Pulse Check Round-up #12
Hi everyone,
Thanks all again for continuing to participate in this project. I’m personally surprised to see many of you continuing to read and answer the surveys. And I’m equally surprised at myself for managing to keep it up. I honestly thought I was going to give up by now.
Here’s next week’s survey, also linked below.
Onto the round-up.
Survey Results
Q1: How many alcoholic drinks do you have a week, on average?
Results
Average: ~5.6
Median: 3.5
Highlighted Free Responses:
“Casual, drink socially at events occasionally”
“. . . I still like beer and I’ll still polish off beers with the best of em but the grand arc of my life has led me to realize that social drinking and having someone to drink with is the thin line between liking something and going to a meeting”
“I think my relationship with alcohol is fine; I am primarily a social drinker and don't have a habit of drinking during the week or drinking alone. I think I'd be able to give it up without too much of a problem but would have to learn how to not miss it as a social lubricant at parties.”
“I think my number is higher than usual (being in school, summer internship, etc.). And while I like a good drink and drinking with friends, I definitely think I drink more that I’d like. I’ve especially started to feel this now that hangovers last longer and its effects go beyond feeling like shit the next day (e.g., the bloat).”
“Tbh I’ve never drank enough to consider giving it up and similarly don’t think I would ever need to be sober. Drinking a few drinks a week is totally fine as long as you’re not binging imo.”
“I find it difficult to have a healthy relationship to alcohol. I definitely do not like drinking as much as I do and been trying to cut back. I found that only two drinks per session is ideal for me and probably 1-3 drinking activities a week is more ideal.”
“Yeah I could probably drink a little less”
“I try to max out at the doctor-recommended seven per week but rarely pay enough attention to know if I actually am. Occasionally I am overserved”
“I feel like my personal relationship is certainly moderation. I feel the effects more as I age and definitely do not have the same tolerance as I used to. I don't think I would have a problem giving up drinking but I do appreciate society's adoption of more non-alc options in social settings.”
Commentary
Objectively, alcohol is poison that is bad for you and shortens your life.
But when you want to let loose with the boys and belt out some karaoke, what else are you gonna do? Not have 1 million beers?
Personally, I hardly drink during the week. When I do drink it’s almost always a social thing, or at worst like a beer or glass of wine with dinner if I’m feeling frisky. Plus it make my stummy hurt.1
So I usually end up in the range of 3-5 drinks a week, with the exception of the occasional late night out.
Besides the health effects and the hangovers, alcohol also tends to introduce lots of other bad things like drunk driving, gambling losses, domestic violence, and losing your job at CBS.
Especially when you actually consider how much some people drink, we as a society could probably lay off the bottle a bit.
But in a similar vein to what I wrote about remote work, I do wonder if there are some of us who are over-correcting a bit. Younger generations are already showing signs of drinking less than previous generations. They are also socializing less and having less sex, which is hard not to see as related.
There’s also the growing cluster of bio-hackers and the health-obsessed elite who aren’t drinking as much. You know, the types who wear a smart watch to sleep, log all their activities on Strava, won’t eat anything that doesn’t have 25g of protein, and can’t live without a series of daily powders.
And of course, if you live your life in this way, alcohol seems like an obvious thing to cut out. Why drink a beer when you can maximize your VO2 max?
Although there are plenty of legitimate reasons to cut alcohol out of your life, I think if you’re already a relatively healthy person, going dry just to squeeze some extra bit of optimization of your health metrics is just kinda lame. Unless you have a legitimate problem, just have a beer every now and then. It won’t kill ya.
Q2: Did the World Cup make you more interested in following soccer?
Results
Highlighted Free Responses
“No I prefer international soccer”
“. . . Even with all the nonsense of this tournament, this was a good showcase for the sport, even if MLS will probably shoot itself in the dick by making its games even less accessible than they already are on fucking Apple”
“Not really a professional sports follower for any sport. Also, a lot of people who are into premier league etc. can be annoying and gatekeepy about it, and this really came out during this year's world cup.”
“*Football (or footy). Getting it right please.”
“The men have disappointed me, all of them, except Spain, so it’s time for women’s club ahead of the 2027 World Cup :) im gearing up for the event by becoming a commuted Spirit fan. Stood out in the POURING rain to see them get their ass kicked by San Diego so i feel like I’ve earned my stripes.”
“It’s fun to watch in company but I’m too many seasons behind to get into it. Don’t know who the characters are”
“I will not watch a game until the next World Cup. Soccer is a bit boring (apparently the sport is too technical now) but the World Cup is more about being the biggest global event”
“I can appreciate going to a Washington Spirit game every once in a while, but I'm just not a follow sports kind of a person.”
Commentary
Thanks to all the annoying nerds in my life, I’ve been constantly peer pressured to get into soccer. In recent years, I’ve gotten more interested in the sport, and I did really enjoy the World Cup.
The World Cup is an awesome event, one of the best things sport has to offer. It was great to see how it was received in North America as well, seeing how it brought people around the world together. From Koreans partying in Mexico, to Japanese people learning about the wonder of endless chips and salsa, to the Scots drinking every beer in Boston, it was a great moment of international unity and cultural exchange. It’s really the pinnacle of what sports can be as a cultural phenomenon. If you can’t appreciate that, grow up.
I definitely gained a greater appreciation for the actual game of soccer as a result. We had great moments like Cape Verde taking Argentina to the wire, the English holding it down in the Azteca, the US’ brief moment of hope after Paraguay, and Messi still doin it. I learned a lot more about the mechanics, nuances, and strategies of the sport. There’s a lot of depth when it comes to narratives, team histories, and advanced analytics (one of my favorite topics). I like how there are fewer ad breaks as compared to American football and basketball (hydration breaks not withstanding). And even to the untrained eye, the players are astounding. Guys like Haaland, Mbappe, and Yamal are amazing to watch. (Fuck Jude Bellingham though, that guy is way too handsome). There’s a lot to like!
Despite that though, I don’t know if I’m ever going to love soccer, and I kind of think it’s always going to be that way for a lot of Americans. Judging by the number of no’s here, seems that many of you might feel the same.
I think that all sports can be interesting in their own right. It’s just that, at the end of the day, I don’t have the same attachment to the game. Soccer just doesn’t grip me that much, both on the pitch and as a cultural product in the same way that football and basketball do. Call me a pig-headed American, but as soon as the dust settled on the World Cup, I couldn’t help but think: “I can’t wait until real football starts.” Maybe if that Spain-Argentina final ended on a better note I would feel better about soccer — that was an absolute snoozer.
I’ll tune in for the women’s World Cup next year for sure, and I’ll passively root for the Washington Spirit. But I don’t know if I’m ever going to be one of the sickos regularly at the pub at 8am to watch the English Premier League. Sorry, nerds.
Q3: Do you recline your seat on an airplane?
Results
Highlighted Free Responses:
“The seats barely recline”
“Not gonna lie, I forget it’s an option most of the time and I don’t fly very often anyhow. . . . People who get mad about others reclining don’t belong in polite society, unless they’ve already politely explained their reasoning and exhausted all reasonable options.”
“Depends on how long the flight is. I don't usually recline it unless it's longer than a couple of hours and I'm trying to sleep. I don't necessarily find it more comfortable than upright for regular sitting. I'm more likely to recline the seat if the person in front of me has it back just to give myself more space.”
“You get what you pay for. If you pay for a seat that reclines, you recline. But you also pay for the space in front of your seat such that when someone reclines, they take that space from you. All is to say, you just gotta duke it out with other passengers.”
“Depends on if the person in front of me does it. I think a little recline is fine but the people that turn it all the way back are being a little selfish. I think if your aim is to be extremely comfortable on a flight you should pay for business …”
“Only if eepy and sometimes I am too sleepy and I forgot to”
“I think the only acceptable time is when it’s an overnight haul where the standard reasonable person would probably at least attempt to sleep. I think if you are over the age of 21 and reclining your seat everytime you are a huge fucking prick”
“If a child is behind me I am absolutely reclining”
“I think it's polite not to jolt back and recline quickly but reclining is a feature of flying i dont understand the anti-reclining side.”
“I think it's rude. We already have such limited space on airplanes.”
Commentary
Quite the split of opinions on this one, and understandably. This feels like a topic that is difficult to reach a consensus on.
Flying etiquette feels like one of modern society’s most divisive topics: how should you dress on a plane, what should you eat on a plane, can you take your shoes off on a plane, is it appropriate for me to watch the scene from the The Chair Company where Ebenezer Scrooge’s erect penis is about to be fellated on a plane? (This is a real thing that happened to me. Luckily I was seated in the last row.)
Unlike some of those other plane behaviors, however, reclining your seat is a cut-and-dry zero-sum game: you are gaining some extra bit of comfort at the direct cost of the person sitting behind you. Their seat space, already cramped and limited, has now been reduced by a non-trivial amount directly in front of their face.
Is this wrong to do? Based on the data, it doesn’t seem like we all have the same answer:
Is it really so wrong to recline? Aren’t we entitled to push the button that the airline has given us? Isn’t it there for a reason? Especially if the person in front of us has already done so, aren’t we inclined to recline?
I can definitely see the argument. I think I ultimately land in the occasional / rarely bucket. When the person in front of me chooses to recline, I can’t really get mad at them. It’s annoying, sure, but we’re talking about maybe 6 inches of space and a 10 degree change of an angle. It doesn’t actually make you that much more comfortable to be the one reclining, and it doesn’t actually make you that much more uncomfortable to be the one behind the recliner. You’ll live either way.
So I say, go ahead and recline. Unless you’re sitting in front of me on an international flight.
Q4: Do you use Snapchat?
Results
Highlighted Free Responses
“I use it as a substitute for texting my friends often”
“I use it with a handful of people. It’s nice if I want to talk shit but don’t want to leave a record of that. I have friends overseas who I’ve known for years and we started out on snap but just haven’t cared enough to move on to WhatsApp or whatever. Otherwise, I couldn’t imagine just now setting up an account”
“The only time snapchat was good was when we were in high school and it still showed publicly who everyone's top five were, that was real tea. I think I deleted my snapchat in 2018. We are way too old for that shit now lol”
“We too old.”
“I don’t use it anymore but know of some people that still have it bc it’s the only way they keep up with long distance friends.”
“Why hasn't this app died yet? It feels very high school circa 2015”
“Haven’t had that downloaded for a few years”
“The 2010s were beautiful and terrifying. I find Snapchat use now a HUGE red flag. Can’t be good for kids either.”
“I know some people that use it cause their international friends use it, or just their buddy from high school never grew out of so they use it to stay in touch. I personally think it’s odd but more because of the culture of it being a youth app as opposed to any flaw in the design or use itself”
Commentary
Not too surprised to see most people in the “no” camp here, as almost all of us are at least in our late 20’s. Or as the kids say, we’re “chopped” or “unc” now.
I was never that into Snapchat, personally. Even in high school, I never felt like I had the social cache or personal confidence to regularly send candid pictures of my face to people. So I was personally pretty eager to leave that platform behind in my younger years. Based on the results, it seems that many of us feel the same, despite it still being a pretty big platform for young people today. This trend seems to be holding across most of the rest of the continent as well:
While I don’t regret the loss of Snapchat in my life or social circles, I do wonder if the shift towards Instagram and TikTok is an improvement or not. Snapchat, at least when I was using it, was a purely social experience. It’s not like how Instagram is today, which is to say, a short-form-video and dopamine factory disguised as a “social media” application.
Our culture around Instagram today basically discourages actual frequent posting, sharing, and vulnerable connection. Posting on Instagram nowadays feels more like a curated press release of your most recent vacation or a yearly “State of the Union” photo dump to make your life seem chic and interesting. Snapchat missives would just be like a sloppy picture of half of your face while you were taking a poop. At least that’s what it was for me.
I’m not so much mourning the loss of Snapchat in my life than I am reminiscing about a more halcyon time of the internet and online communication. Early days of Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat weren’t so juiced up with ads and growth hacking and enshittification. It just used to be posts, pictures, and pokes. Remember when the internet used to be just memes like this, and we all loved it?
But now even Snapchat today is now full of ads and slop; the Snap News page is effectively the digital equivalent of the tabloid magazines you see at the check-out aisle of the grocery store.
Thinking back to the early 2010s internet reminds me of the brief moment a few years ago when BeReal was the hot new thing. At the time, it was refreshing. It felt like a reminder of those more organic moments of online connection. I would see little snippets of my friends’ daily lives that I wouldn’t ordinarily see: what their apartment looks like, what neighborhood are they in, what are they having for lunch today. Sadly, however, like many other social platforms before it, BeReal has come and gone. It’s BeenReal. (Sorry.)
Ultimately I don’t think there’s any ideal combination of 1s and 0s that can be collided together to make a social platform that’s going to perfectly bring us all together forever. Human connection will forever be an alchemical formula that won’t be solved by the apps on our phones, for better and for worse.
At least until we all start putting Grok in our brains via Neuralink. That’s going to be huge.
Q5: Did you see The Odyssey?
Results
Highlighted Free Responses
“Best movie of the year”
“Tired of the “odyssey this, odyssey that” memes”
“Like most Nolan movies, I liked it and had a good time in the theater but didn't love it. I thought the 70MM film and the contrast and texture it brought looked really good, even if the screen was smaller than the IMAX. Ideally I'd like to see it both ways since I think they both bring something different, and 70MM IMAX isn't an option around here.”
“Saw it with my weird film friends in 70mm, no IMAX. It was an incredible experience, need to watch it again.”
“I thought it was great! Saw it 70mm and the colors / visuals were beautiful. I think it was a big task to adapt The Odyssey for the screen and Nolan did a pretty perfect job. There wasn’t much I would’ve changed.”
“screen too big I got scared”
“I thought it was great! Great time at the movies and another defibrillation to the chest keeping cinema alive another year”
“IMAX 70mm at Lincoln Square is only worth it if you have a good seat — otherwise you are just too close to the screen. Obviously good seats were totally sold out. I saw it in IMAX at the 34th street AMC which was great picture and sound-wise, would certainly recommend, it’s a better screen than the Kips Bay IMAX. (I still had to wait until August 3 to get a decent seat for an evening showtime).” Movie was a lot of fun, I had plenty of quibbles about the script / characterization (not enough jokes) and the ending was blah but some of the set pieces are really well executed / imagined, great score (can you imagine how much slower it would feel with Hans Zimmer?). Though I still think it’s a bummer that Christopher Nolan is colorblind, you can really tell.”
“Maybe I’ll see it later but it’s funny there’s so much hype when the book is kinda mid”
“Generally I thought it was a fine movie, but the person I went with did point out that there wasn't a lot of depth or character development which is fair and did make me a little more of a critic. I might have also been more critical if I knew more about Greek myths or had read the Odyssey.”
“IMAX was loud and quite the spectacle 9/10”
Commentary
Great results here — the movies are back!
Really pleasantly surprised to see 10 out of 12 respondents have seen the movie, with 8 of you having seen it in a premium format. Compare this to one of my earlier surveys about theatergoing, where the numbers were much lower. I’m proud of our progress.
I personally really liked the movie, and saw it in 70MM. I thought the interpretation of the story was smart and well done, the score by Ludwig Goransson was great (as always), and it overall looked great on film. And as an evangelist for the theatrical experience, it is great to see a huge movie, with big stars, shot on film in real locations with practical effects, from a real director, be this hugely successful at the box office. Even if I had my quibbles with parts of the movie, I’m still very glad it exists and that people went out to see it. Monocultural moments like these are so few and far between nowadays, and it’s nice to be able to share these things with other people.
The side effect of the movie being this popular is that you start to hear opinions coming out of the woodworks from people who aren’t regular moviegoers. Not to invalidate anyone’s opinion, but I personally get used to hearing a certain range of opinions about movies from living in a Letterboxd bubble. With The Odyssey, I’ve seen all kinds of takes, ranging from “it’s too long” or “why do they have American accents” to “why isn’t Helen of Troy being played by Sydney Sweeney” and “this movie is too woke because of Elliot Page.”
While some people have had valid complaints (the Emily Wilson review is entertaining to read, at the very least), the pretentious cynic in me has found a lot of the commentary from the movie-casuals to be annoying. I guess this is the natural consequence of lobbying the masses to go to the movies again, as I often do. Be careful what you wish for.
I also think the whole 70MM IMAX mania has gotten a bit overblown. While I think it’s an overall net benefit for people to get excited about seeing movies and contributing their extra dollars for premium formats, I worry about movie-going becoming more like getting a Supreme hoodie or Taylor Swift tickets. I’m not just saying this because I’m bitter about DC not having a true 70MM IMAX screen (and the AMC Georgetown having the smallest IMAX screen in the country), although it is annoying. Going to the theaters should be an accessible, democratic experience — not something that is limited to those with extra capital or ticket-drop-expertise.
After all, we come to the movies for magic. Dazzling images, on a huge silver screen. Somehow... heartbreak feels good in a place like this.
Q5 Bonus Question: What is your favorite Christopher Nolan movie?
Results
Tied for first (3 votes each): The Dark Knight, Inception
Tied for second / last (1 vote each): Memento, The Odyssey, Oppenheimer, Interstellar
Commentary
Interesting split here. Didn’t know people liked Inception that much! (I loved it as a know-it-all teenager but I find it kind of cheesy now).
I’ll probably have to go with The Dark Knight, personally, as it captured me at the right age and time in my life. Plus it’s largely filmed in Chicago so it automatically gets points for that. Although, Maggie Gyllenhall... eh.
I’ll have to see The Odyssey again at some point, but I think it’s probably in the upper half of Nolan movies for me. I think I liked Oppenheimer a bit more, and I rank Memento highly for Nolan doing his galaxy-brain mathematical-storytelling thing in a more restrained and effective format.
Also, don’t sleep on Tenet.
Next Survey
Find the link here for next week’s survey. The survey will close on Friday, August 28th.
I’ll target the next round-up to come out on Monday, August 31st, but I have some travel plans that may get in the way. Apologies in advance for any delay!
Peace and love,
Nathan
I’ve always had a pet joke with myself that I know I’ll never be at risk of becoming an alcoholic due to my sensitive tummy.