Music Genres in the 1990s
They were playing 1980s “hair metal” at the coffee shop recently: bands like Guns ‘n Roses and Mötley Crüe. Then all of a sudden, I heard the opening riffs of Nirvana’s “About a Girl”....
Category: Nonfiction
Essays, articles and other works of nonfiction
The Viking Origins of “They/Them”
Pronouns have really come into the spotlight in recent years. It’s now fairly common for people to put “he/him”, “she/her”, or “they/them” in their social media profiles and email signatures. This is a way...
Language is the Truest Form of Democracy
Language is the truest form of democracy. No one can completely control it. One of the things (and there are many) that makes “Nineteen Eighty-Four” so scary is the invention of Newspeak, eliminating words...
Support Me on Patreon
If, like me, you watch a lot of YouTubers, you may be familiar with Patreon. This is a website that allows you to financially support your favorite artists and content creators. This allows artists...
Big Sports and the Cable TV Bubble
In economics, a “bubble” occurs when when something gets wildly overvalued. Its value increases to ridiculous amounts, until people realize what’s going on. Then the bubble bursts. This has happened many times throughout history,...
The People’s Almanac and Book of Lists
I’ve always been a big fan of trivia and random facts, as the eclectic nature of this blog will attest. Nowadays I get most of my random trivia from the Internet, sites like Cracked...
The Problem with Prequels
We live in an age of fictional universes. It’s no longer cool to write a self-contained story. Instead we like to geek out at extended franchises, like the Star Wars or Marvel universes. Even...
The Great Videos of “The Great War”
There was a time in the early 2000s where history documentaries were few and far between. The History Channel, once a haven for history buffs, moved to showing reality shows. For a while, there...
The Formulaic Comforts of HGTV
I grew up on a steady diet of This Old House, but since that’s only on every so often, I settle instead on HGTV. I watch it on the treadmill at the gym, and...
The Gamification of Dating Apps
Dating sucks. While being in a relationship can be one of the most rewarding experiences in life, the dating game can be frustrating and heartbreaking. Just finding a prospective date can be a major...
