Note: Dead Eyes transcripts have been generated with automated software and may contain errors. We advise you to listen to episode audio before quoting in print.
Dead Eyes, Episode 22, “You’ve Got Tweet”
Aparna Nancherla Are you easily distracted? Like, when you have a task that you are like, "Oh, but I also want that."
Connor Ratliff Very easily.
Aparna Nancherla It's tough, cause the entire system is set up to distract you.
Connor Ratliff And that's what we're here to talk about—
Aparna Nancherla (Laughs) Yeah, good.
Connor Ratliff —on my podcast, the system—
(Groovy music starts)
Aparna Nancherla (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff —where every week we break down, what's wrong with the system.
Aparna Nancherla No, like, I'm so...(fades)
Connor Ratliff I'm talking with Aparna Nancherla, whose voice you might recognize as Hollyhock on Bojack Horseman. You might also be familiar with her from the Comedy Central series Corporate. Or you may just be aware of her as a comedian. She's done half hour comedy specials on Comedy Central and Netflix, and she has an album of standup called Just Putting It Out There.
When major publications write articles touting the best and most innovative comedians working today, Aparna is a fixture on those lists. But, we're not here to do an overall career retrospective. We're here to focus on one very specific accolade that a partner received a few years ago on social media.
(Music fades)
Aparna Nancherla People kept texting me, "Congrats!" And then someone just texted me, "Tom!!!" Exclamation, exclamation, exclamation. (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff And you didn't know what it was yet?
Aparna Nancherla No. And then at the time I think I was very into Twitter and I was just like, "What happened?" And then I saw it and I think I was in such disbelief that I kept looking at it periodically through the day to make sure it was real.
(Theme music starts)
Aparna Nancherla I think it was the closest I've come to really... the way people are like, "Oh, I went viral and my life exploded." I think that was...That's been my closest feeling to that.
Connor Ratliff You felt like your life exploded?
Aparna Nancherla In a very minor, like, personal way of like, "Oh my gosh, Tom Hanks saw something I did and not only reacted favorably to it, but took the time to publicly say that.
Voice of God This is Dead Eyes, a podcast about one actor's quest to find out why Tom Hanks fired him from a small role in the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.
Connor Ratliff My name is Connor Ratliff. I'm an actor and comedian. Twenty-one years ago, I was fired by Tom Hanks. The reason, I was told at the time, was that he had looked at my audition tape and he thought that I had dead eyes.
Aparna Nancherla You know how some people like, their eyes like, go upward?
Connor Ratliff Mhm?
Aparna Nancherla Like, your eyes tilt downward. But I don't think that's dead eyes.
Connor Ratliff But it's looking towards the ground, which is where we bury people.
Aparna Nancherla (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff And that's the short version.
(Music ends)
Connor Ratliff So in 2016, Tom Hanks tweeted about Aparna.
(Retro hip hop groove starts)
Something nice. A compliment.
Connor Ratliff What was the common reaction? Were people just thrilled? Or...
Aparna Nancherla Yeah, they were like, "It's so cool. It's America's dad. He knows who you are!" And this is gonna sound so petty and so narcissistic, but he said my name, and he tweeted— Well I should say what he did. He tweeted that he liked a column I wrote in New York Magazine, a guest column, but did not include my handle, meaning he probably didn't even look me up. (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff So he doesn't follow you.
Aparna Nancherla No! (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff He doesn't follow that many people.
Aparna Nancherla He doesn't follow—I don't—well—At the time, he— I think he only followed one person.
(Music fades)
Connor Ratliff As of this current moment, in 2021, it's been over a year since he posted anything from his Twitter account. But even back in 2016, Tom Hanks was a fairly infrequent tweeter, averaging about five or six tweets a month.
(Gentle plucked string piece starts)
A lot of those were pictures of lost items of clothing found on the street, gloves, hats, shoes, part of an ongoing Twitter bit. He also had a thing where he would pose next to interesting looking automobiles and pretend that they were his "new car."
Both of these running gags were very popular; lots of likes and retweets.
Connor Ratliff He follows 25 people, which is a very disciplined amount.
Aparna Nancherla Yes.
Connor Ratliff That's that includes like, family members.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff It includes people like Oprah and Obama, and, you know, it's like a very—
Aparna Nancherla Oh, yeah.
Connor Ratliff —uh, there's a few like colleagues, et cetera.
Aparna Nancherla Sure.
Connor Ratliff It would be hard to crack that 25.
Aparna Nancherla Yes, yes.
Connor Ratliff You'd have to, you would have to bump somebody, uh, very either personally or, or, or, or, or globally significant to him.
Aparna Nancherla Right.
Connor Ratliff But when it comes to tweets where he paid compliments to other artists or works of art, he didn't overdo it. A couple of documentaries. Praise from the talents of Emma Watson and Adele. A vintage photo of Bob Dylan using a typewriter, accompanied by the phrase, "Cool people use typewriters." The only other comedian he singled out for praise in a tweet that year was Marc Maron for his IFC series, Maron, which he called, "hilarious." And that was for an episode that guest-starred Tom's son Chet as Marc's roommate in rehab, Trey.
So when Tom Hanks tweeted about Aparna, she was one of a select few. But she didn't see it that way.
(Music fades)
Aparna Nancherla I know he's the type of person, he's always bestowing random acts of kindness on the, on the civilians. So I didn't even take it as like, "Oh, this is a colleague appreciating another colleague," even though you could argue we're both in the same field. I thought it was more like, like when he showed up at those people's wedding and he crashed one of their photos, like, it was like, "Oh, he's throwing a bone to one of the nobodies." (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff You felt like he was doing a kindness to a, a—
Aparna Nancherla A stranger.
Connor Ratliff Is that still the way you feel about it?
Aparna Nancherla I guess so? Cause it's like, we, we never interacted after that.
Connor Ratliff You never heard from him beyond his public...
Aparna Nancherla Yes.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Aparna Nancherla There was a weird window of time where I was like, "I wonder if he's still thinking about what I wrote."
(Funky brass piece starts)
Aparna Nancherla And then as it got farther and farther, since he tweeted it, I was like, "He's probably moved on now." (Laughs) It was like, the silliest. I just was like, "Oh boy, I wonder if he's still reading the same magazine." (Laughs)
(Laughs) Do you think he ever went back and re-read it?
Aparna Nancherla No, it's not the kind of thing you reread. It was like, a food diary. It's like, this guest column where you, you note everything you ate in one week, and then you write a column about it.
Connor Ratliff In a weird way, would it make you feel worse if you found out he reads it every day?
Aparna Nancherla It would make me feel sick. (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff That's too much. That would be too much.
(Music fades)
Connor Ratliff I'm going to read it just for the record. I'll just read it out loud, so we have it.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff And this is a good trip down memory lane, cause I don't know when the last time you looked at this tweet was.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah, I don't either.
Connor Ratliff "Aparna Nancherla made me laugh out loud. Thanks Aparna. Happy 2017. Hanx"
Aparna Nancherla Oh...
Connor Ratliff And this is, this is a sad detail about the digital world (laughs) Uh, the link to the article is now "Whosay.com. Where did the content go?"
Aparna Nancherla Gasps
Connor Ratliff Someone looking up this tweet now, it will not link to the ground street article.
Aparna Nancherla Oh, oh dear. Well...
Connor Ratliff It leads to, um, it leads to, uh, a long explanation for why—
Aparna Nancherla (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff —whatever you were looking for...I mean this is—
Aparna Nancherla You know what that— I feel like most people that would bum out, but that almost makes me feel better. Cause now it feels like they'll never know what it was and he can be that good in their brain compared to what it is. They can't be like, "I read it. I don't think it's good because it's not there for them.
Connor Ratliff That's, uh, another good reason for this podcast episode to exist—
Aparna Nancherla Yes.
Connor Ratliff —is to preserve the record of what that tweet was referring to.
Aparna Nancherla Yes.
Connor Ratliff Because now anyone who would be reverse scrolling through Tom Hanks's timeline back to 2016 would have no idea what he's talking about.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff And so we're, we're—
Aparna Nancherla We're here to put whosay.com in its place.
Connor Ratliff Yeah, what we say.
(Retro uptempo keyboard jazz piece starts)
Aparna Nancherla We say.
Connor Ratliff We say what, where the content went.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff It's still on— you Google "Grub Street Aparna" you'll get it.
Aparna Nancherla (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff We say.
Aparna Nancherla Cause we all know people on the internet love to take the time to do the work.
Connor Ratliff You gotta put in the work.
Aparna Nancherla Mhm.
(Music fades)
Connor Ratliff I think...
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff ...and this is pure speculation.
Aparna Nancherla Mm.
Connor Ratliff Cause I noticed that, that he didn't tag you, which is a—
Aparna Nancherla We all did, and we all kind of felt weird that we did.
Connor Ratliff He doesn't tweet that much.
Aparna Nancherla I don't think he's a big tagger, no.
Connor Ratliff He's tagging, but this is years later. It may be that somebody said to him, at some point, "You should tag people!" Or whatever.
Aparna Nancherla Yes, someone sat him down and told him about tagging.
Connor Ratliff It makes a difference.
Aparna Nancherla I mean, I actually came full circle where I was like— not full circle, half circle, where at first I was like, "Oh, he didn't tag me." But then later I liked it, cause I was like, "Now I don't have a bunch of Hanks heads coming at me, and then being like, "Why did he like you?"
Cause sometimes, when a famous person gives you a little shine, all their fans come to you and think you are somehow a way in to Hanks.
Connor Ratliff I'm trying to think the closest thing I've had to that.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff Mark Hamill did, uh, ASSSCAT monologues a few years back.
Aparna Nancherla Oh, wow.
Connor Ratliff And, it was one of the few times— I'll admit it— it was one of the few times where I desperately wanted to impress a monologist.
Aparna Nancherla Sure.
Connor Ratliff Which is very dangerous.
Aparna Nancherla Yes, yes.
Connor Ratliff Because you can, you can, you can do some very bad performing if you are also auditioning while you're doing it.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah. Yeah.
Connor Ratliff It's a bad blend. But I did— I remember doing a scene where I'm like, I knew it was going well.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff And I knew that it was like, I was impressing my childhood icon.
Aparna Nancherla Woah.
Connor Ratliff And I talked to him a little bit backstage.
Aparna Nancherla Before.
Connor Ratliff I think I kind of held back a little bit before, and then I always felt better once you did like one half of the show, and then you could sort of, you could feel like you're talking to them as fellow performers once they've seen you do a little bit.
After the show, I tweeted about the show and I tagged Mark Hamill.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff And I was doing it very much in the hopes that he might see it and like it or whatever.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff And then that was the one that he retweeted and he said something nice about me. And what you realize: you might wish for something like that—
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff Anytime someone with millions of followers—
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff —retweets or quote tweets something that you've done, whether it's about you or whether it's something else—
Right, right.
—you start getting a glimpse of what their life is like, in that you start getting notifications. It's like suddenly inviting hundreds of people into your room.
Aparna Nancherla Yes. You get a taste of what it's like for them. But then you also get a taste of what it's like if you were like, a major person in that person's life where everything is just a conduit to that person.
(Cha cha keyboard piece starts)
Aparna Nancherla Cause they're not like, "Connor, I want to know all about you." They're like, "I love Mark!" (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff And you also get people who are trying to like, I mean, I don't do this, but like if I had responded to your quote tweet or something, and I had been like, "Come on my podcast!"
Aparna Nancherla (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff Like, I wouldn't do that, but you get people who are like, trying to deliver a message through you to the other person.
Aparna Nancherla They're like, this is my way in.
Connor Ratliff Maybe it is.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah, maybe it is.
Connor Ratliff It probably isn't.
Aparna Nancherla It's probably not.
Connor Ratliff When we return, more about people on the internet, paying compliments and presenting criticisms, and more speculation about Tom Hanks and his tweet. Dead Eyes will be right back.
(Music fades)
(Uptempo funk rock piece starts)
Connor Ratliff If you could have picked what piece of work—
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff —would have made Tom Hanks laugh out loud, would it have been the Grub Street piece?
Aparna Nancherla No! I've reread it a couple of times since then, the column I wrote.
Connor Ratliff Mhm.
Aparna Nancherla And I've been like, "This isn't that good."
Connor Ratliff So this is, in some ways, if Tom hears this, uh, this is, uh, good news for him, that like, if you liked this—
Aparna Nancherla Yes.
Connor Ratliff —like, listen to your album. Cause that was my take on the, like, the Grub Street piece, which I think is great, it is that kind of thing that you do where it's like, if you had a weekly column, you would write stuff like that all the time. You know, it's sort of like—
Aparna Nancherla But it wasn't like, joke dense.
Connor Ratliff It's very slice of life. Very like, it's your voice, but it's also, it's not the appropriate venue for you to bring all of your A material and be firing on all cylinders. That would actually be, uh, really over, uh, overkill for a piece like that.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff If Tom had come to you afterwards or, or now, and said, "I really love this. I want more." What would be the thing you would direct him to?
Aparna Nancherla I mean, I guess if it was stand up, it would feel like the natural thing to say would be the album. I think I really enjoyed acting in my friends' show Corporate, so I might send that. Probably one of those two.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff For the record, we don't— this isn't a podcast that has a plug section. So this is a rare, like it it's, it's germane to the conversation.
Aparna Nancherla Yes. And I am not a fan, generally of plugging my work. So...I just felt like I had to.
Connor Ratliff But this isn't about you. This is about Tom.
Aparna Nancherla Yes.
Connor Ratliff Cause he could be hearing this and being like, "I didn't know these other— I thought Grub Street was it?" Cause he didn't look you up.
(Funky organ piece starts)
Aparna Nancherla Right. Right.
Connor Ratliff So he's like, "It's just, Aparna did the— is this one hit wonder. Did the Grub Street article."
Aparna Nancherla Did the Grub Street. Got out of the game.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff And just went out on top in a blaze of glory.
Aparna Nancherla (Laughs) Yeah.
Connor Ratliff Beyond not being tagged, was there any of— blowback, or weird stuff that happened? Where you're like, (Sighs) "I wish, I wish this part hadn't happened."
Aparna Nancherla I don't think there was that I recall, but I have a very anxious, negative thought skewing brain, so I think I imagined someone wrote, "I don't get it. It's not even that funny." And I think I imagined that so many times that I now think it's real. (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff You've manifested it in, in your memory.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff Is there negative feedback that you've really held onto that you feel like has, uh, stuck with you for a long time?
Aparna Nancherla Yeah, I started stand-up in DC and I remember I was like, on some... helped produce and was on like, an all female comedy show that... and I remember there was like, a blog post promoting it, and someone wrote just a very long post about how everyone on the lineup was good, except me and why they didn't like me and how they'd seen me a couple of times. And— well, first they just said they didn't like me. They were like, looks like a solid show except for Aparna. I've seen her and she's terrible. (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff Oh.
Aparna Nancherla And then some people, some friends of mine tried to, you know, engage and be like, "No, you don't know what you're talking about," or like, "That's just your opinion."
And then they doubled down, and was like, "Well, I saw her here. Terrible. Saw her here. Also terrible." And they were all sets where I was like, "Yeah, those didn't go well." And I took it so badly. I was like, I mean, it really stuck with me. And I think for a really long time, I just thought in every show that person was there.
Connor Ratliff Is there any chance this person caused those shows to be bad?
Aparna Nancherla No. (Laughs) I can't. I can't say they did (laughing)
Connor Ratliff Do you remember who this person was?
Aparna Nancherla No. They were anonymous.
Connor Ratliff What format were you getting this feedback in?
Aparna Nancherla Blog comments.
Connor Ratliff Blog comments.
Aparna Nancherla It was blog comments on a— you know, how like, city papers would post— have like, online section. So it was like, you know, "Here are events to check out this week."
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Aparna Nancherla And it was just on that.
Connor Ratliff I'm going to do a WhoSay search and see if I can (laughing) go to WhoSay.
Aparna Nancherla I re— I looked it up recently. I've, I've been too scared to for so long, and then I did recently. Still there!
Connor Ratliff It's still there?
Aparna Nancherla It's still there (Laughing)
Connor Ratliff So the Tom Hanks Grub Street link is gone, but you can still go— and you've been recently to this blog and looked at those comments again.
Aparna Nancherla It's all there.
Connor Ratliff And how long ago were these comments?
Aparna Nancherla 2008?
Connor Ratliff Wow.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff And so you recently went and revisited, like an old friend.
Aparna Nancherla Mhm.
Connor Ratliff I tracked down the website where the anonymous commenter was being critical of Aparna, to see for myself what it was like. There are 21 comments, starting out with the person who didn't like her. And Aparna's not wrong about the criticisms. They are there, and they are harsh. But they get a big reaction with most of the people posting in response standing up for Aparna, saying she's great.
It gets pretty heated, the way online arguments between strangers often tend to. And the original poster does attempt to walk it back a little, conceding that they think Aparna is clever and original, but that they don't think her punchlines are strong. Then they start kind of explaining how it's important for professional comedians to be able to deal with criticism, which is true, I guess. But the main thing I took away from that was that the original poster's comment was mean-spirited.
Aparna Nancherla At the very end, they posted a YouTube link and they were like, "Watch this link and tell me you disagree that she's terrible." And then someone wrote after that, "Yeah, she's pretty bad." (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff Oh no! Oh no.
Aparna Nancherla And that's the last comment on it. (Laughs) And then I, I clicked on that YouTube link cause it was to my like, personal YouTube page and I had taken it down years earlier. So it now goes nowhere. (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff So you—
Aparna Nancherla I WhoSay'd myself. (Laughs)
(Drum, bass, guitar soft funk piece starts)
Connor Ratliff That's so rough.
Aparna Nancherla I think it's especially rough when, when people not only say they don't like you, but they say it in contrast to others.
Connor Ratliff Mm.
Aparna Nancherla They're like, well— cause usually you can be like, "Well, this person sucks. Like, they probably have bad taste." But then they're like, "No, I like all your friends. I don't like you."
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff This is obviously something that I relate to given the central premise of this podcast. Whenever I'm the subject of a negative comment, it sticks with me and I return to it in my mind again and again. Even something like this podcast, which has received mostly good reviews and positive comments online— every now and then I see someone post something like, "Oh, I heard this was good, but I tried it and I don't see what the big deal is," or "It used to be good, but now I don't like it anymore and they should stop making it." And I will remember those things in a way that somehow takes up more space in my brain than a hundred other compliments do.
Dwelling on the negative. Especially when it's about you. I truly don't know if it's that people who do that are drawn to this kind of work, or if there's something about the business that makes you naturally become that way. I dunno. Maybe it's just how most people are?
(Music fades)
Connor Ratliff You take on negative and positive feedback in a similar way.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah. (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff Like, you find a way to file them both in the same— like, "This compliment was probably a mistake—"
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff "—and this criticism was right on target."
Aparna Nancherla Yeah. But at the same time I do take my compliments and I paste them all in a word document. And I wouldn't say I look at it, really. But I have when I've been feeling really low, sometimes skim through it. And it is somewhat helpful to be like, "Are all these people wrong? Like, are they all bored and writing you these nice things?" And so that's like my small attempt to, to work against the negative thoughts.
Connor Ratliff I especially think that that is a really nice and actually healthy thing to do—
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff —especially since you're someone who will go back and revisit a more than decade old blog comment. You know, like if you're—
Aparna Nancherla How do you feel about people who retweet their compliments?
Connor Ratliff It depends on the compliment.
Aparna Nancherla Yes.
Connor Ratliff Sometimes you just have to.
Aparna Nancherla Right.
Connor Ratliff I think in the case of—
Aparna Nancherla A famous person.
Connor Ratliff —Tom Hanks tweeting about you, I think you have to. I think there's almost something that would be... not false modesty, but like, if you didn't retweet it, it would almost be like, you're pretending you don't want to retweet it when everyone knows like, this is a special compliment.
Aparna Nancherla Yes.
Connor Ratliff If you'd retweeted every compliment, I think that's another thing. I think it's like anything where it's sort of like there's a balance to it. Similarly, you know, I think if you get a really interesting piece of negative feedback, I think it's really funny to share it.
Aparna Nancherla Yes.
Connor Ratliff It's funny when you get criticism from someone who does such a bad job of criticizing you that it's sort of the equivalent of they're tripping all over themselves, trying to say you're doing a bad job.
Aparna Nancherla Yes.
Connor Ratliff If I see something that's critical of something I've done and the manner in which they're criticizing me is so poorly executed, I'm like, "Oh, I'm— we're going to talk about this."
Aparna Nancherla Yes.
Connor Ratliff Because that's just fun. It's like, it's, it's like, how do you deal with hecklers when you're doing standup?
Aparna Nancherla I mean, stand up, I generally like, my act doesn't usually get a lot of hecklers, but in the past, when I have, I'll just, you know, try to do the thing of like addressing them with a line or two and then moving it along.
(Laid back drum and bass groove starts)
Aparna Nancherla But I won't like, engage with them at length. I already resent that there's an audience here, (laughing) period. So if you guys are going to keep drawing attention to yourself like that, I can't, I can't handle it.
Connor Ratliff Have you ever been fired from a show business job?
Aparna Nancherla A writing job, yes. Actually my first writing job, I think it was, where I— my boyfriend at the time was like, consulting on an MTV show. And then they were like bringing in other comedians. They brought me in for a day and I was like, "Oh, how do you think I did?"
And he was like, "It's good. It's the first day, it's fine."
And then we were going into work on the next day and we got to like, the security gate and they called him and they were like, "Oh, by the way, don't, don't bring Aparna today and then that was it. And they never asked me back.
Connor Ratliff And this was at the security gate.
Aparna Nancherla Yes. (Laughing)
Connor Ratliff So what did you do?
Aparna Nancherla He dropped me off at home and went back to work. (Laughing)
Connor Ratliff Oh. How'd that feel?
Aparna Nancherla Pretty bad.
Connor Ratliff Yeah, that's a bad one.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah. It was like, my first opportunity at all, so I was just like, "Oh, I'm, I'm the worst.
Connor Ratliff Have you ever been fired from a, from a regular job, like a non show business job?
Aparna Nancherla I tried to sell knives after college. And I think I fired myself. I just stopped attending the orientation. (Laughing)
Connor Ratliff You never got to the point where you actually sold a knife.
Aparna Nancherla I tried to, I— you were supposed to sell sets and I sold one single knife. (Laughs)
(Jazz flute piece starts)
Connor Ratliff To whom?
Aparna Nancherla My dad's coworker. She felt sorry for me, and then later she cut herself with the knife, on accident. (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff Oh. It's a sadder story than I thought when you, when you started out. Oh...
(Music fades)
Connor Ratliff If Tom Hanks got in touch with you and said, "I want you to write something for me, or come up with something that we could do together," would you have a pitch ready? Would you have some— what would your first, if he was like, "I, I've been revisiting the Grub Street article and, uh...and exploring other— exploring the other things that, that you've done...
Aparna Nancherla I think there's a show here. (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff Yeah. What, if you, if you had to adapt the grub street article into another form, what would it be? Would it be a series or you think it'd be a movie?
Aparna Nancherla A series or movie? I was gonna say, a TikTok.
Connor Ratliff A TikTok?
Aparna Nancherla One tikTok.
Connor Ratliff One TikTok where you eat?
Aparna Nancherla It would be like, you know that popular thing where they just keep smash cutting different things together? It would just be a smash cut of all the things I ate.
Connor Ratliff Would you have a music cue in mind? Like, (singing) "Oh no. Oh no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no."
Aparna Nancherla I see how it became music at the end. At the beginning, I was like, that's just...
Connor Ratliff You haven't heard that one on TikTok?
Aparna Nancherla No. (Laughing) Is that a thing?
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Aparna Nancherla Okay. I didn't know. Yeah, I guess it would be that then.
Connor Ratliff I didn't know if you— How familiar are you with TikTok?
Aparna Nancherla Not at all. I mean, I'm not even, I don't even have an account, but everyone I know loves it.
Connor Ratliff Mhm.
Aparna Nancherla They're like, "I start watching videos, then three hours later..."
Connor Ratliff I'll tell you this about it.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff I think it takes a while before it— and this is maybe terrifying, I'm realizing, as I say it— it sort of learns what you like and what you don't like.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff At first, it was very disturbing because it would tr— the process of getting to know me—
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff I would see something, it'd be like a funny animal or a cute thing, or it's someone doing something funny, and then all of a sudden it'd be surgery. And I'd be like, "What the hell?" It was so shocking that literally it was like, "This is what happens when we cut open your belly, we take all the fat, we put somewhere else—"
And it was just like, you don't have time— it's so fast that you don't even have time to not see it before you will it away.
Aparna Nancherla But then does it think you loved it?
Connor Ratliff I think it took a while of me like, it obviously learned. Cause it's been awhile since I've seen that.
Aparna Nancherla Ok, ok.
Connor Ratliff It learned that like, "Oh, when we try to show like, a, a knife cutting into a cyst, and then things— and then like, fluid oozing out of it, this guy doesn't stick around. But if it's a dog being nice to a cat, he stays a little longer!"
Aparna Nancherla So you think when you first joined, the algorithm's really throwing paint at the wall (laughs)
Connor Ratliff They're just, it's like they throw everything at you, and I could have easily imagined leaving instantly, if one of the first thing was like, "Welcome to TikTok, here's the blood!" where it's just too much. It's too—
Aparna Nancherla It's too much.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. What if you were pitching for Tom Hanks, something for him that is like, it's not for, it's not for you, but you come up with an idea. He's like, what should I do? I want it to be funny.
Aparna Nancherla Well I know he likes space stuff a lot. And
Connor Ratliff Mhm.
Aparna Nancherla And I talk sometimes about mental health. So I'm going to say, Astronaut in Therapy.
Connor Ratliff Is Tom Hanks the therapist, or the astronaut?
Aparna Nancherla Astronaut.
Connor Ratliff And he's in therapy.
Aparna Nancherla He's a washed up astronaut in therapy. (Laughs)
Connor Ratliff It's a great title. Astronaut in therapy.
Aparna Nancherla He feels like he peaked when he was an astronaut. And now he's too old to go into space. Uh, obviously they'd have to age him up.
Connor Ratliff Ok, so this is Tom Hanks, with a reverse Irishman, where they're aging him up.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah. And so. He's having an identity crisis about it.
Connor Ratliff Do you see this as a long running show or do you see this as like, one of the, like a shorter, shorter seasons?
Aparna Nancherla I think a limited series, people demand a second season.
(Laid back piano rock starts)
Connor Ratliff Right. And then some people complain, "It should have been one and done."
Aparna Nancherla Yup. Yup.
Connor Ratliff But other people are like, "I'm just glad to see astronaut in therapy back for season two."
Aparna Nancherla Yeah. Yeah.
Connor Ratliff It's a solid pitch.
Do you have any tips or, uh, suggestions for how to make Tom Hanks laugh out loud?
Aparna Nancherla Wow. I guess don't try too hard and don't even think you're really writing a comedic thing. And if you make a few jokes, that's good, but don't make two many. Cause he'll, he'll be able to sense that.
Connor Ratliff All right, so keep it, keep it in check. Keep the comedy natural, but don't force it.
Aparna Nancherla He's probably used to people trying too hard to impress him.
Connor Ratliff So just the, the, the ease with which you were able to write about your daily experiences.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff That was what spoke to him.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah. Cause it's, I mean, that column was called a diary. So essentially you're writing it like no one else is going to read it.
(Music fades)
Connor Ratliff Yeah. But Tom Hanks read it.
Aparna Nancherla Tom Hanks read it.
Connor Ratliff He liked it.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff He laughed out loud.
Aparna Nancherla Unreal.
Connor Ratliff One of the things that makes Tom Hanks is tweet about Aparna feel so special is that it seems like it is exactly what it appears to be: a pure and simple, nice thing.
(Aimee Mann's "Disappeared" starts)
Connor Ratliff As far as we can tell, there is no ulterior motive. Tom Hanks doesn't have an ownership stake in Grub Street or any of the restaurants Aparna wrote about. He wasn't promoting anything. The most likely scenario is that the article caught his eye and it made him laugh. To the point where he wanted to share it with the world, either as a marker of his good taste or because it might make some other people happy, too.
Either way, it's a well-earned compliment and a sincere wish for a happy new year.
Connor Ratliff Did you have a happy 2017?
Aparna Nancherla I think I did after that. That was the beginning of the year!
Connor Ratliff For what it's worth, I hope that a partner will paste some portion of this podcast episode into her Word document of compliments that she looks at when she's feeling low. Even if it's only to remind her WhoSay'd she was funny, and where the content did go.
Connor RatliffI'm glad that you were able to get some happiness out of it.
Aparna Nancherla (Laughs) I managed to find a silver lining.
Connor Ratliff I mean, it was all, it was all silver lining.
Aparna Nancherla It was silver. It was silver.
Connor Ratliff It was just silver.
Aparna Nancherla Yeah.
Connor Ratliff No linings, silver straight through.
Aparna Nancherla I was, uh, I was speaking in jest.
Connor Ratliff Dead Eyes is a production of Headgum Studios. It was created by me, Connor Ratliff. It's written by me, and it's mostly me that you hear talking, including now. The show is produced and edited by Harry Nelson and Mike Comite.
Special thanks to my guest Aparna Nancherla. Also thanks to Aimee Mann for letting us use this song that's playing in the background. It's called "Disappeared" and it can be found on her 2012 album, Charmer.
If you like Dead Eyes, please do all the things that podcasts tell you to do: subscribe, rate, review, follow us on Twitter @deadeyespodcast and talk about us nicely on social media. If you want to reach out, the email is deadeyespodcast@gmail.com.
Please tell your friends about this show, especially if you're friends with Tom Hanks, whose photograph as it turns out can be found on the Wikipedia page for WhoSay, as in whosay.com. And this explains why the Tom Hanks tweet about Aparna no longer links to her Grub Street article.
It's because WhoSay, which is now a marketing service that works with celebrities and influencers, started out as a way for famous people to post things simultaneously on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, et cetera— multiple platforms all at once. And if you go to the Wikipedia page for who say and click on its history subsection, there is a picture of Tom Hanks with a caption that says, "Whosay's growth was slow until actor Tom Hanks joined it three months after its launch."
So, Tom Hanks was using WhoSay to post stuff online. And then in 2018 WhoSay changed what kind of company they were. They decommissioned the WhoSay Talent app, deleted all of its data, and this made all of those tweeted links stop working. There are now dozens of Tom Hanks tweets prior to 2018, where the links are to "whosay.com: Where did the content go?" In some cases, it makes it impossible to know what Tom Hanks was tweeting about back then, unless you saw it at the time and you remember. Otherwise, those tweeted links are lost to history.
Thanks for listening. Be smart. Stay safe.