Why I'm Still Better at Culture Than You

Three screeds for the discriminating reader.

I know what you’re thinking:

Hey, Glenn — or should I say “Glenn Something” — what’s with all the stuff about politics lately? I signed up for nuanced ass takes about the culture, like why Twilight is better than Romeo and Juliet, and why you think half the country “should be paved over to make room for something more useful, like an NFT farm or […] an app where you can make an Obamacare appointment.” I’m fine with an article about fish sex here or there, but when you start trash-talking the architects of the Iraq War, you’ve crossed a line. I’m 6’2” btw.

Well, I see you. I hear you. I understand that you are a body in a space with a lived experience. And I want to exploit your grievances for money. Ahem.

A month ago, I turned on paid subscriptions for the newsletter. Until now, I haven’t paywalled any articles. I don’t feel very guilty about this, since paid subscribers also receive access to the subscriber chat on the Substack app and can participate in monthly video calls with yours truly, the first of which is coming up in about a week. But if I was strictly keeping my word, I’d have put at least something behind the paywall by now. I probably should have done this with one of my 5,000-word essays about the pathologies of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, but I can’t stand to spend that much time writing something important and then severely limit the number of people who will ever get the chance to read it.

Still, I have to put something behind the paywall, and I have to meet the people’s demand for more turgid pop cultural garbage. So, I’ve decided to write yet another culture article for paid subscribers only. I’ll probably put more substantive content behind the paywall in the near future, but I have to ease into it. Culture is very easy for me to write about — probably because I don’t know anything about it — and I don’t care as much about proselytizing my disdain for Young Sheldon and Riverdale as I do about insulting the likes of Doug Feith, Thomas Friedman, and Norman Podhoretz.

If you’re a paid subscriber, then below, you’ll find my review of:

• Wolfboy, the 1984 homoerotic drama starring a 19-year-old Keanu Reeves.

• Mayim’s Vegan Table, a cookbook for people who don’t know what vegetables are by Big Bang Theory actress Mayim Bialik and anti-vax pediatrician Dr. Jay Gordon.

• A Complete Unknown, the new Bob Dylan biopic, and why it renders Dylan a failed Randian hero.

And if you’re not a paid subscriber, then either pony up or get out, you bum.

Keanu Reeves Got His Start in a Homoerotic Wolf Play 40 Years Ago

Wolfboy according to Grok AI.