Lived It

Snack: Who do you stan? (Hopefully it’s us)

Episode Summary

From Alexei getting roasted by the ‘District 9’ fandom to Gen frothing over a certain Aussie girlband, here’s everything we love about stan culture. All in this episode with Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker. Diners, tell us who you stan at @netflixanz on Instagram and Twitter, or tag #thebigfilmbuffet.

Episode Notes

Diners, tell us who you stan at @netflixanz on Instagram and Twitter, or tag #thebigfilmbuffet.

Episode Transcription

Gen Fricker:

Hello. Welcome to a snack edition of the Big Film Buffet with me, Gen Fricker, and my good friend, Alexei Toliopoulos.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

It is a pleasure to be snacking out and pigging out with you today, Gen, on the podcast. We are talking about the things that we're obsessed with and I thought, I want to talk about the idea of obsesses themselves. What obsessions are in pop culture? Because something very bizarre happened to me, the movie District 9 popped back into my head. Came out in 2009, so it's a fricking old movie, popped into my head. I decided to pop it on and give it a watch. And while I was watching it, this movie, I remember it did this thing in it where it starts out and presents itself to be like a documentary and then abandons it and becomes a sci-fi action movie. And I thought that was a weird choice. That's weird that that happens.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

So I decided to voice that out into the world on Twitter. And I'm just like, "Isn't it so weird that District 9 pretends to be a documentary and then just midway through like, "No, no, we're just a normal movie. Okay? We're kidding here?"

Gen Fricker:

Not offensive opinion.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

No. 12 years old. It's old enough to be going to high school. It could be going to high school this movie.

Gen Fricker:

High school.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

It could be in high school. Okay? This movie is almost as old as I am these days.

Gen Fricker:

Because you are 16.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I'm 16 and I'm just learning about the world and what it has to offer. And District 9 is one of those things. And I thought that passions would be lower and people who had a lot of passion for this movie, I never really did, so I voiced my opinion out there on Twitter saying that.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

And let me tell you, I awoken something. I didn't know there was a legion of District 9 fans out there. A stan community that stans the prawns and the social commentary of District 9, they came after me. I got a lot of likes and faves. A lot of people going like, "Ha ha. Yeah." But then a lot of people coming at me going like, "It's actually an allegory for the apartheid," and all the stuff. And I'm like, "Yeah. I didn't not get that. It's not a subtle movie whatsoever. Okay?" Really going ham in on me like that, over explaining it to me.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I'm like, "Yeah, I get it. I'm not a fricking dungo, okay? I get this kind of stuff. I get film. I studied it for a majority of my life. I understand film." I started it as a hobby-

Gen Fricker:

Would you go so far to say you are film?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I am film, baby. If you cut me, do I bleed? Yes. And it is celluloid, okay? Melted gooey celluloid. I am a fricking movie. I am a film. I'm cinema incarnate. Okay? So don't come at me.

Gen Fricker:

I hope that if you ever absolutely lose it later in your life, I hope someone cuts that audio out and they're like, "Yeah, the signs are all there."

Alexei Toliopoulos:

He was nuts. The guy was crazy. The guy thought he was a fricking reel of celluloid.

Gen Fricker:

He thought he was made of film.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

And it got too much for me. I was just like, "I hate talking about this movie." People are coming at me over-explaining it. And then I'm just going like, "Oh, you think that's good about this movie? I think that's a thing that is actually bad about this movie." And then I deleted the Tweet. I'm like, I can't go to bed like this with these stans ravaging my feed. I got to get rid of it. Delete the Tweet.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Three seconds after deleting the Tweet, I got this message from an unknown user on Twitter. "Funny how you disparage District 9, a fantastic film by Neill Blomkamp, by blatantly spreading lies and misrepresentations only to delete it like a coward. I'd be awfully curious to know who paid you to administer that specific post." And then they've got an emoji with the giant monocle looking at me curiously.

Gen Fricker:

Like a detective.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yes. Like a little detective or a gentleman detective-

Gen Fricker:

And who was paying you, Alexei?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Honestly, it was on my own dime. I bought it on fricking Blu-ray, so I paid money to get disparaged by all these people. No one was paying me.

Gen Fricker:

And let's again reiterate your original comment, which was just, "This movie starts like it's a documentary and then turns into an action film."

Alexei Toliopoulos:

And it was just so weird.

Gen Fricker:

And that's it. You weren't saying it was bad or good.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Nope. I didn't say that. I'm just kind of like, yeah. I'm indifferent about that movie-

Gen Fricker:

About a 12 year-old movie.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

A 12 year-old movie about aliens called prawns.

Gen Fricker:

And this then escalated to people DM-ing you, asking if you were paid by someone to spread lies and disparage the film.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. And it's like, people still felt this passion, this standom about this thing. I'm like, I had no idea District 9 even had stans.

Gen Fricker:

You know what? I've heard the word stan a lot lately and I have to admit, I didn't even know what it really meant.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, really?

Gen Fricker:

Well, yeah, I kind of guessed it was like fans or something or like fandom, but it's like more than that, right? I Googled it. So stan comes from the Eminem song Stan about the very obsessed fan.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

A fan called Stan writing Eminem a letter.

Gen Fricker:

Yes. It's also a portmanteau of the word stalker and fan. And from what I can gather, it's just like, people who absolutely live, they're very passionate about whatever it is that they're obsessed with. It's a lot of obviously film people who are stans of certain films. And I love that that escalated to, you're getting paid by someone. That is so funny.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, it was unreal. I'm like, so I'm into this idea of stans, but I want to know, what would you have been the stan of back in the day or currently? What was your biggest obsessions?

Gen Fricker:

I mean, the most stan thing I've ever done, I remember I lined up for like four hours at a Westfield shopping centre to watch Bardot perform from like-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

This is the most Australian confession I've ever heard in my life.

Gen Fricker:

I know. I know, because I was obsessed with the TV show Pop Star, pre-dates Australian Idol, anything like that.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. I think it was the first reality show I ever saw.

Gen Fricker:

And it was right when the first album came out, when Bardot was a band. It was one of their first live performances and my poor father and I waited for four hours to see them.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh my word. Kicked off the trend of girl bands in Australia that were formed by reality shows. I'm thinking about Young Divas as well.

Gen Fricker:

Oh, I love Young Divas. I actually just had a 21st where the Young Divas performed acoustically.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh my gosh. Wow. We got an acapella Young Divas performance.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. Oh, I've been there.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

You've lived the height-

Gen Fricker:

People might know me from certain radio stations that I worked with, but I have a whole knowledge and impact on Australian music that goes beyond cool music to just reality formed pop stars.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

And that's the real shiz, guys. That's the real shiz.

Gen Fricker:

That's real. That's real. I've been a day one Bardot fan. It's funny, I still follow them on Instagram, because I think it's like 20 years since their first or second album came out.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, they must be coming up to an anniversary.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. Well, they're doing a 20 year anniversary reprint of one of their albums and it's out on vinyl or something.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Whoa.

Gen Fricker:

And so I followed them and I love it, because Sophie Monk, one of the original members of Bardot, has blocked Bardot on Instagram.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh my gosh.

Gen Fricker:

She doesn't look back, which is fine. People have their own histories with things. But I thought it was really funny because I saw Kylie Minogue, I also follow her because I love Australian [crosstalk 00:07:10].

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Of course. Who's not going to follow Kylie?

Gen Fricker:

Posted some Instagram posts and I saw Bardot tagging themselves, like @BardotBand or whatever. And then they just wrote @BardotBand again underneath it. And I just thought it was so funny. It was just such a weird way to raise awareness of their Instagram.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

People will just be like, "Oh my God, Bardot band. I must click on that."

Gen Fricker:

Bardot Band.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

"I remember that band."

Gen Fricker:

It had nothing to do with the post or anything.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

We should start doing that.

Gen Fricker:

We should just start tagging ourselves.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I'm just tagging myself in things so that people find out about me.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, everyone's talking about @thisisalexei.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. Let's click on the link and see what's up with this kid.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. Yeah.

Gen Fricker:

I remember I kind of harnessed the power of standom when I was on Triple J when I was working on the lunch show where I played a song by RM who's one of the members of BTS, huge K-pop, who has one of the most energetic stan bases.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

They've got an active hive ready to be used for ill or for will.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. And so I was on lunch and there's no real oversight to what I was playing. I got to pick a couple songs every hour and I really liked this song by RM. It was produced by this other artist who we played a lot on Triple J. I was like, "This seems like a good fit."

Alexei Toliopoulos:

You can get away with it.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. It's lunch, it's a short song. Anyway, just by playing that song twice, I think, I got RM into the Hottest 200.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Whoa, they were eligible.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. Because all the BTS stans picked up on it. And it wasn't like a thing where I was trying to get them to-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

You didn't mobilise it.

Gen Fricker:

You know what I mean. But they just are so-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

They self-mobilised.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. They're so aware and connected and across everything. I loved it because then they had to play RM and explain who BTS was to this Triple J audience. And I thank the BTR standom, Army, I think the Army.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

The Army, we thank the Army out there. We are pro-Army on this podcast. But one of the things I really find interesting about them are these big stan accounts. There's a Twitter account that is Ana de Armas updates, which is about the Knives Out star and just follows her updates. But it's got such good humour to it, where they are like, "Golden Globes nominee Ana de Armas has blocked us."

Gen Fricker:

That's wild.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

If I ever did a stan updates account, I got to go to my [inaudible 00:09:37], my originals. I got to go to the fellas that I used to keep a printed out photo of in my wallet when I was a teenager, I had a little Velcro Mambo wallet. So, I had no smartphone, they didn't exist then. So every now and then I would love to praise at the altar of Pachino and DeNiro, my two guys, my two heroes.

Gen Fricker:

You had a printout of them in your wallet?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yes. I had a printout. I used a colour ink jet printer. I printed out one side-

Gen Fricker:

That would've been so expensive.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

So expensive. And it was extremely wet. When you get a colour print out, it's wet for days.

Gen Fricker:

Oh yeah. It's soggy. That is a soggy picture.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

It's a soggy little piece of paper. One side DeNiro, one side Pachino. So double the colour on each side.

Gen Fricker:

Oh my gosh. They're not on the same side?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

On different sides. And I got laminated-

Gen Fricker:

Like the two masks of comedy and drama.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Exactly. Two sides of the same coin, Pachino, DeNiro. And I just used to have it so I could just pick it out and just go, "God, thanks guys [inaudible 00:10:30] another day." Just stare at it and worship it, like as a little portable shrine. And it wasn't even a nice wallet I had. It was like a Mambo Velcro wallet. So I couldn't be subtle. It was like, whenever I want to go, I go to talk to those [inaudible 00:10:43] fellas, like rip the Velcro open and find in going, I pull out like it was a little saint card that I kept in my wallet.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

So that's it. I would just do those guys or maybe just character actors. Where like, yeah-

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. Just generally character actors.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Just any character actor. I've got a Wallace Shawn stan account and it would be inconceivable if you were not to follow it.

Gen Fricker:

Yes. Can you please start that?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

The inconceivable Wallace Shawn stan account.

Gen Fricker:

I will get back on Twitter and follow it, I swear to God.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, absolutely. We're doing it. It's our joint account. I just share facts about Wallace Shawn all day, the star of Clueless, as the teacher, the star of The Princess Bride, as Mr. Inconceivable.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. And others, et al. I feel like someone damned you the other day about our standoms.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, yeah.

Gen Fricker:

That we are trying to force.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. We're forcing a standom on us, so we can mobilise the Big Film Buffet Army. But we've been trying to figure out what we should call the listeners of the show. We were seeing buffets, but someone hit me up-

Gen Fricker:

Buff boys, buff girls.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

... with the Diners.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, I love that.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

So people that are dining at the Big Film Buffet.

Gen Fricker:

Yes.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

So babies, you're The Diners.

Gen Fricker:

Hey, thank you, Diners.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Diners, we thank you for joining us at the Big Film Buffet. And thank you for stanning me.

Gen Fricker:

Thank you for stanning. Stan by me.

Gen Fricker:

What are some of the other replies you got, Alexei?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I got inundated. So, so many, but thankfully deleted Tweets are a little bit hard to find out. But me and my friends were just talking about how they're called prawns, they're aliens called prawns. Are they the same prawns that we eat, but they're all grown up? And people just not understanding that we're joking around, going like-

Gen Fricker:

Oh my God.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

... "Prawns is actually a name that is a slur used in the movie." I'm like, "Yeah, we get it. We get the movie." But this is my favourite one, because it just infuriated me. "Hi there random strangers talking about my favourite film."

Gen Fricker:

Oh god.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

"Yeah. I always thought District 9 was about racism, treatment of refugees, Apartheid. Prawn was def a slur. Chappie's the best film ever made, ever. Elysium is awesome too." Which is just the other movies that director has made.

Gen Fricker:

What? Oh my God.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

It was infuriating.

Gen Fricker:

I'm so glad I'm not on Twitter. I'm so glad.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I deleted it off my phone after this. I can't believe that's what District 9 made me do, is like, "I'm out. I'm out of here for life."

Gen Fricker:

"Hi random strangers." No. Stop.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

No. I want to remain a stranger and extremely random.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

It was the most traumatic experience I've had online in quite some time. It was spawned by a fricking over 10 year-old movie.

Gen Fricker:

That's wild. So do you think I should watch it?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. It's pretty sick. It's a pretty sick flick.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah.