Riley Silverman

Fandom: it feels like it’s gotten hard lately. For example, ‘Ready Player One’ began its life as a bestselling novel by Ernest Cline. In their “A”-graded write-up in 2011, The AV Club said “for readers in line with Cline’s obsessions, this is a guaranteed pleasure.” Yet by 2018, when ‘RPO’ got a Steven Spielberg film adaptation, that same review site gave the movie a “B” grade with a side of savage criticism: “Like Ernest Cline’s divisive geek-courting novel, the film doesn’t offer much of a story or characters, instead spreading out an endless buffet of pop-culture references, flattering the preoccupations and encyclopedic recall of its target audience.” Does that make any sense? Was aggressive fandom better a few years back? Or has the dark side of really liking a thing turned too dark, too often?

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians Caitlin Gill and Riley Silverman for a range of stories about how to be the absolute best pop culture fan you can be. They’ll focus on tales of fans connecting with creators, changing the shape of their favorite art, and putting themselves into it. They’ll also mull the dark side of intense fandom. And with everything from ‘Doctor Who’ to ‘Spider-Man’ about to premiere new installments, they’ll point to how you can be somebody who makes the world of fandom brighter.

Footnotes: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/11-amazing-fans-who-belong-in-pop-culture-hall-fame

Comedian Riley Silverman sits down with Cameron to discuss shopping for clothes, Doctor Who, and fights on the internet.

This episode is sponsored by TomboyX (www.tomboyx.com/QUEERY code: QUEERY), Outdoor Voices (www.outdoorvoices.com/QUEERY code: QUEERY), and Backblaze (www.backblaze.com/QUEERY).

Comedian and writer Riley Silverman (Intimate Apparel) guests this week to talk about transitioning, newfound groupies and fans, going deeper down the Kinsey scale, and of course, Star Trek and Doctor Who. Plus, Dave talks sex clubs and Matt reveals his love song writing past!

This episode is sponsored by Bombfell.

Comedian Riley Silverman joins Travon to revisit “Your Obedient Servant” and explain how her journey with gender has reinforced her belief that, at heart, she’s more of a Burr than a Hamilton. She also confesses the unorthodox way she watched Hamilton for the first time. Plus, they go on a Harry Potter tangent or two. 

This episode is brought to you by Squarespace (www.squarespace.com code: HAMILTON) and Today Tix (www.todaytix.com code: HAMILTON).

So after seven books, eight movies and a trip to Universal Studios, you think you would prefer to go to Hogwarts than live in real life. Everyone gets assigned a very useful pet owl, you can fly around on broomsticks and you don’t have to stick to MLA formatting or learn differential geometry. Sounds great! Except everyone is dying all the time.  Cedric Diggory. Dead. Fred Weasley. Dead. Let’s face it, if there was an evil wizard trying to put an end to humanity on the campus of Ohio State, people would stop going there.

Just to recap – Hogwarts: 

Pros: magic and other cool stuff

Cons: death is everywhere.

By this logic, our goal this episode is to figure out what would be the best fictional school to attend. We found that most schools in fiction have a much higher death rate than the normal high school or university. We’ll take that into consideration. 

Co-hosts Jack O’Brien and Daniel O’Brien are joined by Cracked’s Josh Sargent and Alex Schmidt, and comedians Alison Leiby, Brandie Posey, Riley Silverman and Steven Wilbur to talk Hogwarts, Starfleet Academy, Sunnydale High and more.

Footnotes:

Alison Leiby’s Website: https://goo.gl/Dk4XHS

Alison Leiby’s Standup: https://goo.gl/nFm8P3

Brandie Posey’s Website: http://goo.gl/evH4MH

Brandie Posey’s Standup: https://goo.gl/7gVzdI

Riley Silverman’s Website: http://goo.gl/CNZZYj

Riley Silverman’s Standup: https://goo.gl/ADU1qG

Steven Wilber’s Website: http://goo.gl/OH9jB9

Steven Wilber’s Standup: https://goo.gl/8vJBl1

Cracked: The 5 Most Depraved Sex Scenes Implied By Harry Potter: http://goo.gl/RVSM5

Cracked: 6 Horrifying Implications of the Harry Potter Universe: http://goo.gl/uiaMd

Cracked: Why Hogwarts Was All in Harry’s Head: http://goo.gl/xLALu

Cracked: My Brief Time as a Student at Hogwarts: http://goo.gl/M05Mm

Cracked: After Hours: 5 Movie High Schools That Would Suck To Attend: https://goo.gl/yNRe8H

This episode is sponsored by Wealthfront Veritone, Magoosh, and the Now Hear This Podcast Festival.