The “general population” can be a baffling bunch. Sometimes, no matter how much you try to conform to and to understand the greater organism that is our world, it sends baffling messages your way, and you find yourself perpetually and irrevocably alienated. For example, Buzzfeed recently asked Pandora to supply them with their top-ten thumbs-upped songs of all (Pandora’s) time. The results were staggeringly off-putting, and may lead you to wonder, while walking down the street, buying a salad — whatever it is you “people” do in public — who among the sea of anonymous assholes is contributing their virtual thumbs to what seems to be becoming a problem of global proportions. Indeed, we’re seeing a relentless waste of thumbs. For Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” is the number one thumbs-upped song, and it’s closely followed by Gotye’s “Somebody that I Used to Know,” Maroon 5’s “She Will Be Loved” and The Fray’s “How to Save a Life.”
Another bad song that’s gotten too much attention — attention which may lead you to wonder how to continue on when said song is getting said attention: REM’s “Shiny Happy People.” Luckily, all of those glistening jubilant homo sapiens are given their overdue criticism (okay, everybody criticizes that song, but still) in A.V. Club’s “Hear This” column.
On the complete flip side, it’s both considered blasphemous and unheard of to hate the Before (Sunrise, Sunset, Midnight) trilogy. The notion that watching two intellectually competent, emotionally flawed adults meander through cities (and sometimes the country!) is such a universally enjoyable and thought-provoking experience unifies a great many people. If you’re like me and are among the masses who can’t get enough of Céline and Jesse, this roundtable at Consequence of Sound — in which Dominick Mayer, Blake Goble and Justin Gerber argue over which of these philosophizing promenades is the most resonant — is definitely a worthwhile read.
And if for some inexplicable reason you’re not the type of person who likes to watch two other normal people have a 2-hour conversation you could just as easily have any time with another person IRL (that is, if you’re magical like Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawk and fell in love over the course of a fucking night in Austria) — if for some reason you’re into people doing things with their bodies besides walking — there’s always the ubiquitous worlds of Marvel movies to disappear into. But many of those worlds no longer belong to Marvel — with so many projects going on circling Marvel’s characters, it’s hard to keep track of who’s doing what. If it’s a concern to you, here’s a helpful infographic that shows exactly who’s in possession of which characters.
Now go, be merry, listen to your Gotye.