Oceans of Hugs but Are They the Same Oceans?
When Stepping in Another’s Shoes Just Won’t Go Far Enough
Spoilers for Y2K Audio Drama
Content warning for domestic violence, sexual assault, and suicidal ideation
Introduction
I am an avid podcast listener for the same reason that I am an avid consumer of any form of media: there are certain stories that need to be told but can only catch their footing in specific mediums. With podcasting being an auditory medium, some advantages are obvious. Doors are open to stories that either need an emphasis on sound and soundscapes or whose settings couldn’t reasonably be erected physically or created with CGI. However, beyond the obvious, with it being the sort of medium where costs are more often shouldered by creators and/or their audiences than some profit-driven third party, diverse voices are able to come to the table without being pushed away by traditional gatekeepers motivated only by financial gain and almost emotionally attached to established patterns.
Y2K Audio Drama Podcast Logo
The Y2K Audio Drama (January 2020 - December 2022) is proof of concept, I would say. Showrunner Karin Heimdahl had a clear story and purpose in mind, particularly for the show’s first season, and this story thrives in the podcasting atmosphere in a way that it could not anywhere else. This is for a variety of reasons. For one, I don’t see this narrative being appealing to the traditional ‘man in suit’ type gatekeeper typically associated with other mediums because of its subject matter and its diverse cast of characters, and on the other hand, the narrative of its first season is designed to mesh with the nature of the medium in a way that maximizes a sense of authenticity and immersion.
The first season of the podcast tells the story of two friends in the year 2000 who are separated by an ocean and trying to stay connected through an online voicemail system. This being the year 2000, the system can be thought of--in a 2020 lens--as archaic and beyond question or interrogation what with it being bound to a different set of online norms. In other words, the fact that these individual voicemails were left as sound files on a computer is reasonable without further explanation. It’s those sound files that our host, Olivia--the daughter of one of these two friends--presents to us in the podcast she is creating.
Olivia’s status as a framing device is--as many framing devices are--critical to the way the audience understands the story and the conclusions they walk away with. As fulfilling as it is to see where characters from the 2000 plot line have ended up, she is the most significant of the characters who appear in the 2020 timeline because she is the one that walks us through the voicemails, packaging them into weekly uploads and offering up some level of commentary. Also, she ends up being the final piece in the philosophical exercise Heimdahl unintentionally creates. I say ‘unintentionally’ because the philosopher whose work Y2K overlaps with is relatively obscure due to the sometimes incomprehensible nature of his arguments. Nelson Goodman is an American philosopher known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism, and aesthetics. None of which might make sense to you, whether you're classically trained or not. These terms aren’t at the forefront of the discipline, and I, myself, did not find Goodman’s work in a classroom. Rather, I found his work when I was better trying to understand self-expression as a tangential point later cut out of my master’s thesis.
The Ways of Worldmaking (1978) presents a somewhat more digestible look into a point Goodman first put forth in the 1950s. In this book, Goodman argues that we live in and amongst multiple worlds, each constructed and shaped by the individual observer who is drawing from their own experiences and values. This radical relativism might not make you exceedingly uncomfortable at first because Goodman’s argument pushes against our understanding of the world beyond ourselves as being shared and held in common. If two people are in the same room, they think or assume that they share an understanding of all things in the room and the room itself. This then serves as a shared foundation from which these two individuals can pursue a conversation. Though the scale is different, this idea of a shared space or common world is the underlying understanding for so much of what we do. We might both be sitting in the same space studying for the same class or we may want to discuss our opinions on current events and what politicians should do moving forward. So much of our daily life assumes we can draw from a shared world, but Goodman argues against such commonalities. So what are we left with? The question should fill you with some sense of dread. We think of shared observations like the color of the carpet we walk on or the number of chairs in the room as objective. But if we don’t really share the same room, then by some standards, we would not have these observations anymore. So what does this theory mean for objectivity? In all honesty, Goodman pushes against our understanding of what is ‘objective’ by challenging an underlying premise. Objectivity, as we know it, is meant to be a matter of consistency between people, and Goodman does not think we can truly have such a thorough consistency.
When discussing this work with a classmate–as one spends far too much of their time in graduate school doing–this was pointed out to me. And it is an inevitable objection. After all, this book asks for a shift in perspective that challenges a fair number of notions we aren’t aware we have. There’s a value assigned to objectivity, yes. We are aware of the emphasis we put on it, but it also hides in wait in other places as well. Goodman says himself that “a major thesis of this book is that the arts must be taken no less seriously than the sciences as modes of discovery” (Goodman, 1987, p. 102), which runs counter to an established but contentious narrative that often labels the arts/sciences distinction in any number of ways: fact/fiction, truth/falsehood, subjective/objective, or irrelevant/relevant. The delicate entanglement of these connotations is disconcerting, to say the least, largely in its implications. Acting on this mindset has had unfortunate complications. Many have pointed out how a failure to teach critical thinking or how to read a text critically, for intention and meaning, has led to the rise of conspiracies like the anti-vaccination movement. That makes for a fairly compelling argument to reconsider the worth we put on teaching rhetoric, literature, and the like. However, I would say that Goodman’s argument isn’t just meant as a prescription for such problems, but it provides a new way of visualizing the state of affairs we have found ourselves in. After all, we are already trying to exist amongst alternative perspectives or multiple ‘worlds’ contradicting each other enough to be in conflict, to the overall detriment of society, and latent within Goodman’s conceptualize is a way to understand this divide and--potentially--how to navigate it.
To take it further, there is a place for a more ‘objective’ perspective in Goodman’s model, to say it plainly. It is, after all, a ‘world’ in and of itself but one that stands as a different construction. Perhaps, you might want to call it a ‘better’ construction, though I would suggest avoiding sweeping value judgments. However, it certainly isn’t explicit within the text itself. Rather, it’s an extension of the argument that can be harder to see. With its separated and disjointed characters, Y2K offers a unique opportunity to see this and to better understand what these worlds are and do through its narrative design. Consequently, in this essay, I want to utilize plot points and characters of Y2K’s first season to illustrate this defense.
To that end, there will be clear spoilers for the first season and potential spoilers for the second, which builds upon some level of prior knowledge of the first.
***
The World of the Year 2000
Season 1 ran the entirety of 2020, releasing episodes every Friday along a timeline that was meant to follow the events of its characters in the year 2000. Consequently, it begins in the new year, right when close friends and roommates Kat and Jess are separated. Jess is moving to Auckland, New Zealand for the next chapter in her life--no pun intended because Jess is pursuing her dream of being a writer by returning to school to study the act of doing as such--while Kat is chasing her own dreams of acting in London. This does come with some distress for the two as neither wants to let the other go. Making voicemails to each other through this online service is a bit of a last resort in terms of maintaining their connection, all things considered. Phone calls are expensive, letters take time, and there remains something impersonal about emails. They’re close, which includes and explains the impulse to disclose everything and support each other through an ‘everything’ that includes new relationships, burnt bridges, shifting landscapes, a pregnancy, and a miscarriage.
Regarding the latter two points, Olivia’s presence immediately shapes the audience’s expectations and leads to certain assumptions. For example, Jess’s new partner Rachel and Kat end up pregnant at about the same time, and for a while, we are left wondering which pregnancy results in Olivia, making her an omniscient and looming figure in the story. Then Kat suffers through a miscarriage, which reveals--as Olivia points out--that Jess and Rachel are her parents (Episode 26). Kat, however, remains an important presence in her life as a very dear family friend and aunt-type figure, and this role in Olivia’s life assures the audience that Jess and Kat come through this year with their bond intact.
Narratively, finding out the identity of Olivia’s parents is a fairly big moment. However, that isn’t to say that Kat’s miscarriage was only a set-up to this reveal. It isn’t. And it would do Heimdahl a great disservice to say as much. As I said, during the course of the year 2000, both friends find themselves in new environments and having new adventures in pursuit of their goals. To narrow in on the issue I want to discuss, they are also entering into new relationships. Jess has the aforementioned Rachel, and Olivia’s demeanor would suggest that--despite how or when it might have ended--it was a functional and stable relationship throughout her life. On the other hand, Kat has a new boyfriend named Johnno, and though she may have started the year infatuated with him, things devolved rather quickly in a way that her miscarriage seemingly plays into, whether or not Johnno consciously took advantage of that opportunity.
Both the trigger warnings in the show notes and Olivia’s reminders in the episodes themselves confirm what the audience can hear when--in the context of the narrative--recorders are left on accidentally or when Johnno acts without regard to an unseen witness. In short, Johnno is abusive to Kat and his previous partners. This is the conflict point I want to talk about. There’s no debating that what Johnno does to her is wrong and unjustifiable. Prior hurt, which seems to be the category of excuses he wants to draw from, doesn’t excuse what he does. And a follow-up, ‘where is he now’ type episode in season 2 confirms that pushing him to change just seems pointless. He had a reason to, having lost a relationship as a consequence of his actions, but he still does not make a significant change. This podcast isn’t meant to be a dissection of Johnno and his issues, however. In fact, the audience is not asked to forgive or dismiss his actions. Personally, I was seemingly led to do quite the opposite.
What really concerns us as listeners--as well as Jess and Olivia who serve as more engaged participants--is Kat’s reactions to his actions. The audience, Jess, and Olivia hear all the hallmarks of an abusive situation, and although the act of leaving can present any number of complications, many of said complications are irrelevant, at least in this specific situation and at that point in time. Our concern for Kat seemingly precedes the question of leaving and asks instead about recognition and identification rather than resolution. To put it more bluntly, why doesn’t Kate see the situation for what it is?
The most common--and frankly, dismissive--answer would be to just say that she’s got ‘rose colored glasses’ on, and as the quote from the Bojack Horseman episode “Yes And…” (2015) goes, “When you look at someone through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.” But even that dismissal gestures towards a rewording of the question: why do the rose-colored glasses stay on for as long as they do when they could have been figuratively (if not literally) knocked off? It may seem pedantic to harp on this specific point, but this is a question that remains painfully relevant. After all, incidents of domestic violence remain distressingly common. Turning to the United Kingdom where Kat’s story takes place, statistics from the organization Living Without Abuse argue that domestic abuse will directly affect 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men (Domestic abuse statistics 2021). And a gross simplification of this issue or an unwillingness to see things from the victim’s perspective can make getting help and getting out of these situations much more difficult.
The “why stay” question both matters and doesn’t. Its relevance depends on the asker’s intentions. Asking can be part of devising a tailored escape plan. It can help communicate needs and barriers. However, sometimes, this is not asked as a genuine attempt to bridge a distance and understand where someone is coming from. Rather, it can be inappropriately used as a sort of litmus test by leaving the question of responsibility up in the air. Its premise is that leaving is possible and a matter of choice. There is an acknowledgment that leaving can be difficult, but the underlying point is that it can be done. In asking if the thing being sought out is some sort of reason why the victim couldn’t, that would overlook many of the complexities latent to that situation. Domestic violence situations are complicated, but there is a way to understand that complication.
Goodman presents an answer to this question that isn’t just one thing going wrong in a well-established machine. It is not that Kat is making a single mistake in reading the situation or in recognizing the problem at hand. It is not that Kat is simply caught up on one thing. Nor is it that Kat is focused on one detail. Rather, she’s inclined to read the situation differently given her situation and perspective. In other worlds, her ‘world,’ as Goodman understands it, ascribes different meanings to these ‘red flags,’ and it is important to consider why that is the case.
***
Goodman’s Theory
To reiterate, Ways of Worldmaking argues that there can be no one, singular, correct way of describing or understanding the world by offering a more informal, deconstruction of this idea and its implications. And there are implications to this, several in fact, particularly when one approaches the sciences. The physical sciences are a different matter, but with regards to the social sciences, it makes sense to apply this perspective to social structures in all forms, all places, and through all phases of human history. After all, these are things people have created, and the ‘why’ to each habit, tradition, ritual, and superstition rests in the way human beings understood the events around them. For example, an earthquake might be attributed to the mistreatment of a goat if said mistreatment happened right before the earth started shaking in the absence of an understanding of tectonic plates. This relationship between action, interpretation, and reaction has been carried from the earliest days of civilization to today and to every corner of the globe that humans wandered off to.
This universality is what drew me to Goodman’s theory, on one hand. On the other hand, it emphasizes the imperative to understand this issue of translation. In some ways, each human being speaks their own language with words and sentence structures that will not be immediately understood by others. However, each will assume that they understand and proceed accordingly. Therein lies any number of problems.
For Goodman, truth lies in internal coherence and consistency as opposed to external validation. If my frame of reference leads me to believe that x-statement is the truth, then it is my truth, and I am justified in my belief. I do not need you to confirm that something is true for me to believe or understand it as truth. It stands independent of external approval because it does not have to line up with premises only held by other people. As an example, consider a debate between the two of us. We are talking about the planet we dwell upon. One of us says that the planet turns clockwise while the other vehemently objects and argues that the planet, in fact, turns counter-clockwise. In the course of this conversation, things get rather heated as neither of us proves willing to back down only to then find out that we--in this imaginary conversation--are not on the same pole. One stands on the North Pole and one on the South Pole, and both are considering the planet that is technically beneath us. With such different reference points, we have come to vastly different conclusions. In that situation there are assumptions abound; perhaps you as the reader had assumed that in this imaginary conversation both participants were in the same location, though we live in an age when Zoom conferencing has become a norm. That is an inclination to think or an assumption in the absence of clear information, but it is one that feels right by virtue of the way we understand words and lived experiences. Whether or not we want to admit it, we do jump to a type of conclusion otherwise known as interpretation. In fact, we as individuals are “confined to ways of describing,” and “our universe” or the figurative space in which our lives play out is composed “of these ways rather than of a world or of worlds” (Goodman, 1987, p. 3). In other words, there may be a physical earth surrounding us, but our understanding of it and the way we reference it are not shared in the same way the literal dirt might be.
In this book, Goodman argues not only for the co-existence of multiple words, but he also describes the titular ‘ways of worldmaking’ or the processes through which this shaping occurs. For the sake of time, brief explanations are as follows:
Composition and decomposition - This is the process of grouping together what we see as relevant and parsing out details when appropriate. A devoted bird watcher might be able to distinguish individual birds within what the layperson would simply dismiss as a flock. The fundamental question is ‘same or not?,’ which is then immediately followed up with the clarification ‘same what?’ (Goodman 8). The bird watcher sees the birds along certain distinctions, be it personality or markings. To her, ‘same what?’ narrows in on a detail that cannot be the same from bird to bird. For the layperson, ‘same what?’ can mean color or type, casting a bigger net for the entire flock to fall within. For the bird watcher, her world includes a collection of individual birds.
Weighting - This is the process of assigning an emphasis. The layperson may notice slight differences in the birds the bird watcher loves so, but they are irrelevant to him until a bird engages with him and with something that is relevant to him, and so, in his world, exists one flock.
Ordering - This is a process centered on derivation (drawing a new thing from that which already exists) and/or incorporating different constructional systems. Goodman provides time as an example (14). The seconds, minutes, and hours built into modern society is, after all, a construction. Our system of timekeeping is not built into the physical world, though we used that world in its creation. And even still, a morning person and a night owl would have different understandings of that structure.
Deletion and Supplementation - This is the process of excluding what is irrelevant and filling space. Animation is a good (and shared) example of supplementation, as our brains add in the connective tissue between individual sketches at a rate faster than we are consciously aware of. Meanwhile, we drop information that is no longer relevant, a process we go through at the end of--if not right before--every exam.
Deformation - This is the process of reshaping that may be a sort of correction or distortion. Despite the connotation carried by its name, it is anything that alters the original form rather than a focus on negative deviations from the norm. A caricature artist, to borrow Goodman’s example (16), does not just highlight one’s worst features. They might bring out the best as well. They create a sketch that focuses more on the subjective experience of seeing a person and what the eye may be drawn to rather than what is right in front of the eye.
***
Mapping out Kat’s World
It may be tempting to say that Kat’s difficulty in recognizing Johnno’s abusive tendencies is simply a ‘deformation’ in her ‘worldmaking,’ which is a sentence that is as clumsy as it is deceptively simplistic. However, I understand what it means. On one hand, the aforementioned rose-colored glasses mask the worst parts of a lover’s nature, or that’s the imagery we mean to evoke. When we are in love, we focus on the traits that led us to love or that we find lovable. And given the novelty of the situation or our own romantic tendencies (whether innate or the product of social conditioning), that is the part that takes emphasis. The ‘love bombing’ that is often coupled with abusive behavior or the set up for later abuses reinforces this emphasis. In this calculation, the good outweighs the bad. Which, I should point out, is more the process of ‘Weighting’ than it is ‘Deformation.’ Not that the two can ever be truly uncoupled. What Goodman provides is not a strict roadmap to be followed without deviation but components for consideration. For Kat along with everyone else who has a ‘world’ of their own, there are elements of all Goodman’s processes at work in all that we do or think, and they work together. To that end, despite taking the time to briefly unpack these processes when explaining Goodman’s theory, I will not dissect Kat’s worldview through these categories largely because I think it is equal parts unnecessary and pointless. For one, as I tried to show in the previous exercise in understanding, these breaks aren’t clean and don’t perfectly line up with the actual situation, which would lead to a lot of repetition and hastily cut lines. On the other hand, I think the point can be made more simply and elegantly by acknowledging the emotions Kat likely went through at a particular point in the story that marked a shift in Kat’s thinking that she only becomes aware of in hindsight.
In trying to understand Kat’s motives, it would be tempting to look to the beginning and focus on the set-up. From the prologue, we can conclude that Kat likes being noticed and has stars in her eyes when it comes to Johnno. Then comes their financial situations. Kat’s far more fragile as an aspiring actress who doesn’t get anything akin to a break until the end of the season. [It’s episode 33 where she actually gets a small role in a television show.] In that description, there are two vulnerabilities. For one, Kat is a romantic soul who could--you might argue--would be inclined to believe excuses, pleas, or empty promises because those things line up with the romantic viewpoint. She believes grand love stories are about grandiose gestures and overcoming challenges. Ergo, love bombing, aggressive expressions, and the need to slay one’s personal demons can all find footing in the framework. Second, given her delicate financial situation, she would find herself more dependent on Johnno once they move in together, which they do in episode 13 at his insistence. From there, a surprise third point appears. In that same episode, Kat discloses that she had never lived with a boyfriend before. Once again, lacking a prior experience to use as a frame of reference, she is at a disadvantage.
All of these vulnerabilities are worth thinking about. Discussions about them, however, are often overly condescending and dismissive. For the record, I do not see a problem with being romantic, and given that I myself am a creative, it would be unfair of me to be critical of Kat pursuing her dream. Never mind the fact that she has more non-financial support than most, what with her loving network of friends and her mother who try to nudge Kat in the right direction when possible. For additional perspective, Johnno’s update episode in the second season offers a brief reminder of how far that can go when his current girlfriend’s parents serve as an escape destination when she takes her leave of him (Season 2 Episode 3).
Ultimately, I would argue that the key moment comes not with Kat’s pregnancy--which would seem to bind her to him through the physical and figurative constraints of a shared child--but in the loss of it. Kat and Jess’s girlfriend Rachel had been going through their pregnancies almost in tandem until episode 25--spanning June 19th through the 25th--when Kat, while in Sweden visiting her mother, experiences sudden pain followed by (presumably vaginal) bleeding. This leads to a visit to the emergency clinic where she finds out she’s miscarrying, an event Jess is informed off by Kat’s mother over email.
To provide additional context, this was not a planned pregnancy but a surprise one Kat had embraced. She says to Jess, “Oh Jess, I’m so happy! You know I’ve always wanted to be a mother and now it’s happening! Eeeek!” while explaining that Johnno and her had discussed the future before (Episode 17), even if it was running headlong at them now. Those plans had included kids (and names for said kids), and nothing that happens in the early weeks of that pregnancy can dampen her excitement. As she says, “it’s like I have the most happily delicious secret ever” (Episode 18). She enjoys being pregnant and finds herself basking in the excitement shared by those who she--perhaps prematurely--told.
Consequently, it is safe to say that the loss of this pregnancy would not be a welcomed relief but quite the opposite. In her first message since the clinic visit, Kat explains, “I feel… empty. I’ve cried so much there is nothing left. There’s just blood. So much blood. And pain.” (Episode 25). Also, there is the “grotesque” sight of the blood, of which there is a great deal: more than she was anticipating and far more than she had been warned about (Episode 25). And the lack of this warning is concerning, in part because it points to a larger problem. Despite the emotional support Kat receives from her mother, friends, and maybe even Johnno, one critical component is missing: her practitioner. More could have been done for her, and I do think that it could have made a difference in how her year transpired.
If we were inclined to be overly sympathetic to whatever practitioner(s) Kat might have interacted with during her miscarriage, we would choose to invoke ‘human limitations’ as a way to dismiss their inattentiveness to her emotional state. In the short time they might have interacted with her, they would have focused on her physical wellbeing. Practically speaking, this can make sense even if we don’t like the consequences of it. Suppose Kat wasn’t actively miscarry and instead was suffering something that could be the precursor to a miscarriage without immediate medical intervention. Hyperfocus on the physical would set up that immediate medical intervention. What time is left with the patient would likely not be enough to parse out all of Kat’s emotions surrounding the pregnancy and beyond, which would be required to predict--accurately or not--how she would react to this miscarriage. But even that is guess work, considering he weight of it all might not have hit her yet. We don’t expect doctors to have a crystal ball. However, the biological fact that miscarriages can involve quite a bit of blood is fairly easy to convey.
Instead, Kat is left on her own to literally ask Jess in a message, “Why doesn’t anyone ever tell you about this?” (Episode 25). And honestly, why doesn’t anyone do anything else to help people through this very delicate and trying time in their lives? CNN covered a recent article published in The Lancet, a prominent medical journal, that seemed to ask a similar question, only to conclude that not only are those who suffer from miscarriages not warned about the blood, they lack any sort of encompassing support, be it physical or mental. And really, what they get boils down to a pat on the shoulder and being told to ‘just try again.’ (Hunt 2021) This is quite literally Kat’s experience. After a follow up appointment, this is the message she leaves to Jess (lifted in its entirety from the podcast’s transcript):
I had that check-up at the clinic yesterday and it’s all gone. All… gone… Fuck. And they tell you that like it’s a good thing, you know? It’s all gone, so you can try again. I don’t… I… fuck. FUCK! It’s like people telling you to get a new pet right after your cat died. Fuck, it’s like people telling you to get- to go get a new boyfriend right after he died. It’s NOT OK! Why would they say that? They say it like it’s a consolation. Yes, sure, we can try again, but I just lost my BABY! I just lost all my hopes and dreams and the fucking life I thought I would have. (Episode 26)
One thing that is excluded from Kat’s list is her sense of control, not control over her emotions but a feeling of physical control over her own body. After all, a pregnancy she wanted to see through was lost, through no fault of her own, not that anyone at the facility she went to took the time to properly explain that to her. This is a reckoning she experiences in the next episode, which canonically is about a week later. She wrestles with the thought of trying again coupled with this confusion. She treats Jess as a sounding board as she wonders aloud, “And… if we *were* to try again at some point, what should I do differently? No coffee at all? Lose weight? Only eat bland food? What if we DO try again and I miscarry again? I… The thought of that is just… unbearable. How do people cope? I HATE that this is all completely beyond my control” (Episode 27).
Ultimately, I would argue that this experience is what--albeit temporarily--cements her to Johnno. He finds himself in the unique situation to provide her comfort, and to an extent, he does this. Though his strategy of keeping her busy might be less than ideal, it fills a gap left by the medical establishment and the facts of her situation. Kat’s mother is in Sweden and shortly after the miscarriage, Kat withdraws from her in a way that is made easier by the physical distance (Episode 29). To add to that, her closest friend now lives in New Zealand, and she lives not with her other friends but with her boyfriend who is actively trying to get her to quit her main job. As a further difficulty, she does not fully blend in with Johnno’s social circle--setting aside the likelihood that they would take his side or be outright indifferent to Kat in trying circumstances--and her former roommates are kept at arm’s length. Simply put, Kat is figuratively and literally isolated. She is alone with Johnno both because she is somewhat lacking in social outlets, but a lack of care in the aftermath of her miscarriage leaves her figuratively isolated with him in her trauma, earnestly trying to regain control but not having an outlet for it.
‘Trying again’ was the one initially suggested by the practitioner, but it is a plan pushed by Johnno while Kat is still lamenting the loss of what that specific pregnancy could have become (Episode 28). By episode 30, Kat has seemingly embraced this plan or is simply going along with it. From our perspective it is hard to say exactly, bearing in mind that we are hearing what Jess was meant to hear, and in this situation--with Jess’s partner being pregnant herself and Jess previously voicing skepticism about Johnno--Kat could be doing much the same thing with Jess that she is with her mother: namely, holding her at arm’s length. Consequently, we don’t quite know if Kat is simply ‘trying again’ to appease Johnno or if this is earnestly her choice coupled with whatever psychology might be underneath that surface.
***
Out in the Distance, That’s Where Kat is…
Now, at first glance, this observation is not profound. Kat is isolated, but isolating someone from friends and family is textbook abusive behavior. What I think sets isolation apart from other abusive practices is its ability to self-perpetuate the cycle of abuse. Once again, this is not new information, per say. A quick peruse of resources and information on this subject makes that clear. However, these discussions are limited or--I should say--hyper-focused on a certain aspect of this approach. Primarily, isolating a partner is about exerting control over said partner, and while this is an accurate assertion, the picture most often painted in this conversation is limited to practical matters. Lacking a social network can be demoralizing, but it also limits one’s ability to flee a bad situation. Either an exit route is unclear because there is no person who looks like an ally as the victim leaves and no place that can look like a sanctuary or the victim is so incredibly dependent on their partner for their immediate, daily needs that planning something multi-step like an escape is impossible.
My point in this essay is not one of skepticism regarding that reality. I only mean to add that isolation can go beyond that. It is not just a stripping away of potential actions or agency that happens when one is isolated; it can also strip away one’s reason for taking that option in the first place. In other words, one can be so isolated in their abuse that not only can they not leave but they lack the will to want to do so. This is also where Goodman’s theory becomes relevant but is also more obvious in Kat’s situation than it would be in any other. For all of his efforts, Johnno could never isolate Kat as well as her miscarriage did. The trauma-induced isolation spurs on the creation and internalization of a narrative that pushes Kat’s agency and wellbeing out of her mind. It is a response to the situation that goes uncorrected and meshes with Johnno’s maladaptive behaviors in a destructive way.
As stated, Kat comes to several conclusions in the aftermath of her miscarriage, and these conclusions are reached at or with Johnno’s urgings without input from alternative supports, particularly that from a medical or social body. One, Johnno might have a limited toolkit when it comes to tending to Kat’s emotional needs, but he is willing to do it, as evidenced by him trying to keep her busy and her mind off of her situation. Two, their ‘trying again’ is the best if not only solution for the miscarriage because there will be a child at the end of it, though that proposal is deceptively simple and emotionally fraught. These conclusions validate or support her relationship with Johnno as they both share an underlying premise: the importance of her connection to Johnno. They are a unit in this and through this. And as parts of a unit, they both have an obligation to pay into the whole. In other words, his contributions to the aftermath and the roof he provides her are to be repaid or met in equal measure, and Kat’s concern that her miscarriage was either caused or influenced by something she did would seemingly skew the ledger into a (further) deficit.
As a partner in this relationship, balancing this figurative ledger can happen in any number of ways. At the simplest level, it is accepting what may look like a genuine apology from Johnno and comforting him in his agitation regardless of what it is he has done to her. At a more complex level, it could mean successfully carrying a pregnancy to term and giving him a child. Of course, for that to happen, one must fall pregnant first, which has its challenges as the trauma surrounding the miscarriage has left Kat hesitant if not outright averse to having sex. With sex now being mentioned, this talk of obligation can take on a darker meaning as it does in this text.
Episode 30 contains Johnno’s thirtieth birthday, which happens during the year 2000 and shortly after the miscarriage. Kat shows a great deal of care for Johnno through her personal investment in the event, wanting it to be a wonderful time and party for him despite her limited funds. To that end, she is able to get what genuinely sounds like a thoughtful gift: a nice bracelet picked out to match his style. However, from what Kat tells Jess, Johnno thinks that is insufficient. We can conclude that, far from respecting that Kat has not fully come to terms with the trauma she experienced, Johnno has been implying that Kat must have sex with him if not outright demanding as much. Whether it was through threats or emotional manipulation, Kat has come to recognize an expectation and the pressure therein. In her recognition, as we see it, is a discounting of her own experience and emotion followed up by a means of disengaging from herself and her wellbeing in favor of prioritizing Johnno’s demands.
The relevant portion of Kat’s message is included here with acting direction, lifted from the podcast transcript:
(sobs) Anyway. Johnno’s booked us a suite tonight. For his birthday. And I know he expects sex. I mean, of course he does. It’s his thirtiest – thirtiesh – fuck! – his birthday and he’s booked a suite and I’m his girlfriend and the miscarriage was over a month ago and – (cries, then deep breath) I don’t know what to do. (cries) Suppose I’ll just have to get so drunk I pass out. (drinks, Danish) Lort. I don’t know what else to do… (small sob) At least I know how to do that. (drinks)
In fact, that’s what she does. She drinks to the point of passing out, as difficult as that was with her alcohol tolerance, returns to the suite with Johnno, and they “did have sex last night. So (deep breath) I guess that’s over with” (Episode 30). Let me be clear that I’m lifting a character’s words in that sentence and not ascribing my own assessment. Because, frankly, I think we all know the problem with that sentiment. Kat might not see it, but we do. She does not recognize that in her state she was unable to give proper consent and as a result she did not have sex with Johnno but was assaulted by him. He failed and continues to fail to recognize her boundaries, bodily autonomy, and emotional wellbeing. And while that is concerning from the outside looking in, those moments of coercion or abuse don’t stand out in her mind. Her focus remains on preserving this relationship and any action that supports that goal appears valid. She is not in a position to see the problem for what it is. But the audience–because of our connection to the year 2020–have a chance to be reminded as such.
***
Out in the Distant Future: Olivia’s Counteroffer
Olivia’s inclusion in the story proves to be a critical one, beyond providing provenance for these tapes. While Olivia’s presence may feel like a perpetual epilogue or stylistic choice, in technical terms, she works as a framing device. Framing devices can serve a critical purpose by providing context to the story, which is how she works here, but in addition, she offers the objectivity that, though hard to see, can be found within Goodman’s theory. What we think of as the ‘objective truth’ can still be thought of as a ‘world’ like any other, but it is potentially set apart from other worlds by a few key details. I say ‘potentially’ because not every characteristic I’m about to describe will be applicable in every circumstance and–much like in Goodman’s original theory–there is room for these traits to overlap or influence each other, which would prevent clear categorial lines. Consequently, this is not a set of definitive criteria but a guide.
First, I would lead with proximity given the nature of the subject. An objective world is one that is–either temporally or physically–removed from the incident, moment or phenomenon being considered. As a result, this world has had more time or space to develop and fine-tune its components and viewpoints, and it is able to do this or have this experience because its holder–be it a reason person or substitute–lacks the same sort of investment in or impulse to emphasize or dismiss certain details or a specific interpretation of said details. Instead, this world focuses on some sort of broader picture or large scale cohesion. This prioritization can be thought of as the second point. What the ‘objective’ world prioritizes is general cohesion across situations not adherence to a specific image or desire. An objective world must deal with examples that seemingly contradict each other. The reconciliation of these differences has the potential to be revealing.
We see aspects of this in Olivia’s perspective. Before we begin, it is worth clarifying that while Olivia's timeline differs from ours in the way the Covid pandemic panned out (her world contained the virus more easily, which allowed for international travel later in the first season), that seems to be the only major difference, and it was a practical one as the story could not have progressed in the intended way without that revision. This deviation is largely irrelevant when it comes to this discussion. The fact remains, however, that Olivia has been influenced, strongly, by current events, specifically the social movement that have sought to correct the ongoing dialogue surrounding domestic and sexual abuse. And given that she has no memory of or any interactions with Johnno, she does not have a competing lens through which to view him or his actions. She is able to utilize other knowledge and prioritize it to reach what should be called the right conclusion or to recognize of a situation for what it is. In other words, the distance between her and these events give Olivia a power that Kat does not have.
This first comes up in episode 10 amidst a conversation about an encounter tangentially related to Kat and Johnno’s relationship. To get more specific, as Kat reports it, a colleague of Johnno tried to force a kiss onto a friend of Kat amidst a pattern of that colleague disregarding a woman clearly setting boundaries. Johnno then jumped in and dismissed the friend’s concerns, calling the whole situation “nothing.” It was not that his colleague was trying to force himself on a woman but a misunderstanding akin to grabbing the wrong drink from the table. Through it all, Kat is inclined to believe Johnno’s interpretation of events while Olivia correctly labels it as “just revolting.” To take it further, she finds this discrepancy--and Kat’s lack of a hangover, but that’s for a different reason--disconcerting. It’s Tammi, Olivia’s friend and frequent podcast buddy, that spells it out simply with “It was a different time.”To that comment, Olivia acquiesces and gives a nod to the effects of the #metoo movement which sought to inform and correct the broader cultural dialogue around these issues. But to move away from the story itself and towards what it accomplishes: in this moment, Tammi is marking the distance in perspectives between the Olivia of 2020 and the Kat of the year 2000. In this case, it’s a more literal one. Olivia is 20 years and an entire social movement away from younger Kat. These are two different times and two different worlds, in many regards. In one world, the victim’s wellbeing and testimony is given actual weight rather than being completely disposable through excuses of convenience.
This leads into more concerning interactions between Kat and Johnno. Take the aforementioned case of Johnno taking advantage of an intoxicated Kat. There would be many who look at the fact that these two have an established sexual relationship and not see anything wrong with what Johnno did. This encounter and previous instances of consensual sex all may seem like the same thing at first glance. However, Olivia’s world is one in which consent becomes the answer to the proverbial ‘same what?’. Which is to say, not all sexual contact or encounters between partners or acquaintances can be seen as identical, and the emphasis should be on whether consent was given. Or if it could have been given. And clearly Olivia has been a faithful pupil, understanding and practicing these lessons in her daily life.
There is another way of imaging this difference. As with all worlds, the emphasis is on coherence, but the anchor point for what that structure is built around is what has shifted. For Kat, the emphasis is on this vision at the end of her road: this happy family that was seemingly taken away from her by the miscarriage. Having already lost that once, the imperative to not lose it again dictates so many of her choices and her general understanding of the situation. For Olivia, the imperative is to be intellectually consistent and to live by the virtues she has learned and embraced, including and especially that people have a right to their boundaries and to not have their bodily autonomy infringed upon regardless of who is asking. The imperative to not shy away from harsh truths is her guiding principle. This emphasis shift makes the created world more flexible and open to all potential realities. It is one that can adapt and can take in new information without shattering and new situations without contradiction. It is this flexibility and consistency that creates, what we would recognize, as a sense of objectivity.
***
Why Having Proper Worlds is so Relevant
Olivia’s commentary and contextualization prevents Y2K from falling into a much dreaded pitfall. In larger discussions and evaluations of media, we may worry about certain portrayals of things like suicide, assaults, drug use and the like leading to the normalization and subsequent replication. As an example, see the 13 Reasons Why controversy in which the main character’s first season suicide was handled so poorly experts genuinely feared it would spark a contagion effect. Whether or not it remains difficult to prove. But frankly, in my opinion, tact was not–at any point during the show’s run–developed despite the many other teen issues incorporated into and then trampled over by later seasons
As terrible as 13 Reasons Why is, it stands as a great example of what not to do. The melodramatic nature of that show trivializes these issues and strips them of their life-altering implications, turning them into things that just happen sometimes or an ‘oopsie-daisy.’ In situations like this, causing trauma is presented as morally neutral and the lingering effects on victims are glossed over. Actions that should not be excused effectively are as the showrunners seemingly sacrificed an accurate portrayal for the sake of poorly manufactured emotional linchpins. Now, it is not that one must assume their audience is stupid when constructing a story. Rather, there is, at times, an objective moral judgment to be made that should be an innate part of the narrative as they are innate parts of the actions themselves. Certain acts, specifically sexual assaults, cannot exist without the condemnation of the aggressor (when there is one) and compassion for the sufferer, lest the vulnerable misinterpret the message. However, to return to the previous example, 13 Reasons Why’s depiction of suicide--with its romantic and plot-compatible design--could make it seem like a viable option for those struggling with such ideation. That was fear of many who study the subject. Mark Henick, a mental health advocate, speaker, and media commentator, goes into greater detail in a CNN piece worthy of your consideration. While narratively, it would be difficult in that case to fully condemn Hannah in her suffering, there were creative choices that could be made to limit the potential impact, which also includes omitting the graphic death scene in season 1, which Netflix did years after the show was released (Limbong 2019).
Rather than being a conversation about respectability or censorship, this had been meant as a conversation about responsibility and consequences. 13 Reasons Why presented itself as a participant in difficult conversations, ignoring the potential role it could take in leading its audience astray through its inconsistent messaging. No one was saying that young people should draw their sense of morality or personal direction from television series. The underlying premise to this complaint was the allure of the show to people who were already vulnerable, people who were at risk for if not outright suffering from the very sorts of things portrayed in the television show. Given that this segment of the audience would be vulnerable, they could be misled by bad messaging.
In Y2K, the audience isn’t misled in any way. Johnno is in the wrong, clearly and simply. There is no doubt for the listener that he is abusive to Kat and lacks the necessary self-awareness to correct his own behavior. Instead, he deflects responsibility and makes empty promises. We see him do this. We see promises that fall through and a version of events that is not manipulated by his charismatic nature and sad stories. But to further drill the point home, Olivia is able to offer up clarification and correction, having been informed by the times more generally and the woman her aunt would come to be. And so, she is able to effectively package this difficult material to convey the right message.
***
Conclusion
It may go without saying, but this is a podcast I do love. I love all aspects of it, not just that it handles difficult subject matter in such a respectful and dignified way. I do think there is also some fodder for consideration in the arcs of other characters, but I will save those considerations for other essays potentially by other writers.
For now, however, I have picked at what may be considered low-hanging fruit. The evidence was right in front of me, and I have used that evidence to shake an argument’s criticism that was offered years ago and potentially in bad faith. It is easy to dismiss Goodman’s work as his arguments can be convoluted and seemingly irrelevant. And yet, I see this essay as having multiple purposes. For one, any attempt at giving indie podcasting intellectual legitimacy is worthwhile, in my opinion. But on the other hand, there is a moral imperative in this discussion. Understanding that other people are just as rational as you are regardless of the conclusions they have reached can be seen as a first step in defusing some of the issues of our time or reaching a friend who is seemingly unaware of their own crisis. We should not focus simply on what is being said but on how an ardently held belief came to be held. Therein lies the diffusion point.
Consequently, to close this essay, I want to praise the showrunner Karin Heimdahl again for how this storyline was handled. Setting aside the amount of substantive ‘meat’ here, one of the main virtues of this podcast is that it cannot be considered ‘trauma porn.’ It is neither sensationalized nor downplayed, which is a balance that could have only come from great care and consideration but is seemingly far too rare in the media conventional gatekeepers present to us.
Works Cited
Domestic abuse statistics. (2021, January 22). Retrieved May 2, 2022, from https://lwa.org.uk/understanding-abuse/statistics/
Heimdahl, K. (n.d.). Y2K Transcripts. Retrieved May 2, 2022, from https://y2kpod.com/transcriptss1/
Hunt, K. (2021, April 26). 1 in 10 women will have a miscarriage. They shouldn't be told to 'just try again,' new research says. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/26/health/miscarriage-lancet-study-wellness/index.html.
Goodman, N. (2013). Ways of worldmaking. Hackett. Purchase Link.
Limbong, A. (2019, July 16). Netflix edits out controversial suicide scene from '13 reasons why' season 1. NPR. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/742386829/netflix-edits-out-controversial-suicide-scene-from-13-reasons-why-season-1