Lived It

Snack: We regret to inform you that teens are nostalgic for...2014

Episode Summary

Shutter shades, retail nightmares, and Instagram filters. Also, what movies even came out in 2014?! All in this episode with Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker.

Episode Notes

Shutter shades, retail nightmares, and Instagram filters. Also, what movies even came out in 2014?! All in this episode with Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker.

Tell us what The Big Film Buffet fandom name should be at @netflixanz on Instagram and Twitter, or tag #thebigfilmbuffet.

Episode Transcription

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Good day to you. I'm Alexei Toliopoulos, and you're listening to the snack on The Big Film Buffet. And our snack this week is brought to us by none other than Gen Fricker.

Gen Fricker:

Hello, welcome. You may see that I've dressed in character for this week's snack.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, okay. I'm trying to figure out what this character is.

Gen Fricker:

Okay. So you can see I'm wearing a stripey shirt.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Gen Fricker:

I'm wearing skinny jeans.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Wow.

Gen Fricker:

I'm wearing Converses.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh my gosh.

Gen Fricker:

And a leather jacket over the top. Bit of eyeliner, my fringe is swept to the side. Because 2014 nostalgia is real, dude.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

What?

Gen Fricker:

You know the year 2014?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, I was there, dude.

Gen Fricker:

It came after 2013, and before 2015.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. It rings a bell.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So apparently, according to this horrifying Vice article I read, Gen Z are nostalgic for 2014.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Whoa.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. Isn't that existentially an assault?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yes. In my head, I'm like, "Yeah, 2014 was last year. Yeah, of course I remember it."

Gen Fricker:

Totally. It was seven years ago.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. Don't say that out loud.

Gen Fricker:

And it just feels too soon to be adopted as an Instagram aesthetic, or a TikTok aesthetic. I'm so old!

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh my gosh. To be known as an era, it's so weird, because I have nostalgia now for my youth. Yes, that has passed.

Gen Fricker:

Hey, you're still a darling bud of May.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Thank you so much. Because I'm just around that 10-year mark out of high school, so now I have nostalgia for when I was in high school, which is like, you know, 2000s, late 2000s. Very late 2000s, the latest you could be in the 2000s in high school.

Gen Fricker:

2009?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Around that time. That's what I'm going back to, and I have nostalgia for that.

Gen Fricker:

I shan't be revealing your age, but yes.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yes, it's that era. Yes, don't say my age out loud.

Gen Fricker:

To say it out loud is to give it power.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Voldemort style, okay? But as well, I've only just lost contact with people from high school that I've been dying to get rid of for years.

Gen Fricker:

And now the 10-year anniversary is coming up.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Get ready to see them all again. But to have nostalgia for just so few years ago, I don't even know what 2014 was. What was 2014?

Gen Fricker:

Well, I had to really look back at what I was doing in 2014. According to this Vice article, the things that everyone was doing, listening to Ultraviolence by Lana Del Ray.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, of course.

Gen Fricker:

iPhone Sixes.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yes. I had an iPhone.

Gen Fricker:

Very, like, grainy filters on Instagram, you know what I mean?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yes.

Gen Fricker:

Make it look like an old Polaroid. The Arctic Monkeys.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, I still love Arctic Monkeys.

Gen Fricker:

Finger tattoos, you know when everyone was getting like the moustaches?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

The little moustache?

Gen Fricker:

Yes.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh my god.

Gen Fricker:

Things like that. Tumblr, just in general.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I'm trying to picture 2014. The only way I know how to do it is movies. I cannot think of a single 2014 movie.

Gen Fricker:

No. Nothing specific jumps out about that year.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. It's not an iconic year, in my opinion. Producer Michael, can you look up films of 2014? Blockbusters, Oscars, the whole nine yards. Which is a movie from, like, the Nineties.

Producer Michael:

Just look at your Netflix right now, got some moves to tell you about. 2014, The Lego Movie.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Whoa! A movie itself about nostalgia.

Gen Fricker:

And about capitalism.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Absolutely.

Producer Michael:

I'll also give you a little smattering of other 2014 big movies. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part One.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, wow. Yeah, saw that at the big screen, loved it.

Producer Michael:

Transformers: Age of Extinction. But then also, 2014 was a really big year for the biopic. The Imitation Game, famously big 2014 movie.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Wow. A movie that barely exists now.

Producer Michael:

We also had, of course-

Gen Fricker:

What do you mean it barely exists?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

It's been lost to time, The Imitation Game. No wonder there's all these Gen Z explorers going back to 2014. They're like, "I've heard word of The Imitation Game."

Gen Fricker:

Gen Z are our archaeologists.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, absolutely. They're pop culture archaeologists.

Producer Michael:

Guess what we also had? The threequel, in the famed Troye Sivan vehicle Spud 3.

Gen Fricker:

What?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

What?

Producer Michael:

Spud is the movie he was kind of known for as a young teen, and it's a movie that then spawned two follow-ups. So this is Spud 3, came out as recently as 2014.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Is this a Gen Z thing? Do they know the Spud franchise?

Producer Michael:

I think this was big within the Troye Sivan YouTube fandom.

Gen Fricker:

Did you see Spud?

Producer Michael:

I'm not saying that I was in this fandom, nor did I see the movie Spud.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

You're in the hot seat now, buddy.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah.

Producer Michael:

Also 2014, Bad Neighbours.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, I saw that in a cinema. I had a jolly good time.

Gen Fricker:

No, I didn't see that. I was busy in the night, just working in the night. I never got to see anything

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh yeah. Also, that's another thing, doing comedy around then, I was so grouchy all the time, because I just had like, Batman's schedule, you know? You're sleeping during the day, staying up all night. I was a monster. I don't want to remember this year.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. I don't want to remember. Gen Z can remember this year for us, I feel.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Absolutely, and they can live on the traditions of it.

Gen Fricker:

Obviously, 2020, that's going to be-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

A huge year. I'll never forget it.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. As a brand, it's quite strong.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, exactly. Very strong brand there.

Gen Fricker:

I would say even like 2016, I feel like that was the beginning of those years where everyone was like, "2016, can you cut it out already? Like, stop killing all our favourite celebrities!"

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I know. I want to see these guys live for a few more years, because I have an emotional connection to their work, their career, their artistic nature, and the whole oeuvre about them. What was your 2014?

Gen Fricker:

I started a radio job where I was working nights, which is probably why I was so malnourished and don't remember a lot of that, because I was just working 12:00 AM to 6:00 AM.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yep.

Gen Fricker:

What were you doing, Alexei?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

2014 was a very odd year for me. I was starting standup. I'd been in standup for about a year and a half, or two. I was running a comedy room that was deeply beloved, very popular. I remember that's when I probably would have met you, you would have been performing there a lot.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. Hey, happy seven-year anniversary.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Look at us. Look at us now.

Gen Fricker:

I know.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Still working together, still loving it. 2014 also was like a dichotomy, a juxtaposition of the cruellest nature. I was still working my last retail job at Sanity, the DVD and CD store.

Gen Fricker:

Whoa! Wow!

Alexei Toliopoulos:

So I think, weirdly, I eventually will have so much nostalgia for this, because it was like the last time I intersected with popular top-40 music as well. The last CD I bought was in 2014.

Gen Fricker:

It was like the extinction gasp of a dying era of physical media.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, absolutely. And I'm a big supporter of physical media, okay? I love physical media.

Gen Fricker:

Like DVDs and CDs.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I love the smell of it, the taste of it, the touch of it.

Gen Fricker:

Okay. I mean, I do miss DVD extras.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. I mean, I love DVDs. Back in 2014, my Blu-ray DVD collection was a humble 800 discs, and now it is much bigger than that.

Gen Fricker:

I mean, Netflix used to send people DVDs. The original incarnation of Netflix.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I had like a fake US Netflix account in 2014, because I wanted to watch Arrested Development.

Gen Fricker:

Hey, same. Are we allowed to say that on a Netflix podcast?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. Okay, I'll admit it.

Gen Fricker:

Wait. Netflix, don't listen to us.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Don't listen to this, Netflix.

Gen Fricker:

We were paying, but it was American.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

We were paying with our fake American credit cards.

Gen Fricker:

We were American.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. My postcode's 90210.

Gen Fricker:

Same!

Alexei Toliopoulos:

But it was so weird working at Sanity at that time, because it really was like those death throes, because it was like every person that came in was just a different version of a person that didn't know how to use the internet. So there'd be guys coming and going like, "Do you have Swordfish, bro? Do you have Swordfish on DVD? It's a classic, bro."

Gen Fricker:

Wow. Is that Hugh Jackman?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, it's Hugh Jackman. It's like, that's not a classic. You just used to get horny watching that movie when you were a teenager.

Gen Fricker:

That was such a weird, dark and horny film.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Absolutely.

Gen Fricker:

When they were really trying to sell us Hugh Jackman as like a leading man hunk.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, I mean, he is a hunk, and he is a leading man.

Gen Fricker:

But he's not like a hunk like that. He's like a old-school showman triple threat.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Exactly. That's why I like him, because he's like a hunk, but he's also like Gene Kelly or something.

Gen Fricker:

Exactly! He's Gene Kelly.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

He's a Gene Kelly hunk. Man, it was so depressing working there. I really hated working retail, especially then. Like, I was starting comedy, so every now and then someone would come into the crappy mall that I worked at and they were like, "Oh my god. I was just at [Green Lights 00:08:21] on the weekend. You were so funny." And I'm there with my lanyard on and stuff, like behind the counter. There was one time the Umbilical Brothers came in. They remembered me, and I was like, "No, no, no. Please leave, please leave." It was so bad.

Gen Fricker:

Oh. That's so brutal.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. I'm having a panic thinking about it.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

One final thing for me about 2014, because it was the last time I ever intersected with current, contemporary music, I remember I bought the Taylor Swift album 1989, physical copy, the deluxe edition with the Polaroids and stuff.

Gen Fricker:

Was that 2014?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah.

Gen Fricker:

No!

Alexei Toliopoulos:

That's a 2014 album, I'm certain of it.

Gen Fricker:

I'm looking it up. Taylor Swift... Oh!

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I remember just absolutely going wild on that album. I still have those Polaroids that came with the deluxe edition.

Gen Fricker:

Do you? Oh my gosh. That's so cool.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh man, that's a great album.

Gen Fricker:

That is a great... Let's go listen to that right now.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Let's shake it off.

Gen Fricker:

Yes. Speaking of Gen-Z, they're very known for their fandoms and their fandom names. So like, Beliebers, Arianators, Katy Perry Katy Cats, et cetera. What do you think The Big Film Buffet listeners are called? My ideas?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Gen Fricker:

Buff Daddies and Buff Mummies.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I love that.

Gen Fricker:

Or Buff Boys and Girls.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah.

Gen Fricker:

It's a bit gender binary though. It could be more inclusive. Buff Heads? I don't know.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Buff Heads. I like Buffettes, perhaps? Because it's like a buffet, but cute.

Gen Fricker:

Ooh! That's cute as. Anyway, get in touch. Tag NetflixANZ on socials, #thebigfilmbuffet and give us your ideas for what you think we should be known as a collective.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Absolutely.