny book.
Nathan Holbert:
Zine origami.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
I love that. Making stuff, I think that is the solution. And I think the stuff you make can be stuff that is fun and playful and focused on healing. People do need, they need to take a break from fighting occasionally and go and encounter joy, but also that joy and that play can be part of action. And I think that's such an important thing for us to remember as well.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
I love that. Okay. We've popped off. I don't know that we feel better, but hopefully it was useful for-
Haeny Yoon:
I feel great. I'm just kidding. No, I'm not kidding. I feel great.
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah, feel good. We feel good. Thank you for joining us, each of these little episodes here, we just want to remind you before we leave, we have a survey, listener survey that we'd love for you to take some time to complete, to give us a sense of what stuff you're wanting to hear about.
Haeny Yoon:
It's really short and really quick.
Nathan Holbert:
Fast, quick, gives us useful information.
Haeny Yoon:
A playful distraction.
Nathan Holbert:
That's what I made. I made a survey.
Haeny Yoon:
It's the most fun survey you'll ever take.
Nathan Holbert:
Terrible. And in the meantime, also, if you like this podcast, if you like the work that we're doing here, please share it. Send it to a friend, send it to a family member. Have your class listen to an episode and let us know how it goes. We'd love to hear how you're using this out in the world.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. And if you get extra, extra special, don't forget to leave us a review.
Nathan Holbert:
Smash that subscribe button.
Haeny Yoon:
And follow us on Instagram, Pop and Play pod.
Nathan Holbert:
Yes. Great.
Haeny Yoon:
Thank you.
Nathan Holbert:
Thanks everybody. Bye.
Haeny Yoon:
Bye.