I love the "What I Read" pieces in The Atlantic, in which well-known writers and bloggers detail their media consumption diets. Emily Nussbaum, Sasha Frere-Jones, Nate Silver, The Fug Girls. Or, as the intro to each segment puts it: How do people deal with the torrent of information pouring down on us all? What sources can't they live without? We regularly reach out to prominent figures in media, entertainment, politics, the arts, and the literary world to hear their answers.
Now, I am NO PROMINENT FIGURE IN MEDIA. But a reader asked me to do this the other day, and today, having spent the last five days writing the first third of the Scandals book, I need to something, anything, that doesn't involve narrativizing the crappy way female stars from the '20s were treated by the press. Either you're like me and like to know the habits of people whose writing you consume, or clicking away, which, totally okay! But I'd love to read your own "What I Read" pieces: let's wrest this feature away from the well-read and the important. Or just talk about it in the comments.
And so, What I Read:
I wake up, roll over like a lazy person, and scroll through my phone. I live in PST, which means that I'll often have a solid amount of email coming in from those of you on the East Coast. But this first move through email, Twitter, and Facebook is just to get my bearings, make sure no giant gossip story has broken, etc. As I get ready for the day, I keep NPR from Seattle (KUOW) streaming on my phone. One of the things I've always loved about NPR is how difficult it makes it to only consume the stories that interest you -- I find out about international news, stories of veterans, weird local stuff from Northeastern Washington State, play-by-plays of the latest Supreme Court battles, all because it's in the stream. I spend so much of the day reading only what interests me, so it's good to listen to things that don't, at least ostensibly, grab my interest.
These days, I go to my office to start the work day. If I'm teaching that day, I'll have a bunch of prep to sandwich between my media consumption, but as anyone who teaches media studies can tell you, the line between "prep" and "just reading the entire internet" is a fine line. This semester, I'm teaching a class in Gender/Sexuality/Media, so I'm constantly finding classroom fodder in my daily explorations.
I wish I was a person who opened her browser and read through the New York Times and checked a bunch of unique websites. Instead, I let Twitter and Facebook tell me what's important. I follow a relatively small amount of people on Twitter (around 325) because I want to be able to follow narratives, conversations, and keep up with things that people I admire link to. Some people, like Ray Pride at Movie City News, are great retweeters, even of stuff that doesn't necessarily jive with my own political/cultural views, so people like him are essential to my Twitter stream. I follow a lot of writers and critics, which keeps me abreast of conversations happening in the critical realm in terms of contemporary media, as well as industry publications (Hollywood Reporter, Variety) and publications that cover celebrity (Us Weekly's Twitter feed is preposterous and hilarious; Vanity Fair has a curious tone that frequently amuses).
And on both Facebook and Twitter, I'm connected to dozens of media studies academics, whose investment in television, celebrity, and the industry at large also helps keep me current. Chris Becker maintains the spectacular "News for TV Majors" feed, which helps cull the best/most compelling industry news from the chaff.
I always spend time on The Hairpin, The Awl, Vulture, Lainey Gossip, and Grantland. I often end up on Fug Girls, the New Yorker blog, The Atlantic, The Billfold, and Dear Television. I'll almost always read a review posted by Nussbaum (The New Yorker), Alan Sepinwall (Hit Fix), Matt Zoller Seitz (New York), Andy Greenwald (Grantland), or Dana Stevens (Slate). I read everything written by Molly Lambert (Grantland; although I admit I don't read her music chart stuff), Mallory Ortberg (all over, but mostly The Hairpin, The Gloss, Gawker), Jane Hu (The Awl), Maria Bustillos (all over), Lindy West (Jezebel) and Linda Holmes (NPR). I love it when Edith Zimmerman, editor of The Hairpin, writes long form pieces for other places. I love everything Nicole Cliffe, books editor for The Hairpin, writes about her baby, horses, dogs, and life in general. Looking at that list, WOW, I like lady writers.
Sometimes I'm looking for things to post to the Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style Facebook page, but more often than not, those links just fall in my lap. But again, I rarely just go to one of these sites and look for interesting things to read -- I'm almost always guided there by a link on FB or Twitter.
I don't spend much time on sites explicitly devoted to gossip, save Lainey Gossip. On Lainey, I only read the pieces about stars in which I am in some way invested or that are just amazing gossip (the recent photos of Lindsay Vonn and Tiger Woods, for example). I never read the pieces by Sarah or the advice columns. I go to People.com or UsWeekly.com only for breaking celebrity news (what an amazing phrase). I periodically read Fug Girls for the commentary and during Mad Men season, I DEVOUR the Tom & Lorenzo fashion recaps. All of this reading is generally mashed in between class prep, actually teaching classes, meeting with students (at a school like Whitman, there's a constant stream of students who just want to hang out and talk about anything and everything), reading student blog posts, and doing my own work.
But I also read long things! I'm a diehard "Pocket" user, and when something's long, I'll put it in there for safe keeping. I usually read my Pocketed stuff over lunch or after dinner with a gin and tonic. I get an email with "The Best of Longreads" every week, and there's always one or two things on that list that surprises me -- and comes from places on the internet I don't usually frequent. I read The New Yorker every week while on the spin bike (stop making fun of me) -- never cover to cover, but at least two-three of the long form pieces, and always the reviews. I also subscribe to GQ, Vanity Fair, and Cook's Illustrated. Big goal for the coming year = the Sunday New York Times.
I read real-life books, usually given to me my my mother, who reads everything, or my brother, who reads everything else and, given his gig at n+1, gets tons of galleys in the mail. I'm part of a Facebook book club (stop laughing again) with a bunch of media studies kids, and we read something topical every month -- Gone Girl, for example, or last summer, Fifty Shades of Grey. I'm also constantly (re)reading the assigned reading for my classes, which adds up to a lot when you're teaching three classes. The only academic journal I seek out in its entirety = Celebrity Studies. I try to find new star/celebrity scholarship, but it's not like there's a Twitter account for that...it's mostly word of mouth, or things I hear about at conferences. (My latest acquisition: Paul McDonald's excellent new book on the industry of Hollywood Stardom).
As for blogs, I have an elaborate (soon to be defunct) Google Reader like everyone else, although I only read about 1/16 of what I have collecting there. I used to follow a bunch of fashion/outfit blogs, but ever since my favorite (What Would a Nerd Wear) went into retirement, I just can't bring myself to look at the over-belting. I read the always amusing Yoonanimous, I get ideas from Cup of Jo and try really hard not to be annoyed by over-mommy-ness. I read the proto-scholarship blog Antenna, especially when there's a piece written by one of my friends. I used to read a bunch of media studies blogs, but the rise of Twitter has really decreased the frequency with which most people post. I still read everything on JustTV (Jason Mittell), Judgmental Observer (Amanda Ann Klein), Planned Obsolescence (Kathleen Fitzpatrick), and Johnny Case in Wonderland (the head of my department, Robert Sickels).
The only place I read the comments = The Awl and The Hairpin, and not just because I write pieces for them. If you've hung out in the comments section of either, you understand.
While reading all of these things, I'm constantly listening to music. I used to have a 100-disc changer (thanks for the high school graduation present, Dad!) and would listen to the same things over and over again. Now I have Spotify for that. I'll listen to an album on repeat for a few days, then change to another album.
I listen to podcasts when I'm cleaning, when I'm cooking, when I'm driving long distances, and when I'm lifting weights. I'm a devoted consumer of Slate's Cultural Gabfest and Chris Ryan/Andy Greenwald on The Hollywood Prospectus. I listen to about half of the episodes of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. I listen to Grantland's Reality Friday, even though I don't watch the shows, because they're just so hilarious at talking about reality television in general. I'm still giving the all-female Grantland podcast, Girls with Hoodies, a chance. I listen to Marc Maron's WTF when there's someone I like -- same for Fresh Air and The Nerdist.
I only watch television and movies at night. I work all day, go work out, come back and do a bit more work with dinner mixed in, and then around 8:30, work goes off and television goes on. Since becoming a college professor and a real adult and having cable and DVR, my consumption patterns have changed, which is to say, I watch shows on the actual television like a grown-up instead of illegally downloading and watching on my tiny computer screen. This year I'm watching/have watched The Americans, Nashville, Scandal, The New Girl, Parks & Rec, Boardwalk Empire, The Hour, Girls, The Good Wife, Top of the Lake, and Justified. I will soon be watching Mad Men and Game of Thrones. The stuff that I can watch via Hulu Plus on the bike/while running on the treadmill, I often watch that way. I also watch a ton of movies via Netflix and Amazon Prime (via Apple TV). I'll try any show once. Our multiplex in Walla Walla is very mainstream, but when there's something worth seeing, I LOVE going to the actual movie theater.
WHEW. That's a lot of media, a lot of reading, a lot of consuming. But I guess that's why I'm a media studies professor, yes? A recent Onion headline read "Find the Thing You're Most Passionate About Then Do It On Nights and Weekends For the Rest of Your Life." For better or (very rarely) worse, the line between what I do during the day and what I do on nights and weekends is permanently blurred.