 |
| Image by Pedro Dimitriou |
I feel like I've stepped out of the pop culture loop lately, and as a result, I have a weird form of writer's block. When I started this blog, I was tuned in across a lot of different channels—TV shows and movies, municipal politics in a major city, cycling, fashion, trendy books, and just the culture cycle in general. And I would write about them! Early blog posts were often critiquing other people's creative work (my very first post was about Chuck Klosterman, which, I mean, okay). If they weren't critiques, they were response pieces—also known as a Hot Take—and then, at the bottom of the pile, musings. Later, when real things started to happen in my life, I added actual emotions to the mix, but I still write a lot about things like the perfect magazine and Wes Anderson movies.
But, as I've gotten older, mom-ier, and just sort of less cool in general (and less invested in being cool overall), I'm paying very little attention to things like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé and the gotta-see-it TV shows; unwillingly, I give more to the ever-more depressing news cycle that comes from living on a burning planet and with an actual doofus as our provincial premier. I look at a lot of memes about cartoon toads living under illustrated mushrooms, and I feel like many of my friends do, too.
As a result, I feel very uncool when media topics arise. No, I have not heard that album—my latest "new" album is Portugal. The Man's Woodstock CD, which is from 2018 and which played on a loop in my car for three months. My binge-y shows are wholesome to the point of parody; I love the try-hard teachers of Abbott Elementary and the cartoon dogs from Bluey. I saw Barbie, of course, and I loved it, of course, but prior to that, I hadn't seen a grown-up non-Marvel movie in theatres since 2021's C'mon C'mon....which was about kids. I don't listen to podcasts unless they're about Harry Potter. I don't subscribe to any Substacks. I don't watch YouTube like it's TV; I barely watch TV, period.
This is not a humblebrag or a weird flex. When people ask "What are you watching?" these days, we generally all start with Bluey, but then we're expected to be able to talk about Succession or The Idol or Wednesday or The Last of Us. And I just...cannot? I watch bake shows and gay-teen shows, and that's about it. Part of it is that TV is so fractured anyway—I don't have some of the key platforms, and the buzz that surrounds each individual show is often just as tailored to its viewing audience as any algorithm. I don't think there's been a truly culture-wide show since Game of Thrones wrapped up, and even then, not everybody watched it. And I'm just as likely to fall into a one-hour phone-scroll as I am to turn on a show; why watch one episode when I can watch sixty little reels, as a snack?
I am reading a lot these days, which is nice. I'm not on BookTok, but I suspect most of the discourse over there is about erotica starring various supernatural creatures, so, you know: pass. I did a monster Michael Chabon reading project, and then read a bunch of female authors to balance the scales; right now, I'm very into Becky Chambers, who writes affirming sci-fi and generally gives me something to think about. But unless someone picks it for book club, I'm just not reading the big blockbuster books of the day either.
So there's 600 words about the things I'm not following, the stuff I'm not watching or reading. And I don't know—I'm not 23 any more, which is how old I was when I started writing in this little internet corner, all full of opinions and ready share. My priorities, my sense of self, have shifted dramatically. I just have less time; I have more real life to live (and recover from). I feel less voracious in my consumption.
When I was young, it felt essential to be so tuned in to the world. It was a process of creating myself: I like this, I don't like that. I found that my besties were similarly minded. We didn't have to love the same stuff, but the overall patterns were key—readers finding readers, concert-goers hanging out with other concert-goers.
Now, maybe that work is done, or less vital or urgent. Maybe I'm just more tired, or overwhelmed by the sheer amount of options to keep up with. Maybe I am, despite everything, just really boring.
When I do consume, I want it to be stuff that reflects my needs and values. I gravitate towards wholesome TV—no murders (okay, Only Murders In the Building is an important exception), not a lot of violence, and preferably, the characters seem to like each other. I dislike reality shows that hinge on betrayal or that are platforms for billionaires (paging the Kardashians); I love the ones where people get to show off their cool art. I like a queer media experience, especially when it doesn't treat being gay as leading to inevitable punishment; I love that the gay-teen stories of today often choose joy, not fear, as their central theme. I have a long list of "kid's TV" that I find, not only palatable, but look forward to watching. So much of the last few years has been unpredictable, strange, unsettling and bad; is it so weird that I want my media to, you know, not be that?
But pity me at cocktail parties, because I literally have no fun fan theories, no undiscovered gems, no recommendations, no secret treasures. I'm not an expert on any genre, I don't have a password to a streaming site that I can share, I routinely quit shows that are boring or turn me off, and I am physically incapable of taking a recommendation, even if I know I will love it.
So what am I going to write about now?
