starting my substack🙈

Hi everyone, welcome to my substack! I wanted to start a little column where I can post short essays and thoughts and share them, and I want to spend the summer working consistently on writing, and since I’m not great with self-imposed deadlines (or really any deadlines to be honest), I think this will be a fun way to do that. Most of the pieces on here will be some type of pop culture commentary or cultural deep dive and analysis, because, as I’m starting to realize these days, I love thinking about these things - culture, subcultures, references, niches, trends, archetypes, lore, etc - probably a lot more than normal people do. I love music and film, but there’s also something more to it - something about the dynamics of pop iconography and why people gravitate to things that fascinates me, and I’m excited to explore it here through a critical feminist lens.

I’d consider myself an expert on a lot of pretty random and niche aspects of pop culture, like the full discography of Ethel Cain’s unreleased soundcloud songs, every Showtime interview Ziwe has ever done, the full arc of Rachel Sennott’s and Ayo Edebiri’s rise to fame as comedy stars, or - my favorite topic lately - the nuances of how Charli xcx’s cosplay as an early 2000s pop megastar has won her cult status. Ask me about Michaela Coel and I would probably tell you her full life story and how it ultimately led to her writing the masterpiece “I May Destroy You.” Ask me about the red scare podcast girls and I’d give you my thoughts on the complicated politics of the ironic bimbo leftist. Ask me to name almost any song ever written by an indie sad girl and I feel pretty confident that I could.

I also have notoriously great opinions, which, as many of you know, landed me my first troll back in high school who - long story short - put up anonymous posters about me and threatened to pour hazardous pepper spray in the vents of my school because he didn’t like what I had to say about the unspoken groupthink and hero-worshiping nature of toxic masculinity on high school sports teams. So for anyone who misses that level of controversy and drama, I’m excited to say that the Fragile Femme is back, though in a pretty different form. The high school boys are safe for now… but I still love to be controversial :)

More articles later, but for now, I’ll leave you with a short list of my favorite things from the past month:

I Saw the TV Glow - I saw this with my brother Shane on a perfect summer night. Beautiful soft horror film about the quiet eeriness of self discovery. Beautiful colors and acting, and probably my favorite soundtrack ever, with songs from Caroline Polacheck, yeule, and Phoebe Bridgers - and Snail Mail even has a little acting cameo. (plus Helena Howard from my favorite show “The Wilds” plays a small but pivotal role.) Bridgette Lundy Paine’s monologue still haunts me: “I told myself, ‘this is crazy. What you’re doing is crazy.’ But another part of me knew that it wasn’t. That it was survival. And that I didn’t have much time.” I love this movie so much and I think everyone should go see it while it’s still in theaters - there is still time. :)

I Used to Be Funny - Rachel Sennott has done it again. I’ve been excited to see this since I read about its premiere at South by Southwest last May and it did not disappoint. This movie was so funny and sad and sweet, and it explores my favorite kind of humor - it tries to find the line of when it’s ok to make light of serious things, and as it leans into the irony of identity politics, it offers a nuanced and understated portrayal of a young woman and comedian living in the aftermath of trauma.

Chappell Roan - I’ve been pretty obsessed with Chappell lately, especially after seeing her live which was sooo good, but I do feel a little bit conflicted about her. On the surface, Chappell seems like an exciting, subversive visionary and burgeoning icon who understands the radical potential of camp, tackiness, and bad taste, but in a realer sense, she’s not all that different from Olivia Rodrigo. Her weirdness is very palatable to the mainstream, and that makes her feel a little bit less cool to me. Maybe I’ll write more on this later.

Pure Color - To be honest I don’t read very much even though I (maybe) might want to be an English major, but I bought Sheila Heti’s newest book recently after reading “How Should a Person Be” last summer. I think her auto fiction style is interesting because it’s maybe something that I would want to do as a writer. So far I’m liking the book - maybe I’ll keep everyone updated if I have anything interesting to say about it.

Ethel Cain - I won’t say too much because I probably will want to do a deep dive on her at some point, but I saw Ethel live in Los Angeles this weekend and oh my god I will never be the same again. It was truly an ethereal, transcendental experience and I keep trying to hold onto every memory of it. I think she might just be my favorite person ever.

i can by Esha Tewari - I’ve been listening to this song on loop while writing this, and it really captures that melancholy summer essence that I love, so I thought I’d share it here. See you in the next post :)