THREE YEARS OF HUNG UP

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Friday marks three years since I sat at my little breakfast table, pressed “send tweet,” and effectively started this newsletter. I was so anxious about whether it would be good, or whether anyone would want to read it — I closed my laptop and walked down the street to get a coffee because thinking about who would read my tweets and decide “actually more of her, please” was too overwhelming. But I wish I could mentally transmit a message back to that version of myself: You will be fine, this will be fun, don’t buy that white sofa, and this is the best decision you’ll ever make.

It’s not always easy: being on the hook for two (ish) newsletters a week is daunting. I need a divorced man tantrum or a bad-but-addicting Netflix reality show to give me something to write about. Daily, it feels like, I sit at my computer and go through a dozen variations of Is this funny? Am I good at writing about anything other than Succession? How many more blogs can I wring from Martin Scorsese not wearing his glasses? But writing this newsletter is the greatest job I’ve ever had, even though my boss¹ is frequently taciturn, never on time, and a Leo. I live to talk about this stuff — Barbie, Club Chalamet, Hannah Bronfman’s bunker apartment, Passages, those heels that are the bane of my existence, the way Tom Cruise tells Jamie Foxx to buy his mother flowers, Usher — and I get to do it for an audience that’s as engaged and observant and funny (sometimes funnier! Not to gas yall up) as I am.

I spoke to a few NYU classes² last month and each time someone asked the difference between watching something for work and watching something for fun. (My therapist even asks me this, but in a more work-life balance way.) I don’t have a good answer! I want to watch everything and read everything and listen to everything, because I’m obsessive and insatiable, because there’s always a chance there will be something odd or unbelievable or hilarious or gratifying for me to come back here and report to you. 

If you read this newsletter and like it, if you read this newsletter and don’t like (true hater energy, I respect it), if you send it to your friends or share it with your family (dads who love Greta Gerwig and hate Drake really do hold me down): thank you! If you like a post, or comment on a post, or share it online: thank you! If you believe that the things right here, in this newsletter, are worth paying for: thank you, slightly more than those other people, like, thank you the most.

Read Max proprietor Max Read put it best: “I’ve been in positions where millions of people were reading my writing every month (caveat about internet metrics: “millions” of “people” were “reading”), and it’s never been as exciting or creatively satisfying as writing to a much smaller number of much more engaged readers, readers who ‘get it’ and want to enable the production of a publication that also ‘gets it.’” And to quote my favorite Oscar acceptance speech of all time: “It’s my privilege. Thank you.” 

So now it’s time to take accounts: Along with my undying love and gratitude, here’s what you got for your $5 a month this year, and what you’ll get more of next year. And if you aren’t on the paid list yet but want in? Girrrrrrl do I have a link for you:

Letterboxd Equivalent

What I Watched in October
What I Watched in September
What I Watched in August

Succession Power Rankings

401: “Where’s All Your Kids, Uncle Logan?”
402: “You’re Not Serious People” 
403: “The Wedding Grinch”
404: “Coronation Demolition Derby”
405: “Hanna-Barbera Business School”
406: “Human Chernobyl” 
407: “The Great Toxification”
408: “I Don’t Think of Things Such As That”
409: “Glad-handing the Sad Faces”
410: “The End”

Season four in review: “Are There Any Positives to the Nightmare We’ve Shared?”
Seven Ways to End Succession
Kendall’s Name Was on a Piece of Paper

The Adventures and Misadventures of Taylor Swift

The Tree Paine Fan’s Guide to the Eras Tour Documentary
Our Long National Nightmare is Over: Taylor Swift and Matty Healy Broke Up
Matty Healy’s Non-Apology Non-Tour
Need To Go Back to Not Knowing Who Matty Healy Is
Not Sure If You’ve Heard But Karma Is That Girl, Like
Taylor Swift is Headlining the Sophie Turner-Joe Jonas Divorce
Who Should Taylor Swift Date Next? (Evergreen, if we’re being honest!)

There aren’t really any “reviews” on Hung Up, but these are review-ish

Oppenheimer
Passages
Babylon
Elvis
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour
The Bear Season 2
Love is Blind Season 5
Drake/For All The Dogs

Line Readings

Girls
Barbie
Collateral

Personal Faves

Supreme Court Catching Flights Not Feelings

The Weeknd's Top 9 Humiliating Defenses of The Idol

If You See Me Dancing With Usher That’s Between Me And Usher

Gwyneth Should Meet The Aliens

An Exhaustive Timeline of Gigi Hadid and Leo DiCaprio Appearing Together in the Same Sentence (And Not Many Other Places)

1. Me, obviously.

2. I believe children are the future! And/or I would love to speak to your class, if you teach one!