Gatekeeping the comfortable pulp beneath

I wrote about the sprawling and often contradictory uses of "gatekeeping" for The Cut this week.

It's a fitting follow-up to last week's rumination on aging out of social media, because I think it’s hard to talk about gatekeeping without acknowledging a generational shift. My fellow millennials and our elders were once exhausted by—and often actively rebelling against—the perception that we needed to keep up with the cultural mainstream. And so gatekeeping felt transgressive, even powerful. A way to protect our hard-won taste and build community with other outsiders who shared it.

I get the sense that people who grew up online place no such premium on being outside of a mainstream that never really existed for them. Instead, their currency is sharing what's good about their niche. Today there's more power to be found in opening a gate than closing it behind you—at least when it comes to media and culture. (Institutional power? Now that's still firmly gate-kept.)

Meanwhile... “The breezy beach read is over,” I told The Gentlewoman, when they asked me about summer books. Lately all I want to read is speculative fiction that matches my heat-domed malaise. Propulsive plots that feel forward-looking, but not escapist. I'm re-reading Octavia Butler and finally getting into Emily St. John Mandel. What are you reading? Tell me here.
 

"What makes Tuesday’s indictment so remarkable is that it represents a kind of red line for the practice of law itself: a still life in what can and cannot be allowable for a practicing attorney." Dahlia Lithwick and Mark David Stern on the latest Trump indictment. And Adam Serwer on how, how, "despite all of this, Trump could still be president again."

"I snack and I snack and I snack. And that way, I never see stars." Gabrielle de la Puente on coping with chronic illness through the sacred practice of snacking.

Nico Hall feels the Kenergy through a queer lens. And Lester Fabian Brathwaite pays respect to Paul Reubens and the enduring queer legacy of Pee-wee Herman.

On caregiving and "those moments when you have no other option than to pull yourself forward, despite being barely able to do it," writes Juliana Spahr. And Sara Herschander on child care as an organizing tool.

Meg Conley, who has really been on a roll lately, with a piece about Sound of Freedom, the not-so-heroic reality of stylized anti-trafficking activism, and what mythmaking and conspiracy theories have in common. 

Waking-up times, in order, by Daniel Lavery. 

Angelo Capacyachi explores queer utopia in the photo series Untitled (Utopia).

Librarians on TikTok offering Libby hacks? YES, PLEASE.

"Keep going (and thank you)" -Jonas