Episode 25 - Paik4Life

Struggle to Understand

In this episode, I speak with Henry Paik who has a YouTube channel called “Paik4Life.” On this channel, Paik reviews collectibles and provides discussion and commentary for the community that has developed around those collectibles. Like others who engage in this kind of review and commentary, he deals some with official products but also with unlicensed or third-party products. We discuss how he came to being a collectible reviewer, the importance of collectibles to him and the community he’s developed around them, as well as a little bit of “behind the scenes” discussion about how the business side of these collectibles actually operates. We end our discussion with an exploration of why this particular era of popular culture is so defined by nostalgia and what that might mean about what we are currently valuing and not valuing. Ultimately, as I’ve said before, popular culture and the collectibles that have been developed around them are not just vapid materialism or trinkets to fill shelves; they are centerpieces for developing community.

Find Paik here, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

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