Jon Minton’s Blog
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Unpop

Introduction

I tend to take ‘unserious’ things seriously (as well as ‘serious’ things unseriously). Often if I’m watching, listening to or reading something, something nominally ‘unserious’ or ‘lowbrow’ or ‘poppy’, it will trigger a cascade of broader ideas, thoughts and concepts. 1

As well as an extensive series of posts on statistical theory, I’ve also written some posts inspired by various specific pop cultural artefacts, such as specific books, films, TV shows and games. In this section I’ve aimed to collate these disparate reflections into a single place. I’ve called it ‘unpop’ because - though many of the things I’m writing about are part of pop culture, I’m probably not picking them up when they’re most popular, and neither am I treating them in a way that’s particular conventional or ‘poppy’.

Often, the posts in this emergent series are going to be less technical than in the technical series. However, that doesn’t mean I can promise these posts will be free of technical content, concepts or ideas. If you’re scared of algebra, graphs, big words or code, this whole blogsite probably isn’t for you!

Date Title Reading Time
Nov 29, 2023 Robocop (1987) is wonderfully childish 5 min
Dec 5, 2023 Beavis and Butt-Head: When a physics graduate dons Dumbface 5 min
Dec 17, 2023 The Eerie Familiarity of Frasier (2023) 10 min
Jan 6, 2024 David Sederis: Humourists as Unrepentent Observational Confessionals 4 min
Feb 1, 2024 On Sweary Soap Operas: A Concealed Television Genre 4 min
Feb 24, 2024 Why can’t we just get on with making and fixing stuff? 10 min
Mar 3, 2024 My thoughts on Dune (Part 1) 13 min
Mar 22, 2024 Levelling up… forever. On Gaming’s Shepherd’s Tone and the Fremium Trap 10 min
Mar 26, 2024 Thoughts on Dreams from My Father 13 min
Mar 29, 2024 The Trading Mind Game 9 min
Mar 30, 2024 Jason Statham vs the Nepobaby Cyberscammers 15 min
May 12, 2024 David Lynch: All-American Shaman 10 min
Jun 17, 2024 The Game of Life Beyond 16 min
Jun 25, 2024 Johan Hari: Superior Inferior Superior Storyteller 18 min
Aug 12, 2024 Mistaken (Aural) Identity: On podcasts and soundalikes 3 min
Oct 10, 2024 Megalopolis: Dream Film 7 min
Dec 21, 2024 Wham! forever: On cultural debraiding and the end of Cultural progress 19 min
Dec 30, 2024 Weaponising the Empathy Machine: On Escape at Dannemora 5 min
Jan 4, 2025 Brother Lee the Antimonk 7 min
Apr 18, 2025 Mickey 17 and the Economics of Life 17 min
May 5, 2025 Three Computer Games for People who Don’t Play Computer Games 8 min
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Footnotes

  1. It’s an occupational hazard of being me.↩︎