What is Wholesome Fun?

Hi, welcome back to Eat Your Crust Podcast. I'm Crystal. And I'm Jisoo. Today's topic is something that has kind of been on my mind lately. Over the years I had everything in our life has evolved from our friendships, our relationships with our family. And honestly how we hang out with the people in our social network has changed as well. Today we wanted to sit down and talk a little bit about wholesome fun.

I think before we could really dive into this, let's try to define wholesome fun. And I think by defining it, we also need to define what non-wholesome fun is. Okay, that's a good point. Because I feel like when I hear wholesome fun, I understand what it is, but we need to put it into words to confirm we're on the same page.

I have an example to kind of illustrate what non-wholesome fun might look like. Okay. It takes us back to the era of college and, you know, shortly after college life where I felt like a lot of social events were like house parties or, you know, getting together with a group of friends to maybe drink a little bit, go out to a bar, and sometimes it was going to concerts together, which would sometimes involve like a little pregame or a little afters.

You kinda get the gist of what I'm saying, right? Yeah. So basically if there's alcohol involved, it's kind of not wholesome. Yeah. If alcohol is of the top two priorities of the night, then it's not wholesome, you know? Okay, that's fair.'Cause I was gonna say I think there might be some specific moments where alcohol might be involved, but it's still wholesome for the most part. Maybe it's like, is alcohol one of the guests or is alcohol the host of the night? I don't love that.

I have a question about this. Let's say there's an event happening tonight and we're just staying in watching a movie, but there is some alcohol involved, but maybe half of the group actually doesn't really drink. So overall the amount of alcohol consumed is maybe like everyone just has a glass of wine. Does that count as wholesome or non-wholesome? I think to me that would count as wholesome. Honestly, maybe the distinction for me is are we playing drinking games or are we not? Okay.

If some people choose to partake, some people don't, then to me that's like it's a gift. People can choose to do whatever. But if there are specific things we're doing where you kind of have to drink or like drinking is a big part of it, then maybe it's a little bit harder to say that it's on the back burner that night, right? So basically if we were watching a movie, for example,

And then suddenly someone's like, All right, drink every time someone does this in the movie. Then it becomes not wholesome anymore. Yeah. Honestly, yeah. Then the wholesome night is over. Okay, question then. We've talked about this night a couple of times on the podcast, but that twilight night, was that wholesome or not wholesome? Oh, God. It kind of toes the line, huh?

Let's say it was in the gray area where it could be both. Cause we didn't drink too heavily that night, but we did drink and I feel like most people kind of drink. But the point of the night was twilight. Yes. To watch the movie and to enjoy the themed snack. So already that's not a top two priority, you know? Yeah. And I think we tried to drink but we didn't really drink. Yeah. I think we made margs or something and then like picked at it a little bit.

Okay, okay. I think we're on the same page. Yeah, yeah. Then what are some wholesome fun activities that you've been engaging with recently? I guess we could talk about one that we've been doing together. Your boyfriend, yourself, me and my husband, the four of us, plus we also have another foursome with our other c friend from college.

We have some foursomes where we go golfing together. Which I think golfing can kind of be a funny one because depending on who you talk to, you can drink a lot at golf or you can drink nothing at golf. And I feel like for us, we've never had a golf round where we drank that much. Recently we haven't even been drinking at all when we golf. To me that's like a very

wholesome activity. We just go out, we're on the course for like five hours and we're just like chatting, working out, getting a good sweat in, and then going to grab dinner afterwards. And that's like a perfect wholesome afternoon. Wait, oh my god, have our last rounds been five hours? I feel like it's usually around four and a half to five, right? Yeah, that's true. I think it's especially on Sundays. Yeah.

But that is a good point. In the beginning when we were first playing golf, we did drink a little bit more, but even then it was at most maybe one of the tall beer cans each. Yeah. Now we're kind of like, okay, let's be healthier. Yeah, now we're like I mean, I guess not so much you, but we're like pounding Red Bulls. Trying to lock in. Okay, that was crazy. I totally agree that golf is pretty wholesome, especially when we've been playing together in our group.

Just as you described, it's basically four to five hours of catching up, gossiping in between hits. And I think it's also really wholesome actually because everyone who I've played golf with, no matter the skill discrepancy, everyone's always very positive to each other. If we m do a good swing or hit a good ball off the T, everyone's like, wow, amazing. Like, let's go. That was great.

There's never ever anyone who's like, Okay, that was such a terrible shot you just did You know. I think I would have to end golf if someone said that to me. Yeah, it's mostly like maybe to yourself you're like, Oh shoot, that wasn't my best shot, but then everyone's very positive. They're like, Oh, that was great. So I feel like that adds to the wholesome factor. Yeah. And there's always kind of smaller cute moments that happen in golf.

Even if you go as a foursome, each pair has their own cart. Sometimes you'll ride off with someone else's cart because you guys tee off at the red tease together or something. It's just always fun to see those little interactions that happen over the course of five hours.

And on top of that, it's not forced interaction for five hours, right? Like sometimes you and your partner are just in your cart together and you chat a little bit, rest in between shots. So it's always nice. And I feel like it's not crazy high energy too, which I like. And we're all out in nature. In like perfectly manicured nature. Just how I like it. Mm-hmm. And in California usually the sun is shining, we're getting our vitamin D like

It is a great way to touch grass. Yeah. And honestly, I think anything that gets me outside of my house. I just appreciate so much, whether it's like a short session at Plotties or something, hiking, you know, anything where I'm physically forced to leave my house. I just enjoy. And I think the experience of like getting your heart rate up with other people is really special too.

It's like very bonding in a sense. And I'm also just thinking about our golf adventures and there's so many just funny experiences that we've had that is truly very bonding.

Well, golfing aside, are there any wholesome fun activities that come to mind for you? Actually golfing made me think of one. It's not like a regular activity, but towards the end of last year one of our friends, Michelle, who has been on this podcast before, she hosted this Couples Olympics event. She invited a whole bunch of couples to come out to the park up in SF. Her and her husband had planned a bunch of different activities. It was just super wholesome.

you know, there was no drinking involved. So that's criteria one. Two, we were outside in nature and a lot of people were meeting each other for the first time too, because it was like a whole bunch of friends from different parts of their lives. And we just did physical actually there were I think it was two or three sections. There were races that we did, so that was physical activity. And then later we did questions. So I guess that was brain activity.

we had some creative part at the end too. So it was it was like Really well planned out and a very wholesome day with just good fun. Aw, do you feel like playing all those games made you get closer to the people that you had just met? Oh yeah, definitely. I think there were definitely some couples that we bonded with.

I mean I guess I didn't follow up on it, but you know, in the moment in the moment it's like, oh yeah, this couple is our rival or like this is the couple that's like hello P you know, every and then everyone can recognize. certain couples within the competition.

I feel like that's so unique too because then when you see these people later, like say Michelle hosts another thing, then you'll be able to recognize like, oh yeah, I remember you guys from the couple Olympics and it's like very distinct memories, right? Not just like Oh we shared a drink once, which is not could be applied to a lot of different people that you meet over a lot of different things.

Oh for sure. That is such a good point. Yeah, it's a very unique way of meeting people and a great way of getting a lot of people to meet new people too. Dude, it's so funny'cause I feel like I mean, it's been a general concern, but more recently I'm like, oh, I feel like it's getting harder and harder. to remember stuff, you know? Unless it's very like distinct and unique. And I'm like, is this why people start to do crazier things as they get older?'Cause it's like

It's impossible to remember who you met at what party, but it's so much easier to remember these things. And I'm like, maybe now I should also host. more distinct and unique activities. Dude, actually, now that you mentioned that, I recently went to a birthday party and I met someone there and they were like, wait.

You look really familiar. And I was like, uh and then they were like, Oh my God, were you at so and so's Outside Lance pregame? And I was like, Oh my god, I was And then he was like, Oh, I think we chatted there. And I was like, oh fuck, I was not necessarily there completely. Oh my god, that's so funny. Also, that's crazy that we just bumped into each other again at another event, but I felt really bad. I did not remember completely. Happens to the best of us.

My god, I had a really funny experience recently where I was at this thing and I had just met someone. She had introduced herself and I was like, Hi, I'm G Sue, nice to meet you. Like two minutes later the sun started shining. So then I put my sunglasses on and I turned back around and then she reintroduced herself. Oh my God. And I was like I took my sunglasses off and I shook her hand again because I'm not the type to be like

Actually we just you know, so I just like reintroduced myself. Uhhuh. And then she was like, I'm so sorry, I just introduced myself to you, didn't I? And I was like, dude, it's okay. Like there's a lot of people here. But yeah, well it was only later I realized, is it'cause I put my sunglasses. It's probably like not only the sunglasses on, but like the sun shining behind your head and just probably blinded. And I like swap seats with someone so it's like confusing.

Oh my god, that is so funny though. I hope that person didn't feel too bad. Yeah, I was like, Oh my god, don't worry, there's like a lot of people here. Yeah, I feel like I would totally do that too. Right. Okay, I have a follow up question though, because we've named a couple of wholesome activities. That both happened to be outside. But there is this thing that I've been talking about, but I've yet to plan because life. But I've been

Wanting to plan basically drinking games, Olympics kind of thing in the park. But is that wholesome or non-wholesome? Oh, that's a good question. It's a mix, you know. It's like As wholesome as you can get. for a non wholesome activity. Like that's how I would view it. Okay. It's still at its core non wholesome, but it's like played out in a wholesome way. Yeah. And I guess the plan is not that everyone's gonna get super drunk. It's just like the liquids that we'll use. Yeah, yeah.

will be alcoholic. Maybe in a sense it wholesome because I feel like you could host the same thing with water and it would still be just as fun. Okay, actually that is true. It's just adult fun now with some, you know, beer or light alcohol. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know what this is making me think of? Maybe things feel more wholesome even if alcohol is involved, if it's a longer term activity that you're doing. What do you mean? I don't know. Like I guess in the era of TikTok and IG reels, all of us have extremely short attention spans. And sometimes when you're at I feel like talking to people plus drinking are like the two main activities and both things happen in kind of like short breaks.

You know, like I'm not always sitting down and having like a three hour conversation with people. Like I'm like going around talking to different people, occasionally playing a game or like drinking or something. So like every say like twenty minutes I'm doing something new, right? But when we're doing something like

golfing or something like board games, for example. These are things that you kind of do over a long period of time. And I feel like it feels extra wholesome to me because doing something for a long time with a friend is almost like a new experience now. You know, it's like I see we're all committed to this thing together and we're all blocking off this time in our calendar together and that's special. Okay, I see where you're coming from.

And sorry, I just had a stupid thought come to my head while you were saying all this. If you played board games, which is already pretty wholesome But you did it outside. Does that increase the wholesome factor by two X? We're like, how can we create the most wholesome thing that has ever existed?

Wait, you have like a board game stand and you're like hiking up a mountain. Does that make it four X? Dude, that's crazy. Oh, you have to play it once you reach the top, right? I think we did it. We created the most wholesome activity possible. But yes, I totally get what you mean, especially about spending the longer period of time rather than like these short bursts together. Right. But then it made me question like if we had like a girls' night.

You know, and we're just talking and chatting for like Two to three hours while drinking some wine. Is that wholesome or non wholesome? If we karaoke after, then it's not wholesome. But if there's no karaoke, it's wholesome Okay. You know, I think I can understand that. It's like all these nebulous rules that like weirdly make sense, right? Okay, but actually I was thinking about all of this. And I think there's a specific feeling that I come out with from a wholesome activity.

Mm. What kind of feeling? I don't really know how to name it, but to describe it walking away from an activity with a very positive feeling. I think it's like positive and satisfied. Like you f uh you know, the feeling is like, oh, that was really fun and I don't know, something within me has been like checked or something.

Actually I totally get what you mean because I feel like there's a ton of activities that you do with friends that aren't drinking related but it's not always specifically wholesome. Wholesome has a energy about it where it's like cozy and maybe like warm. You feel a lot of affection. And yeah, I think satisfaction is a big part of it too.

But what is the element, you know, that makes this feeling come out in certain activities? Dude, I don't know. Recently after we played some golf and it was really funny too because It was most of our first round of the year. Right. And we low key played terribly. But it was still just really funny to all of us. and we all came out of it feeling happy despite our poor scores.

And then we had dinner and then walking away from the dinner, I wasn't like, Oh my God, I played so poorly today. It was just like, Oh, that was so fun. Right. Can't wait to golf with them again. I know. It was like very God, I wonder if it's like having a sense of achievement along with having fun. Oh you know, like we just did that. Despite the fact that we played poorly, we all showed up and spent a whole afternoon together. Even if you play poorly, playing a round of golf is

Still an achievement, right? We finished the whole course. So yeah, do you think it's like the achievement aspect along with having fun? I think you're on to something with that. Because some of the other activities we've also mentioned but haven't like dived deeper into. for example, board games, you know, usually there's a goal to win or whatever. And then, you know, the couple of Olympics that we mentioned, there was

a bit of an achievement aspect to that as well. Right. But ultimately winning or doing the best isn't so weighted that it's like turning people against each other. Like this isn't the actual Olympics, right? Yeah. I guess also part of it is it makes you feel closer to the people that you're hanging out with. Like that trumps the achievement part. So then it feels good. that everyone was able to achieve stuff, but what really mattered was the friends we made along the way.

Yeah, it really is true. And it's also seeing the different sides of your friends that come out when you are working on something together or like are trying to achieve some sort of goal together. Um you can see people's competitive sides, but also the sides of them that come out when They want everyone else to have fun. That in itself carries a specific energy, right?

Okay, we gotta keep this good vibes and like here, the jokes that I'll make, you know, the positivity, words of encouragement. And these are small decisions that people make in the moment. You're not actively thinking, I'm gonna make the vibes good right now, you know. But I think holistically at the end of it it all contributes to feeling so like warm and fuzzy inside, walking away from a board game night, walking away from a round of golf.

Absolutely. I think this is something similar that I feel when I have my book club calls as well. I've talked about it a couple of times on this podcast, but I've been in this book club since the end of college with a small group of friends, me included four people, and we'll pick a book, read it on our own time and then meet, say like what every one to two months to talk about it. That in itself is like

homework and then you like meet together to like have a literary discussion. Yeah. But I think the homework is a part of the achievement, right? It's like we did this on our free time and we're meeting up to chat about it. Oh my god, there's definitely an achievement. Even on your own, every time like I finish a book, I'm like nice.

Especially lately, because I feel like as we get older it's harder and harder to find time to do these more goal oriented but fun things. And our attention spans are not as good as they used to be. Yeah, it's like I read a full sentence without checking my phone and like patting myself on the back. Dude, Book Club 2, I feel like is just so wholesome in my mind, I guess, because it's like education tangent. It's true. And it's actually so funny that you say that because

Our general tradition, I mean it's not heavily enforced or anything, but usually for our book club calls we'll each have like a drink. So I'll do like a glass of wine, like people will have beers. And then we'll like cheers in the beginning or like share what we're drinking that day. Yeah. So I guess in a sense it defies that criteria we we defined in the beginning. However, I feel like the wholesomeness of having to read the book

in your own free time show up with literary points or like opinions to discuss cancels out the alcohol criteria. Yeah, like there's too much brain power going on in that room for it to be non wholesome. Right, right. But honestly, the more we talk about wholesome activities.

It's funny, I feel like the alcohol criteria is kind of secondary to the wholesome nature of some of these activities. You know, we keep going like, Oh, sometimes we might have a drink here, but it's still wholesome right here. But like you said, as long as the alcohol is a guest and not the host Dude, I love that. I'm gonna start saying that. I'll be like, at this event, is alcohol the guest or the host?

F like you would get a wide variety of answers on that one depending on who you're with. Yeah. But I totally agree with you that alcohol can be added to some of these wholesome activities and remain wholesome. I think sometimes. The funny thing about alcohol is if you add it to an activity, suddenly the activity is adult. Ha ha ha ha. Is there like an example of that? If we're playing board games, some of us might have a glass of wine. Now it's like adult board games.

Oh, okay, true. Or like we used to go to mini golf in high school and then now when we go as adults we might have like a beer or something and it's adult mini golf. Yeah, exactly. You can still have wholesome adult activities.

True. So I guess board games is an interesting one because I personally have been diving a little bit more into board games lately. Which I'm like, why didn't I do this earlier? One, it is a lot of fun. And two, it's such a good activity for groups of people, even if you're not that close. Yeah, it's actually such a perfect icebreaker sometimes and then it allows you to make

kind of like internal group inside jokes without having to have the like long history before the deep conversation before you know someone. Yeah. And I think it's such a good way of getting everyone involved. Because you know, if you're just meeting people, it's so easy to branch off into smaller groups or just like groups of two as you're chatting with people.

But with a board game, everyone's in a circle focused on the game. Right. Even if we're playing in maybe partners or something, then everyone's still involved and everyone's a part of the silly things that might happen. And honestly my favorite part about playing board games is there's such a wide variety of genres and like types of board games. So then I feel like there's

Kinda like the lighter party games that you could bring to a gathering of people that you don't know very well. But there's also these things called legacy games where It's a board game, but you can play it say up to like ten times and it'll have a new set of sticker sheets that you could peel the stickers off of and append your board each time you play it. You know, like a storyline game that you kind of grow and develop as you keep playing it. Yeah. And there's like of course the

crowd favorites, Caton or whatever that you can always pull out and play with a group of friends. So The world is very broad. Mm-hmm. And you start by knowing maybe like two or three board games. And as you get into it, you see how many different types of board games there really are. Okay. Also, I think board games are so funny because You actually do learn a lot about people when you play. Right. Recently I was playing with some of my friends.

over Christmas and you could just tell cause the game we were playing was pretty silly and it can be very fast paced. It was the one that you recommended, Magical Athlete. And we like paired off basically by siblings at this event. And it was just so funny because you can tell like, oh, you know, those two are pretty silly, so they're just like fucking around. But then like there were these other siblings

that were just so strategic about everything. They're like slowing down the game'cause they're like pulling out the rule book, reading everything and like strategizing, like, oh wait, actually we shouldn't do this because, you know, what if that happens? They're thinking like five steps ahead. They're like running the edge cases. I'm closer to the sister out of that pair of siblings.

So I already knew she was like this, but then her younger brother was like so active with her about strategizing and I was like, Wait, I thought her younger brother was like Just didn't care. But he's like strategizing right there with her. That's so fun. Yeah, I mean like sometimes That part of you wouldn't come out in conversation, right? Like you're not trying to win other people in a conversation. It only comes out when you play like a silly party game or something.

Or sometimes there's like those word-based games like Wavelength where you kind of see people's zany opinions come out and you're like, Whoa, like you're a little kooky. Absolutely. So I think it's just really funny'cause once you see this bit of their personality, you start seeing it everywhere. You're like, Yeah Oh, of course, you know, those two are always reading because they're the strategy masters, you know. Right, yeah.

Yeah, it's just such a funny way to like bond with a group of people. And I also like that it's always different when you play with other groups of people too. You know, like you're not always getting the same jokes and like the same vibe. You bring the same game to a different group of people and it becomes Transformational there as well. Yeah. I feel like the classic one that

even in college we were playing a lot was code names. Oh yeah. And that's also sort of like a word-based game where there's a set of words and then you have to think of a keyword that batches four words together and you have like the team guess which words it is. And that you can also see personalities come out. Like sometimes people have the craziest guesses and it's like, dude, that's a reach. And other times people will have the perfect hint.

And then your teammate still doesn't get it. You just see them get like more and more frustrated. Oh my God. That that is such an iconic one. I remember cause every time a different one of us stepped up to be the like keyword creator would be like, all right, so this person, they like to make crazy reaches, so keep that in mind. Or like, you know, this person is l very literal, so keep that in mind.

But yeah, I think board games is super wholesome and I'm glad that I've been exploring them more lately, adding it to my wholesome arsenal. You're like, mm, I'm feeling wholesome this Friday. Yeah. Which activity do I bring up? I feel like it unlocks different types of hangouts too. Kind of like what you were saying earlier about new experiences with the same friends.

I remember like a couple of weeks ago or something, I was like, Okay, now we have to play games together'cause actually you, James, me and my boyfriend, we've never done board games together non party games. So now I'm like, oh my God, we've like unlocked a new type of hangout. Actually that makes me think too because

recently at our golf hangout we were talking about a different type of wholesome activity, which also involves a game but is not necessarily a board game. Oh right. Two of our friends have recently created a Minecraft server, which I think is very cool and you and my husband have been playing in it. So do you think despite the fact that it's online, playing Minecraft with your friends is still considered a wholesome activity? Oh dude, it's so wholesome.

It's so wholesome because I think Minecraft is also a little unique in that you can do your own thing or you can, you know, find people who are online and do stuff together. There's an element of like kind of building your home base. And Minecraft, there's also a huge community of really aesthetic builds and things like that. And then there's also, of course, very utilitarian builds.

This is like kind of my first time really playing Minecraft. So I've been doing some of the basic stuff, but then if there's anything more complicated or something that I just don't really know. I'll ask our friends and they'll explain it to me and then sometimes I'll be like, Oh, this thing, like, let me take you on an adventure and then we'll go and I'll learn about it through doing the activity. And I'm like, Oh, this is so wholesome It's also so funny because like you said, people have

I guess different ranges of experience in Minecraft and that server and I guess different approaches to how they want to play the game. Mm-hmm. I've never played, but James was showing me around. the world of Minecraft in that server. And he was like, Okay, this is my house. It's like a little four by four like cardboard box looking plank home. And then he turns the corner and he's like, I think this is Warren's house. And it's like

A beautiful pagoda style traditional Asian home perched atop a cliff with like forty cherry blossom trees planted around it. I was like, oh, okay. Something's different here. I'm like, interested. Yeah. Oh my god, yeah. And then some of the people, they're like gamers, right? So they've done a lot of building to help

us with further advancing skills in the game. Our friend Dustin and Amber were just showing me around. They're like, Oh yeah, like, you know, these people built this. So if you need to like enchant your stuff. Come here. They've already built it out for us. And I was like, Oh, thank you. Like this is great. That's so wild. Yeah. It's just such a funny concept. I've never played Minecraft before, so every feature in the game is new. And the other day when James was playing,

I heard someone walk by him and it was like, Ah So then naturally I was like, Oh, is that Amber? Uhhuh And then James was like, No, it's a chicken'cause I guess like the animals make noises. Wait, I'm dying. I just think it's so interesting that you can like walk around and

He said when you're close to someone in proximity, then you can talk to them in the game, but if you walk away you can't hear each other and I was like, dude, this is literally just a world, you know? It's IRL Dude, actually though. Everyone's got their own houses too. He walked by someone else's house and he was like peering into the window and I was like, Oh my god, it's just like real life, like when we take walks and James tries to look until he blows home.

Dude, also in in Minecraft, you just enter people's homes. There's no locks. So sometimes I go in and I survey their home. I'm like, oh wow, this was cool that what they did. Or like, oh I wonder where they got this from I guess this is also a case where you can see people's personalities come out very strongly too, right? In terms of how they approach the decorating and whatnot, or even how they approach

Resource mining? Oh, definitely. There's this part of this game where you can give these NPCs jobs. And every time they get a job, they can offer trades basically. You can re-roll this. So for example, one type of job is a librarian and you put this like bookshelf next to them, they'll learn the librarian job.

But you can re-roll their trades by like breaking that bookshelf block and like replacing it and just doing that like infinitely to keep re-rolling. Uh-huh. Because sometimes their trades are like good or bad. someone set up an initial situation where there's multiple job people.

I was just expanding it the other day and I was like, wait, this is kinda fun. I'm just like re-rolling their traits. And so our friends were like, Oh shit, Crystal's she's min-maxing right now. Like she's she's going for it. I remember you said in the past that you always keep like a notebook of like in game quests that you have to do. I'm just

Just totally imagining Minecraft section. Wait, oh my god. Okay, so another part about Minecraft, which we've talked about briefly, is building stuff, crafting stuff. So basically a unit of a thing is a block. in the world. I was building this like farm structure or whatever and I was watching this video on how to do it and they listed out like all the things you needed. But sometimes you need other materials to create the final material that you need for the build.

At first I was writing it down and hand calculating stuff, but then I was like, wait. Well we have tools now. So I literally pulled up Google Sheets and I started making a spreadsheet to calculate Okay, if I'm building like a sign, that means I need three planks per sign and I need to build like three hundred signs. So how many planks is that? Oh my god. And I was like, oh fuck, dude. I'm a nerd. Hey, that's like operational management right there.

The stuff can get pretty deep. It was kind of fun making that spreadsheet. I wonder if this is gonna evolve into like a Minecraft land party soon. Like everyone bring your laptops. Yeah, that would be pretty fun. Isn't it crazy thinking about back in the day when we used to have land parties?

Yeah. Okay, I think that's wholesome actually. A land party, yeah. Cause it's just like everyone getting together to do something that they like. And especially back then we weren't r drinking. We were like too young. It's true. I mean, back then you would also have to go to someone's parents' house, right? So

I remember one of our friends at the time, her older brother was super nice and he was a lot older than us. So he had his own place and then he was nice enough to invite our friends over to land party at their place. So then we like all brought our little laptop. And then we like played there on their dining table and I was like, Oh my god, can't wait till I'm an adult and I can host stuff at like my dining table, you know? Dude, back in those days it was like Maple Story.

I think we were playing League at the time, but Maple Story is a good one to land party. Oh my god. I was thinking about League 2, but I was like, is League wholesome? I think it's wholesome when you're like five stacking. I feel like I have a lot of non-wholesome memories about League, but I think it's because I wasn't very good. I don't know, people are very competitive in League. Dude, but like if you're playing with your friends, I feel like it should still be wholesome.

Or else they're bad friends. Yeah. I think I just had some like intense people in my life at the time. Damn. Lee is a little questionable on the wholesome side. It's true. It's very true. That's actually so funny because recently I was talking to my dad. My dad used to play Go a lot. Like he would win competitions at his company and stuff and get branded prizes for winning and being really good at Go.

naturally when online gaming became a thing, like online go became a thing as well. Oh yeah. So James was asking my dad, like, oh like did you used to play? Blah blah blah and he was like Yeah, I would play and it was fun. It was like nice that I wouldn't have to go to like IRL go meetups, which he also used to do. So he was like it was convenient, but

You know, there's some really toxic kids out there who like say weird shit and chat and whatnot. And I was like, Oh my god, like my dad knows toxic gamer bros. Like this is crazy. Yeah, with these more competitive games and It toes the line sometimes. But if you have the right group of people, it can still be wholesome, I think.

For example, I'm thinking like back to league example, if you have a five stack of wholesome friends and you're not playing like competitive, then there's a lot higher chance that it's gonna be wholesome. I guess that's also why in college and later, whenever we play league, it's really more like A RAM.

which doesn't have that ranked capability and it's really truly just for fun, right? Yeah. Now I'm just imagining people trying to be hella toxic on Minecraft. How's that even possible? Everyone's a block. I mean I guess they could come in and like break people's homes and stuff. But I feel like That's such a vibe killer. You could just ban them from the server then. 'Cause it's like, why would you break someone's hard work like this? Yeah.

I'm realizing Minecraft is just a society, you know? Like you don't just walk into people's homes and take their stuff, otherwise you get banished to jail. Exactly. There's a level of respect in the server. Maybe it's almost like a level of childlike wonder. Mm. You're not here to pillage your friends' homes and stuff like that. You're more here to be like, whoa, this is so cool what you've built. That's very cute.

Dude, I'm not gonna lie, I'm feeling a little bit inspired after our conversation here because I initially felt like, oh, maybe I have one or two wholesome activities that I like. But I'm realizing that over the years we have amassed quite a bit of potential wholesome activities. Yeah. And Like you said about board games, there's always new opportunities to like take something you enjoy and expand it to a different group of people. So I feel very excited about

more wholesome fun coming our way in the future. Thank you, Crystal, for sitting down and talking about the different ways that we've learned to have fun with our friends over the years. And for any of our listeners out there. Please let us know what types of wholesome fun you're having with your friends, whether it's a board game recommendation.

athletic activity that you like to do with your friends recently, etc. We have Instagram at EatYourCruspod, and we also have email eatyourcruspod at gmail.com. And don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcasts, we upload new episodes every other Wednesday morning. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to eat your crust.