Previewing Something New...
The next phase of this newsletter
To my dear followers, of which there are a mighty few, thank you for being here with me.
I started this with a desire to share my sociopolitical and theoretical ideas in an accessible way coming off the heels of finishing my dissertation and earning my PhD. I have the ethos that scholarship, especially the kind of scholarship I engage in, which is rooted in socioeconomic justice, should be available to all, not fenced off behind the paywalls and obscurity that often come with academic research. However, I quickly learned that Substack is not the place for this kind of engagement. In fact, so much of the content on Substack is just about how to grow your Substack, and one of the lessons I saw repeatedly on these bits of advice shoved down my throat on this platform was that nuance was decidedly NOT how to grow your Substack. And nuance is kinda my whole thing. In other words, Substack’s algorithm was only showing me content that told me how to appease the algorithm, which went against everything I believe in as a writer and researcher, which made me begin to question all of my own instincts and what I was even doing here.
I never wanted to market myself to begin with, not on Substack or anywhere else. I have never once shared anything I’ve written on here to any of my mostly-inactive social media accounts, and have barely even mentioned this newsletter to anyone I know in real life. Part of this, I’m sure, is my own insecurity at actually being seen doing the things I care about. But the other is that I loathe living in an era where we are all expected to be a brand. In today’s modern world, where everything is more and more mechanized, and even art is being made by computers, I want to remain a human, not a brand. So, if “growth,” in the traditional social media sense (and yes, Substack is social media), was never my main objective, then why was I here?
I love writing. Well, like most writers, I actually hate writing, but instead love having written. And the only way to have written anything is to just do it. Over and over again. Often in the least rewarding and least sexy ways. Substack was supposed to be practice for me in that way. Unrewarding, unsexy writing that kept my fingers moving on the keyboard on a regular schedule as practice. But life got in the way.
On the good side of life’s interventions are all the ways I’ve been kept busy by the theatre community in Chicago. In the last six months I’ve performed in two shows, had a workshop production of a short play of mine, an inclusion of another short play into a festival, began working as a director of a grant-funded 11-hour endurance performance piece, and have written three short plays and have half of a full-length written as well as the beginnings of a second full-length. Of course, during this time, I’ve faced quite a bit of rejection as well. Such is the life of a writer. Unsexy, unrewarding.
I can handle the disappointment and rejection. I’m no stranger to either of those – I come from a small, lower-middle-class farming town where falling, getting back up, and dusting yourself off to start again is just the way of life for everyone. But what I wasn’t ready for in starting this newsletter was the ways that living through yet another Trump administration, combined with the brandification of artists and the never-ending stream of grifts on Substack, combined with the consistent disappointment I’d muddle through in my artistic life, would leave me feeling unable to face the challenges of the world through my writing on a platform where nuance and complexity are often not championed but instead get buried under algorithms. Sure, I don’t care much about those algorithms, but the idea that I would put so much labor into thinking deeply about social issues through a nuanced lens only to have it buried was, frankly, fucking me up in a way that made doing anything on here unbearable.
I still want to write about sociopolitical and economic issues. I still love writing socioeconomic theory (or I should say, I love having written socioeconomic theory). And I would still like to be able to do that in a way that is economically and publicly accessible. But I’ve discovered that Substack is not the place for me to do that. I need time to let my thoughts percolate. I need space to explore ideas with complexity. The internet, and particularly social media, do not allow for this.
But I still want to be here. I still want to use this space for my original intent: to keep the fingers moving on the keyboard, to keep my research skills sharp, to share ideas and become more comfortable being seen. So, I’m pivoting.
I realized through my last few posts that writing about pop culture, something I’ve been fully immersed in my whole life, makes me actually happy. Even if no one reads it.
I grew up in a very punishing household. Feelings were not only not embraced, but barely even allowed. So, I always turned to music, TV, movies, anything going on in the world of pop culture to get my emotional regulation needs met. I learned to soothe myself and co-regulate by laughing at Roseanne or crying to Celine Dion. I learned how to make other people laugh by studying the mannerisms and comedic timing of Bill Murray and Chris Farley and Molly Shannon. I had movie quotes at the ready for just about every moment one could imagine. And I could make the perfect mix-tape to fit any occasion.
I’ve long referred to myself as a pop culture junkie, and it’s true. I can’t really get enough. I could (and often do) spend hours talking about a singular television series or musician’s discography. Here’s a not-so-humble brag about me: I also nearly single-handedly won a Ghostbusters trivia by 11 points! I beat men who showed up in full costume. One of them pointed at me and said “they scare me” because of how quick and accurate my answers were.
When you grow up in a household that is both somehow simultaneously chaotic and emotionally constipated, you learn to zero-in on things that shut everything else around you off. Pop culture was that for me. Now, I need a way to survive this current moment in my life where rejection comes left and right, the acceptances make me crunched for time, and where witnessing the fall of American Democracy while my fellow citizens fracture themselves further and further to the extremes makes me feel like my head is exploding, and not in the good way art can sometimes do. Pop culture is how I will survive this moment.
Welcome to Today in Pop Culture History
Starting today, Class Interrupted will become Today in Pop Culture History, where I select some of my favorite moments in my vast memory of pop-cultural events, or some moments that I think are particularly culturally important, even if not my favorite, and do a deep dive into their history, impact, and legacy, all for the sake of actually enjoying this practice I’ve created for myself where keeping the fingers moving over the keys and the research skills sharp was what it was really all about from the beginning.
If you came here for class commentary, fret not, for there will still be plenty of scathing class analyses within these pop culture deep dives (one cannot examine celebrity, fame, or popularity without also examining the role of capitalism inherent in all of it). But my hope is that focusing my class consciousness, as well as my other occasional sociopolitical views, on pop culture will not only be more enjoyable for me, but will be more fun for readers who might also need a fucking break from all the political hot-takes about how our world is coming to an end and everything around us is on fire.
I hope you’ll stay with me while I try something new, and if you’ve never been here before, I hope you’ll hop on along for the ride. Either way, I’ll be here, doing what I’ve always done my whole life through difficult times: hyper-fixating on the world of pop culture to quiet the chaos around me. Trust me, the chaos will always be there when you’re ready to tune back into it. But don’t we all need a little break sometimes?
I’ll see you for the first day in pop culture history later this month. Until then, go watch something you love from childhood, put on a good record, go to the farmer’s market and get some fresh berries, make some orange juice popsicles, and touch some grass. See you in a couple weeks!