What does a grueling sweat drenched professional
wrestling match have in common with a tiny slice
of processed American cheese or like a 1995 Nirvana
box set and a centuries old French farming commune?
I mean, it sounds like the set up to the world's
weirdest joke. It really does. And if you're
looking for some kind of logical real world connection
between those things, you are going to be searching
for a very long time. Yeah, you really are. But
the thing is, if you look at the architecture
of human language, they all share the exact same
foundation. It sounds absurd when you list it
out like that, but you know, that is the bizarre
beauty of how we use language. We take a single
concept and we just we stretch it across entirely
unrelated dimensions of reality. Welcome to today's
deep dive. We are taking a slightly different
approach today for you. Instead of a traditional
narrative or like a single historical event,
we are exploring a map of human psychology through
one highly specific, deeply chaotic Wikipedia
disambiguation page. Oh, I love this one. Yeah.
The word we are exploring is singles. And our
mission for you today is to examine how this
one word fractures into wildly different areas
of our lives. Right. Spanning pop culture, the
mechanics of the music industry. High -stakes
sports. Exactly. And even macroeconomics. OK,
let's unpack this. The core definition provided
right at the top of the material is the one we
all know, right? It simply states, singles are
people not in a committed relationship. That
primary definition sets the stage perfectly,
I think, because it acts as a cultural mirror.
It reflects how deeply we categorize the concept
of the one versus the many. To be a single, in
the human sense, is to be defined entirely by
what you are not attached to. You are an autonomous
unit. And from that deeply human starting point,
that state of being unattached, the psychological
weight of that word just ripples out into almost
everything else we build and consume. And what's
wild is how much global media obsessively reflects
that specific relationship status back at us.
Like, if you just look at film and television
titled Singles, the global footprint is astonishing.
Oh, it really is. You have a 1984 Australian
television miniseries. Then you have a British
sitcom that ran from 88 to 91. Wow. There's a
Greek TV series literally called S. Wengles,
but it's spelled with a number one. Oh, that's
clever. Right. In 2003, there was a massively
popular South Korean film titled Singles starring
Jang Jin Young. Yeah, that was huge. And of course,
Cameron Crowe's iconic 1992 American film set
in the Seattle grunge scene, which, by the way,
also gave us that legendary Singles original
ocean picture soundtrack. An absolute classic.
Totally. But let me push back on this for a second.
Because looking at this massive list, I have
to ask why this word. Is it just me or does the
fact that so many different countries have shows
and movies just called singles prove that being
unattached is like the ultimate default blank
canvas for human drama? What's fascinating here
is that single represents a state of transition.
Okay. And transition is the engine of all storytelling.
Love, longing, the search for connection. These
are universal human conditions. Yeah, that makes
sense. When a filmmaker in South Korea, a TV
producer in Greece, and Cameron Crowe in Seattle
all rely on the exact same title, it tells us
that the unattached individual is an archetype
we all instantly recognize. Right, like a married
couple in a movie implies a settled state. Exactly.
But a single implies motion. They are searching,
they're failing, they're trying again. It's inherently
dramatic. They even turned that motion into a
video game. Oh, right. The developers at Rotobeef
put out a game called Singles. Flirt up your
life. Which just feels like a completely bizarre
escalation it really does we went from watching
unacatch people on screen to like Actively simulating
them. It's the gamification of the human relationship
status It takes this universal usually passive
viewing experience of romantic comedies or dramas
and turns the search for connection into an interactive
puzzle You aren't just watching the unattached
blank canvas anymore. You are actively maneuvering
the social mechanics to resolve that single status.
It highlights how much societal pressure there
is to literally solve the condition of being
single. That makes total sense. We view the human
single as a problem that needs a resolution.
But how does that psychology shift when we move
away from human beings searching for a mate,
and we start talking about the individual artistic
unit? Oh, that's a big shift. Because the way
we use the word in the art world feels fundamentally
different. It absolutely is. We move from the
sociology of the individual to the commodification
of art. Right. In human relationships, being
single is often portrayed as a temporary state,
like you're looking for a partnership. But in
art, making something a single is an act of deliberate
permanent isolation. Here's where it gets really
interesting. Let's look at the mechanics of the
music industry. The technical definition of a
music single is a release that usually has only
one to three songs. But singles is an incredibly
frequent title for entire compilation albums.
And the list and the material spans literally
every conceivable genre. It's a massive list.
It's wild. You've got the 95 Nirvana box set.
We have compilations from the synth pop of Alison
Moyette in 95 and Deacon Blue in 2006. There's
the Indie Sounds of Future Islands in 2014, and
Jimmy Eat World from 2000. Even Japanese Rock,
right? Yes. Luna Sea in 97. Then you jump to
Maroon 5 in 2015, New Order in 2005, and Red
Crayola in 2004. It just keeps going. It really
does. Suede 2003, The Long Blondes in 2008, The
Smiths in 95, Travis in 2004. Wow. Despina Vandy
in 2006, and Fishbone back in 93. And that's
just some of the compilation. Right, there are
the EPs and box sets, too. Exactly. You have
Corey Hart's The Singles in 92, The Strangler's
Singles, The UA Years in 89, The Melvin's Singles,
1 through 12 in 97. Oh, yeah. And even super
recently, Cameron Winters released a Singles
EP in 2024. And we can't forget the individual
songs that are just literally titled singles.
Right. Like the track by E40 and Too Short from
their 2012 album, History, Function Music. And
the one by I .B .I. from their 2015 self -titled
album. Exactly. But I have to point out the irony
here. It's hilarious that an album named Singles
is actually a plural collection of things. Yeah.
It's like throwing a massive party, but naming
the party people who arrived alone. That is a
great way to put it. If we connect this to the
bigger picture, you have to look at why the music
industry created this concept in the first place.
Okay, lay it on me. Historically, it was driven
by the physical limitations of vinyl. A 45 RPM
record could only hold about three minutes of
music per side. Right, of course. So the industry
had to extract the most commercial, catchy piece
of an artist's work to sell it cheaply and get
it on the radio. An album is supposed to be an
ecosystem, you know, a complete thought. But
the single is pulled out to survive entirely
on its own merits. It has no intro track to set
the mood, no deep cuts to support it. It's a
gladiator thrown into the arena of pop culture.
So when an artist releases a compilation called
Singles, they aren't just giving you a playlist.
They are gathering up all their most successful
autonomous gladiators and putting them in one
display case. Precisely. They are stripping away
the context of the original albums and we actually
see this exact same behavior in the world of
gaming and collectibles. Individual trading cards
sold at hobby stores are called singles. Wait,
okay. I buy the gladiator theory for a three
-minute pop song on the radio, but does that
isolation theory really hold up when we look
at literal pieces of cardboard? He does. Why
do we use the same word for a holographic trading
card? Because it's the exact same psychological
mechanism of extracting value. Think about how
trading cards are sold. You buy a sealed booster
pack. Right. That pack is the ecosystem, just
like a studio album. But let's be honest, most
of the cards in that pack are filler. Yeah, they're
the ones you just toss in a shoe box. Exactly.
They are the album tracks you skip. But the rare
holographic card, that's the hip hop song. Oh,
wow. I see where you're going with this. So what
does a collector do? They extract it. They put
it in a hard plastic sleeve, completely divorcing
it from the pack it came in, and a hobby store
sells it on its own for a premium. So it becomes
a single. Exactly. We are taking the prized item
and isolating it for pure, undistracted appreciation,
completely free of the filler. We isolate the
prized item so we don't have to deal with the
noise around it. That is a brilliant way to frame
it. But if music and trading cards isolate a
prized item for appreciation, the sports world
uses the exact same word to isolate the human
body. Right, to test its absolute physical and
mental limits. Let's talk about the athletic
definition. In sports, you have men's singles
and women's singles. And this applies to racket
sports like tennis, badminton, pickleball, squash,
and table tennis. Lots of racket sports. Yeah,
and it even applies to professional wrestling
when it's a one -on -one match. You also have
single skating. which is the figure skating discipline,
and match play in golf. But I want to contrast
this with another sports definition that completely
flips the script. OK, what's that? In baseball,
a single is when a batter reaches first base
due to successful contact with the ball. Now,
a single in baseball is the absolute foundational
building block of an inning. Right. It's a stepping
stone. Exactly. You hit a single so the next
player can hit a double and bring you home. But
a single in tennis or figure skating is the entire
universe of the competition. Yeah, that's true.
One is a fraction of the goal, and the other
is the whole mountain. Why do we use the same
word for such wildly different athletic concepts?
This raises an important question about how we
define individual effort versus collective success.
OK. Let's look at the psychology of the tennis
player first. In racket sports or professional
wrestling, singles means bearing the entire weight
of failure or victory without a safety net. Because
there is no one to pass the ball to. Precisely.
If you lose a single squash match, it is entirely
on your shoulders. The word implies supreme isolation
under extreme psychological pressure. It is heroic
self -reliance. Wow. But in baseball, the word
single represents the minimum successful unit
of offensive connection. It's the smallest increment
of success. Like, you didn't hit it out of the
park, but you didn't strike out either. You got
a single. And more importantly, in baseball,
the single is the start of a sequence. It implies
a mandatory connection to the batters who will
follow. You cannot win a baseball game with one
single. Right. It requires the team to build
upon it. Exactly. But in tennis, the single is
the entirety of the narrative. It's fascinating
how the exact same word dictates entirely different
psychological states for the athletes involved.
One athlete hears single and knows they are completely
alone in the arena and the other hears single
and knows they just did their part for the collective
machine. Perfectly said. It really makes you
realize how much invisible weight a word carries
depending on the shape of the court or, you know,
the field you're standing on. Absolutely. Now,
let's move from the individual in athletic action
to how the concept of a single manifests in our
physical daily consumption. Okay. Because this
is where the concept touches everyone's life.
Even if you never pick up a tennis racket or
collect a vinyl record. Right. We are entering
the realm of commodifying the one For mass consumption.
Yes. We've got a list of physical items that
have co -opted this word. Kraft Singles, the
globally recognized brand of individually packaged
cheese product slices. A classic. Right. Then
there's Kenco Singles, which is a single serve
coffee brewing system. We also have miniature
alcohol bottles, which are specifically sized
at exactly 50 to 60 milliliters. And then there's
the financial definition, United States one dollar
bills. particularly when you were requesting
change from, or implicitly comparing them to,
larger denomination bills. Yeah, can I get some
singles? Exactly. So what does this all mean
for you? Think about the mechanics of your daily
life. When you hand a cashier a $20 bill and
ask for singles, you're asking to break down
value into its most granular, manageable form.
Isn't that exactly what Kraft and Kenko did with
cheese and coffee? They took a bulk item, like
a block of dairy or a massive pot of coffee and
made it hyper convenient by breaking it down
into an isolated single use format. It is the
ultimate expression of consumer control. Oh,
I like that. The single in economics and physical
consumption is entirely about precise measurement
and eliminating friction. Right. You don't have
to measure anything. Exactly. Look at the miniature
liquor bottles you mentioned. The fact that they
are exactly 50 to 60 milliliters isn't arbitrary.
It is a highly regulated, mathematically precise
isolation of a consumable. That makes total sense.
When we want convenience in modern society, we
demand that the world be broken down into singles.
We don't want to slice the cheese. That requires
effort and a knife. And cleaning the knife. Exactly.
We want the craft single. We don't want to brew
a whole pot and risk wasting it. Right. We want
the Kenco single. And we don't want the rigidity
of a $20 bill. We want 20 individual fluidly
maneuverable units of currency. We want the autonomy
to use exactly what we need when we need it without
committing to the whole block of cheese or the
whole $20. Yes. Honestly, circles right back
to the human relationship definition we started
with, doesn't it? It truly does. Whether you
are talking about dating, buying coffee, or carrying
cash, the single format allows you to engage
with the world without committing to the larger,
heavier entity. It is freedom through isolation.
I love how all these threads tie back to human
autonomy. But before we wrap up, we have to talk
about the geographic anomaly included on this
disambiguation page. Oh yes, the geographical
twist. Right, because amidst all this deep psychology
about dating, music, sports, and economics, there
is a physical place on the map. Singles. Singles.
It is a commune in the Puit de Dôme département
in central France. I am so glad we are touching
on this because it shows the delightful randomness,
like the sheer chaotic beauty of human language.
It really does. You have a centuries old French.
farming commune sharing the exact same localized
name as American dollar bills and individually
wrapped American cheese products. It's hilarious.
It's a total linguistic coincidence, obviously,
stemming from entirely different etymological
roots. But it highlights exactly why a disambiguation
page is necessary in the first place. Human language
is inherently messy. It overlaps. The massive
traffic jam of meaning. And that's the journey
we've been on today. We started this deep dive
looking at a simple Wikipedia page. And we watched
one word connect the universal drama of unattached
lovers. A 1995 Nirvana box set, a grueling badminton
match, the hyper -convenience of a 50 -milliliter
bottle of liquor, and a tiny French commune.
It is a staggering map of human activity, and
it's all tethered to six letters. The core takeaway
here is just how much heavy lifting this one
concept does for our brains. The next time you
interact with any single in your life, whether
you're asking a part tender to break a 20, stepping
up to the plate to hit a baseball or screaming
Cameron Crowe's 1992 film, recognize how deeply
our society relies on this concept to organize
our lives. Absolutely. We desperately need the
concept of the isolated single to make sense
of the overwhelming chaotic hole. And that leads
to a rather profound question about where we
are heading. We've spent this entire discussion
exploring how humanity is obsessed with extracting
the individual from the group. Single slices
of cheese, single pop songs pulled from albums,
single athletes standing alone on a court. But
as we move into a future defined by constant
digital connection, artificial intelligence,
and perhaps even neural link technology, where
our thoughts are constantly networked with a
broader hive mind. Right, where everything is
connected. Exactly. of a single eventually become
obsolete. If the boundaries between the individual
and the collective completely dissolve, we might
lose the very word we use to define our own autonomy.
Now that is something to mull over. Next time
you unwrap a single slice of cheese, ask yourself
if you're enjoying a convenience or holding on
to a relic of an isolated past that is rapidly
disappearing. It makes you look at cheese very
differently. It really does. Thank you for joining
us on this deep dive into the map of human language.
Catch you next time.