The Monday Media Diet with Vicky Gu

On Books are Magic, Maekan, and Adam Haslett

Vicky Gu (VG) is a friend of WITI, She’s an editor, producer, photographer, & poet. Check her Substack here. Have a great week. -Colin (CJN)

Tell us about yourself.
I'm the worst with this question. My instinct is to reply - well, which trauma do you want to hear about first?

I'm an editor, producer, photographer, & poet. Artist who went to business school. Indie strategy consultant at Skin Contact Studio. Based in Brooklyn, with roots in Dallas, DC, and Shanghai.

By day, I'm the brand manager at NewtonX, a B2B research company with $47M in funding. Here I build editorial operations and work on our partnerships with research/biz/media leaders at orgs like Meta and Adweek.

I care lots about food and health, so in 2018 I founded Currant, a global food media collective. We're on hiatus but I'm proud that our reporting's been featured by Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, Mailchimp/Intuit, and CreativeMornings.

I also write an infrequent newsletter that sends out erratic missives on strategy and culture: vicky gu.substack.com. It's like an anti-algorithm, come join us!

Describe your media diet.
Chaotic and spontaneous? There's so much out there that I just consume what flies into my face through newsletters and Discords.

That said, I'm drawn to the dark arts. Not the magical kind, just the sad kind. (Though there's magic in the sad too.) I fuel this through shopping at Books are Magic in Brooklyn, and opening my Poem-a-Day if the title intrigues me.

My media diet is at its healthiest when I engage outside techno-optimism. I'm sensitive to lofty language and its blind spots, after spending my early career years as an insecure marketing professional. There's nothing like the image of SF dudes pumping Drake while microdosing on the toilet and dreaming up the next inconsequential dating app — all while my post-grad self manually growth hacked brand communities on $17.50/hour without benefits.

When I'm sporadically back on IG, I load up on the usual: The Eras concert reels, The Office clips, and bi-coastal millennial bits like Brian Park's take on the Aesop Soap Guy.

For work, I read a lot of McKinsey and HBR and MIT Technology Review-type pubs, market research trade publications like GreenBook, and superfluous AI carousels on LinkedIn.

Misc notes:

• The Content Technologist is great if you're in brand/content and looking for senior level writing that also gets dirty (disclosure: I write for them!).

• I need to get back into data viz pub The Pudding.

• Definitely catch HK-based creative culture pub MAEKAN (disclosure: I wrote for them!).

• Semafor has a good tech newsletter. I first read Louise Matsakis’s reporting while she was at Rest of World and I’m glad to have her back in my inbox. (I believe she edited this story, which struck me: “Why China’s crypto cowboys are fleeing to Texas”)

What’s the last great book you read?
The Absent Moon by Luiz Schwarcz. A memoir by a Brazilian Jewish man—and accomplished editor!—recounting his life through the Holocaust, bipolar disorder, music, soccer, and depression. Gutting and very good.

What are you reading now?
I just started Christina Sharpe's Ordinary Notes, a collection of 248 notes about black life. I love the form, like thoughts etched on napkins. Recommend if you’re a Margo Jefferson or Claudia Rankine fan.

It's joined the rotation of 4-6 books that I'm reading - I like to have options to fit my mood. I gravitate towards nonfiction and short stories, which makes it easy to pick up and put down.

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

Generally cover to cover. If I'm pressed for time at a coffee shop that gets the NYT in print, I read the stories that sound most interesting.

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?
Adam Haslett. He's quietly devastating, like a good Steven Yeun performance. And hilarious.

Also UK-based chef Thom Eagle's poems, the only newsletter I open on receipt.

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone?
Pleco - it's this insane Chinese/English dictionary/translation app that I use when listening to Chinese podcasts or songs, or when texting my parents and I need to gut check myself. It offers contextual definitions, which is hard to find.

Plane or train?
Ideally train, but alas I live in America and not Taiwan or Japan. Either way, I zone out and just listen to albums on repeat so mode of transport doesn't really affect my state of being.

What is one place everyone should visit?
The food alley underneath my grandparent's apartment building in Shanghai, at breakfast time. Find the best pan-fried pork buns (生煎包) there. It's my ritual to burn myself with a squirt of pork juice with each first bite. I just hope it's still there the next time I'm back.

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into.
I'm getting into music production this year, so, lots of videos on how to do that - spiritually, conceptually, and tactically. My recent Youtube history (Rick Rubin is Yoda for musicians!):

Kendrick Lamar Meets Rick Rubin and They Have an Epic Conversation | GQ
Pharrell and Rick Rubin Have an Epic Conversation | GQ
Brockhampton's Kevin Abstract and Rick Rubin Have an Epic Conversation | GQ
Donald Glover (Childish Gambino) Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ
The Making Of Childish Gambino's "Redbone" With Ludwig Göransson
Mandalorian Composer Ludwig Göransson Breaks Down His Movie & TV Scores
The Making Of Doja Cat's "Kiss Me More" With Yeti Beats & Rogét Chahayed
The Making Of Kid Cudi's "Day 'N' Nite" With Dot Da Genius | Deconstructed
The Making Of Kendrick Lamar's "LOVE." With Teddy Walton
The Making Of GoldLink's "Crew" Feat. Brent Faiyaz & Shy Glizzy With Teddy Walton
The Making Of Ariana Grande's "thank u, next" With Social House & TBHits
The Making Of Drake's "Passionfruit" With Nana Rogues
Rogue Sessions: with Emeli Sandè - Making 'I Don't Know'
Clairo and Jack Antonoff Break Down Clairo's New Song 'Amoeba'
Lorde & David Byrne in Conversation | Musicians on Musicians
‘Solar Power’: How Lorde Grew Up, Embraced Guitars and Made a Summer Song
Kyoto’: How to Convince Phoebe Bridgers to Write a Rock Song
Lorde “Mood Ring” Official Lyrics & Meaning

Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Vicky (VG)

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) 

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