Going Down a Rabbit Hole

To "go down a rabbit hole" means to get so deeply absorbed in a topic, task, or search that you lose track of time and often end up somewhere completely different from where you started.

It’s that "How did I get here?" moment. You looked up "rabbit hole," it referenced Lewis Carroll which led you to something about math, and down the hole you went.

The phrase originated from Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In the story, Alice follows a White Rabbit down a hole, which transports her into a surreal, illogical, and seemingly endless world.

While the book gave us the imagery, the modern "internet" usage really took off in the late 1990s and early 2000s along with the Internet, social media and smartphones.

The modern rabbit hole starts with a minor question or interest. One piece of information found leads to another, then another (often via hyperlinks or "recommended" videos). When you emerge from this time loop, you realize that many minutes or hours have passed. maybe you acquired some new and oddly specific knowledge. maybe you just wasted time on useless information.

Pseudonyms: Rappers

I have written before about pseudonyms. The use of these "stage names" is a very common practice amongst music rappers.

Here are some of the better-known ones.

The origins are sometimes obvious, sometimes not obvious. For example, Eminem began rapping at age 14 with his friend Mike Ruby using the pseudonyms "Manix" for Ruby and "M&M" for Marshall Mathers III initials. "M&M" evolved into "Eminem."

A less obvious origin is that of "50 Cent," adopted by Curtis James Jackson III. Jackson adopted the nickname "50 Cent" as a metaphor for change. The name was used earlier by Kelvin Martin, a 1980s Brooklyn thief known as "50 Cent." Jackson said he chose it "because it says everything I want it to say. I'm the same kind of person 50 Cent was. I provide for myself by any means."

Andre 3000 ............... Andre Benjamin
Busta Rhymes ............... Trevor Smith
Cee-Lo .................. Thomas Calloway
Common .............. Lonnie Rashid Lynn
DMX ...................... Earl Simmons
Foxy Brown ............... Inga Marchand
The Game .................. Jayceon Taylor
Ghostface Killah ............. Dennis Coles
Grandmaster Flash .......... Joseph Saddler
Ice Cube .................. O’Shea Jackson
Ice-T ....................... Tracy Morrow
Ja Rule ...................... Jeffrey Atkins
Jay-Z ...................... Shawn Carter
KRS-One .....................Kris Parker
Lil’ Kim ....................Kimberly Jones
LL Cool J ............... James Todd Smith
Ludacris ................. Christopher Bridges
Mos Def .................... Dante Smith
Notorious BIG ......... Christopher Wallace
Snoop Dogg ...............Calvin Broadus
T.I............................Clifford Harris Jr.

MacGuffin

Alfred Hitchcock's cameo in North by Northwest

Alfred Hitchcock used a narrative device in some of his films that he called a "MacGuffin." It is the thing that the characters care about, and that kicks off the plot, but the audience should not be concerned with it because it is ultimately irrelevant to the plot. 

He explained the term using a surreal anecdote about two men on a train, which he repeated in interviews for decades. Hitch claimed the term was a Scottish name, and he would tell the following joke to illustrate its inherent "emptiness."

Man A: "What’s that package up there in the baggage rack?"
Man B: "Oh, that’s a MacGuffin."
Man A: "What’s a MacGuffin?"
Man B: "Well, it’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands."
Man A: "But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands!"
Man B: "Well, then that’s no MacGuffin!" 

His point was that a MacGuffin is a purely mechanical element used to "trigger" the plot. 

Hitchcock’s personal favorite MacGuffin was the "government secrets" in North by Northwest. He called it his best because it was the emptiest. The hero asks what the villain is selling. The agent replies: "Oh, just government secrets." By refusing to even name the secrets, he proved that the object only exists to give the characters a reason to chase each other.

An additional origin note is that while Hitchcock popularized the term, he credited its creation to his friend and screenwriter Angus MacPhail. They likely chose the name because it sounded like a common Scottish surname, adding to the "nonsense" nature of the joke. Some film historians also point out that the word "guff" is British slang for "nonsense" or "empty talk," which fits the definition perfectly. 

Sometimes the MacGuffin is considered to be the same as a "red herring", but while both are plot devices used to manipulate the audience’s attention, they serve completely different structural purposes.

The MacGuffin is the motivation. It is the thing the characters are chasing. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as the characters want it badly enough to drive the story.

A non-Hitchcock example is the statue in The Maltese Falcon. Everyone is killing each other to find it, but it could have been any object that was considered valuable by the characters.

A red herring, as I have written earlier) is a clue, character, or plot point that is intentionally misleading. It’s designed to make you reach a false conclusion so that the eventual "twist" is more shocking.

In the Harry Potter book and movie series (especially in The Prisoner of Azkaban), we are led to believe that Sirius Black is a villain trying to kill Harry. Throughout much of the series, Snape is also seen as working to harm Harry, when in fact he is protecting him.