Cultism has evolved throughout history in the bacterial space between symbiosis and parasitism. It is not an extraterrestrial phenomena, but always contingent on the boundaries of the cultural present. Whatever the dominant culture deems to be heretical or subversive, in any given age, is the place where cultism congeals. The location of the fringe constantly… Continue reading failure and the fast track to cult success
Category: blog
New Mexico, May 2018
powerviolence, or how to play punk with a hammer
A few years ago I wrote an essay about the history of powerviolence, an obscure sub-subgenre of punk rock that originated on the West Coast but has since spread to all corners of the world. It’s part of “The Punk Reader: Research Transmissions from the Local and the Global,” an edited collection published in November… Continue reading powerviolence, or how to play punk with a hammer
Outside Art: Alok Vaid-Menon in Chicago (Quiet Lunch)
My newest “Outside Art” column is up @ Quiet Lunch, looking at Alok Vaid-Menon’s recent performance in Chicago.
New article for the Center for Digital Ethics & Policy
I’ve got a new article posted at the Center for Digital Ethics & Policy: “Facebook is a media company, but what’s a media company?” When Facebook says that it’s a tech company and not a media company, a silent shudder echoes across the internet. It’s like the reaction that, say, Morton Salt would get if… Continue reading New article for the Center for Digital Ethics & Policy
Cult Cinema Bibliography
When I completed grad school in 2015, I was awarded a Media Studies Award from Oxford Bibliographies (Oxford University Press) for my work in cult cinema. After nearly three years (because academic publishing moves at a glacial pace), Oxford finally posted my bibliography for cult cinema. Here’s the intro: Though relatively young in the world… Continue reading Cult Cinema Bibliography
New Column for Quiet Lunch
I have a new column for Quiet Lunch, “Outside Art.” My first entry is on Chicago’s Intuit Museum of Outsider Art. Compared to the usual culture-media pipeline, I’m not writing this series from New York City or L.A., but from my home city of Chicago. With this series on outside art, I’ll continue exploring the… Continue reading New Column for Quiet Lunch
Chicago, voiced by Bill Kurtis
Hey! Check out this promotional video I scripted for World Business Chicago. Voiceover by Bill Kurtis.
13 newsletters for upping your media IQ
Like any other industry, media is an amalgamation; a pulsating admixture of anxiety, ideology, cacophony and pure green envy. The products churned out by the Media Machine—everything from Twitter posts and Instagram stories to long-form features and investigative reports—are often the end result of thousands of hours of labor and trillions of dollars of research,… Continue reading 13 newsletters for upping your media IQ
Financial advice for MEL Magazine
Got another call from MEL Magazine based on some of the first-person narratives I provided last year regarding how my wife and I worked our way out of $100,000 in student debt. The writer, Adam Elder, asked for my contribution to “The Normal Person’s Guide to New Year’s Resolutions: Spending Less and Saving More.”
ben van loon 