Quick Hits, Volume 1

Dalton & Sonny
Nov 1 · 10 min read

Dalton asks Sonny about … Viral Videos

Are there even viral videos anymore? I know that videos go “viral” but it seems that almost every single interesting or funny video (and many that are not either of those) is seen by everybody. When was the last time you tried to show someone a video and they hadn’t already seen it? Viral videos used to be special, but now they’re just… videos. Do you think that the idea of the viral video dies in the 2010’s, just like my hopes and dreams? And on a lighter note, what is the greatest viral video of all time? My vote is “Chocolate Rain.” It’s already stuck in my head, that’s impact.

SG: Dalton, you pinpointed exactly why I requested that you ask me about Viral Videos. The “viral videos” that we knew, loved and took time out of our days to pass along to our friends in 2012 just don’t exist anymore for the reasons you stated above … every video goes “viral” which means, in reality, no videos go viral.

I think viral videos died right around the middle of the decade. It seems like that was the point when, whenever I shared a funny or interesting video with someone, they had already seen it, but they’d counter with, “But did you see this one?” and my response would be like, “Yeah, about a week ago … but have you checked this one out?” and this would just go on until we realized we didn’t actually have anything to talk about. I think this is part of the reason why the internet is so contentious nowadays. Everybody is on it, all the time, and we all see everything that is available to us before anyone else has a chance to purposely send it our way. So instead we just get into arguments with people and wind up just telling them to eat a dick.

(Is that just me?)

I miss when there was a new version of “The Harlem Shake” every three hours for a month straight. Or when “Jill and Kevin’s Wedding Dance” was viral enough to be parodied on The Office. I long for the days when the children in the “I like Turtles,” “Look at all those chickens,” and “David After Dentist” got the 15 minutes of fame they truly deserved. And Jesus, how adorable was the sneezing panda? Now it seems all the viral videos are of racist people being racist.

Unfortunately, there’s probably no reversing this, but that doesn’t mean I don’t plan on doing my part in bringing us back to a better time on the internet. I scoured YouTube, hoping to find a diamond in the rough … a video that lacked the views it deserved and could potentially receive those views with a little help from yours truly. So without further ado, I present you Watch Yo Face, I’ll Gobble It Up Son!

Sonny asks Dalton about … Being a washed-up athlete
Normal people like you or I poking fun at washed-up professional athletes is just a hilarious concept to me. Not only do these people have a level of public recognition that you and I can only hope we can one day achieve, they also possess a level of athleticism that you and I just fundamentally lack. So here’s a thought experiment that I think can be pretty fun:

I’m going to present you five one-on-one scenarios where you’d be going up against a former professional athlete. Now granted, these athletes aren’t “washed-up.” They’re just old, but it’s my belief that doing this with a still young-ish but washed-up professional athlete is silly. You, me, or any normal person would be humiliated. But against individuals who are close to senior citizens, it’s a more even playing field. Your task is to determine, on a scale of 1–10, how well you’d do in these events.

· Tackling former All-Pro NFL Running Back OJ Simpson in the open field.

· Boxing one three-minute round against former Heavyweight champion George Foreman.

· Playing a game of one-on-one with former all-time NBA Assist leader John Stockton.

· Getting a hit off of Hall of Fame MLB pitcher Nolan Ryan.

· Competing in the decathlon versus 1976 Olympic Gold Medal winner Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner.

DB: This subject was supposed to be more about what it is like for us as washed up athletes, because I’m 27 and can’t seem to play an hour of soccer without injuring myself, and I’ve seen you throw your back out with a sneeze. However, I like the premise you’ve created here, so I’ll bite.

OJ Simpson — OJ is 72 years old. Maybe I could tackle him in the open field, maybe. But he’s also probably a murderer, so I’m going to forfeit this competition, especially if he’s wearing gloves that fit.

George Foreman — My goal here would be survival. I’m certain that if I took a punch from 70 year old George Foreman it would kill me. However, I am pretty confident that with my 6’3 reach I could land one punch. My plan would be to run around the ring for 2 minutes and 59 seconds and then throw one small jab before the bell. I win the match and save myself from a one punch diagnosis of CTE

John Stockton — This one is a no-brainer. John Stockton is only 57 years old. It’s honestly pretty rude of you to call him a senior citizen. Mostly because he would bring that new chip on his shoulder into his one on one game with me. Whatever we play to, I’m losing that number to zero.

Nolan Ryan — I have a theory that hitting a baseball is about 75% luck. Sure it helps if you’re strong and athletic and all of that, but if you have those things, when it comes to hitting a baseball you’re just guess swinging most of the time. I’m confident given 10 pitches I could hit one off of Nolan Ryan… in his prime. I’m going 10 for 10 with the 40 mph fastballs he’s throwing nowadays.

Caitlyn Jenner The decathlon features 10 events involving a lot of running, jumping, and throwing, all things I’ve only ever been average at. Caitlyn Jenner is almost 70 years old and she could surely beat me at a decathlon, wearing heels.

Dalton asks Sonny about … HBO Programming

Sonny you seem to have a fairly deep appreciation of the HBO library, so here’s what we’re going to do: I’ll be giving you three characters from HBO shows, and I’d like you to give me any HBO show other than their own that they would fair best in and why. Also, because I like rules, you can only use whatever shows you choose one time each. The three characters I’d like you to relocate are Arya Stark, Tony Soprano, and Roman Roy.

SG: Dalton, I apologize, but I’m not going to answer your question directly.

I also would like to thank you, because your question has inspired one of my favorite ideas that I’ve ever written about.

Ya know how ESPN has their NBA Trade Machine? Well get excited TV junkies, because today I’ll be introducing the HBO Trade Machine!

The rules of the HBO Trade Machine are fairly simple: Any HBO program is available, and you (the user) have the capability of making elaborate character trades between up to four HBO shows at once. Dalton, since I want to show proper respect to your question — a tremendous question, mind you — I’ll be making sure to use the three shows and the three characters mentioned above in my answer.

My goodness, where do we even begin? I tend to believe that, as is the case with most NBA trades, Succession is the biggest winner of the trade considering they got the best asset in Tony Soprano. I love the idea of Tony and Logan Roy ending up in some sort of bitter feud based on the way ATN covers Mafia-related news. I know for sure that Tony would absolutely try to have sex with Shiv Roy, and I’d assume Shiv would be down for that given her propensity to both align with her father’s rivals and have sex with men who aren’t her husband. Meanwhile, Christopher and Kendall Roy would be snorting all of the cocaine and shooting up all of the heroin. It would basically be a contest to see who would overdose first.

Meanwhile, taking the two primary male leads off of The Sopranos and replacing them with four powerful female characters would give HBO’s first flagship drama an entirely different dynamic. Arya Stark sailed west of Westeros all the way to Newark, New Jersey. She’d immediately become a huge mafia asset given her status as a faceless assassin. She’d be like Furio, but she wouldn’t catch feelings for anyone’s wife. In the end she’d probably kill every Mafia don, underboss and soldier in the Tri-State area just for kicks.

Cersei is ballsy enough and power-hungry enough to challenge the traditional mafia power structure (i.e. male dominated), which would annoy everyone in 21st Century New Jersey who still had a 1953 mindset that women belonged in the kitchen and should tolerate their husbands infidelity. But after Arya picked off each and every mafioso, we’d finally get the Arya Stark/Cersei Lannister showdown we hoped for before Dany and her dragons turned everything in King’s Landing to ash.

Similar to the issues Tony would have with ATN, Carmela would be similarly displeased with how Nan Pierce’s Pierce Media Group covers the death of her husband — yeah, you heard me, Tony died at the end of The Sopranos. Rhea Jarrell would try to smooth things over, but Carmela and her gang of mob wives would be ready to go to war against a media conglomerate.

Placing Roman Roy in a world where kinky sex, casual violence and wanton alcohol consumption are the norm would be dangerous for everyone in Westeros.There isn’t a single interaction between Rome and an existing Thrones character that I wouldn’t be riveted by. I imagine he would be enamored by Dany’s dragons. Tyrion would have an equally debaucherous drinking buddy.

There’s no doubt that Connor would arrive in Westeros with the mindset that he was somehow the true heir to the Iron Throne, but before he got within sneezing distance he’d find a way to get himself beheaded. Adriana is incredibly attractive and she has a good heart; every time I re-watch The Sopranos I feel bad that she was dragged down by Chris. I don’t know how well those attributes transfer over in Westeros, but in a world where there is no FBI — and therefore no FBI agents to turn her into an informant, which is what eventually got her killed in New Jersey — she should last longer. Then again, one contentious encounter with Daenerys and she suffers a fate much worse than being driven into the woods and killed by Silvio.

Sonny Asks Dalton about … Pettiness

Get pumped Dalton, you’re in charge of naming the inaugural class of the Pettiness Hall of Fame. These aren’t people that you’ll be inducting though … you’re tasked with coming up with the pettiest moments of all time in five different categories. Go nuts!

DB: I don’t know if all of the moments I choose will necessarily be unequivocally the pettiest, but they will for sure be my favorite petty moments from each category. Here we go!

In Sports — Did you know that the founders of Adidas and Puma were brothers? Adi and Rudi Dassler founded what would one day be Adidas, but after a perceived snide comment from Adi during WWII that Rudi thought was aimed at his family, but was really aimed at the Allies (tough look for Adi here) Rudi left to find Puma. The factories for each company were built on opposite sides of a river in the town of Herzogenaurach, and they made sure that when they died they were buried on opposite sides of the cemetery. Taking their pettiness to the grave definitely deserves the top spot here.

In Film/TV — I don’t believe this moment was intentionally petty, but I’m going to include it here anyway. It’s no secret that I have issues with everything that James Cameron stands for as a human being. Mostly because of Avatar. Kathryn Bigelow, who directed the perfect film that is Point Break, was married to Cameron in 1989 and divorced him in 1991. In 2010 she became the first woman to win the Best Director award at the Oscars for her movie The Hurt Locker. The best part is she went head to head with her ex-husband who was nominated for his work on Avatar and wiped the floor with him. Overall, Hurt Locker took home 6 awards and Avatar took home 3. Kathryn won her divorce and protected the legacy of the Academy Awards all in one night.

In Politics — Anytime someone successfully windmill dunks on Donald Trump. LeBron James’s “U bum” tweet is a fine example. I especially love whenever protestors fly inflatable caricatures of the President, like the giant baby, or the giant chicken.

In Celebrity Culture — Burt Reynolds was a big fan of horses, and not a big fan of gossip magazines covering him. So in 1985 he and his ranch foreman took 100 horses worth of horse shit and flew it to the National Enquirer headquarters in a helicopter and dumped it all over their large Christmas display. Amazing stuff.

In Your Own Personal Life — Here’s a good example of how I may be one half of the pettiest couple on the planet, at least when it comes to little things. Around when Jeanie (my saint of a life partner) and I first started living together my laptop broke, so she was letting me use one of her older Macs. Well we got into a fight over something and I decided to watch some Game of Thrones without her to piss her off. That’s the first petty action of this story. I happened to be watching my petty Thrones on her laptop she let me borrow, when she realized this she slammed it closed, took it into the bedroom, and locked the door. That was petty action number 2. She’s perfect.

Bingeable

Bingeable: A term coined in 2013 to make sitting in front of a screen for hours on end devouring the entirety of a given piece of content sound like a great time. Well guess what? It is a great time and we decided to write about the decade that made it possible.

Dalton & Sonny

Written by

All Co-Written Posts by Dalton Baggett and Sonny Giuliano

Bingeable

Bingeable

Bingeable: A term coined in 2013 to make sitting in front of a screen for hours on end devouring the entirety of a given piece of content sound like a great time. Well guess what? It is a great time and we decided to write about the decade that made it possible.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade