I Can't Stop Watching Contagion | Folding Ideas

[@MusicoftheDamned]

Ignoring the increasing darkness of the current times, I have to say that the fact that _Contagion_ also predicted Gwyneth Paltrow being a severe health risk to everyone is amusing.

[@B-Roll_Gaming]

Resurrecting your comment to say "sick burn, comrade"

[@nerobernardino88]

Wondrous! Bravo!

[@LeftMouseButton961]

Knife, straight to the heart🗡♥️

[@livewellwitheds6885]

hahaha

[@03dashk64]

@@B-Roll_Gaming she only gets worse. How?!

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

I will never get over the fact that on launch one of the most consistent critiques of this film was that its portrayal of government-political action on a pandemic as being half-hearted and half-arsed and people were too easy to believe conmen and shills, and now the modern critiques observe that the film's portrayal of government political action was mildly to wildly optimistic depending on your host country, and sadly naive as to how well-marketed the conmen and shills would have to be to work.

[@_Just_John]

I recently realized covid has an interesting side effect on majority of population. People suddenly unconditionally believe what media and politicians say. I am not talking about conspiration theories but about healthy dose of skepticism, like when a "tie" from Pfizer claims the 4th dose protects you from omicron. Sounds like something someone with financial interest would say. But my colleague was like "I just got my third dose, when do you think I can get the forth?".

[@chaklee435]

@@_Just_John people like certainty. Whether it comes from authority, or from conspiracy.

[@tomisaacson2762]

Just goes to show that the writers of reality have totally jumped the shark. It's all such ham-fisted, cynical, shite lmao

[@Frizzleman]

It’s a movie that never ages

[@stoodmuffinpersonal3144]

​@@chaklee435"future uncertain, but certainly slight."

[@steelex709]

"i can't pay attention to the news, and I can't not pay attention to the news." right there, man.

[@8008ella]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z4WtlZ2emcSLfZo&t=119 The news have been painting the cure as "deadly" just to discredit Trump as usual. Stop listening to them its fn doomporn.

[@WhaleManMan]

The Internet usually doesnt really pay attention to news. They just say "that's bad" for moral superiority purposes. They only seemingly care about the peak panic, not the beginning or end of any situation

[@MrDnB89]

@@8008ella There are studies going on at the moment. There still isn't enough evidence to just start prescribing these anti-virals to everyone though. These drugs can be dangerous if misused (like most drugs) and that is the worry - people panic buying and self-medicating. This also creates a shortage for people who depend on these drugs to live.

[@someknave]

@@8008ella yeah, the entire world and scientific community are panicking just to show up the leader of one nation.

[@Calpsotoma]

Give it two months, it will only get worse.

[@robertstuckey6407]

The sentence "Would this be the year there would be nobody left to bury the dead?" brought out the wildest most primal form of grief.

[@SinHurr]

Imagine being the last one to do it and knowing nobody would be left for you.

[@Ishasgirl]

That line sent chills down my spine. Talk about telling a horror story in one sentence...

[@NiteManhattan]

The projection on the couch is a really creative and impactful way to avoid a copyright strike. Very slick. Thanks for all the artistic inspiration.

[@KindredPlagiarist]

Underrated observation

[@soulcstudios]

Okay, fine, yes, I guess But there's also some IDK emotional metaphor or resonance. I'm not the fancy video vlogger here. Like, the rewatching, the obsession, is passive. It's not happening to the viewer but it is fully consuming all the same.

[@zacharyantle7940]

I’m gonna use this in a movie I wanna make as form of flashback now 😂

[@MissKellyBean]

@@zacharyantle7940 that sounds like another good use of this technique

[@ForestGreenSharpie]

I think part of it is meant to be a metaphor about how we have been consumed by the virus so while there is a person they are completely over shadowed by the video of the news of whats going on

[@tmthecat]

watching this and reflecting on the pandemic brought me to tears. millions are dead and there's a sense that we're all back to normal, my groceries are nearly unaffordable yet politicians blame the usual scapegoats. i think Contagion portrays optimism in its end, but as you said there's no end for us and we're left rubble and ash and uncleared smoke that wasn't there before, and we're told to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and get cleaning. this disease peeled back the gause over every gaping wound in our system so the public knows its government is a walking undead creature that speaks with human tones and reassurances as if we cant see its true form now. i wish sometimes that it all had a sense of dramaticism, but it meanders and leaves me wanting to force an end myself. i hope your doing well, Dan, and your new normal is something tolerable. i can tolerate mine, but im so, so lucky.

[@TheTealHydra]

The sense that we're back to normal is also just a smokescreen in front of the mountain of corpses that Covid continues to produce every year.

[@whyaminotsleepyet8377]

“I need to practice emotions, and I need to live in a bounded world, and I need to believe we can choose better.” That hit way different and harder than I expected.

[@cottage-core_]

+

[@OneStarRating]

That single sentence is the best thing he has ever written or said.

[@GelidGanef]

I love how he turns off the projector right before he hits you with that last line, so you stop looking through him at the disaster footage and are suddenly just drawn back to his face. The craft put in on this video is so above and beyond.

[@Warmishcookies]

That is a benefit of remembering most of your dreams and nightmares.

[@johannsergl9102]

It's a yearning for agency against a disease that forces us into passivity.

[@anarchofairy9400]

"disease has no eye for poetry" really hit home. all suffering can be endured if it is given meaning, but a pandemic has none. this didn't need to happen and we all didn't need to die.

[@EvaHoHoHo]

hey ima quote this in my thesis if thats cool :D

[@anarchofairy9400]

@@EvaHoHoHo yeah of course! what's your thesis on?

[@EvaHoHoHo]

@@anarchofairy9400 zombies :D (world war z, the book. i have a chapter on religion and the way the characters/nations in the book use it to cope with pain. your comment is a good intro :))

[@arturoaguilar6002]

@@EvaHoHoHo That's hilarious. Some of my friends were coping with this situation at the start of the pandemic by comparing it to a zombie apocalypse (it seems zombies have better eye for poetry than the real world diseases).

[@fredoneal5065]

False. We needed to die so rich people could make more money. (Sarcasm)

[@_AF__]

I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels this way, but listening to someone talk about these complex feelings with such eloquence is comforting in a way. It will suck for a while but we will get through it. Thank you. Stay safe, everyone.

[@juneguts]

Don't worry, it's also at least a little cathartic to speak those words into being.

[@pocketusagi]

Same feelings here. I got catharsis from this video.

[@Matthus8888]

Stay safe too.

[@falconJB]

If you like listening to well written essays on what people are feeling right now look up the podcast Our Plague Year, its a weekly podcast produced by Joseph Fink and its very good.

[@thezincbar]

My governor said something a few days ago: "Every day we're in this is one less day we will be in it." I remind myself of that a lot.

[@ElementTrinity]

I honestly can't believe this was over a year ago. March 2020 is seriously so early in the pandemic in highsight, so weird to think about how much further downhill things went after that

[@scoutobrien3406]

Remember when most of us had a bout of complete sympathy with almost everyone else we came in contact with about the universal helplessness and anxiety? I hate that that time period feels somehow nostalgic to me now.

[@ericw.1620]

LOL - from January 2022

[@nerobernardino88]

This is just starting bois!

[@sirencreed]

The pandemic has gone on so much longer than I thought. I genuinely believed this video must have come out before the pandemic, because surely we haven't been here almost two years now.

[@GregHuffman1987]

i still remember it was around like march 17 when people went nutty because i went to Walmart that day and there were crowds and crowds of people stocking up on shit. it was wild. i took video of it but someone stole my camcorder... sigh

[@GibusWearingMann]

"We remember January but it has as much presence in the mind as childhood."

[@RykerJones28]

This line. I remember on the 1st February thinking 'that was the longest, toughest month of my life'. And here we are, April and it's just getting worse. The month of March is the new January but I fear that April will become the new March and May will then replace April.

[@reddanaceau9200]

Man, remember being horrified by those Australian wildfires?

[@GibusWearingMann]

@@reddanaceau9200 We were worried about going to war with Iran! Oh, the good old days.

[@hyperchica]

Holy shit, I forgot that happened in the same year. 2020 *already* felt like it had been a million years long and *then* this happened. What the shit.

[@Rachel-og8jy]

Gibus Wearing Mann Seriously! When he said that line I struggled to remember what I was doing or where I was at Christmas. It feels like years ago.

[@steelplatedheart]

This is just surreal. I remember how I felt in March - grasping for something to make me feel better, watching Contagion as a way to process overwhelming emotions, being afraid for my own safety, having bouts of depression that kept me in bed for hours after I was supposed to be at work, then bouts of mania were I felt the need to clean everything... but now.... Now? I just feel empty. I feel nothing but nostalgia watching this, like "oh how nice, people used to take this seriously. I'm not sad, I'm not afraid. I'm just resigned. I've long since stopped feeling the impact of the hundred thousand people who've died, the millions of people who will suffer health problems for the rest of their life, the thousands who are facing homelessness... It just is, and I almost wish we were still in this place where the fear was so overwhelming that we could do nothing but watch Contagion on repeat.

[@94sHippie]

I teeter between being empty and feeling stressed that I won't be able to recover my career from the Pandemic.

[@radiofreecanada]

I read this and see that it was 8 months ago and something inside screams....😱

[@WikiAndi172]

"On the one hand I am deeply privileged enough that I can stay safe and be isolated. On the other hand I cannot think of the other hand." Thank you for putting words to my emotions. I really appreciate it.

[@sircharlesmormont9300]

This very much struck a chord with me, too. I feel an immense pressure to negate my panic and my fear and the effects of those things on my productivity by acknowledging the ways in which I am fortunate. But... my emotional state doesn't care that I'm relatively privileged. My emotional state sees the very real threats of disease and loss of livelihood and goes into shut down mode in an effort, I think, to conserve energy for use when the crisis hits. I feel like I'm watching a bear run toward me in slow-motion after it has already mauled some fellow hikers. Everyone else says, "You're lucky! You haven't been mauled by the bear," but I'm still having a damn understandable reaction to the incoming bear!

[@andrewgreenwood9068]

it kind of reminds me of my anxiety. one of the most toxic thought patterns i get into is that other people have it worse. they deserve help more than you do. it is important to look after yourself and remember that not getting help helps no one

[@dumbgames4933]

I really ****ing wish this hadn't aged to well. FFS, nearly 2 years later. Thank you, genuinely, for the video. Escapism via other's escapism is alive and well, I suppose.

[@citationsneeded2317]

This video felt like hours and yet bearly half of a half hour has passed, the last 2 weeks of March have been the longest month ever

[@enfercesttout]

it is fifteen minutes fifty seconds. About quarter a hour.

[@ParabolicBox]

@@enfercesttout Yeah. That's what half of a half-hour means.

[@TomRyckeboer]

@@ParabolicBox Yeah. That's what a quarter means.

[@RandomTomatoSoup]

@@TomRyckeboer yeah. quarter

[@alex0589]

We're still in March??

[@itsawayoflife142]

Coming back to this video just over a year later. God, it still hits. I need a badge that says 'I was a student nurse during the coronavirus pandemic and all I got was this lousy badge'.

[@justin___]

One of my friends who works in the medical field literally got a button that said something to the effect of , "You're a Hero!" It was kind of disgusting.

[@LeroyYonderboy]

"A low mortality rate is often the result of adequate care, but the quality of care goes down as the number of severely ill goes up, As the number of infected healthcare workers reduces the number of people qualified and capable of administering that care. This in turn has a knock-on effect where unrelated illnesses and injuries become more dangerous, a heart attack or broken leg that would be easily managed under normal circumstances becomes that much worse when there not enough people to help, aren't enough beds to go around. The more people who are exposed, the more need to roll the dice against that 1-2% and the more are going to loose." Thats the thing i have been trying to formulate for myself, thanks for putting it in to words. I am stealing it.

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

Friend of mine has a minor problem with a filling. Dentists can't deal with it as drilling is an aerosolising risk etc. Can't take a long course of antibiotics due to other health conditions. Options are to put up with the pain, or remove the entire tooth :(

[@Turnoutburndown]

Yes during the 1918 pandemic the hospitals shut down because all the doctors and nurses were sick.

[@katherines6322]

@@RoamingAdhocrat ugh nooo I have a tooth that has a lot of cavities. I wonder if I'll be pulling it out on a few months. FUCK

[@neuralmute]

THIS. I'm "lucky" enough to be recovering from a relatively mild case of Covid-19 in a city with only a few cases so far, and so when I've needed care outside of my home quarantine, it's been fast and excellent. Until now, I'd *never* seen an X-ray in an Urgent Care clinic take less than 2 hrs, including wait time for results! (It was clear - no pneumonia! Just asthma misbehaving, and more prednisone required.) But as time goes on and more people, including some of the lovely doctors and nurses I've seen, in spite of their high-quality protective gear, get sick? That won't be the case. For anything. And however much I've been hurting, I'm feeling it more for everyone who's going to be getting sick later.

[@robertyeah2259]

@@neuralmute It's possible that right at the beginning of all this I got it and gave it to my best friend who visited me. I recovered and he got viral bronchitis from smoking while sick but he's better now. My brother's partner also got extremely sick during the time. But the first member of our community recently died so everyone's a little on edge now.

[@cheerijessie]

12:25 The time distortion section is still resonant and brilliantly written; I remember hearing it in 2020 and was amazed at how dead-on it felt. Although now in 2022 I feel like my sense of time is just kind of broken really. Things feel recursive and so I watch this video again

[@zephyr1181]

It's taking me a while to rebuild my social circle after lockdown, I kinda feel like 2022 and 2023 were the same year for me.

[@stoodmuffinpersonal3144]

my since or time was broken before that. Now. I. God idk. I'm scared. I'm an adult. I should have handled it all so much better but I'm so scared of everything all the time. It's debilitating.

[@Taramoor]

I have to admit, there’s something comforting about the film version of this, where the government is informed of the problem and spurred to action.

[@thomasakagi7545]

From a Washington Post interview with writer Scott Burns (who looks a bit like Dan): "I would have never imagined that the movie needed a “bad guy” beyond the virus itself... If you were writing it now, you would have to take into account the blunders of a dishonest president and the political party that supports him. But any good studio executive would have probably told us that such a character was unbelievable..."

[@thomasakagi7545]

From the same interview: "My sense is that we are still very much in the first act of this story - how it will go from here depends on how both the people and the government react in the days ahead. I never contemplated a federal response that was so ignorant, misguided and full of dangerous information. I thought our leaders were sworn to protect us. I don’t get to write this story this time. This is a story we are all writing together."

[@icelandicbanks6473]

@@thomasakagi7545 Wow, thanks for the quotes! I'm gonna have to look up that interview. I didn't like this movie when it first hit, probably because it's so traumatic seeing all the loss and I was also basically a decade younger. But now I can really appreciate what the film was saying and see how much it accomplished getting that message across. Good shit, Scott Burns!

[@thomasakagi7545]

@@icelandicbanks6473 In case you didn't find it, here it is (paywall): www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/01/writer-contagion-imagined-all-this-except-inept-government-response/

[@icelandicbanks6473]

@@thomasakagi7545 thank you! Didn't get the notification for this comment for some reason.

[@gc6220]

My friend and I watched Contagion freshman year of high school. We both made fun of the daughter for caring so much about prom in the middle of a damn global pandemic. Four years later.....my class of 2020 prom and graduation all got canceled. Karma is something fierce. I apologize to her character, she was justified in being upset :')

[@nunyabusiness164]

It's weird, yeah, I still had energy to care about my breakup, and weed, and quitting weed, and my grades, and a bunch of other bullshit during my 1.5 year quarantine at my parent's house....

[@dayoldbaguettes]

Things you took for granted (not in a negative way, just that you expected to happen) were stolen from you. Watching COVID take things like prom, my last year of college, job and training opportunities for friends, birthdays, weddings, etc... reminded me a lot of what myself and other disabled friends have had happen when our issues get worse. You lose things that seem kind of trivial (esp next to deaths), but are for many people important milestone events (ex. everyone who never got to walk for graduation). It seems silly until it happens to you. It... feels a little late to say but I hope in time it turns into greater empathy and understanding for people when things like that happen, whether permanent or temporary.

[@TheAxebeard]

Amazing. The "pandemic" was the best thing to ever happen to me. My wife and I got great jobs, we got to work from home (still are), and made more money than at our old shit jobs. Our lives have only improved. Saved money on gas, sold our cars we didn't need any more.

[@unexpected2475]

@@TheAxebeard That is certainly not how most people ended up through the pandemic.

[@candyh4284]

@@TheAxebeard My childhood best friend died, and I still count myself among the lucky. You've hit an incredible jackpot, and I'm happy for you. Your obligation, now, is to pay that karmic boon forward in whatever fashion makes sense to you. Gifts, unless used to better the lives of others, are just bribes from the universe to convince you that it's not as vacuous and uncaring as it may seem. The truth? As with any other bribe, if it were valid of its own scope, the dealing wouldn't be necessary. The gifts you've received should remind you, above all else, that our lives are only ever three days away from complete upheaval. If fortunes can turn positively, they can likewise turn negatively. Three bad days, and I could be on the street, unemployed, houseless, and alone. I don't mean this to intimidate, guilt, or frighten you -- to the contrary. I truly am happy for you, it's remarkable that a period with such suffering can wreak blessings so wholesome. This is a wonderful opportunity for you, not just to luxuriate in the blessings, but to demonstrate what we all must do with ours when they come -- find some way to pay it forward. Take care of the people you love. Tip your waiter 25% rather than 15 or 20. Bring the light you've received from these blessings to those stranded in the dark. Only then can we truly see what it means to be human -- supporting one another when we are unable to support ourselves. Anyway, sorry for the soapboxing. Once again, I am very happy for you -- congratulations, from the bottom of my heart.

[@lancerguy3667]

Ever since I was a young child, I have been violently thanatophobic, to the point where it has basically altered the quality of my enitre life. I recall being three years old, and suddenly being convinced that I was choking to death... going into hysterics as my parents attempted to reassure me that, logically, if I were to be choking, I would need to have something blocking my airway in the first place... but logic seldom cures anxiety, especially for a child. That was the first, but not the last of my anxiety attacks based on death. Between the ages of 3 and 17 I had them multiple times a week, sometimes many within the span of a day. The self-diagnosis behind them changed constantly: a heart attack, a stroke, a brain hemmorage, but the certainty never wavered. I awoke almost every day of my formative years completely sure I would be dead before that night fell. Sometimes I would peer through the anxiety attacks and enoy life as a child my age should be able to, but even during these high moments thanatophobia would still be there, gnawing at the back of my mind, reminding me that I was going to die one day... that after death was almost ceraintly nothingness, and that these two facts in tandem meant nothing I loved or cared about mattered at all. Eventually I found a combination of medicine and counselling that helped me cope with the obsessive compulsion and the anxiety, and life stabilized for a long while Then, around age 25, I developed cancer of the appendix. They caught it early thanks to a nigh-miraculous bout of appendicitis... so early, in fact, that they could cut the tumor out of my body and that would be the end of it, though it would cost me half my large intestine and a portion of my small one besides. I was warned about the risks of surgery, and the date was set for a week ahead. To this day, I remember how numb and calm I felt that entire week. It was the single point in my life where death was looming over me more real than it had ever been before... and I just felt nothing. It was like I was watching a dream. As I said goodbye to my family in the waiting room the day of the surgery, I pondered whether I would see them again, but it was clinical... like wondering what the weather tomorrow would be, and my last pre-surgery memory was me making small talk with the surgery team while I waited for the anesthetic to kick in. It did. As my eyes fluttered shut, I pondered whether they would ever open again. I'll never forget how eerily calm I was about everything. This scare has been nostalgic for me because it's caused me to experience both of these emotions again. I've barely been holding it together for weeks as I worry about things I have no real control over... then suddenly a switch flipped, and now I just feel numb about everything. I just process everything logically because it's the only means available to me to interact with it at all. Sorry for oversharing, not sure where all that came from... guess hearing another nerd grow introspective made me feel the same.

[@BigBrosFilms]

Hope you are staying safe. Anxiety is rough. Hang in there.

[@nicolasverdi]

What I get from this, is that probably the fear of death is much much worse than it's certainty or death itself, like most of the things we fear in life.

[@Leftistattheparty]

Really well written for a comment

[@nicf1555]

Was there anything like a trigger this time around? For how you went from complete anxiety to numbness I mean

[@johnnyfreedom9232]

Maybe this is an obvious thing to say but just in case you haven't heard about it, that's called entering into a dissociative state, I get them from having cptsd but it made me feel a lot better about it and manage it better when I could understand it good luck with everything

[@thomasakagi7545]

Four and a half months later, I still can't stop watching I Can't Stop Watching Contagion.

[@thomasakagi7545]

Three months after that, I still can't stop watching I Can't Stop Watching Contagion.

[@thomasakagi7545]

It is June 7, 2021. I did stop watching it after I got vaccinated, but now I'm watching it again.

[@emilehoffmann4620]

@@thomasakagi7545 it is soothing ain't it?

[@J-wm4ss]

@@emilehoffmann4620 damn, almost 2 years since the start of the pandemic. And we still have antivaxxers.

[@GelidGanef]

When i cast this to my tv from my phone Im literally laying out on my couch, in a mirror image to Dan. So I don't just see "man watching tv" or "actor lying in path of protector". Really, watching this, its hard not to see Dan like a reflection of myself, on the surface of my tv screen. I'd really been struggling with depression since like September, which I felt I was finally starting to get a handle on, when this disaster struck. It's hard not leaving the house. Seeing someone I respect and admire slumped on the couch, binge watching tv, trying to hold onto hope - it feels very validating somehow. Thank you Dan for the depth of empathy and artistry you lavish on your projects. And everyone in the comments, stay safe & sane out there 🖤

[@seanmcdonald1111]

I've been in your position before. Eating healthy, sleeping well and moving around (even in your own home) can be lifesavers. It's really hard of course, but the first time is the hardest, each time after that just a little bit easier. You got this!

[@stagpie6449]

Depression survivors have strength in our bones like no other. Hold fast, and treat yourself with kindness. You have seen worse sights than this, friend

[@no-bn1dl]

"I'm already an agoraphobic shut-in, with a bad sleep schedule. But it's too much" Thank you for putting this into words. I know so many people, especially online, who are introverted and can function in isolation normally, but the sudden realization that we don't even have the opportunity change that, that our social lives can be so utterly been been canceled in a moment was really something I don' think any of us were ready for

[@damien678]

tbh having agoraphobia is very different to your standard introverted personality (as its a very clinically serious phobia and anxiety disorder) but i get what you're saying, and as a diagnosed agoraphobe i empathise deeply with everyone who's had to be shut away, but especially those that also have problems with keeping in touch via online which just further limits social agency

[@booklover569]

"I'm tired all the time" yeah me too, I keep taking naps in the middle of the day and not doing anything even though I want to work, I hate it

[@TitanFM]

Same here. It's not depression, it doesn't feel like depression did. But it's like i'm so restless that things have looped back around to exhaustion. But its a moment in time, only thing to do is step aside and let it happen

[@rickc2102]

I don't get tired enough to sleep a full 8 hours, so I end up sleeping two short sleeps a day.

[@thatjillgirl]

@@TitanFM My husband recently started antidepressants. I told him how I've been feeling. He said, "Oh no! You can't get depressed too!" I told him, "It's not depression. It's more like grief." We are all just grieving the loss of normal life. All grief gets better with time, but not knowing how long this will go on somehow makes the grief worse for me, because I"m stuck in this emotional limbo where I don't quite know how to adjust to the new normal.

[@Carcosahead]

omg this is how I been feeling the past weeks, I’m truly grieving the normal life I had before.

[@gil5885]

i feel like the only one in the world enjoying being isolated. like i feel like i can finally breath.

[@diegomo1413]

I was living with my mom at the time shut downs started in my state. I drove her to the grocery store to get things we needed. She went in and came out some minutes later and said there was hardly anything in there. I said “ok, let’s go somewhere else.” As we were driving through the virtually empty streets on a Thursday afternoon, my mom said “I’m scared” and started tearing up. I told her it’ll be okay, that I had heard the Asian grocery store has a lot of stuff still (you can imagine why). We went there, got everything we needed and went home.

[@japplek]

This is going in the time capsule. "This was what 2020 felt like". A gripe: I've noticed that very few videos on this site about this film don't mention the writer, Scott Burns. Why is that?

[@finnj.harrison6139]

James Appleby Crediting films entirely to the director is a larger problem with film criticism that is thankfully starting to be corrected, but there is still some strides to be made. Some critics say that the producer should be given authorship, some writers, but pretty much since the 50s and 60s the larger body of journalism has decided to credit authorship to the director, largely thanks to Paris-based critics who would go on to lead the French New Wave.

[@mikaperzyna8230]

Personally, I don't feel like there was anything particularly special about Scott's writing. I think this was a case where it really is fair to credit the director with having made the movie as good as it is.

[@davidh9354]

@Tum Tum I would think credit should go to multiple sources if they've each provided a significant enough portion of the investment or creative energies that were inevitably required to produce a given work of art. We collectively just need to decide to stop being so lazy when it comes to mentally connecting names/sources with artwork, especially with things like films or video games since they are a collaborative effort. I don't think it would really take that much more mental effort to associate a movie (for example) with 2 or 3 different people/sources if their contribution to the project was indeed significant, rather than ever only recognizing/remembering the director/writer/producer by themselves... Maybe it would be more trouble or effort than it's worth, as we humans are forgetful, contradictory, and imperfect creatures, so who knows really. Relying on technology or proper documentation could help in this regard, especially if it could help us to recognize/realize that different kinds of contribution/effort exist. Creative effort, for example in the writing, is different from the effort required to actually engineer the mechanical/practical components of a filmed or recorded production.

[@inkasaraswati7625]

I understand why directors are usually credited, because they make all the decisions including who to choose as writers. Directors also usually heavily influence the story by telling the writers what storylines they want or specific things about the characters. However, I do agree if the brunt of the discussion/criticism is towards the writing/story, than the writer should also be credited. IMO writers should definitely be credited if, for example, they come up with the story and shop it around (instead of simply hired), or they have significant influence or voice but most times we don't know what happens behind the scenes.

[@Eudaletism]

Years from now your 2020 time capsule is opened. The virus escapes and spreads once again!

[@peridotlazuli6816]

"I'm already an agoraphobic shut-in who works online and has a bad sleep schedule....but it's too much" THIS is what has been hitting me the hardest. My employment hasn't changed. My typical activities aren't impacted much. I already struggle with anxiety and depression on a "good" day. I feel like I shouldn't be so drained all the time.

[@Calpsotoma]

Gwyneth Paltrow being associated with misinformation about health? Wouldn't have ever thought.

[@alex0589]

woooooof

[@PrettyGirl8496]

Lawd smh

[@Electroporcupine]

OTHER KZbinRS: *Posting silly April Fool's videos and pretending everything is fine* DAN: *Staring blankly into the middle distance. Amy paws at him and he absent-mindedly pets her. Outside, the wind is getting stronger, and in the distance a wolf howls, but Dan doesn't seem to notice*

[@chrisbcpack]

my anatomy professor made us all watch this movie before because he didn't want to teach that day & he just slumped over his desk asleep. there's a coffee machine in his room. i drank like an entire pot by myself that period & could practically feel myself vibrating during the last act.

[@NaumRusomarov]

why? why did you do that to yourself?

[@cottage-core_]

Thank you for your tale

[@emmakane6848]

@@NaumRusomarov Possibly because it was something to do, to get up and walk away from a movie that is just too much, too real, to make something tangible before their very eyes, have to measure things correctly or it was just a little too sweet, or too bitter, or strong, to help them realize that their actions effect the world in a real way. Maybe they needed to have something in their hands to hold to ground them, to have something for them to do, to have something to slide down their throat so that it wasn't so tight, so that they felt like they didn't need to talk about what they were actually feeling at that exact moment in time. I admittedly have not watched this movie, but I have watched movies that got to me emotionally in a way that others just couldn't and when I sat down and watched them I tried to find anything, anything at all to do with my hands so that I wouldn't cry.

[@chrisbcpack]

@@NaumRusomarov it was a 8:30am class. i didnt say i was proud of myself lol

[@NaumRusomarov]

@@chrisbcpack thank you for your sacrifice. :)

[@JamesRoyceDawson]

It's so weird coming back to this now. It's from so early in the pandemic and we all remember that time vividly, but it also already feels like a story we tell each other from how distant it feels. We're so desperate to just get back to normal but it also feels like this was the beginning of the new era.

[@BRAINDAWG1O1]

Days ago becomes distant, Months ago becomes irrelevant, Years ago becomes ancient... This video organized the mess of thoughts in my head I've had for the last 3 weeks. Thank you.

[@rnelody5496]

Kosmickrunch I lost perception of linear time in like 2016. Time feels like it's crawling by, but then I look back and oh fuck has it been 3 months already? It's like I'm in some sort of play, that I'm just pretending to keep going, live a normal life, while the world falls apart around me. Coronavirus is sweeping the globe and I'm doing homework. World leaders are asleep at the wheel and I'm playing video games. I know I should be doing SOMETHING, but I can't, so I just keep clinging to a sense of normalcy and waiting for someone else to start a revolution. I don't think I'm depressed, I'm just living in a constant state of anticipation, waiting for someone else to light the fire for me.

[@kermasooda]

My sense of time is pretty fucked under normal circumstances, but this has definitely made it worse. The other day I checked the date for something that I was sure was a couple of weeks ago, turns out it happened 2 months ago.

[@blu3113]

rewatching this is the closest thing to that feeling I had at the start of the pandemic, it still doesn't feel real, I still don't believe that I lived through that, and I still can't believe that I'm not scared anymore, I feel like i should be

[@doctorrobert1339]

As we just passed the 3 year mark on the first lockdowns, it doesn't feel like that much time has passed. I don't have many memories from most of 2020 because a lot of that year was spent in lockdown. It indeed doesn't feel real that we lived through that, it's insane to think about it.

[@thomasprice7893]

>it doesn’t feel real 555-come-on-now Lmfao

[@draexian530]

On a rewatch after a few years, it becomes so much more clear how accurate his descriptions were. Of the flaws in out meat.

[@TheTealHydra]

Indeed you should. Resist the propaganda.

[@esotericVideos]

At first you think this video was easier because he didn't have to edit a whole video essay like he usually does, then you realize he actually edited the whole thing before projecting it on himself. Dang.

[@Duiker36]

The other way I could see it working is that he just projected the whole movie on himself and edited it afterwards. All he really has to do is not move for two hours and keep his eyes open for the effect.

[@andrzejsugier]

@@Duiker36 nope, the light in the room would change, even with curtains closed etc the ambient lighting would give the cuts away.

[@aarishowton8037]

Andrzej Sugier Not with blackout curtains and a lamp

[@JM-fu6vy]

Plus the extra footage of the 50 shades of Grey essay, news, etc

[@TheSoulHarvester]

@@Duiker36 A bunch of the footage was not from the film.

[@marshall5912]

“This could be the new normal for a very long time”. It’s currently February 2022 as I write this and Dan couldn’t have been more correct. The past 2 years have just been a complete chaos. If someone comes across this message in a few years, I hope the pandemic is over, for all our sakes. Continue to stay safe everyone.

[@Blastermaster1942]

Hello from late February 2023! The pandemic isn't *over* per say. Maybe places still have high infection rates, but it's become endemic and more manageable. The thing that scares me most isn't how bad that last pandemic was, but how bad the *next* pandemic will be because there's an extremely good chance we learned literally nothing from all of this suffering and hardship and death

[@jimzeez]

It's March 28, 2023, and here in Newfoundland on the eastern coast of Canada things have all almost returned to pre-covid normal. Some people wear masks, and no one questions it, we all know why. A handful of people have remarked to me throughout my retail job (which I learned is apparently "essential") that they "can't imagine why anyone would want to return to our 'old normal'". It has just devolved into a collective fever dream we all barely remember. We had the advantage of being a large island, physically separated from the rest of Canada by a wide channel of water. Essentially this gave rise to having several separate outbreaks over the first year or so; a result of incoming travel being required to test and isolate upon arrival... or rather those who simply felt they need not comply to that. Different outbreak bubbles took on the names of where they happened, one in a funeral home, another in a restaurant, one in a high-school. Each one resulting in 100s of cases all being recorded, tracked, isolated, and usually amended with a few tragic exceptions, with number of known cases on the island reducing back to 0 before the next subsequent 'event'. Our uhm.. lacking health care system mixed with an aging population and the sparse distribution of that population lead to a lot of stress for many people. Not to mention NL has its own special breed of misinformed "independent" conspiracy-prone stupid people who, to this day, still stand in protests of a few petty dozen against vaccine mandates, vax-passes, and mandatory masking as though the apocalypse they were foretold is still coming, when the rest of us have just moved on. Having recently lost both of my grandparents in the same week last October to covid, having been infected together at the same time, and finding out while I'm painting my bedroom of the house I had just bought a few days prior, it paints a strange picture of a faux reflection of the concept of normal, or normal-adjacent living that we now sit in. The virus keeps taking, though it has slowed down, and we just keep barreling on. Sorry about that exposition

[@unexpected2475]

October 2023. Things where I live have essentially returned to normal. Covid lives on, but not in public consciousness as the spectre it has been for the past couple years; now it's nearly assimilated as a normal sickness. Nevermind a lot of people are still getting it. If a time traveler from 2019 came to now, perhaps the only difference they'd notice is the odd leftover social distancing sign or sticker, and maybe more people wearing masks (which is like, 5% of all people at most here now).

[@adams3627]

Hi from october 2023. We're never going to be completely out of this, are we? No one is tracking cases anymore, but I notice, even in my fairly republican area in central NY, people are starting to mask up again as cold and flu season gets into high gear. Maybe we learned something? I can only hope.

[@koboldcatgirl]

@@adams3627 The normalization of masks is nice, even if they've also become politicized. I always wear mine, but I don't bother with N95s anymore, just one or two layers of the cute cloth ones I bought. I also never leave my house now, really. I didn't often do it before. It's just become so easy to not bother, I guess. I don't drive and don't have anywhere to go. My outside time is going outside to let the chickens out, feed the chickens, or talk to the chickens.

[@SophiefromMars]

When I was really worried about us getting evicted last winter, I got really into Frostpunk, and when I eventually made a video about it I made a joke "why am I wasting so much time in this fictional universe about surviving the snowy post-apocalypse I need to log off and focus on how we're going to actually survive the winter" When I was really worried about us getting evicted last summer my mum told me I should look for a different job besides youtube, and I suppose that would have been the responsible response to the situation but instead I got really into ISLANDERS, the city builder sim where you create little cities on islands until the game doesn't permit you to build anything else and then you throw away your whole city and move on to the next island. When I was worried about us getting evicted this winter I probably should have looked for supplemental work instead of getting really into Cities: Skylines, but there's something about city builders... I guess there's always SOME point in the play cycle where the numbers look really really bad and it feels like the city will fail, and either I get to pull it back from the edge and save the city or I fail and I just have to start over, and either way it's like poking a raw nerve. Thanks for this video, it meant a lot to me. I hope you and your loved ones are safe and keeping well during this time.

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

Speaking of fixating on 11bit games, there was a point in my local hard lockdown that hits the point where everything was falling apart, and I got weirdly fixated on This War of Mine. Somehow, it became extremely important not that I fix all the things disintegrating around me, but that I get the exact right run where I never have to kill anyone, don't have to steal from anyone except soldiers, and can help everyone I feasibly can. I don't know if it was the idea that this was another impossible-to-fix situation but that I knew had to have a solution so I deflected onto that, or whether it was just the intense surrealism of pausing a game about hiding in a crumbling house all day to make a midnight run for basic supplies when it's safer to leave my crumbling house to make a midnight run for basic supplies when it's safer, but it got me bad.

[@hedgehog3180]

I really like Frostpunk and I think it's weirdly because the idea of an ice age apocalypse is comforting when we're facing the opposite. I live pretty far north so as a kid I often experienced harsh winters where everything got covered in half a meter of snow and there were biting snowstorms but those have slowly disappeared as I grew up and I almost miss them. It was a hardyness I could endure, cold weather is something you can deal with by putting on tons of clothes and having a bit of grit and then you feel pretty satisfied for having done it afterwards and can reward yourself with a hot drink. But global warming has nothing like that and it's also generally something I as an individual can't do anything about the same way I could cold weather. I mean I guess that's partly because I don't live in a place where people know how to deal with hot weather. I think I really miss the hardship that I used to know and it almost feels romantic now that it's probably going to be gone forever, the bad weather that comes with climate change just feels all around miserable, it's tons of rain, heatwaves and storms.

[@livewellwitheds6885]

as another *at risk* person, and one who has almost died of covid and now has long covid, I really hope you have been able to stay safe from covid and are doing okay 💕

[@cheer90099]

"And I need to believe that we can choose... better." God I love this channel.

[@HellecticMojo]

I audibly laughed at that part.

[@ToastyJunebugs]

"I'm tired all the time" Me too. All my classes have switched to online. I'm in school to be a veterinary technician (vet nurse), and it's really hard just reading shit. I've never been a book learner. I like to see things and then I can try and do them. I'm so stressed out from school. And life. And everything. I stopped drinking when this semester started but now I'm drinking every night. I should probably not do that. But hey.

[@BigHenFor]

Just live one day at a time. It's all you really have.

[@o0Avalon0o]

It's like listening to a depressing song when your sad, it's a form of acceptance. The world is cold but beautiful. It moves on with or without us.

[@apollion888]

Jesus dude, if you don't write poetry, you should start, like now.

[@AgentLayla526]

Amusingly, one of my favourite songs has almost that exact line: "The world is cold, but it's beautiful."

[@zaighnut]

This video is, in a strange way, comforting. As an essential worker I am experiencing a weird alienation to the general experience, to friends and family, and yet this video taps into all the things that the ones sheltering and the ones out here have in common. This video helps me feel less alone in an uncertain world where my chances of infection are extremely high while I watch politicians mess it up every step of the way ignoring scientific evidence. While on the clock I keep rallying everybody saying we will make it out of this together, but when the day is over I need to sit down in the dark and process the sense of impending doom that follows me around. This video is an illuminated screen in that darkness.

[@matildegd9965]

I, coincidentally, happened to watch Contagion in December right before the epidemic began, and it made me panic way more because in the beginning I thought 'Oh shit, it's happening'. After a few weeks, I watched it again and it made me feel optimistic because the virus in the movie is much worse than this one. I thought 'If they can get through that, maybe we can get through this.'

[@alex0589]

You're still counting yourself in the "we"?

[@Duiker36]

No, the novel coronavirus is much worse than the virus in the movie. The movie virus was gruesome, but it made people symptomatic fast and it killed fast. To figure out whether or not someone was infected, all you need to know is who and what you touched in the last 48 hours. Can you make a list of who and what you've touched in the last 2 weeks? Do you think everyone could? How many people do you know who are declining self-quarantine purely because they're not showing symptoms (rather than reasons like being considered essential)? Don't mistake the flash for the substance. It's a pandemic precisely because even the forensics are literally incapable of keeping up and chasing down every trace of the transmission vectors. There's an excellent story on how the first guy in the US who had it did everything right: called it in as soon as he showed symptoms, was isolated immediately, and teams of doctors went back and retraced his steps: and it still got past them. You're a goalie on a soccer field and you get to be told about how someone kicked the ball two weeks ago. Block that.

[@VictoriaClerici]

@@Duiker36 I'm sorry but there's no need to be such a Negative Nancy, people are honestly grasping to whatever they can to remain optimistic in this context of isolation and danger. Maybe you think you're being realistic (and maybe you're right), but you don't need to slap a person in the face like that. I've seen this in a different way in my country (Argentina), where we took the measures that were needed on time, thankfully, and the quarantine has been extended for two more weeks, adding up to a month now: people online are all over the place saying those who believe the lockdown will end on Easter are innocent and delusional, which serves NO PURPOSE AT ALL, other than making it worse for those of us who are really distressed/anxious by the confinement and the disease itself, be it because there might be a pre-existing condition, because we fear for our loved ones or simply because of hyphondria/any other mental health problem. I'm pretty sure that by saying the coronavirus isn't as deadly as the virus in Contagion, OP isn't implying that the epidemic isn't serious, I for sure think similarly (I'm young and healthy, so in a best case scenario it should feel like a cold) but I still haven't left my house in more than 3 weeks because I won't risk giving it to other people. It's just an attempt at hope.

[@Duiker36]

@FearlessAstridHofferson tell you what. Let's compare notes in a year and see how many people are dead.

[@Duiker36]

@FearlessAstridHofferson yes, you have very legitimate credentials, dragon girl.

[@thatcutenerdgirl6090]

I watched this video when it came out months ago. I was trying to work out and ended up sobbing on the ground. I’m watching again for only the second time (I’ve watched all of Dan’s other videos to the point that I can quote them) and now I just feel numb. This video makes me a bit anxious and a bit sad, but I’ve gotten so used to this pandemic that there’s hardly even room for emotion anymore. Life goes on, I guess

[@mortified0]

Matt Damon's character has one of the most powerful reactions to a loved one's death I've ever seen in film: complete and utter denial. "Sir, your wife has passed away." "(Long pause) Okay, when can I talk to her?" "...Sir, she's dead." "(An even longer pause) WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"

[@boiledelephant]

Recently I had the experience of being with someone when they found out their partner had just died, it's a common situation sooner or later I guess. It was terrifying, I was actually scared by the intensity of their emotions.

[@zacharyheine4177]

There's a process called transactive memory that happens when two people have been life partners for a while, the human brain is such that processing power and memory is in small ways shared independently between both people. When you lose your partner you lose a part of yourself, not metaphorically or emotionally, but literally.

[@cd7446]

boiledelephant when my aunt died, even though I called the nurse in because I thought she was no longer breathing, I had to go through a cycle of hearing that she was dead, asking the nurse if she had just said she was dead, apologizing and acknowledging it and then asking all over again. It was a surreal suspended-reality moment, and she had been ill for a long time so I shouldn't even have been so lost I guess.

[@no_peace]

It doesn't make sense when people die

[@zarabee2880]

Zachary Heine isn’t this what happens when you hear about someone dying days after their spouse of 40 odd years dies? Broken heart syndrome? literally heartbreaking

[@nikkiking4044]

Watching this with the hindsight of July 2022, and im blown away that this came out in late March 2020, and yet so much happened. I thought I was just explaining hydrochloroquinine to my aunt at Christmas, but it was already present on 3/31/20, which i thought was last week and also a decade ago.

[@L0LWTF1337]

When my grandmother died I put on the most depressing movie I could find and watched it. Interestingly I felt nothing. Not from the movie nor from her death. It was all just a grey fog.

[@huntersullivan51]

Ever since I've found out about my grandfather's impending death I've felt a similar grey emptiness. Sometimes I find a show or a movie that makes me feel, really feel something, but it's fleeting. I even developed a bit of distaste for fiction, though I've been enjoying Don Quixote as it makes me laugh and I don't seem to be laughing at much recently.

[@rusted_ursa]

I feel this; I didn't cry for months after my grandfather died. I looked out the window at work and saw that there was beautiful weather for the first time since he'd passed, and for some reason that's when it hit me.

[@Richex112]

That feeling of grey, clouded emptyness is basically what clinical depression feels like. It seems reasonable that the brains of a depressed person and a grieving person respond similarly to intense pain.

[@cottage-core_]

You stop being able to feel, and then finally when the feeling returns it is too much. I'm sorry about your grandmother

[@Psyteth]

I felt that when my grandfather died. He was my only father figure. I was numb. It wasn't until 2 months later, when I was home alone, I was watching something silly like The OC and there was a scene where a girl died and for whatever reason, I felt overwhelmed to the point I ran upstairs feeling like I couldn't breathe, stood in front of a mirror and told myself to "just stop, just stop it!" And just fell to the floor and cried for a good hour. I have never In my life felt anything like it since.

[@sometoon]

Hi Past Dan, I'm from the future. One year from now we'll have a vaccine and you'll be posting a vid tearing into Doug Walker and making me appreciate Pink Floyd more. Hang in there, Past Dan.

[@IrisGlowingBlue]

++

[@jonreededworthy7518]

If nothing else, all of this analysis and tearing into Doug Walker's shitty parody of The Wall has made me appreciate The Wall itself so much more

[@thrownstair]

The problem will not be solved but Dan will be making some of his best work, including In Search of a Flat Earth, the videos on Doug Walker and Ralph Bakshi that I’ve watched at least fifteen times each.

[@TheClemundo]

Damn, I have no idea why this comment moves me the way it does.

[@Kookiebiskit]

Holy crap! It's long-running character Past Dan, the Dan with a Past!

[@bytowneboy]

Seeing this movie on trending has been a source of significant stress for me every time I open Netflix to find something to distract myself from reality. Thank you for helping me understand why people might be choosing to do this.

[@alex0589]

Same here.

[@VashWasTaken]

I can't stop watching "I Can't Stop Watching Contagion" and it's been nearly 2 years since you released this video. Big love to you, Dan. From another Dan that is also an agoraphobic shut-in.

[@TheMovingEye]

Can we also talk about how damn stylish the whole movie is? The music, the cinematography, it's like a highly polished technothriller mixed with a fashion shoot.

[@william6353]

TheMovingEye Yes I was surprised when I saw the IMDb rating.

[@HelloHello-tm7uc]

The score after my second watch has become super haunting-- watching it for the first time 5 years ago I thought the movie was interesting, now it had become nightmare-ish

[@michaelotis223]

Soderberg really went full-on Fincher on Contagion. You love to see it.

[@sorrelkit123]

Now that we're approaching a year in pandemic crisis, I find myself struck not only with how distant and unreal life before covid felt, but how little I can remember of how it all felt last spring.

[@beanofglory7602]

Watching this video, I find myself frightened at the idea of remembering the mindstate of back then. I'm anxious about trying to dredge it up - some part of my brain thinks that if I remember it, I'll get stuck with it, even though many of the circumstances have changed.

[@nerobernardino88]

The ride never ends!

[@nunyabusiness164]

I remember how washing the groceries with my brother became a normal enough routine that we could bicker while we did it. This was before we realized COVID doesn't really transmit through fomites that much.

[@maddieb.4282]

It’s called trauma

[@smallseal17]

"Wonderful things of folks are said, When they have passed away. Roses adorn their narrow bed, Over the sleeping clay, Give me the roses while I live, Try to cheer me on. Useless the flowers you may give, After the soul has gone." Good video.

[@cottage-core_]

+

[@smallseal17]

@ It's from "Give Me The Roses While I Live", an American folk song that I always associate with a band called the Carter Family. Who else has sung it, where it's from, these are questions for greater minds than mine.

[@EmissaryofWind]

"Death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints, It takes, and it takes, and it takes, And we keep living anyway"

[@netteliaemm1254]

I remember finding this video weirdly hopeful originally and now in fall of 2021 the part about developing a vaccine and how that was not the climax but the start of even more work is ringing most strong. And I'm having a hard time believing we can actually choose better anymore - at least not in the United States

[@maddieb.4282]

Us individuals can always choose better and we can always do our best. And that’s all we can do

[@nightcoreeclub]

I'm in the weird opposing emotional cage where I can't bring myself to watch movies like that bc I'm scared of becoming more scared than I already am

[@imaginareality]

I can't bring myself to watch anything even remotely dramatic or emotional because I feel so exhausted already and I can't concentrate on anything anyway. So I've been watching a ton of bake-off episodes and storage wars.

[@jessrl8025]

I feel the same way. And judging by the amount Tiger King is talked about, many others cope just as we are. My husband and I have been watching lots of comedy, fantasy, and music documentaries because drama and sci-fi are too much right now.

[@sydneygorelick7484]

I'm really glad I only ended up finding and watching this video now, in 2023, after it's all "over." This is indeed an exposed nerve, and I don't think I could've withstood it when this was released. Thank you for making this, though, and putting into words a lot of the feelings about the unprecedented times.

[@chrisdray5325]

This concept of "emotional practice" is something that I've been struggling to formulate for a long time now. Thanks for giving me that push that I needed to understand my feeling.

[@owenselwyn3154]

I just came back to this video and oh my god this was the exact feeling that the start of the pandemic had. For me, even now, it still feels so raw and that so much has never been hashed out even in 2023. Thank you for putting these feelings into something expressible.

[@audiosurfarchive]

True art is a reflection, and an interpretation thematically, of real life's beauty.. and horror. That's the importance of great works: _Life imitates art, and art imitates life._ Be safe. Love each other. Don't give up.

[@ienblu5226]

Only five minutes into this, and I scrolled and clicked the "Show More" for the description and read it, bemused, wondering when the history part was going to be relevant, only to be sucker-punched by the "We can come out of this crisis better than we went in." And now I'm crying. This was produced in March 2020. I was working as a receptionist at a home health care facility - aka, I was in the health care field, but only at the most periphery. But I still had enough connection where I was considered at high risk. I went from visiting my parents at least once a week to not seeing them for six months - including both my own birthday and my dad's 70th birthday. It was agonizing. I don't know if we could have come out of this crisis better than we went in, but we could have gotten through the crisis *better* and I will spend the rest of my life resenting the political parties that actively made the situation worse.

[@graceb493]

There's something comforting about knowing someone else is in a similar mental state to me right now. Thank you.

[@aberrantwhimsy]

Laying on the couch, in the exact same position, watching this video over and over again. I can't stop crying, it just describes all of the horrible numbness, terror, uncertainty, and loneliness I'm feeling right now. Thank you for making it

[@dccalling5960]

I'm watching Chernobyl again this week--it is tragic and also refreshing to watch people actually respond to a crisis in the radical and practical way the crisis demands.

[@boiledelephant]

That show's gonna age like a fine wine.

[@dccalling5960]

@@boiledelephant not even kidding it's my third time through and it just keeps getting better.

[@TheVefIt]

Don't forget the soviets made a lot of mistakes dealing with that... even so, they did better than a lot of present governments are doing with COVID-19 haha

[@hedgehog3180]

@@TheVefIt The series actually makes their response look way worse than it actually was, so it's amazing that even with that in mind it actually looks amazing compared to the current real world.

[@emilywaters6430]

I just have to say, the use of the projection and the voiceover is such a great and effective technique to express the feeling of being stuck in a haze of watching news and Contagion.

[@ulawan5]

My god, you have been the first person I've heard who encapsulates the feeling of the respiratory threat. "On the other hand, I can't think about the other hand." I'm also At Risk, and I can't tell you how comforting it was to hear that exact feeling. Thank you for putting out this video, things are hard to do right now and I think it was clever to have the projection over you as the visual. The desire to live in a bounded world in all this is a really great take on why people are watching this film so much. It's a valid way to try to parse feelings about this. And there was a great point brought up in the most recent episode of Even More News, this feeling is like.... grief. Mourning. I guess for the loss of normalcy, for the loss of feeling safe in the world and safe from other people, while we still want to be social and empathetic. It's knocked us all on our asses, and I really really appreciate you talking about it. Stay safe out there. One day we won't have to be so scared.

[@FFKonoko]

Hello fellow watcher of even more news.

[@kittystarz8]

watching this nearly a year later while still in quarantine hits different

[@4492]

Its interesting to watch it now considering where our respective governments are compared to last year (I'm UK based...mine hasn't changed a BUNCH, but its still different)

[@Supermunch2000]

You won't believe how good it is to hear your voice during these times. I'm going to rewatch your videos as you, after Ellen's Rich Evans, are one of the most soothing voices, at least to my ears.

[@Theray0evan]

nothing soothes me best like Rich Evans screaming "I'm Doooooon Wilson!"

[@Matt-iy4tn]

@@kakroom3407 IF THET TRY AND PIRATE THE VIDEO A MAGNETRON WILL SHOOT RIGHT IN THEIR EYES!?

[@vasari9198]

Rich Evans in the hero we always wanted and didn’t know we needed.

[@LaigledeMeaux]

I watched this movie with a bunch of coworkers a few months back. Two things shocked me. First, I couldn't believe how similar the situations shown in the movie were to real life. We are literally in the middle of a similar situation, albeit less lethal than what was in the movie. Second, all my coworkers who are hardcore alt-right trumpers loved the movie, thought it was poignant, and thought it was spooky, but didn't fucking put it together that we were in the same situation. The movie makes the point that the only way to get out of the situation was with vaccines, and yet all these coworkers talk about how vaccines are dumb and fake or whatever else. Some serious cognitive dissonance.

[@maallos334mi8]

The reality of the situation hasn't hit them yet, they still see this as a "game" where they are the eventual winners, so what they do and believe don't matter. Only way out at that point is reality to crash into them, and they don't die

[@vivian-sasha-taylor]

if a right-winger actually begins to understand a piece of art then they wouldn't be a right-winger anymore tbh.

[@charlesclark3840]

@@vivian-sasha-taylor dehumanizing the enemy seldom leads to enlightenment.

[@SacredDaturaa]

I think it was the casting of Jude Law. To normal people his character is clearly a repugnant hypocrite, but also like... he's played by Jude Law with his amazing jawline, sexy British accent and just general charisma. If someone's whole worldview revolves around the kind of lazy cynicism Krumwiede professes, I can see how one could think that was actually a sympathetic portrayal.

[@ekki1993]

@@charlesclark3840 What do you mean? Missing the point of a piece of art to turn into weird fetichizations of random traits is a very human thing to do. Did you not see how many of Fight Club's fandom are Tyler Durdenn wannabes?

[@fortunatesoul12]

You had almost crying there mate, god damn it, I guess I am not proccesing the situation enough

[@emmamyhr]

Rewatching this is February 2021. Still hold as true as the day it released.

[@bethanyconboy4481]

My life too hasn’t changed much. As an introverted sahm of two children 3 and under in a country where it gets to -30 In the winter, I wasn’t going out much anyways. If anything my life is easier bc my husband is home to help with the kids. But it’s the constant state of being on the edge of panic that’s wearing. Of wanting to get away but having nowhere to go, of wanting to call everyone I know to check on them while simultaneously fighting severe phone anxiety. It’s exhausting. I hate it.

[@rachelplummer8955]

I just wanted to comment here because I feel like I could have written this myself (though I only have one little one). You are not alone.

[@Minam0]

What’s a sahm

[@bethanyconboy4481]

Stay at home mom

[@lovezorange33]

This really hits different halfway through September

[@aturchomicz821]

lol no

[@jamiel6005]

it hits so different in November

[@aturchomicz821]

@@jamiel6005 nah

[@jamiel6005]

@@aturchomicz821 what? Why

[@JCSEGSProductions]

Petition to create a series of movies projected on Dan laying down. No commentary or anything, just the movie and Dan's face reacting to what's on screen.

[@cottage-core_]

+

[@changingyoutubeusernameisn7302]

+

[@lhumanoideerrantdesinterne8598]

Hard no. That soulless gaze as he stares at the screen, completely void of energy is going to haunt me for days. No more !

[@jacobblaze5044]

That line “it’s too much” really struck a chord within me. I spend most of my free time indoors disassociating from the rest of the world, so my external life has been barely changed other than school, but I just could not handle the quarantine. I had never felt so alone and so hopeless in my entire life doing what I do every day. It’s like the stasis of the quarantine has created a hyper reality, where we are acutely aware of our routine and the monotony of our lives because we have become so disconnected from everything else. I guess what I’m trying to say is I should have watched this so, so much longer ago.

[@TheWeeklyFangirl]

There are so many things I want to say after watching this...but trying to type any of them out, it just feels empty. Just...however long this takes, I hope we choose better, too. Take care man. Stay safe.

[@deawinter]

Sitting here, in the worst the pandemic has been yet in my state, fighting with my father daily to please please please wear a mask - knowing that the aunt who scoffed in April is a frontline worker struggling to get PPE now - It feels routine, 10 months in, and yet sometimes it feels like there is this howling, frantic maelstrom inside of me, of fear and grief and panic and anger. I lost my uncle to this disease in may. Sometimes I forget. It feels like a lifetime ago.

[@pious83]

While I haven't seen Contagion, when this news started to break, my mind kept going back to the cinema scene in Outbreak. How easily disease can spread via our own way of life. Yet still the lesson goes unlearned. One of the saddest indictments of this entire pandemic? The global numbers of those that had to be told how to correctly wash their own hands. Basic level hygiene...

[@kazh8639]

November 20th 2023 and I am back, yet again, watching this video. Now as a COVID-cautious person in a world that no longer cares.

[@TheJakubSvanda]

The calm voice telling me all the things I had at the back of my head stays with me. It echos through my skull back and forth both reminding me I'm alone and that there is a voice, not at all unlike many other voices, that is there. Thank you... just thank you

[@draxiss1577]

It's now October of 2022. Although a lot of people in the U.S. seem to *act* like the pandemic is over, the infection rates are still comparable to what we had during the pandemic. I'm the only one in my neck of the woods who even bothers to wear a mask, but I feel the threat is still real, and it will stay real until we finally reckon with everything broken about our systems and society.

[@guyfriendo2917]

Jesus this has expressed about fifty different vague feelings I've been struggling with. Thank you Dan

[@MasatoKagoshima]

watching this in january is a smack in the face,,, we're still going huh

[@Verathegun]

In ten years when the Met does a retrospective on Corona this should be playing on a loop.

[@Nikkiflausch]

Looking back from 2023, exactly three years after everything came crashing down, this video captures the confusion, fear, nihilism and helplessness we all felt at that time like no other I‘ve seen.

[@lzzfxck]

I got 3 minutes into this then found myself thinking "what is this aspect ratio??" Really though, great video. The uncertainty right now is so uncomfortable for everyone. This is a surreal time. Everyone is trying to settle into a new "normal", with zero knowledge of how long this new normal is going to last. It's scary stuff. Stay safe, everyone.

[@alex0589]

Aspect ratio is 2:2000000 dead by c0uch by 1:1 Dan (cinemascope)

[@AP-cs2qh]

Couldn't bear to watch this in 2020 but coming back to it four years later, it's exactly what I needed at that time

[@v.y.o.]

Having watched Contagion in cinemas, this video in 2020 and now again in 2022, all of this has turned into one big fever dream memory soup.

[@lilymechner900]

Coming back to this video in 2024… i graduated high school in and turned 18 in 2020, i am 22 now and can barely remember highschool or anything before that. It feels like it’s still 2020 to me and also like 2019 is impossibly far in the past. There’s a huge gulf in my mind between the old world and now.

[@jamesh6398]

I started crying when you talked about the hyperextension of the present, the mental exhaustion of thinking about time

[@music_YT2023]

Love this take. Contagion is one of my favorite films; I saw it early on because one of my vaccinology professors was a consultant for the movie and it was incorporated into our lectures. The movie is bleak because reality is bleak; science takes time to figure out and respond to crises, and people will often turn to hucksters for hope and instant fulfillment.

[@bean3550]

I live in calgary and while other provinces half rent or try to in some way alleviate the pressure of money Alberta has...gotten rid of late fees. Evictions arent allowed which is a given and not a feature but people are still eventually gonna have to pay with money they might not have. Better than nothing less than something, I guess. Thanks Kenney

[@cecyllavellans]

i come back to this video about once a month (usually when i need something to trigger a cathartic cry), and every time there's something you say that's more prescient at the time im watching it than when it was written. having just gotten my second dose of the vaccine and trying to navigate some pretty intense survivors guilt about it, this time it was the vaccine section that got me. this is a great video that i feel like, really strangely compelled by. or, in other words, i cant stop watching "i cant stop watching contagion"

[@steviereads4267]

I am a medical student at a time when everyone is a "medical student". The way in which you described your anxieties over disease. The lack of meaning in unhealth and the derivation of meaning by way of framing really resonated with me. Your ability to deconstruct social reaction, from media to mundane to monstrous is amazing. Thank you for your channel and your content.

[@sirboordflesblorpsofblepin427]

This hits hard. Really hard. The line "Would this be the year there would be nobody left to bury the dead?" just broke a part of me I didn't realize I had still. Because it still applies. How many more deaths? How many more bodies? Will I or one of my loved ones be one of them? This hits so much harder now that I've caught COVID-19. I've had it twice before (I'm immune-compromised and completely vaccinated) but this third time? I started having symptoms two weeks ago. I nearly died. I couldn't even go to the hospital. There's no beds. How many more casualties do there need to be before those in power start doing something? Every video I've watched of yours is a masterpiece. Thank you, Dan. I hope you're doing well, and I hope we all have a better 2022.

[@BubblegumCrash332]

This reminds me of how the movie Siege starring Denzel Washington became relevant after 9/11.

[@CaptainPRESIDENT]

I can't wait until a movie like Big Trouble in Little China, Sphere, or Edge of Tomorrow become relevant! /s

[@TooSmalley]

Otha Bojangles that movie blew my mind when I realized it was made pre 9/11.

[@chancevought8298]

Remind me when the United States rounded up Muslims en masse....I'll wait.

[@doyleharken3477]

@@chancevought8298 gitmo *mic drop*

[@alex0589]

Holy shit. I think i was too young to know this had happened. I guess nothing changes. We "entertain" ourselves with the current horrors. Probably because we need to process stuff, like Dan said, at least movies end.

[@ohgirlieplease]

Couldn't watch this until now but I'm glad I waited. With the added events of the past week, this video has given me a lot to think about.

[@404usernotfound_]

I've been really, really wanting to rewatch Chernobyl and Grave of the Fireflies and Barefoot Gen recently, and I've been looking up other man-made disasters of that scale. I know it's not exactly on the same level as watching a movie over and over again, but I didn't realize until this video that it's because I'm scared. I'm trying to find something worse, I guess, some proof of "Well, people survived THIS and it was so much more terrible". Stupid, but I can't really help it

[@alex0589]

Chernobyl seems quaint compared to what we are living through. The event AND the show. Extreme incompetence, human disasters and the cost of lies... The next five (twenty?) years will be defined only by this but we will add several zeros to the # of lives and the cost. Wash your hands.

[@TwelvetreeZ]

This is why I got super into content about the Titanic and the Donner party this time last year

[@moonglaive]

Been meankng to watch this for awhile but avoided it because I have long COVID. Finally did because my youngest came home this past week with an infection they got from class and has been isolating in their room until they no longer test negative/show symptoms. I may have missed it, scrolling through your videos, if you've done an update. If not, a follow-up would be great, especially given the current discourse on social media.

[@_Snowflame]

This has been the longest video you've made and I'm eight minutes in.

[@Lomaxxx53]

What? Anyone of the 50 Shades of Grey videos are longer

[@sovietcanuckistanian]

@@Lomaxxx53 It's figurative, referring to the subjective feeling of length. Alternatively Travis is may be the type to pause a video when it's hitting too close to home, I can't speak for him.

[@michaelsurname8668]

Interesting you say this, cos he talks about limits of our time perception at length later in the video

[@Bee-ys6kt]

Watching this in November and it's a little unsettling to watch, seeing how everything has turned out so far. And seeing how even some of the scarier parts of Contagion did come true after all. Fantastic predictions and fantastic video!