Basically Gen Z Basically Gen Z

Hello and welcome back to Thought Bubbles! This episode is an update on Kaytie's "Stepping Away" experiment. Long story short, it was difficult to stay off apps like Tiktok when scrolling has become a long-standing habit in regular environments, such as the train. After reflecting on what went wrong and what could be different, Kaytie decides to delete Tiktok for good and see where that goes. 

Tune in next week for the results!


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When was the last time you heard or saw an ice cream truck? In this Thought Bubble, Ellie describes a fun encounter with an ice cream truck that brought back memories of her five-year-old self living in the suburbs of California.

Throwback to the time when we had fun at playgrounds swinging on monkey bars and swings, playing hopscotch, jumping rope, and fooling around in the sandbox. Looking back, it seemed so natural for us to work/play together with people we just met and to make friends.

I was in an entrepreneurship bootcamp last semester, and we did a little team-building exercise called the spaghetti tower challenge (aka the marshmallow challenge) where teams of five compete against other teams to build the tallest structure using sticks of spaghetti, string, tape, and one marshmallow that’s supposed to be at the top of the tower as a marker for measuring. This challenge is timed for 18 minutes, and the team with the tallest tower (aka whose tower has the highest marshmallow) wins.

The result: my team had the tallest tower. Yay!!! During the debrief of that exercise, the bootcamp alluded to Tom Wujec’s TED Talk “Build a tower, build a team”, in which he points out that the people who do the best at this challenge are kindergartners - building towers much much taller than those of MBA and post grad students (who often performed the worst). Isn’t it ironic that MBA students who are taught collaboration and leadership skills in business school do the worst? Well that’s because these MBA students follow what they’re taught in school too rigidly (such as having a set project timeline where they spend way too much time deciding who the official team “leader” is and “allocating” tasks to everyone instead of actually building the tower). Meanwhile these kindergartners are out here building away and work together and communicate very naturally. They don’t try to grapple for power and try to be the official “team leader”. It’s all a very creative and naturally collaborative process, without the constraints of a “textbook” system.

The reason I mention this marshmallow challenge is to highlight the benefits of feeling like a kid again and how that feeling can open up so much creativity and collaboration, which is probably why companies like Google create spaces that try to emulate that sense of playfulness to inspire creativity and open-mindedness. It’s beneficial to do things to feel like a kid again that help you find your own ‘sandbox’, whether it’s eating ice cream, drawing, playing with plushies, etc.

I really hope to see more spaces or playgrounds for adults to relax, have fun, and to relive their childhood. For most of us, it’s great stress relief!

Also… does that mean that my team has the brain of a bunch of kindergartners if we did so well during the marshmallow challenge? Haha just kidding lol ;)

Until next time,
Ellie


Tom Wujec’s TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower_build_a_team


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Hello, welcome back to Thought Bubbles! This week Kaytie will be embarking on a journey to know less about the world. Not in the “I am aiming for complete blissful ignorance” way, but in the “I am going to cut out irrelevant media and focus on living my life and being the best person I can be in real time and real space without thinking about world politics or what the popular girl from high school is eating for lunch” type. You know?
The first app to be axed in this experiment is Tiktok. For a while, I justified spending 2-3 hours on the app every day because I told myself I was using it, unironically, for educational content. I was watching content from “stocktock”, “fintok” and “techtok”, but I was watching mindless content as well. Needless to say, I am ready to stop being delusional and reclaim my time.
Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter fall in the category of “I go here when bored of Tiktok”. I reckon that IG will be the most difficult to stay off of here since I like to take my fashion inspo from IG sometimes. That being said, I’m sure a week will do no harm to my fashion sense. Also hot take: Snapchat is outdated. Another hot take: Twitter is outdated and Elon Musk owning it doesn’t change a thing.
Robinhood is a funny situation because I do have real money invested in it. That being said, I am a dollar cost average, buy and hold investor, so watching the graphs tick up and down is probably doing more harm to my mental health than good. See ya after the recession, Robinhood.
Signing off on this very long caption! I plan to come back everyday to update my thoughts.
Catch you later,
Kaytie

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Welcome to the first mini-episode of a subseries called Thought Bubbles, where we record and collect some of our thoughts and opinions.

Often fueled by random bursts of energy, these recordings can vary from unpolished rants, scripted writings, or one-sided conversations.

Context for this Thought Bubble (recorded last Friday - which was the last day of instruction for UC Berkeley): While cleaning and scrolling through Instagram stories of graduating seniors who are celebrating their last day of instruction EVER, Ellie reminiscences on memories she made at the beginning of the school year and the past few years of college. While she isn't graduating yet, she's already starting to miss the college life and the social aspects of school. Listen to her takes on what nostalgia means to her.



Feedback: forms.gle/SntvLDwGbGk799zcA


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“Hello everyone, and welcome back to Basically Gen Z!”

Wow, haven’t heard that for a long time. Today, Kaytie and Ellie revisit their earlier podcasts, think out loud about future plans, and go on multiple tangents spanning K-pop and economics. Did you know that Chanel bags are veblen goods?

0:00 Hello again!

2:00 Story around our very first podcast + beginner mistakes we made

3:20 K-pop Big Bang tangent

4:46 Re-introduction (no doxxing allowed on this channel!)

5:30 SharSharBinks88 and “veblen goods” tangent

7:42 How did we meet?

8:40 Conception of our channel

11:07 Re-invention+future

11:58 Vlogbrothers tangent

12:00 Wrap up


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Prelude: Summers are always such turning points and times for reflection, reinvention and redirection. I’ve always wanted to capture the essence of that grueling yet exciting feeling in some form of content, so here it goes. 



Note: This is not a romanticization of not making decisions. Committing to something is always better than being frozen in the task of choosing.  



This episode is Ellie and me discussing whether or not I should move back to college for the fall or take another leave of absence. Rather, I contemplate my decision out loud while Ellie adds to it by asking me questions about myself. 



There is always the question of time and opportunity cost; is going back to school the best thing I could do for myself right now? What is the next best thing? Is school better than the next best thing? 



I admit  that COVID has allowed me to try all of the things that I could not because of school-related time constraints: work at a mall, start a business, start this podcast, etc. During this time, I was able to explore who I was outside of school. 



Although  this was freeing, I found there to be so many roadblocks to the things that I wanted to do, and it made going back to my institution for more education appealing for the first time in a long time (I was on the verge of dropping out). 



Annnd...there is also the apprehension of going long-distance while being one half of a budding relationship that stops me from making a split second decision. More on this subject will follow in later episodes. 



Anyways, I do reach a decision at the end of the episode. I’m sure it is already obvious which path I am going down ¬‿¬. 



-Kaytie 




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