Weird takes on pop culture, served fresh daily.
I surrendered my diary to predictive text for 30 days, and honestly? The algorithm had a more cohesive sense of who I am than I do. Here's what my phone thinks my inner life looks like, word salad and all.
My grocery store's loyalty program has built a psychological profile of me that's more accurate than my therapist's notes after three years. So I surrendered to it for 30 days, buying every recommended item and claiming every perk. What follows is a diary of gas station sushi points, unsolicited hot sauce birthday gifts, and the dawning horror that a supermarket database knows me better than I know myself.
For seven days, I surrendered my entire emotional identity to whatever IVR voice, hold music, or robotic menu I encountered that morning. The results include one HR complaint, two concerned coworkers, and a final discharge summary nobody asked for.
I found seven unused Groupons for activities the 2021 version of me swore he'd love. So I did all of them — glassblowing, a haunted pub crawl, and worse — to find out who exactly I was trying to become.
I handed my voice assistant 30 days of unfettered access to my dating apps, playlists, and 2 AM search history, then asked it to grade my love life like a quarterly earnings call. The numbers were brutal. The ROI on my dignity was worse.
Every American road trip has a villain, and it's never the traffic — it's the brown sign promising a mystery cave 12 miles ahead. I ranked the roadside attractions of my childhood by how badly I wanted to stage a kidnapping to get out of them.
The DMV has never once asked me to 'please wait to be seated,' but make no mistake — I am being seated. I spent a season treating public sector waiting rooms like a food critic treats tasting menus, and the results are in.
Somebody had to hold the Daily Planet accountable, and apparently that somebody is me, a fictional retired J-school professor with a red pen and zero remaining stakes. Below, the papers of television and film get the peer review they never asked for.
Every 'In a world...' trailer, every museum exhibit about tidal pools, every safety spiel before the log flume — I'm now convinced it's the same man, and he is everywhere. Come with me as I build a tournament bracket to crown the true Unofficial Voice of America.
Every award show season, I get a little wistful that nobody hands out trophies for the stuff I'm actually good at. So I wrote acceptance speeches for the Emmys of Ordinary Existence, and yes, I thank my fifth grade teacher in all of them.
I treated my group chat like a fantasy football league, complete with a draft, scoring system, and mid-season power rankings. The commissioner's report is in, and frankly, half the roster is requesting a release.
I spent an entire billing cycle on hold with America's biggest utility companies, and I have notes. Mostly about the saxophone. Here is my track-by-track review of the year's most unwillingly listened-to album.
My therapist suggested journaling about my past. She did not specify that 'the past' included a full staff of imaginary companions I terminated without severance. So I did what any chronically online adult would do: I reviewed them. Formally. With stars.
Disaster movies require gravitas, sweat, and the ability to yell at a monitor. Sitcom actors require a laugh track and a coffee shop booth. I ran the numbers anyway, and some of these picks might actually save us.
Some people carry stress. I carry thirty years of regional car dealership jingles, fully intact, note for note. A board-certified nostalgia exam of the ads that will outlive us all.
I spent an evening logging into accounts I haven't touched since the Bush administration, and what I found was worse than I feared. A museum-quality exhibition of my worst impulses, rated on cringe, nostalgia, and job-interview lethality.
If a hurricane was bearing down on my zip code, which fictional news anchor would I actually listen to? I ranked them all, from 'immediately grabbing the go-bag' to 'this man once read a fire warning as a segue into sports.'
We ran corporate America's most beloved (and unhinged) restaurant mascots through a hypothetical compliance review, and the legal exposure is staggering. Ronald McDonald, we need to talk about your performance. And your shoes.
For thirty years, TV's cashiers, stockboys, and 'weird regulars' have absorbed our protagonists' chaos without thanks. We filed the formal complaint the Screen Extras Guild was too fictional to write.
Streaming killed the concept of a 'fake band,' because technically every one of them could drop a single at midnight. We ran the numbers on which fictional acts would actually generate revenue — and which ones would be a tax write-off.