The Nerdery Movie Night #125: The Social Dilemma and Chai Tea Popcorn

🚨🚨Social media is killing us. This popcorn is not.🚨🚨

Chai Tea Popcorn

Dave: I’m tempted to write this entire review in emojis or that Wingdings font so Facebook (or Wix, our blog site) won’t mine it for clues about who I am, what I’m thinking, and what I had for breakfast. Really, this movie was chilling and even if the conclusions seemed a little overdramatic, the fact remains that a watered-down version of the story is also awful: the ideological “bubbles”, the misinformation, and the righteous indignation social media engenders is the point. Those “problems” are also the driving economic force behind social media, not an “accident” that Facebook and Twitter are desperately trying to fix. As a good folklorist (or, at least, an average folklorist), I know that harmful, even malicious legends and rumors aren’t new, but the speed with which they travel and - most troubling - the accuracy with which the algorithms target new converts is dizzying. While writing my dissertation, I turned off all social media and email notifications on my phone. It definitely helped me concentrate on writing, but it also felt freeing in a way that I couldn’t adequately describe until watching this movie. I think it really made me less angry (at least until Donald Trump was elected). And watching the ways that these companies manipulate us at a basic psychological level, I’m reminded of reading how food companies formulate chips, soda, and candy to make us crave more with my arm elbow-deep in a bag of potato chips. Here’s hoping there’s hope and sensible social media legislation for us yet. (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2)

I’d warily eyed this popcorn recipe on the Popcorn Board website several times, always passing it over because it involved cutting open a tea bag and dumping it on a bowl of popcorn. In the abstract, chomping down on raw tea leaves sounds as appealing as eating a Jolly Rancher, wrapper and all, or feasting on a delicious Babybel Cheese before removing the chewy red wax coating. Oddly, I forgot until about three-quarters of the way through the bowl that I was, in fact, eating raw, dried leaves along with the popcorn, butter, sugar, cinnamon, and salt. And despite that realization, this popcorn was pretty good - the spicy chai gave the popcorn a surprisingly subtle flavor. Now that we’ve both chomped our way through caffeinated tea leaves just before bedtime, though, I also wonder if we’ll be up until all hours tonight. Still, it was worth it: chai tea popcorn was an excellent mix of salty, sweet, and savory and, in an added bonus, was super-simple to make! (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Joe: In the space of a week, four friends urged me to watch this documentary. It is a game-changer. I've become warier of social media, especially since recently reconnecting with Twitter and spending hours scrolling (Fun fact: I just deleted my Twitter account, and have removed all social media from my phone; I transitioned to Duck Duck Go a couple weeks ago). This film lays out compelling evidence that social media is literally ripping the fabrics of society to pieces, and we're seeing it play out in real time with the "contested election" and the crazy disinformation about coronavirus (Fun facts: Joe Biden won the presidential election and coronavirus is real). That governments are actively using Facebook and Twitter to undermine democracy should be enough for every noble-minded human to deactivate their accounts. Anyway. The dramatizations in this film were a bit much, but they didn't distract from the central thesis. And again: the central thesis should chill you to the very core. (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐1/2)

When Dave announced he was making chai tea popcorn, I vurped. This announcement was made more appalling when he shared that he was going to sprinkle a sachet of chai tea on the popcorn. I vurped again. Turns out the vurping might have been a bit melodramatic. This was actually pretty tasty, even though much of the good stuff migrated to the bottom of the popcorn bowl. This was light, not too sweet, and an enjoyable diversion as I panicked about the existential crises facing the human race. (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Popcorn recipe from: Popcorn Board

The Social Dilemma on IMDB.