Pinned
M. C. Mah
@mcmah.bsky.social
· Mar 7
Who Killed Prestige TV? Toward a “Good Fan” Theory of Television
Peak TV ended when that first wave unsubscribed from Netflix—a seventeen-billion-dollar crash in small part caused by there being absolutely nothing to watch on it. Or would you prefer a fall from …
lithub.com
Wrote about the “Good Fan” theory of television.
lithub.com/who-killed-p...
lithub.com/who-killed-p...
Been unconvinced by the BEAR’s haphazard narrative direction since they climactically find 300K in the 28oz tomato cans listening to Radiohead in the S1 finale, only to
June 27, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Been unconvinced by the BEAR’s haphazard narrative direction since they climactically find 300K in the 28oz tomato cans listening to Radiohead in the S1 finale, only to
Pavements the movie honored the band by working like 76% of the time.
June 12, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Pavements the movie honored the band by working like 76% of the time.
Always listen closely when a podcaster says what they read, who wrote it. Their tone of voice when they speak the name of a writer who argues a thing one way, when it could be argued another, who might be right or wrong—hard to tell. The sarcastic disgust that this person exists.
People are going to say a lot of bad things about you, and if you don't have the sense of perspective to understand that none of it really matters, you shouldn't really be doing this kind of work — not just because you can't stomach it, but because it renders your judgement elsewhere suspect.
I've heard other podcasters talk about spending hours name-searching, reading message boards and reviews of their shows, fuming about negative comments even if it's just a tiny minority of the feedback. Without superhero impulse control and IRL grass-touching you can go nuts in weeks.
April 28, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Always listen closely when a podcaster says what they read, who wrote it. Their tone of voice when they speak the name of a writer who argues a thing one way, when it could be argued another, who might be right or wrong—hard to tell. The sarcastic disgust that this person exists.
Reposted by M. C. Mah
Head Start, an early childhood education program for low income families, is on the chopping block. Growing up, my own mom was an aide with the program; it’s helped countless young mothers, including the one who tells her story here.
www.kqed.org/news/1203596...
www.kqed.org/news/1203596...
April 18, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Head Start, an early childhood education program for low income families, is on the chopping block. Growing up, my own mom was an aide with the program; it’s helped countless young mothers, including the one who tells her story here.
www.kqed.org/news/1203596...
www.kqed.org/news/1203596...
Reposted by M. C. Mah
I'm writing a cultural history of the DAD! With Plume! Get ready for Father's Day 2027, friends! This is what's happening now! @duttonbooks.bsky.social
April 16, 2025 at 1:49 PM
I'm writing a cultural history of the DAD! With Plume! Get ready for Father's Day 2027, friends! This is what's happening now! @duttonbooks.bsky.social
Reposted by M. C. Mah
I'm supposed to be at
Sweet Briar College, where I was so excited to meet with the amazing students, faculty, and staff who organized my visit & made Mobility their Common Read. Hours before my flight I learned about their Board's exclusion of trans & nonbinary people. So now I'm not going.
Sweet Briar College, where I was so excited to meet with the amazing students, faculty, and staff who organized my visit & made Mobility their Common Read. Hours before my flight I learned about their Board's exclusion of trans & nonbinary people. So now I'm not going.
April 2, 2025 at 4:53 PM
I'm supposed to be at
Sweet Briar College, where I was so excited to meet with the amazing students, faculty, and staff who organized my visit & made Mobility their Common Read. Hours before my flight I learned about their Board's exclusion of trans & nonbinary people. So now I'm not going.
Sweet Briar College, where I was so excited to meet with the amazing students, faculty, and staff who organized my visit & made Mobility their Common Read. Hours before my flight I learned about their Board's exclusion of trans & nonbinary people. So now I'm not going.
J. Mangum playing RF for Tampa Bay. So, what, "Deep to left, way back, 'When you were young/you were the king of carrot flowers.'"
April 1, 2025 at 1:18 AM
J. Mangum playing RF for Tampa Bay. So, what, "Deep to left, way back, 'When you were young/you were the king of carrot flowers.'"
Comedy is the one true genre and satire is dead.
March 27, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Comedy is the one true genre and satire is dead.
Waxahatchee and Lenderman’s duet “Right Back to It” is a normie blockbuster. An NPR pledge-drive banger. Listening to it, I feel my age. I wash the dishes, wondering if it’s “my turn.” I make a joke for just one person, my wife. She does not laugh. What are the actual lyrics? I do not know.
March 4, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Waxahatchee and Lenderman’s duet “Right Back to It” is a normie blockbuster. An NPR pledge-drive banger. Listening to it, I feel my age. I wash the dishes, wondering if it’s “my turn.” I make a joke for just one person, my wife. She does not laugh. What are the actual lyrics? I do not know.
The Oscars would have been a better sign of things to come for indie film if the box office was healthier and the filmmakers and cast seemed humiliated to even be there
March 3, 2025 at 5:41 PM
The Oscars would have been a better sign of things to come for indie film if the box office was healthier and the filmmakers and cast seemed humiliated to even be there
The furious winking of Superbowl ads not immediately apparent in this “big year for women’s sports” Nike spot, except…Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ez...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ez...
So Win. | Nike
YouTube video by Nike
www.youtube.com
February 12, 2025 at 7:04 PM
The furious winking of Superbowl ads not immediately apparent in this “big year for women’s sports” Nike spot, except…Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ez...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ez...
The synonymy of contrarianism and being a complete shithead is a tragedy.
nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com/intelligence...
Goodbye, Pamela Paul
The contrarian columnist showed us the intolerable side of liberalism.
nymag.com
February 7, 2025 at 7:07 PM
The synonymy of contrarianism and being a complete shithead is a tragedy.
nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com/intelligence...
Fact-checking ms, was told by a rather confident "Gemini" that a nickname for the North Vietnamese Army referred to NBA legend and TNT host Charles Barkley.
What, and I can't emphasize this enough, the fuck? www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
Former PRH India Editor Develops AI-Powered Editorial Platform
Editrix, a new AI-powered editorial platform founded by Meru Gokhale, aims to provide automated developmental editing, structural editing, and inline editing capabilities for fiction and nonfiction ma...
www.publishersweekly.com
February 3, 2025 at 7:46 PM
Fact-checking ms, was told by a rather confident "Gemini" that a nickname for the North Vietnamese Army referred to NBA legend and TNT host Charles Barkley.
“Two minds” aspect is a good read on SEVERANCE, and I find myself drawn into its suspense and also dreading that it will, fists full of ham, resolve its satire, reveal its mystery.
newrepublic.com/article/1907...
newrepublic.com/article/1907...
The Frustrations of “Severance”
The Apple TV+ show is middling as a corporate satire but profound as a mystery box.
newrepublic.com
February 3, 2025 at 6:01 PM
“Two minds” aspect is a good read on SEVERANCE, and I find myself drawn into its suspense and also dreading that it will, fists full of ham, resolve its satire, reveal its mystery.
newrepublic.com/article/1907...
newrepublic.com/article/1907...
This is really good, and goes beyond the plagiarism angle. I shouldn’t give away what happens when authors working in an iterative genre featuring protagonists of revelatory specialness stare into the abyss of Kindle Direct Publishing. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Did a Best-Selling Romantasy Novelist Steal Another Writer’s Story?
Tracy Wolff, the author of the “Crave” series, is being sued for copyright infringement. But romantasy’s reliance on standardized tropes makes proving plot theft tricky.
www.newyorker.com
January 8, 2025 at 7:36 PM
This is really good, and goes beyond the plagiarism angle. I shouldn’t give away what happens when authors working in an iterative genre featuring protagonists of revelatory specialness stare into the abyss of Kindle Direct Publishing. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Reposted by M. C. Mah
I think MC Mah set the tone in this blistering @literaryhub.bsky.social essay on the way actual viewers of TV have followed along and then amplified the trend by becoming “good fans,” asking nothing for all their time and devotion. 3/x lithub.com/who-killed-p...
Who Killed Prestige TV? Toward a “Good Fan” Theory of Television
Peak TV ended when that first wave unsubscribed from Netflix—a seventeen-billion-dollar crash in small part caused by there being absolutely nothing to watch on it. Or would you prefer a fall from …
lithub.com
December 26, 2024 at 4:53 PM
I think MC Mah set the tone in this blistering @literaryhub.bsky.social essay on the way actual viewers of TV have followed along and then amplified the trend by becoming “good fans,” asking nothing for all their time and devotion. 3/x lithub.com/who-killed-p...
Reposted by M. C. Mah
The Yale Review's enticing Cultural Artifacts column (yalereview.org/article/favo...), which is filled with great suggestions and moments from my colleagues, is here! I surprised myself and wrote about a video game: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
December 19, 2024 at 4:18 PM
The Yale Review's enticing Cultural Artifacts column (yalereview.org/article/favo...), which is filled with great suggestions and moments from my colleagues, is here! I surprised myself and wrote about a video game: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
"Like Kevin McCallister, I am alone." www.vulture.com/article/watc...
Watching Home Alone With Macaulay Culkin
He’s considered buying and Airbnb-ing the McCallister house, but it seems like “a lot of work.”
www.vulture.com
December 20, 2024 at 5:08 AM
"Like Kevin McCallister, I am alone." www.vulture.com/article/watc...
People have first, second, third thoughts. If you’ve ever loved and also seen a statement from a health insurer, one of those thoughts will be: I hope this system is reduced to ashes.
December 9, 2024 at 7:07 PM
People have first, second, third thoughts. If you’ve ever loved and also seen a statement from a health insurer, one of those thoughts will be: I hope this system is reduced to ashes.
No grifters on Bluesky? A short list to poach from twitter:
1) kids who’re like “Everything should be YA so we can all like it or else”
2) 9/11 joke as moral compass
3) the sense that the Left, broadly, must account for its argument, and not just escape to safer harbors
4) grifters
1) kids who’re like “Everything should be YA so we can all like it or else”
2) 9/11 joke as moral compass
3) the sense that the Left, broadly, must account for its argument, and not just escape to safer harbors
4) grifters
December 2, 2024 at 7:34 PM
No grifters on Bluesky? A short list to poach from twitter:
1) kids who’re like “Everything should be YA so we can all like it or else”
2) 9/11 joke as moral compass
3) the sense that the Left, broadly, must account for its argument, and not just escape to safer harbors
4) grifters
1) kids who’re like “Everything should be YA so we can all like it or else”
2) 9/11 joke as moral compass
3) the sense that the Left, broadly, must account for its argument, and not just escape to safer harbors
4) grifters
pretty crazy how all of you had the right read on the McCarthy piece but never considered how Barney protected Britt by having his "daringly bad style absorb(ing) most of the controversy"
November 24, 2024 at 3:11 AM
pretty crazy how all of you had the right read on the McCarthy piece but never considered how Barney protected Britt by having his "daringly bad style absorb(ing) most of the controversy"
Rent: $4000
Childcare: $0
Berries: $900
Websites: free
Childcare: $0
Berries: $900
Websites: free
March 18, 2024 at 7:13 PM
Rent: $4000
Childcare: $0
Berries: $900
Websites: free
Childcare: $0
Berries: $900
Websites: free
Wrote about the “Good Fan” theory of television.
lithub.com/who-killed-p...
lithub.com/who-killed-p...
Who Killed Prestige TV? Toward a “Good Fan” Theory of Television
Peak TV ended when that first wave unsubscribed from Netflix—a seventeen-billion-dollar crash in small part caused by there being absolutely nothing to watch on it. Or would you prefer a fall from …
lithub.com
March 7, 2024 at 3:30 PM
Wrote about the “Good Fan” theory of television.
lithub.com/who-killed-p...
lithub.com/who-killed-p...
Awarding institutions are ethically bound to identify the losers of any given prize. The winners or geniuses should have to scan a list and fail to find their own names. Obviously it’s tough with the MacArthur or Nobel, but hire a few interns why don't you
October 5, 2023 at 8:01 PM
Awarding institutions are ethically bound to identify the losers of any given prize. The winners or geniuses should have to scan a list and fail to find their own names. Obviously it’s tough with the MacArthur or Nobel, but hire a few interns why don't you