Harron Walker's New Essay Collection, ‘Aggregated Discontent,' Makes Reading About Media Fun Again
There's a lot to dislike about the current state of social media, but Harron Walker's singular voice has always made one good case for staying online. Now, Walker is reexamining her career as a digital media writer (and so much more) in Aggregated Discontent: Confessions of the Last Normal Woman (Penguin Random House), an essay collection that covers everything from the freelance hustle to the state of trans healthcare in the US with a dryly confessional, comedic voice guaranteed to make you burst out laughing at your desk.
Vogue recently spoke to Walker about letting Tom Wolfe guide her expectations of present-day digital media, her favorite blog she's ever written, the ghostly specter of the girlboss, and attempting to resist universalizing in her writing. Read the interview here.
Vogue: Do you have a favorite media book or memoir?
Harron Walker: There's this anthology of New Journalism from the late '60s to the '70s or so that Tom Wolfe edited, and it has work by Hunter S. Thompson and Joan Didion and a bunch of other people. The introduction is my favorite; it's three stitched-together pieces of writing by Tom Wolfe that he wrote and sort of reworked into one long, 75-page essay that I always return to because it's helped clarify so much about present-day media, and how all these things that I thought were contemporary are actually deeply rooted within history.
He describes this thing where every good reporter in media spends a year proving himself, and his reward for being the best reporter at the paper is to get promoted. He leaves the paper, he goes out of the building, he reports all the news, he gets all the scoops, he talks to everyone, and his reward for all that is to get promoted to being a columnist, and then he never leaves the office again. He spends his first year as a columnist geting all his thoughts out and writing all these brilliant pieces and op-eds and columns, and after a year of that, he has nothing left, so he'll write about things he read in other newspapers or things he saw on TV. So many columnists who I find horrible are just like, 'Here's something I saw a 19-year-old say on Twitter, and their neopronouns made me confused and angry.' Like, why are you here? You two should never be in the same room, and one of you needs to leave. The essay just clarifies that this thing has always been an issue, it's just a matter of changing technology.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
42 minutes ago
- Associated Press
This Date in Baseball - Ken Griffey Jr. retires and Clayton Kershaw records his 2,000 career K
June 2 1928 -- Les Bell of the Boston Braves hit three home runs and a triple at Braves Field, but the Cincinnati Reds came away with a 20-12 triumph. 1928 -- The Philadelphia Phillies defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 2-1. All the runs came from three pinch-hit home runs. 1941 -- Lou Gehrig died in New York at age 37. 1949 -- The Philadelphia Phillies hit five homers in the eighth inning against the Cincinnati Reds. Andy Seminick hit two and Del Ennis, Willie Jones, and Schoolboy Rowe hit one apiece. Seminick had homered earlier in the game. 1959 -- The Baltimore Orioles-Chicago White Sox game at Comiskey Park was delayed for nearly half an hour as a swarm of gnats overcame the field. Groundskeepers tried using bug sprays and torches, but the gnats wouldn't budge. A postgame fireworks display was brought in from center field and a smoke bomb was attached to the framework. The gnats left and the Orioles defeated the White Sox, 3-2. 1990 -- Randy Johnson pitched the first no-hitter in the Seattle Mariners' history as he beat the Detroit Tigers 2-0. The 6-foot-10 left-hander, walked six and struck out eight while pitching the first no-hitter at the Kingdome, which opened for baseball in 1977. 1996 -- Houston starter Darryl Kile tied the modern major league record by hitting four batters in a 2-0 loss at St. Louis, and the first to do it in the NL since Moe Drabowsky in 1957. 2000 -- Tampa Bay's Fred McGriff hit his 400th career home run, but the Devil Rays lost to the Mets 5-3. 2000 -- Rick Aguilera of the Chicago Cubs became the 13th pitcher with 300 saves in a 2-0 win over Detroit. Aguilera reached the mark in 614 career appearances, third quickest. 2002 -- Philadelphia pitcher Robert Person drove in seven runs with a grand slam and a three-run homer in an 18-3 win over Montreal. Person had just come off the disabled list and collected his first win of the season. 2005 -- Kansas City completed a sweep of the New York Yankees with a 5-2 victory. The Royals, who have the worst record and second-lowest payroll in the major leagues, finished their first three-game sweep of the Yankees at home in 15 years. 2009 -- Dan Uggla of the Marlins became the fastest second baseman to 100 homers in Florida's 10-3 win over Milwaukee. Uggla's two-run shot in the bottom of the second came in his 502nd game as a second baseman, beating Alfonso Soriano to 100 by 34 games. 2010 — Ken Griffey Jr. announces his retirement after 22 seasons in the major leagues. Hitting only .184 in part-time duty for the Mariners, he retires with 630 career home runs and six seasons of 40 or more homers. Most of his career was spent with Seattle and the Cincinnati Reds. 2010 -- Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers lost his bid for a perfect game with two outs in the ninth inning on a call that first base umpire Jim Joyce later admitted he blew. First baseman Miguel Cabrera cleanly fielded Jason Donald's grounder to his right and made an accurate throw to Galarraga covering the bag. The ball was there in time, and all of Comerica Park was ready to celebrate the 3-0 win over Cleveland, until Joyce emphatically signaled safe. 2011 -- Aubrey Huff hit three home runs and matched his career best with six RBIs and the San Francisco Giants posted a 12-7 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. Huff hit two-run homers in the fourth and ninth and a solo shot in the seventh. 2015 — In a memorable major league debut, Rangers 3B Joey Gallo hits a two-run homer in his second at-bat on the way to collecting 3 hits and 4 RBIs in leading Texas to a 15-2 beating of the White Sox. 2017 — Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers records his 2,000 career strikeout. 2018 — Jacob deGrom matches a career high set just two weeks earlier by racking up 13 strikeouts in 7 innings in a start against the Cubs. _____
TechCrunch
43 minutes ago
- TechCrunch
TC Sessions: AI Trivia Countdown — score big on tickets
TechCrunch Sessions: AI hits UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall on June 5 — and today's your shot at AI trivia glory and two tickets for the price of one. Answer a few brain-busting questions on artificial intelligence, and if you ace it, you might just find a special promo code waiting in your inbox. Every day brings new questions — so don't get discouraged if you don't know today's answers. But don't wait too long. The last day of Countdown AI Trivia is June 4. Don't miss your chance to win big and be part of the AI action this Thursday. Whether you know which AI model kicked off the large language model revolution or what year OpenAI launched ChatGPT, this is your time to shine. How it works Step 1: Answer the AI trivia questions on this form Step 2: Watch your inbox for the special code if you win Step 3: Use the code to claim your 2-for-1 ticket deal Techcrunch event Save now through June 4 for TechCrunch Sessions: AI Save $300 on your ticket to TC Sessions: AI—and get 50% off a second. Hear from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Khosla Ventures, and more during a full day of expert insights, hands-on workshops, and high-impact networking. These low-rate deals disappear when the doors open on June 5. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | REGISTER NOW Show off your AI knowledge in this quick trivia round.
CBS News
an hour ago
- CBS News
Bill Clinton and James Patterson on their new thriller, "The First Gentleman"
Seems that there is always a lot going on behind the walls of the White House where truth can often be stranger than fiction. But fiction can be pretty compelling, too. In the new novel "The First Gentleman" (to be published June 2 by Little, Brown & Co.), the commander in chief is a woman, and her husband is accused of murder. It's the third collaboration from best-selling author James Patterson and his co-writer, President Bill Clinton. Little, Brown & Co. Was there a scenario in the book that Patterson couldn't have written without Clinton's help? "Oh, I couldn't have done any of it without him," Patterson said. "I would have been lost. But the other thing, you know, look, I mean, he's the expert on the first gentleman. You know, he was almost a first gentleman!" "Yeah, I thought about it for years. And it's the only political job I ever wanted and I didn't get!" Clinton smiled. "'Cause I really thought Hillary should be president." Clinton would have been the very first first gentleman had his wife, Hillary, won the 2016 election. And he says back then he did a lot of thinking about what his role would be as a presidential spouse: "How could I do this job in a way that I would be on-call to help if she needed me, but I wouldn't get in the way?" "That's the way I feel about this relationship: How can I help without getting in the way?" Patterson said. "I'm kind of the first gentleman of our [relationship]!" "If you believe that, I got some land in Arizona I want to show you!" Clinton laughed. And sometimes, their made-up White House looks almost like real life. In the book, the president keeps working through an agonizing personal crisis. During his 1999 impeachment proceedings, President Clinton kept working, too, with some of the very people who were trying to kick him out of the White House. "And they were amazed by it," he said. "They'd come and do business with me, [and] as far as they knew, I couldn't remember what was going on. And we would try to hammer out deals." In the midst of impeachment? "Because that's what I got hired to do," Clinton said. "The American people don't pay you to have personal feelings. They pay you to deliver for them." Clinton and Patterson have been delivering since 2018, with their first book about a president gone missing, and in 2021 their second about the president's daughter getting kidnapped. Both were bestsellers. But for them, it's really not all about work. Asked how their relationship has evolved over their three books together, Clinton replied, "We've played a lot more golf." Patterson said, "He's been president more times, but I have more holes-in-one." "Oh God. Well, I have one; he has nine," said Clinton. "How many Americans have nine holes-in-one?" "I know. That's sick," Patterson said. "Remember I'm a fiction writer." "Makes the craziness stop for a little while" I asked, "There's so much political drama in the world today, real-life political drama. Do you think that there's an appetite for political thrillers, for fictional political thrillers?" Patterson said, "I think so, 100%. I mean, one of the nice things here is you escape, but you don't totally escape reality. It's like, 'Yeah, I love this. I can't put it down.' Or 'I keep reading,' or in some cases to me what's even better, which is you don't want it to end. "I think it's useful, and 'cause so many people are wandering around, they go, 'Oh my God, oh my God, please make it stop'? This makes it stop for a little while, makes the craziness stop for a little while for people." Clinton said, "One reason I hope there's an appetite is… I hope that people will still believe in our democratic system enough to stick with it and keep pushing to make it work." During the summer, Patterson lives at his home on the Hudson River; the president is about five miles away. Former President Bill Clinton and writer James Patterson, with correspondent Tracy Smith. CBS News Asked what they may have learned about each other during the writing process, Patterson offered, "the notion … of not worrying about stuff that we can't do anything about. And if we can do something about it, try to do it." Their new book comes out tomorrow and they hope it's another bestseller. But if you spend any time at all with Patterson and Clinton, you get the sense that their partnership is about something money can't buy. I asked, "Back when you wrote your first book together, The New York Times said that the two of you 'complete each other in the Jerry Maguire sense.'" "Well, we kinda do," Patterson said. "This has been driving me for months now, which is: my time here is short. What can I do most beautifully? And in this case, doing another book with my friend is a beautiful thing to do." READ AN EXCERPT: "The First Gentleman" by Bill Clinton and James Patterson WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with Bill Clinton and James Patterson For more info: Story produced by John D'Amelio. Editor: Jason Schmidt.
