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I tried getting into Hot Ones ~5 years ago because many friends enjoyed it. I simply couldn't stay engaged - even with celebrities I was excited to see, I found it weirdly boring. Maybe I'm just not the type to enjoy interviews! But it sounds like it would be even less fun to me now.

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Celebs in entertainment are usually doing a promo tour, if they're giving an interview, so those interviews are really just a form of advertising. Some manage to be entertaining anyway, but they're all just doing their job, which is mainly to sell whatever their latest thing is, and you can kinda feel that most of the time. And maybe it's my imagination but these sorts of interviews have gotten more and more stale-feeling over the years—could be me getting older, or could be studios and publishers and such demanding safer and more-focused behavior from folks on these kinds of tours.

The only ones worth watching, IMO, are the folks who basically experience a temporary change in personality due to the heat. And the (surprisingly few) that completely bail. Like if anyone somehow still has respect for DJ Khaled, just go watch his episode.

The Neil deGrasse Tyson episode was phenomenal. The way he was able to give insightful answers despite growing more and more uncomfortable was really impressive.

I liked the show for a while, but Sean Evans' hosting curdled my ability to watch anymore. His adherence to formula, obsequious mirroring of his guests, and performatively identical physical and vocal tics from episode to episode left me... annoyed. I watch the occasional highlight, but I can take Sean about as well as I can take Jimmy Fallon these days, which is not at all.

His questions, though, tend to be great.

You might enjoy this spot-on parody then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTpzSjZvLPA

What's funny about that - to me - is that I've never heard of Scott Cramer before, but his vocal stylings almost match Kraig Adams perfectly. Scott Cramer and Kraig Adams need to remake this video. It'd be a strange kind of uncanny valley refraction.

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