My whole life is a deep dive into the mysteries of pop culture. I don’t think I’ve seen the surface in years and it’s likely I have a permanent case of the bends. Each of these treasures I’ve unearthed in my life’s mission of pop culture exploration and investigation transcends in some way. Whether it’s capturing the rarest and most authentic moments of verisimilitude or the beauty of unintentional chaos. Each of these examples reflects something pure and holds immense amounts of power. 1. Vin Diesel dances in combat shorts Diesel is a complex figure of 21st century machismo. His deep gravelly barely audible growl, tank-like physique and signature glazed doughnut dome have always been bolstered by a strong undercurrent of deep sensitivity. This vulnerable and deeply ponderous side of Vin has always been hiding in plain sight on his Facebook profile. Over the last 13 or so years I’ve seen him share bizarre fan art with inspirational quotes attributed to him that feel like Ed Hardy T-shirts, hint towards a long gestating dream project playing the ancient Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca, a sincere video of him emotionally singing along to Rihanna’s Stay (which, featuring an attempted falsetto, might be the most vulnerable thing an action film star has ever done). Yet the video I always go back to is one brimming with pure joy. Diesel dancing to Beyonce’s Drunk in Love in front of a webcam wearing the longest pair of combat shorts and a tank top. The power held in this video extended my life by at least a year. Vin is feeling himself, honey! 2. Nonstop insults in Fat Families Reality TV from the UK is really special. It feels so powerfully rude in a way that is in extreme juxtaposition to the perception of their formal culture of manners and the etiquette of sequential cutlery. This montage of introductions for a reality show called Fat Families is the platonic ideal of wild reality TV. A bespectacled man with ungodly confidence and angelic cadence stating his weekly mission of helping families battling with obesity as “about to meet some right jelly-bellied jumbos” while standing in front of a parade of elephants is the stuff of myth and legend. As a resident of “North Porkshire” myself, the rapid succession of insults in a presentational style just absolutely levelled me. 3. Bar Italia asks ‘R U OK’ in pasta A cafe in the heart of Sydney’s Little Italy posted this for R U OK Day 2020. Bellissimo! 4. Neil Cicierega’s guide to The Lord of the Rings The multi-talented Cicierega may be most known for the Harry Potter parody Potter Puppet Pals, but his magnum opus is this perfect parody of obsessive YouTube fan videos that mainly act as a catalogue runsheet of collected information while imparting no wisdom. It’s not just the mis-rememberings, or mispronunciations of the characters and events from The Lord of the Rings that sets me off, but just the detail of speaking way too close to the microphone. 4. Actors accepting Oscars Though I hate to admit it, for a professional celebrator of cinema the Oscars are important to me culturally. There’s something about the elegantly dressed heights of popular culture experiencing clashes of emotion and ego that transcends time and space. Matthew McConaughey’s best actor acceptance speech, where he declares he is his own hero and his dad is up in heaven in his underwear with a pot of gumbo, lemon meringue pie, a cold can of Miller Lite and he’s dancing, has slowly become a fount of daily inspiration for me. Patty Duke’s acceptance speech for The Miracle Worker in 1962 is the shortest speech in Oscars history. The buildup of her finding out she’s won, the long walk to the stage, the emotion brewing on her face as the orchestra plays a rushed rendition of Hush Little Baby, a moment basking in showbiz glory before she reaches the mic and tearfully squeaks out “thank you” and immediately leaves the stage undercutting every ounce of ceremonial pretension. It’s a magnificent minute-and-a-half of buildup to three seconds of pay off. 5. Unconventional director sets Shakespeare play in time, place Shakespeare intended This Onion headline has been lodged in the most sensitive part of my skull since 2007, when I was but a chubby theatre nerd in high school drama class. At the time I was obsessed with a little Australian film called Macbeth that, despite its modern Melbourne underworld setting, used the original language of the bard himself. I was also performing the monologue from David Mamet’s salesmen drama ​​Glengarry Glen Ross as a man left ranting homeless during the ongoing global financial crisis of the day. This laugh was a wake-up call to the pretension of needing to put that authorial stamp on everything. 6. Paris Hilton makes lasagna When this video dropped on YouTube last year it floored me. The only thing I may hold dearer to my heart than cinema is food. Paris Hilton making lasagna from scratch (using jar sauce, tubs of ricotta and boxed pasta sheets as we all make it) is like a document from another planet. She never takes off these little leather fingerless gloves while preparing the food and pours bottled water to wet a paper towel over the sink, while her stunningly cavernous kitchen quickly accumulates emptied packages like a dragon collecting gold. For nearly a year I waited for a follow-up episode to no avail, until just this month Netflix released an entire season of Cooking with Paris. 7. Donkey Kong kill screen is coming up The documentary feature film The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, about the continuing battle between good and evil through the world of competitive arcade video gaming, is one of the most formative texts I encountered in my teen years. I was starting to get interested in pursuing comedy but seeing comedy happen naturally because a film-maker happened to be pointing a camera at it, and then constructing it in the edit after, awoke this notion of documentary factual storytelling in me (without The King of Kong there’d be no Finding Drago/Desperado). This segment featuring an uncharismatic man trying to build hype around a “potential Donkey Kong kill screen coming up” as not a soul listens to him is what I always come back to watch. It’s character comedy unfolding in the real world filled with heartbreak, triumph and disappointment. 8. Patti LaBelle does not have backing singers One diva’s battle against poor event management is a divine miracle of chaos and live television. Watching this has slowly become a Christmas tradition in my household. It’s that juxtaposition of the elite level professionalism of LaBelle’s perseverance, while a teleprompter fails, she calls for her background singers to support her, in between god-level ad libs to maintain whatever sense of cohesion she can. The twist, that this isn’t just some rinky-dink town’s Christmas celebration, but a ceremony attended by the sitting president, Bill Clinton, and his first lady, Hillary, is the only gift you’ll ever need to bring you merriment this yuletide.