The Monday Media Diet with Ogheneochuko

On Jacqueline Harpman, Lagos, and Franzen

Ogheneochuco Akpovbovbo (OA) writes a great business and culture Substack called As seen on. It’s worth your time. We’re happy to have her with us this week -Colin (CJN)

Tell us about yourself.

I write a newsletter about business, culture, and gen z trends as seen on her group chats. I’m also a brand marketer at adidas and a sometimes bookstagrammer. 

Describe your media diet. 

I moved to America for college when I was 18, and even though I’d been living in Canada for two years before that and had been consuming American media all my life, I still felt behind. It’s like I knew all the pop culture stuff, but I didn’t know the history or context behind them. Or how they were all connected. And so I started to read. I read everything then and I read everything now. So the usual stuff like The Times, The Post, WSJ and The New Yorker, FT, Bloomberg. I like The Cut a lot and The Hollywood Reporter. Then there’s the newish newsletters like Puck and Semafor which are pretty sacred to me, and of course I’m always on Substack. I’ll subscribe to anything vaguely interesting but only read a few regularly. I have a whole slew of pretty niche publications I’m subscribed to as well. If I meet someone I think has a really cool or weird job, I’m going to ask them what people at their office read. And then I’ll start reading it too. 

So I have a special email where all this stuff comes to. I wake up each morning and there’s like 300 emails in there. In an hour my inbox is back to zero and I have like a million tabs open. Because I write a links heavy newsletter, I’m always saving stuff. I’m pretty militant about it too. So even if I don’t use it that day, or week, I can always refer to it. My little party trick is that I never forget a headline, so I’m that girl that always has a reference ready. I show my receipts. 

People are always surprised when I say this, but I spend very little time on social media. I have one account that's my personal account but I barely post there. Not as a matter of principle but because it stresses me out. Then I have my bookstagram account which is my happy place because books are everything to me. If I’m in a bad mood, I think of all the unread books on my shelf and I always feel at least a little bit better. Then I have a special “work account”, where I follow a bunch of brands and publications and random stuff. This is where I get content for my newsletter. My algorithm is locked in. Very proud of what I’ve created there. I also listen to a lot of podcasts I guess, but these days I’m enjoying that less. And I talk to people a lot. Because I’ve lived in a few different countries and done a few different things, I have all these friend groups that are pretty distinct in their interests and lifestyles. So I’m always saying to them, what's on your mind lately? What's on your feed? What’s interesting you? What are you hating? I also like when they send me TikToks because wow that app is the worst. And the best. Which is why it’s the worst!

What’s the last great book you read?

According to The New York Time’s 100 best books of the 21st century, the last great book I read was Trust by Hernan Diaz. According to me, the last great book I read was I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. That book was a trip. I read a ridiculous amount, so at this point I usually have a hunch of how a book’s plot is going to turn out a few chapters in. With this book, I was clueless until the very end. I’m clueless even now! I realized only after reading it that it was published in 1995, but it reads like something completely out of time. It could be published tomorrow and I’d be like, yeah that checks out. 

What are you reading now?

Right now I’m reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. Last summer, I picked up Crossroads without even knowing who Franzen was, and fell in love with his writing. I wanted to read The Corrections immediately after but he’s written only a few books so I wanted to space it out. I told myself I’d make it a summer thing. One Franzen book for each summer, and in the meantime I realized I just loved family sagas and have read (and bought) a lot of those in the past year. But it’s funny because now I’m reading The Corrections and I’m still enjoying it but not nearly as much as Crossroads. If I had read this first instead of Crossroads, my love affair with Franzen and family sagas may never have started. 

What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

Going to out myself as Gen Z here and say I haven't done this since I was a child. 

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

Everything Puck publishes. And Irish literature. So good.

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone? 

Storygraph. Beats Goodreads any day. 

Plane or train?

Train. Did I mention I lived in Germany? Trains all the way. 

What is one place everyone should visit? 

Lagos. It’s where I’m from and there’s nowhere like it. 

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into. 

So Nigeria has 36 states but nearly 400 different tribes with distinct languages and cultures. Because I went to a British high school for the years I lived in Nigeria, I had stunningly little formal education about my country. So a while ago, I became mildly obsessed with learning little facts about each of these tribes. It was really fun and gave me a lot to talk to my parents about. And then there’s this state in Nigeria called Ebonyi and for the life of me I couldn't find anyone I knew who came from that state, and no one I knew knew anyone from there. So I convinced myself the place wasn’t real. Until I found someone who knew someone who worked there and now I guess I believe in its existence. (OA)

Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Ogheneochuko (LC)

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