Burkman Podcast

The host, Jack Berkman, talks about the initial bonding between Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, relating it to his own close group of friends from college. They discuss their shared obsessions, such as Pokemon Go, the movie "The Notebook," and Vine culture, and speculate on the reasons behind their obsession with these things. They also mention their nicknames for each other and how it helps them fit in and feel validated. They conclude by acknowledging that their discussions may not appeal to everyone, but they enjoy the camaraderie it brings. Welcome to my show. I'm your host and we'll be acting as a mediator today in our virtual conversation. My name is Jack Berkman. I just want to start off by talking about Charles Dickens. I mean, Charles Dickens is a really famous author and by the year 1850, he was a pretty big literary giant. One night at a dinner party, he met Wilkie Collins, who's a young aspiring writer and despite their different social standings, Charles Dickens being very high up and prominent and Wilkie not really being known, they hit it off real quick. Basically, their conversation flowed so easy and kind of powerful throughout the night, they ended up co-writing a book together, although that book never made it to shelves. That kind of shows like their initial bonding between each other so quickly. They came from similar backgrounds, I mean, they came from similar professions, they're both writers. They kind of had similar ideas. The ideas kind of brought them to the same place. In this place, they encountered each other and just hit it off real quick due to that. And this reminds me of me and my friends from college. I mean, my friends from my fraternity are my best friends at school and this all happened really fast and we kind of have our own little subgroup and we say things that other people don't get and we do things that other people don't understand but we think are funny or we do the second nature at this point. I ended up sitting some of them down and we kind of just talked about it in a free-flow conversation and why this is and we talked about certain things and the roots of those things and maybe why we pick up those things and phrases and sayings and similar likes that weren't had before and yeah, let's get into it. You just got there today. And while I thought that I'd never win. Haven't changed as much today. But man, I still think that I'm just a kid. They were asking if you were around. How you doing today? Alright, today I'm here with Jake Whittaker, Michael Dietrich and Sam Proud and we're going to discuss the subculture of our pop. We clearly have some weird obsessions that developed over a short period of time. Obsessions is a word. Hobbies. Hobbies, terms, phrases. We kind of sound like a group of freaks. There's been a lot of stuff. I want to get to the bottom of why we think this is. So something I want to start with is Pokemon Go. For whatever reason, I haven't played Pokemon Go since 2016 and when I got to school it spread rapidly like wildfire between us 30 young men and we text about it all day long and we play it all day. We have group chats dedicated to this one game of digital Pokemon. Well you know my Pokemon Go obsession really started in that high school area because all my friends were playing it and when I figured out our PC and all the brothers at the house were playing Pokemon Go, I kind of wanted to hop on and it really got me through a lot of the play process. Why do you think we started playing though? I don't really know how other people at the school play Pokemon Go other than us. Reid brought it up to me at a point in time and he was like, he was a student and some of the kids were like, what do you play on your phone? He's like, Pokemon Go. I was like, oh we had lessons like whenever it was last year. 2016, yeah. Yeah, 2016. And then I was like, okay, whatever. So I was like, kid plays Pokemon Go, that's cool. And then a couple of guys at the house started playing it and they like texted about it and stuff. I was like, yeah, why not? I'll download it. Nice to know that we're all grinding Pokemon Go. Yeah. I think it's just kind of like, I think we were a Pokemon Go echo chamber of sorts where the small group at the time we hung out with, it's kind of all we talked about, all we did and there wasn't really much else to do at the time. Being new to the school and whatnot. It's like a world that you can escape into. Yeah. Where you can catch Pokemon and have fun. Yeah. Yeah. But, I don't know, that's a weird one. That's a weird one. I agree. Very weird. I agree. Yeah. What's next on your list? You know, I want to dive into the notebook. You know, as somebody who recently got friend zoned, it really, really hit me hard. Yeah. We're having a lot of troubles in that department. I think. You think they're the right one. They aren't. But, like, really, like, the notebook is a must watch. It really hits home. And we kind of connect on that in like a deeper way. My dearest Allie, I couldn't sleep last night because I know that it's over between us. I'm not bitter anymore because I knew what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I'll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent the summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that's what you've given me. That's what I hope to give you forever. I love you. I'll be seeing you. All right, little bro. Yeah, that hits home. That hits home. That hits home. That one paragraph probably gets recited once every other day. You know, I don't know why. We are in another echo chamber of the notebook, but we are. And I think it's a deep-rooted obsession on a lot of us. I know for a fact, for whatever reason, a lot of us have had girlfriends or ex-girlfriends. Not a single one. Whoa, bro. Yeah, no, so does mine. Mine actually sounds great. Yeah, same. But I think a lot of us kind of struggle with past experiences and that. So I think that's a reason why we are liking the notebook so much. And I think that's like one of the roots of that. Something else I wanted to touch on was probably like we kind of brought back some of the Vine culture to our group. Vine. Oh, I haven't heard that word in a really long time. Like, we would see like reels, like Instagram reels or like funny things on TikTok and obsess on them for weeks. Like, do you guys remember the pumpkin era? Pumpkin! Pumpkin! Pumpkin! Like, we would just do that and we would just get looked up for that. Oh, root beer! Root beer, no! Root beer, no! Yeah, like, why do you think that is? Like, that one I really want to talk about because like, what's up with that? Because it's such a funny thing that we can share with each other. It's really bonding. The way I see it, and I think that's how people use Vine too, you know, it's like back in the era of Vine. Even you can say now with TikTok, people, you know, send each other those little short funny things and laugh about it and it's almost like we're doing that like in real time. And it's just something that we can joke about. Think about the group, you know. It's almost like a real life group chat. Yeah, strong groups have real life, or strong groups have inside jokes, you know. But why do you think we chose that to like, that's just like brain drive. Yeah, I mean, like Jake was saying, I mean, he was asking like why we were doing this, why we were obsessing over it. I think it kind of goes back to like the Pokemon Go era as well. Like, we were all playing this in like 2016 when we were really still all pretty young. And I think it's just like... It's a shared experience. Yeah, it's a shared experience. And like, going back and watching like these Instagram reels that are kind of like Vines, you know, it kind of brings back like our childhood memories to an extent and kind of we bond over that as well. And as Michael was saying, I think we're all in a very transitional period in our lives as we met each other when we were first entering college and adulthood. And I think our shared liking of these childlike comedic things like those, like these Vines and these Instagram reels kind of helped us connect back to our youth. And although we still are in our youth, like our legitimate childhood, and I think we kind of share that and found like a little bit of a serotonin in that, if you ask me. But, you know, I'm going to touch on one more thing before our time is up. And that is our nicknames. I might not share all of our nicknames because they might not be appropriate for this podcast, but we have a lot of nicknames for each other. And I have a theory about that. I think... I think the theory on the nicknames is our need to fit in with one another. And I think our nicknames give us validation for that. Sorry. Slitter interruption. But I think the nicknames is kind of a need to fit in with one another and it gives us validation. I think when we get a nickname, it makes us happy. And giving nicknames with other people makes them happy. And I think... It's an inside joke. I mean, I really... I think... Let's look at all the things you've talked about today. It's just these small... Let's think about... Like... Like, you say it to the normal person. Like, some people might know what that is. But to us, it's hysterical. It's the funniest thing you can say. And it's just like those inside jokes you make with your friends. I mean, I guess we're brothers, right? I guess fraternity. But we spend so much time together that eventually you run out of stuff to talk about and you just start talking shit. And that's why I think a lot of this stuff comes about. No, it's fine. Yeah, so I think I'm going to wrap things up. Do you guys have any closing words? Jake Whitaker. My eyes are extremely itchy right now. Michael Dietrich. What? Final words? No final words. No final words from Sam Proud. Yeah. That's all we got today. Thanks for listening. And enjoy. Wow. I mean... I don't know. That was a little unorganized, but I think that really gave the listener the opportunity to feel like they were sitting in the room with us, whether they liked it or not. I personally like it. It's one of my favorite things to do. But I can understand how some may not, especially an older crowd or a more mature crowd. But after all that, I've come to a bit of a conclusion. I think that we get along so well due to our shared experiences, especially us all going through a transitional period at the same time. I mean, we all kind of went to college from all around the country. No one's really from Colorado in our fraternities. I know no one, for a fact, in that room is from Colorado. We're all from very far away. No one knew anyone going here. No one knew at least more than one person going here. And then we all kind of got thrown together really fast when we started pledging, which was honestly awesome. I mean, we got to know each other super close. We got to know ups and downs of our lives. Like I know a lot of people have gone through similar traumas that I have, and we kind of just had to tell each other that. And I think that was something that brought us really close together because I knew I could talk to these guys because I knew they had shared experiences, and I knew that they acted like me on the outside but also could feel the same way I did on the inside. And I think this fraternity drew us all together because, for whatever reason, everyone with this sense of humor or going about life chose the fraternity that I'm in. And I think that plus knowing each other's past plus going through a shared transitional period together kind of brought us all really close together. And that's the conclusion I've come to. I mean, it's very complex. Maybe it's a little bit of luck. Maybe it's a little bit of fate that we all found each other. But we did, and we got really close really fast. So, yeah, thanks for listening. This line I'll sing to you Is not a phrase for your friends to hear For it's too young to hear And it's too dark to see And it's too dark to see And it's too dark to see And it's too dark to see And it's too dark to see And it's too dark to see And it's too dark to see And it's too dark to see