The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
b-side
Thursday, February 13, 2020 — 5B

During a drive to Ann Arbor 
with three other people in 
my car, I asked each of my 
companions to queue two songs 
on Spotify for us to listen to 
along the way. Two were quick 
to add their songs, but one of 
my friends was hesitant to add 
something to the queue. “I 
don’t know what to add, just 
skip me,” she insisted, but I 
demanded two songs from her. 
So she reluctantly queued two 
songs.
I suspected her hesitance 
stemmed from embarrassment 
about her taste in music — I 
wagered a guess it was K-pop. 
The 
first 
track, 
a 
bossa-
nova-esque indie ballad, was 
perfectly inoffensive to her 
audience of artsy people in 
the car. Then the second track 
played: “dayfly” by Korean R&B 
singer Dean.
“Were you nervous because 
you 
like 
music 
in 
other 
languages?” 
I 
immediately 
asked. I told her, I may not 
follow K-pop, but even I have 
listened to Dean, and I think 
his music slaps. Only then did 

she spill her interest in Korean 
R&B 
and 
other 
genres 
of 
international music.
The last few years have seen 
so many hobbies that were once 
considered “nerdy” or “lame” 
become mainstream and cool. 
Video 
games 
are 
vanilla. 
Mid-40s office workers who 
couldn’t name a single Pokémon 
before 2015 are often the most 
devoted of Pokémon Go players. 
Just five years ago Reddit was 

considered (by its users) to be a 
geeky website you couldn’t talk 
to other people about, but today 
it’s almost as normal as using 
Facebook — it usually hovers 
in the top 10 or 20 most visited 
sites on the web nowadays.
Still, there’s a hesitance to 
fully embrace some of these 

things. 
Many 
people 
won’t 
adopt the label “gamer” or 
admit 
the 
true 
extent 
to 
which they play video games. 
Dungeons & Dragons players 
remain 
fairly 
low-key. 
The 
breakout popularity of BTS has 
still not fully normalized open 
interest in K-pop, with many 
listeners opting to keep it on 
the down-low. Reading young 
adult novels has seemed to 
constantly fluctuate between 

feeling “totally normal” and 
“utterly uncool.” 
I’ll never forget my chief 
paranoia of 2012: hiding my 
obsession with anime. There 
was 
nobody 
going 
around 
saying “anime is for dweebs,” 
but the pressure to hide my 
hobby was like a heavy weight 

over 
my 
shoulders. 
Anime 
turned out to be just a phase for 
me, one that I would keep secret 
for several more years. Then at 
some point in college I finally 
stopped caring and covered my 
bedroom in posters of anime I 
hadn’t watched in six or seven 
years. It’s almost like I needed 
to make up for all those years 
repressing my hobby.
I know I wasn’t the only one 
hiding it, and the feeling of 
embarrassment still exists: A 
plea for subtle anime wallpapers 
was posted on Reddit just one 
year ago (The caption reads: 
“I need some new phone and 
desktop wallpapers, but im 
not going to expose myself as 
a weeb to everyone i know just 
yet.”) Though a sense of shame 
seems to run particularly high 

in the anime community, I can 
imagine some K-pop fans or 
D&D players similarly looking 
for subtle ways to express their 
passions 
without 
“outing” 
themselves.
When I think deeply about 
it, I struggle to pinpoint what 
exactly is so “different” about 
these “nerdier” interests. Maybe 
the perceived obnoxiousness of 
their fans, but there are just 
as many bad apples in more 
mainstream 
fanbases 
like 
sports. So what’s responsible 
for this overbearing sense of 
shame and embarrassment?
I think most people are just 
looking to feel welcome and 
accepted, even at the expense 
of showing who they really are. 
Society has trained us to feel 
validated by the thoughts of 

others. Hiding our true selves 
is an unfortunate consequence.
I say stop hiding what you 
love. Taking pride in it is not a 
cardinal sin.
As I’ve grown older I’ve 
sought to shift the dynamic. 
Today I prefer to make the 
things that matter to me loud 
and clear as a sort of litmus test. 
I’ll proudly blast “Flamingo” 
by Kero Kero Bonito out my 
car windows, and if someone 
were to give me a weird look 
for listening to music sung in 
Japanese, then they probably 
aren’t worth getting to know. 
On the same token, don’t take 
your anime posters down before 
bringing your Tinder match 
into the bedroom. If they think 
it’s weird, then they’re probably 
not worth another date.

Watching anime is not a 
sin: On media that’s uncool

B-SIDE: TV
B-SIDE: TV

DYLAN YONO
Daily Arts Writer

FREE SVG

The experience of devoting 
nearly two hours of one’s life 
to 
watching 
an 
episode 
of 
“The Bachelor” is not only 
transformatory, it is blissfully 
sinful. On both sides of the screen, 
people are being as unabashedly 
awful as they please. Some 
background on the show for 
those who aren’t familiar: “The 
Bachelor” is a reality TV show 
where a cohort of 20+ women 
is winnowed down to “the 
one” by the bachelor himself, a 
single man “dating” all of these 
women at once. He chooses who 
continues on the show by giving 
the contestants a rose — if you 
don’t receive a rose, you go home. 
It’s a patently ridiculous concept 
that gamifies love and dating in 
a way that would be awful if we, 
as a collective fanbase, didn’t 
all agree that it was a complete 
charade. Almost none of the 
couples from “The Bachelor” or 
its spinoffs, “The Bachelorette” 
or “Bachelor in Paradise,” end 
up still together a few months 
after the show has ended. And 
yet 
every 
single 
contestant 
walks into the competition the 
first night claiming earnestly 
that this man, who is dating 20 
other women, is truly the love 
of their life and their future 
husband. I don’t mean to belittle 
these women — among them 
this season are an attorney, a 
marketing executive, a foster 
parent recruiter and a nursing 
student — but the entire premise 
of the show essentially destines 
any relationship for failure. 

Let me start by saying that 
I love “The Bachelor” in a way 
that should probably be a little 
bit more ironic than it actually 
is. As a snobby middle schooler, 
I believed myself above the other 
girls in my grade who gushed 
about the bachelor and regaled 
the drama from last Monday 
night’s episode. This was my 
first excursion into this sinful 
experience, because while I 
thought I was better than the 
people who were amused by 
such petty drama, I was actually 
exhibiting the first deadly sin: 
pride. The truth is, no one is 
above watching “The Bachelor.” 
You may think you’re better 
than the men and women who 
go on the show, but the truth is, 
you’re letting your pride hold 
you back from an experience 
that will liberate you from the 
stressful drama of actual daily 
life and release you into a world 
where the only thing you have to 
worry about is whether Hannah 
Ann intentionally stole Kelsey’s 
champagne. 
We 
all 
deserve 
a break from the real world 
sometimes, and “The Bachelor” 
is the perfect way to indulge in 
our sins. First of all, watching 
someone else act in a blatantly 
awful way when it has no actual 
consequences 
is 
genuinely 
incredible. I relish the moment 
that one of the women gets up 
from the couch and walks over 
to Peter to say “Can I borrow 
you for a minute?” because I 
know for a fact that it will cause 
drama that will have absolutely 
no effect on me or the world 
whatsoever.
The women on this show 
consistently commit sins that 
are nearly textbook in their 
definitions. 
Greed: 
wanting 

Peter all to themselves. Envy: 
watching other girls date the 
same man they are dating. Wrath: 
(allegedly) stealing another girl’s 
champagne to drink with Peter. 
Pride: to quote one contestant, 
Kelley, “The other girls are 
children… Just look at me. I’m 
an attorney.” Lust: this one goes 
without saying. The key to “The 
Bachelor’s” success, however, is 
not just the sins on the screen. 
It is the fact that the show 
implicates its viewers in those 
sins. Watching an episode from 
a place of complete moral high 
ground would be not only boring, 
it would be painful. Luckily for 
us, it is impossible to watch it 
from a moral high ground. By 
watching the show, the viewer is 
absolutely implicated in the sin 
that they are watching. This is 
the beauty of reality television: 
we must accept, or at least play 
along with, the insane rules 
that govern the show. That 
acceptance instantly enmeshes 
us in the same moral fabric of 
the bachelor and the women 
on the show. Not only are we 
committing gluttony, by eating 
potato chips and Twizzlers, and 
sloth, by sitting in one spot and 
doing nothing productive for two 
hours, but we are susceptible to 
every sin committed on screen. 
But ultimately, there are worse 
ways to sin. Why should we feel 
bad for completely indulging in 
our baser natures for two hours 
a week on Mondays? Let yourself 
get completely enveloped in the 
unreal reality of “The Bachelor.” 
Care deeply, for two hours, about 
things that do not matter. Come 
out on the other side, laughing at 
yourself for getting so invested, 
knowing you’ll do it again next 
week.

The seven deadly sins: 
‘The Bachelor’ Edition

ABC

EMILIA FERRANTE
Daily Arts Writer

Mead has unflattering image 
problems, and the most common 
imagery may be what you think of 
at your local renaissance fair. That 
drink is overly sweet yet insipid 
— a drink you would reluctantly 
sip as you wistfully pine for a 
drier, sharp-tasting beer. You 
may wonder how an ingredient 
as aromatic and complex as honey 
can be reduced to what amounts 
to little more than alcoholic, 
sweet and yellow water.
Compared to its more popular 
cousins, beer and wine, mead 
has yet to grab the attention of 
mainstream culture. But the 
production and quality of craft 
mead has exploded within the 
past decade, with some of the 
finest meads coming from the 
state of Michigan. At the center 
of that boom is Schramm’s Mead, 
the storefront of the eponymous 
Ken Schramm: author of “The 
Compleat 
Meadmaker” 
and 
referred to by many mead-
brewers as “The Godfather of 
Mead.” 
Schramm’s Mead is located 
within 
a 
cluster 
of 
well-
established 
restaurants 
of 
Ferndale in the heart of Nine Mile 
Road. You may find the storefront 
of Schramm’s quite comely aside 
from the garish American stars 
with its blue background painted 
on its side facing the parking lot. 
Walking in, you find the interior 
is anything but garish; you are 
greeted by a warm, cozy bar and 
tasting room and knowledgeable 
bartenders passionate about the 
meads they have on tap.
Before 
I 
encountered 
Schramm’s Mead, I had been 
indulging in sweeter dessert 
wines such as the 2014 - 2016 
batches of Chateau Ste. Michelle 
Riesling. It’s a surprisingly crisp 
but light drink — a wine that 
almost reminds you of a dry-
sweet cider made from Granny 
Smiths as opposed to a wine made 
of white grapes. This is a drink 
you savor on its own, perfect for 
a night-in while binging Netflix. 
Yet a dessert wine like this feels 
somewhat incomplete. You crave 
full-bodied drinks which possess 
a thick, luscious mouthfeel that 
complements 
their 
intensely 
sweet and fruity profile. What 
you crave, in essence, is an alcohol 
unicorn to provide the perfect 
finish to your day.
A brief look into Schramm’s 
tasting 
menu 
shows 
that 

Schramm’s 
specializes 
in 
melomels, meads which include 
fruits along with honey in the 
fermentation process. You may be 
confused about this kind of mead 
if your previous experiences with 
mead were solely with ghostly 
renaissance fair varieties. Given 
the bias towards berries, you may 
wonder whether these meads 
have some passing resemblance to 
young ruby port wines or perhaps 
even to a Korean raspberry wine 
called bokbunja.
Among 
the 
selections 
are 
the raspberry mead and the 
blackberry 
mead, 
excellent 

starting points for your adventure. 
Upon first taste, you may be 
stupefied by the sheer intensity 
of honey flavor and aroma that 
sings throughout each sip. The 
tartness of either the raspberry 
or the blackberry alleviates the 
heavy-hitting sweetness of the 
honey while also complementing 
the honey with a fruity and jam-
like quality. Taking a second 
sip, 
you 
are 
intrigued 
and 
amazed at how the honey and 
the berry harmoniously express 
their 
individuality 
without 
compromise, similar to the proud, 
unabashed confidence of Shakira 
and J.Lo performing “Let’s Get 
Loud” at the LIV Superbowl 

halftime.
Following the raspberry or 
blackberry mead, you may be 
piqued by the boldly-named “The 
Statement” — a sour cherry mead. 
Like the raspberry and blackberry 
meads, the flavor of the Batalon 
cherries melds inconspicuously 
with the sweetness of the honey. 
Fans of sour flavors may rejoice 
to find that compared to the 
raspberry or blackberry meads, 
the sourness of the Batalon 
cherries takes the center stage 
compared to the sweetness of 
the honey. “The Statement” is 
reminiscent of the 1976 London 
live performance of “Europa” 
by Carlos Santana, in which the 
sour tartness of the cherries 
melodically riffs across your 
tongue in the midst of honey-
like synthesizer melodic chord 
progressions.
But perhaps no night is complete 
without 
trying 
Schramm’s 
“Heather” mead. Unlike most of 
the other selections, “Heather,” 
as its name suggests, consists 
solely of Scottish Heather honey. 
In contrast to many of Schramm’s 
offerings, “Heather” provides a 
flavor reminiscent of vanilla and 
oak barrels — somewhat similar to 
a whiskey, yet packed with a honey 
aroma bordering on caramel. 
Consider the possibility of the 
“Heather” as a whiskey substitute 
in an old-fashioned, or instead 
simply enjoy “Heather” for the 
drink that it is — a showstopping, 
exclamatory punctuation to end 
your mead-drinking experience.
You may be concerned that a 
prerequisite to enjoying a bottle 
of Schramm’s for your nightly 
Netflix binges would involve 
driving to Ferndale. Luckily, 
Schramm’s is available across 
many locations within the state 
of Michigan, including Ann Arbor 
stores such as Blue Front and Plum 
Market. Not all of Schramm’s 
products are available in these 
locations. Notably, the “Heather” 
is disappointingly missing from 
these available meads.
In the cold, overcast winters 
of the Midwest, any reminders 
of warmth and sun provide a 
welcome respite to an otherwise 
dreary day. During the winter, 
Schramm’s Mead is a powerful 
but demure reminder of the 
warmth and joy that lies ahead 
of the harrowing weather. In the 
height of spring and summer, 
Schramm’s is a celebration of 
nature’s luscious bounty that 
flourishes 
throughout 
Pure 
Michigan.
Schramm’s Mead is located at 
327 W Nine Mile Rd, Ferndale, MI 
48220.

Schramm’s Mead and the 
case for beer’s alt-cousin

BRENDON CHO
For The Daily

B-SIDE: TV
B-SIDE: TV

B-SIDE: COMMUNITY CULTURE

Compared to its 
more popular 
cousins, beer 
and wine, mead 
has yet to grab 
the attention 
of mainstream 
culture. But 
the production 
and quality of 
craft mead has 
exploded within 
the past decade

The last few years have seen so many 
hobbies that were once considered 
“nerdy” or “lame” become mainstream 
and cool

