Advice Column, Volume I

Guess what? Advice columns are stupid, but Holy Guac, people of my ilk can’t seem to get enough of them.  There are some decent ones of course — Dear Sugar, written by Cheryl Strayed had its prime in The Rumpus a couple years ago (but now Strayed is hella overplayed, like Dark Horse feat. Juicy J, R.I.P. Fall 2k13) and Ask Polly by Heather Havrilesky in The Awl, which has been on a roll recently, if you’re into long reads about abusive boyfriends which Polly usually responds with some variation of, “Dump that jockstrap and get yours, honey.”  My actual-no-playin’ favorite recent advice venture is the revitalization of Molly McAleer’s Plz Advise.  Sister to sister straight talk is a much beloved niche genre.  Helpful/entertaining to a point.  But with my rocky self-esteem and unimpressive amassed life experience, we all know this sister is Someone Who Has Absolutely No Business Doling Out Advice.  So for Volume One of Advice Column, I’m going to just give you some recommendations of people who are hustlin’ and writing and making good things for you to absorb.

This is absolutely not “Books to Read Before You Zzzzzz Bored Air Jerk-off Gesture.”  No one around here has time for that kind of pleasure reading!  Go ask some undateable alt bro who thinks he’s Bukowski or some drama queen who thinks she’s Franny Glass (oh, swerve; that’s me, though) if you want a list with people like D.F. Wallace and Bolaño.  These are people you have time for. (This is coming from the me who uses NYMag as her premier source of news.)  These are mostly irreverent Internet writers.  Punks and freelancers.  Comedians who will make you laugh until you spit-take your green tea all over whoever is sitting across from you at the library second floor front tables (those were prime spots in their day; which one of you snooze-dogs made it such an uncool zone this year?).  Entirely extracurricular and bold and refreshing voices that had some sort of impact on me in the last four years.  And, gasp, they’re almost all ladies!

— Everything I’ve ever wanted to whisper in your ear as I push the sweaty baby hairs off your forehead was already tweeted by @middtwitt a couple years ago by Maya Goldberg-Safir ’12 and Patrick D’Arcy ’12.

— Kate Carraway’s Girl News, a column she wrote for Vice (ugh, I know) somewhere around 2011.

— Molly McAleer used to be the shizz on the Internet.

— The Awl/The Hairpin/etc. a good interconnected planetary system on the Internets.

— Molly Lambert, who writes for Grantland, is a dreamboat, I want to be her when I grow up.

— Sloane Crosley and her two books of essays, “I Was Told There’d Be Cake” and “How Did You Get This Number.”

— Julianne Smolinski wrote a piece about getting hair extensions in Los Angeles that kills me.

— Mallory Ortberg, not entirely insufferable nerd at The Toast.

— Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, star comediennes and writers of the show Broad City, total treats.

— Cartoonists Julia Wertz and Esther Werdiger.

— Tech journalist Jenna Wortham and general cool tech lady Aminatou Sow.

— Jenny Slate, Morgan Murphy, Jessica Williams and Sasheer Zamata are funny as hell.

Nota bene: everything above is my specific taste.  This is my column, so I get to say what’s cool and what’s not and “joke around.”  However, the idea that you can only be a certain kind of cool if you keep up with certain realms of cultural production is stupid and fake science and perpetuated by those infuriating auras emitted by WRMC freaks, Lit Studies Majors and G.I.S. students.  And newspaper editors, tailgaters, the “cool, off-campus” Febs, the secret society cokewhores.  The improv kids.  The tennis team.  The entire Dance Department.  You know what look I mean.  The look that says, “You don’t even know.”  It’s true!  We don’t!  Tell us!  Don’t belittle us!  It continues to amaze me that we can spend all day talking about how to be humanists, but fail to give someone our attention because they don’t wear interesting sweaters or don’t have any Pavement on their iPod or don’t play golf or don’t know how Haitians dance.  Like, what?  Fun fact: if you aren’t 16 years old and a Youtube sensation, you aren’t cool and missed your chance long ago.  We’re all a bunch of losers.  It’s ok.  Here for you, babe.