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The Search for Real Feeling

2023-04-04 · letter vlog · John · 3:30 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Sports (also: Philosophy & meaning, Nerdfighteria) · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion, community lore

In a Format video that opens with gags and a coffee club plug, John says he struggles to feel emotions purely, since good news brings dread and bad news denial, and that sports, like AFC Wimbledon's wins and losses, give him simple feelings that are less unpleasant because they are shared.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Format opening: the destroyed 30-foot microphone cord, John's 2008 hair and a second John

  • ★ John mourns his 30-foot microphone cord, destroyed in a travel-related catastrophe and never to be replaced, except by a new 36-foot cord. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • ★ John says so much is going on that his hair looks like 2008 John's because he hasn't had time for a haircut. (playful) — 00:00:14

00:00:29 — Awesome Coffee Club K-cups and five-pound bags; the weather-report gag

  • ★★ John announces that the Awesome Coffee Club now sells backyard-compostable K-cups and five-pound bags for bulk office coffee needs. — 00:00:29 · Awesome Coffee Club
  • ★★ John asks viewers to tell their bosses, office procurement services, and friends and family who use K-cups about the Awesome Coffee Club's new products. — 00:00:33 · Awesome Coffee Club
  • ★★ John says he is really doing okay, but he is exhausted, and not mainly physically. — 00:00:43

00:00:58 — John struggles to feel emotions purely: dread after good news, denial after bad news

  • ★★★ John says he sometimes struggles to feel any emotion purely or simply. — 00:01:03
  • ★★ John says the Awesome Socks and Coffee Club has passed $2 million raised. — 00:01:12 · Awesome Socks Club, Awesome Coffee Club
  • ★★★ When something good happens, John feels good but with a hint of dread that the universe is about to even the score with a personal or societal disaster. — 00:01:12
  • ★★ John says that when he gets really bad news he tends to deny or minimize it or assume there is a way out, which is also an inability to feel something purely. — 00:01:41

00:01:56 — Sports give simple feelings: AFC Wimbledon's promotion, losses and a shared miserable trip; sign-off

  • ★★★ John says that for him, emotions tend to be muddled, multitudinous and above all complex. — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ John says this is ultimately why he loves sports so much: sometimes he needs to feel in a straightforward, uncomplicated way. — 00:01:58
  • ★★ When John saw AFC Wimbledon promoted to the third tier at Wembley with his dad, friends and 60,000 others, he felt pure, simple joy without dread. — 00:02:05 · AFC Wimbledon, Mike Green
  • ★★ John says AFC Wimbledon have gone 1-0 up and then lost 2-1 more often over the last three seasons than any other team in professional soccer. — 00:02:26 · AFC Wimbledon
  • ★★ After those losses John feels sadness without hope mixed in: pure, unpleasant, but simple. — 00:02:30
  • ★★ A couple of weeks ago John flew across an ocean with his kid to see AFC Wimbledon lose to the league's worst team without a single shot on target. — 00:02:41 · AFC Wimbledon
  • ★★★ John says that trip was still wondrous: he was among people whose love pointed the same way, and the miserable emotions were straightforward and, above all, shared. — 00:02:55
  • ★★★ John says that usually everyone you meet is having a different day, but at an AFC Wimbledon game after an infuriating loss most fans were having the same day. — 00:03:07 · AFC Wimbledon
  • ★★★ John says frustration and disappointment are unpleasant despite their simplicity, but less unpleasant when you are not so lonely in them. — 00:03:20

In the description and comments

  • ★ In a comment, John advises women going to an AFC Wimbledon game to check in with the Women of Wimbledon Supporters' Association. — creator comment · AFC Wimbledon

Humor (significant)

  • John mourns his destroyed 30-foot microphone cord as a fallen comrade that will never be replaced. — 00:00:00

    “Except by my new 36-foot long cord.”

  • A second John appears mid-sentence and the first asks when he got there. — 00:00:14

    “Though I've been here the whole time, it's kind of a bit within the bit.”

  • Asked for the weather, John describes his inner exhaustion; the other John explains that weather is the external atmosphere. — 00:00:43

    “Oh, yeah, no, it's cloudy.”

  • John segues from praising Awesome Coffee to his struggle to feel emotions. — 00:01:03

    “Speaking of awesome coffee, I sometimes struggle to feel any emotion”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: AFC Wimbledon

Also: Awesome Coffee Club · Awesome Socks Club · loneliness · Mike Green · Wembley Stadium

Only in the description or credits: Women of Wimbledon Supporters' Association

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