ellocl wrote:gnostic wrote:
I've posted about this before, but for many the fact that every single memory Phil talks about is something they have either outright mentioned or alluded too (breakfasts, snowiest day ever, etc.)spiced up with some romantic detail is the opposite of proof. Like, over 1.5 year relationship they haven't accumulated any in joke or romantic memory they haven't tweeted about? Even the euphemism for sex was the one very familiar for fans (cherry)
Also pretty sure that eye language theory was debunked several times by reputable studies eithe way
I get where you're coming from with this and have wondered about it myself, but personally I feel like:
- if they were planning to make a prank video they would just make up some generic romantic things, not talk about real things they've done together that doubtless did mean a lot to them - surely that makes the video too awkward and sincere?
- they practically tweeted everything back then lol so it doesn't really surprise me that their most precious memories were things they also happened to have tweeted about doing
-
the stuff about him 'clawing and biting' at dan and when he says '[...] i woke you up and said "mario"' - those aren't romantic to anyone but the people involved, i just don't see the point of their inclusion in a vday prank vid
- probably wouldn't include sex in the way that they did (it just comes across as so awkwardly sincere to me but i realise this is subjective)
Even as a very cynical person I truly cannot believe that the video is a prank, it just denies logic haha
Two things I find interesting about the vday vid (I studied the transcript long before I ever saw the video; also, I'm a linguist so always focus on the words first
):
First, the non-generic, in-joke sort of language. I think "clawing and biting" is idiosyncratic at best. If they were to make up a story about Phil falling in love, why start out with him clawing and biting? This is not a standard way people behave on first dates in movies, for instance. It's a very specific behavior, that could even be rather off-putting.
Also, the euphemism in the video for "sex" is not "cherry" (even though "cherry" is in an annotation) but "funny times in my bed". "Funny times in my bed" can really only be interpreted as sex, but it's not a common way to refer to sex (unless there is a cultural reference I'm missing?), so it's again more idiosyncratic and intimate than you might expect from a generic script.
Second, the narrative of the video (which I discussed a few days back). The narrative is "how Phil fell in love with Dan". While at a first glance, it seems like a generic list of events that we mostly already heard about in social media, Phil actually says how he felt at certain points, and there is a progression in those feelings.
Another thing that I think argues against, at least, their having written the script together is how it's all from Phil's point of view. There's (almost) nothing about what Dan did or felt. That one exception, though--where Dan has agency--is incredibly important: when Dan kisses him. Phil talks more about that kiss (which never was mentioned on social media!) than about anything else: Phil is nervous because he likes Dan and claws and bites; Dan sees through that and kisses him (first!); and Phil's heart does "that flippy-over thing" which it had never done before. That's a lot of very specific detail about something that "never happened" if you take the prank view, but would have been pivotable enough to warrant all the details if Phil were describing something that had happened.
I should add that a boy I grew up with name was Aaron, and he pronounced it as I described.
