"The Devil Wears Prada, but directed by The Frankfurt School." Writer, editor, and co-host of the
@culturejourno
podcast. Priors: VICE, The FADER, blogs.
Friends! My schedule has opened up, and i'm looking for part-time or contract editing work.
If you need help with a short-term project, someone to fill in during parental leave, or ongoing support, let me know! I'm at emfriedlander at gmail
I once ended up at a birthday dinner that Mac Miller was at too. There were about 20 people there. Mac left early, and then we found out that on his way out he had quietly footed the bill for everyone.
A perfect example of how corporate media brain is completely out of touch with the worlds + audiences they are supposed to serve. Devastated that this the fate of the most influential music publication in the world. Sending love to the Pitchfork staff.
If you've ever wondered why there are a bunch of restaurants on delivery sites with names like F*cking Good Pizza, Send Noods, and Big Hotdog Energy, I spent the past few months writing a story for you
Also in light of today's news, me and a couple of friends just created a Discord group for music journos + artists who care about the future of music journalism and want to have a place to talk music, possible solutions, etc. DM if interested.
A perfect example of how corporate media brain is completely out of touch with the worlds + audiences they are supposed to serve. Devastated that this the fate of the most influential music publication in the world. Sending love to the Pitchfork staff.
If you've ever sat in a room where these lists are made you know they're less a rendering of what ppl on staff actually think than a very carefully constructed branding/traffic exercise based on projecting an ideal reader's taste...problem is, every pub's going after the same ppl
The reason music journalism is in a crisis is that editors greenlight articles that have clearly not been fact-checked, make ominous-sounding claims about unnamed entities, skimp on attribution, and imply everyone's getting paid by labels to be woke
18 months ago, I started looking into a self-described “cult” that was recruiting people on social media, mostly from independent music and Weird Facebook circles. A lot happened. Here is my story with
@Joy__Crane
.
Hi. I'm at the
@outline
now! Looking for op-eds and reported pieces touching on the intersection of power and, well, pretty much everything, but esp. business, politics, the media, identity, and everyday life. Oddball pitches encouraged. Pitch: emilie.friedlander
@theoutline
.com
Had a looong convo with
@0PN
about escaping to the country, going to the dump, generational identity, Western Mass music history, the music industry (+ music journalism), tinned fish, how hypnagogic pop was the original cottagecore + the owl in Twin Peaks
Starting next week, I'm going to be heading up the
@outline
's Power section, covering politics, business, the media, identity, and the small ways power infiltrates every corner of life. Pitch me!
Do you think a group of music/culture journos would ever team up to start something like Defector Media? Perhaps these conversations are happening and I'm simply not privy to them...
I wrote about how letting go of the idea of "independent music"—and banding together as part of a broader labor movement—may be the only way that musicians are going to get out of this mess
Writer friends! I recently started working as an editor for
@FWBtweets
' editorial arm, and I’m looking to commission reported pieces and essays on how technology and crypto are impacting art, music, food, and creative economies. Pitch me: emilie
@fwb
.help
If you read anything today, read this story by
@leonardodrocha
on Druid Heights. The once-thriving Bay Area commune is the closest thing America has to an LGBTQ historic district. Why the national park service letting it fall apart?
For my first piece for The Guardian, I tried to make sense of the notorious Summer of Chillwave — aka 2009, the year when everyone had an MP3 blog and music kids responded to the economic crisis by listening to songs about the beach.
every time vice lays people off they insultingly describe it as a way to "position the company for long-term creative and financial success" or whatever. the first few times it seemed they had genuinely deluded themselves into believing this, but why bother continuing to say it?
In a memo to staff, Vice CEO Bruce Dixon announces hundreds of layoffs and that the company will no longer publish on Vice dot com. He also says VMG is in advanced talks to sell Refinery29.
Today marks a year since I lost my job and decided to go freelance
The hardest part: Suddenly having to confront my deepest fears around money/achievement/security
The best part: Actually feeling happier and healthier and getting to hang out with this guy while I work
Spent some time thinking about Neil Young's "lost" album Homegrown, which he recorded the same year as one of my favorite albums of all time, On the Beach. He describes it as "the one that got away." It's beautiful!
I'll never forget the time Audrey Gelman sweet-talked me into delaying a story exploring potential discriminatory practices at the wing by promising "better access" if we did, then mysteriously canceled the interview last minute. (She also screamed at the reporter)
Marvin at
@tinymixtapes
was the first editor who took a chance on me. Today is a sad day but also, wow, what an accomplishment for a truly independent music website to last for TWO WHOLE DECADES while publishing such smart writing and covering the artists it did
Wrote a piece about the hidden emotional labor women perform in the workplace on top of their actual jobs. Many thanks to
@_thewing_
for commissioning it and
@theoutline
for running it.
Interviewed
@hollyherndon
about her beautiful new record and realized that the 1st time I interviewed her was on the 1st day of her PhD program, which she recently finished, becoming"Dr. Holly Herndon"— and also the mother of an AI baby named Spawn.
weird how even media "experts" end up leaning into reductive, technological determinist narratives like "people don't read news anymore because a newer/shinier technology has come along." As opposed to: social media companies have a monopoly on both distribution and advertising
An announcement:
@AndreaDomanick
and I are bummed about culture journalism collapsing. So we decided to start a podcast highlighting the stories we can't stop thinking about and the people who write them. Subscribe + listen to a trailer here.
Thinking ab how there used to be a lot of "cool" places to get written up in that weren't the NYTimes. Sad how it feels like the only path to "relevancy" as an independent upstart is to get written up in the biggest pub in the world / let yourself be completely context collapsed
As someone who got my journalism job at a
@pitchfork
-owned property over a decade ago and made less than $20,000 a year (prior to Conde sale), I stand with
@p4kunion
and demand that
@pitchfork
and
@condenast
bargain in good faith and agree to fair wages
The most painful knocks in life are the ones that teach you to be less trusting, but there's some solace in knowing that that while we can't control other ppl, we can always try a little harder ourselves. Love to everyone impacted by this, both personally and professionally
For our latest episode, we had the honor of chatting with
@annkpowers
about a subject that is near and dear to our hearts: Has music journalism lost the plot?
Would love to commission a big-brained take on the current independent music crisis + how technology got us here + how we might find our way out of it + what role technology would/should play in a better future. Broad topic, I know. But hit me up @ emilie
@fwb
.help with any ideas.
It's a sad day for journalism, which makes it even more remarkable when dedicated ppl pull off something this wide-eyed, ambitious, & antithetical to the monoculture swimming all around us.
Grateful for the chance to help edit a bunch of the stories here
Don't forget that writers/journalists have worked for free for this platform for years. Now we have to work for free AND pay for our work to not to be throttled into invisibility. If that's not a monopolistic abuse of power I don't know what is
After visiting The Fresh Market, I couldn't stop thinking about the boomer generation's obsession with things like fancy olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and stinky cheeses as a way of signaling status. Dug into the history of that for this piece!
had the terrifying realization while window shopping yesterday that millennial consumer aesthetics — flat illustration, sans serif fonts — are now old-guard "yuppie aesthetics"... like, the visual language that is used to signal to "your average homeowner with $ to spend" in town
Also, please hire my former staff writer
@gabydvj
. She is a great person and an incredible reporter, especially on immigration and abuses of power large and small.
Me: Can't believe I'm still here after 10 years of unhealthy overwork, layoffs, shady men, cutthroat office politics, and cleaning up ppl's messes
Job description: Looking for someone who Tweets nonstop while writing 5 features/day and is awake for all 24 hours of the news cycle
Wish there was more conversation about VICE journalists' pretty significant contribution to supporting independent voices in music + food + art + gaming + books over the years, but sadly almost all the culture reporters had already been laid off years before this current round
When you have a staff job it’s tempting
to believe that freelancers
somehow have it “easier” than you schedule-wise + more flexibility so it’s ok to ask them to do things at random times /give them quick turnarounds. I can now attest that exactly the opposite is true
The time-honored music journalism tradition of the year-end list, and especially the ranked year-end list, has always rubbed me the wrong way for exactly this reason. Our formats need to interrogate power structures, not reinforce them!
The extractive logic of Web 2.0 has felt particularly oppressive during the pandemic. I wrote about the new crypto-based publishing platform Mirror—and participated in a literal popularity contest, lol—to see if Web 3 could offer an escape
the trippy part is when you allow for the fact that simultaneously, music writers' own personal tastes begin to shift over time in accordance with the incentives of this sort of commercial exercise, the necessity of landing commisssions at said pubs, etc
We had a great conversation with the formidable
@GrimKim
about everything the media is getting wrong about anti-fascism and anarchism and why every story is a labor story
I spoke to some of the electronic artists who have transformed the way I hear music about the collaborators who have touched their practice in a similar way.
Thanks to
@0PN
,
@hollyherndon
,
@ctress_a
,
@Jlin_P
,
@FatimaAlQadiri
, and more!
just leaving it here that our little studio is open to new client work.
get in touch if you could benefit from three former VICE editors making cool editorial stuff for you.
so many new media projects I see feel driven by "stacked party flyer" logic
like, ppl figured out that building a brand ppl want to align with is 95% visual communication + showing off who ur friends with, if that is in place the content can just be whatever/pretty "low-lift"
Had a lot of fun editing this first feature for
@ninaprotocol
by the one and only John Chiaverina (
@JUICEBOXXXUSA
):
Inside a post-pandemic sub-subculture reveling in ultra-fast BPMs, chaotic genre-hopping, and the candy-colored aesthetics of 90s rave
After four years of looking on in horror as Trump cozied up to dictators, we need a president who will be extremely clear in standing against regimes that violate human rights abroad. We can't risk nominating someone who doesn't recognize this.
The thing that makes media layoffs even more demoralizing than they already are is how companies always try assure everyone that they will magically be able to continue producing the same quality journalism with fewer people/resources. This is simply not true
Such a treat to edit
@moyosorebriggs
on TikTok manifestation vids, Web3, and the phenomenon of digital mysticism: "The collective belief, emerging from our networked existence, that we can will a desired outcome into reality."
this is not to say that they are listing songs they do not think are good, but there are a LOT of very beloved songs out there that do not make the cut because those songs aren't big enough or whatever to work for the purposes of said branding exercise
Big news! Super proud to unveil the the first issue of our expanded quarterly zine! Featuring cover art by Lonnie Holley, short fiction, interviews, recipes, and even a crossword! We're also unveiling a membership program to support our editorial operation
New York must be one of the only cities where when you try to “economize” by cooking dinner at home you somehow end up spending 3x as much money on groceries as you would at a restaurant
The Bandcamp news got
@AndreaDomanick
and me thinking: Is it possible to imagine a world where the platforms that circumscribe every aspect of our online lives are collectively owned and governed by the people who use them?
"It's like trusting your money to Sam Bankman-Fried... in 2024"
.
@doctorow
's read of VICE's "strategy" over the past several years (and this week) definitely tracks
VICE execs getting a combined million-plus in bonuses just before the company filed for bankruptcy... meanwhile, laid-off staffers are having to drum up funds via gofundme because they still haven't gotten severence
A bankruptcy filing today shows that Vice paid out exec bonuses totaling well over a million just a few weeks before the company declared bankruptcy. A large number of freelancers and laid off staff still have not been paid:
I don't know about you, but I have been completely obsessed with Aesthetics Wiki since the start of the pandemic. For my last piece of the year, I spoke to the admins/other contributors it about the online subcultures and style trends that defined 2021
Before you take a fact out of context from an article I wrote ab
@arca1000000
in 2014, why not read the whole damn thing and decide for yourself if she isn't someone who has surmounted tremendous obstacles in her life & inspired/uplifted to 1000s of young people in the process
Gmail really wants me to write "Copy that!" in reply to work emails, which makes me wonder if the secret to success in corporate America is being the kind of person who uses the phrase "Copy that!" without any feeling of embarrassment or self-loathing whatsoever
Just putting it out into the universe that in addition to being a freelance writer, I am always looking for editing and proofreading work! I have over 10 years of experience doing everything from copyediting to running print and web publications. DMs are open if you need help :)
First new thing in a long time: I wrote about millennial New York nostalgia and how it can sometimes feel like the city is turning into a simulation of itself.
Is anyone else experiencing periods of EXTREMELY BAD writer's block as quarantine wears on? My theory is that it has something to do with the lack of sensory stimulation / real-space social interaction
.
@AndreaDomanick
interviewed dozens of women in music to explore how the economics and labor conditions of the industry enable harassment to flourish.
The
@TBSocialist
wrote a piece for
@FWBtweets
about why bounties are just another way of turning everyone into precarious freelancers and how visions of the "future of work" in Web3 shouldn't roll back decades of progress on the part of the labor movement
Due to "unfavorable economic headwinds" I am sadly looking for new editing work.
Hoping to find something part-time and ongoing, but also open to temporary/project-based.
Also if you've always wanted me to write for you, now's the time to say hi // emfriedlander @ gmail
What fascinates me most about DAOs is that they're kind of like temporary autonomous zones, just on the internet. With this political pre-history of DAOs,
@kelsiemvn
traces the evolution of the idea of using decentralized technology to self-organize
This week,
@culturejourno
programming resumes with a roundtable on the state of shoegaze—and TikTok's role in the genre's sudden explosive popularity.
Featuring
@eli_enis
, author of the
@stereogum
piece everyone was talking ab last month, and
@DIIV
drummer Ben Newman
Can't recommend the
@othermusic
documentary more if you love weird music + NYC. Crazy to realize the extent to which just the layout of the place structured my entire understanding of music