Ope Pardon, No. 1: What do you have to say for yourself?

When I left my job in journalism in December 2020, at what felt like the height of the journalists-starting-Substacks trend, I had vague plans to start a newsletter too.

It was, to some degree, a promise to myself to not give up the type of writing I loved even as I was giving up the industry to which it belonged — the industry that, for the previous eight years or so, I had believed quite earnestly to be my dream vocation. A newsletter, then, would serve as a lifeline to a part of my identity — that of a culture and entertainment writer — that I wasn’t ready to lose, even if I had no desire to drain any more of my energy pursuing it in a professional context.

I have several thoughts about the newsletter’s role in the current media landscape, particularly with respect to its exacerbation of the personal brand problem plaguing — in my own personal opinion — the industry, but, independent of financial considerations and industry implications, the newsletter form makes a certain undeniable sense for my goals. After all, I know I have a select audience of people who a) like my writing but b) have trouble finding and following my work. (This is largely because they — you — do not frequent the toxic slums of Twitter where I most frequently shared my writing in the past.) The email delivery system is, simply, a startlingly efficient means of getting my writing to the 5-15 people who want to read it.

(That’s not being self-deprecating: I’ve seen the analytics of my work and long ago made peace with what kind of writer I will be vis-a-vis the grind I am willing to put in, i.e., a hobbyist whose parents sends them the articles of more successful writers saying, "you could have written this, Shea!" But, alas, I did not. Did I create a newsletter, as opposed to simply writing a journal, so there would be public access to my work, so that maybe I could still be “discovered,” so that maybe that ephemeral dream of writerly fame and acclaim can live on? Who's to say.)

As to what to expect from this newsletter, as I've written elsewhere in the welcome material for this site, I want to use this space to write mostly about entertainment, arts and culture, but also emotions I haven't yet untangled in therapy or groupchats and perhaps the occasional spiral into personal essay territory. Commentary interspersed with tangential musings on life, identity, self, etc. I’ve always been averse to personal writing professionally, but as this is no longer my profession, no time like the present to start oversharing. 

To give you a better sense of the subject matter, here are a variety of ideas that I’ve jotted down in Notes apps during the year I planned to start a newsletter but didn’t: 

• A Office writers’ room sitcom coaching tree 

• Netflix hiring all the entertainment writers and maybe all the other things I find sus about Netflix

• Shift in the center of sitcom life from family to friends to work

• Bottle episodes

• The trauma plot woo hoo

• End of endings

• The illusion of "free" streaming

• Against oral histories

• Good vs. important entertainment

• Words have meaning; why are words losing their meanings?!? WORDS HAVE MEANINGS

• On salaries and earning what you’re worth

• Not-West-Elm-Caleb because I am certainly not going to turn something around fast enough but perhaps something about the utter loss of nuance and comprehension skills in all areas of social communication, but especially dating

• Friendship (I will probably write about this a lot; it is an abiding preoccupation of mine)

• Drinking (Also an abiding interest of mine)

• This book I just read called The Culture Map

• Counting with my eyes closed (I wrote this down in my Notes app and while I know the reference I have zero idea what broader point or insight I intended to connect it to)

If any of that sounds of interest to you, please stick around or forward this to a friend.

About the Name: 

Ope is a Midwestern word typically used in place of “excuse me” or “sorry” — or the English word pardon. Pardon (this is the first and last time I will use italics to indicate a non-English word) is also a French word that basically means “ope” but without the regional charm. In my day-to-day life, when I need to sneak right past someone and/or the social situation otherwise calls for it, which for me is honestly 90 percent of all interpersonal interactions, I say “ope” compulsively, followed by “pardon” because I live in Paris and it behooves me to respond in the native tongue of my neighbors. But still, true to form, the ope always sneaks right in.

And as, despite my therapist's best efforts, I still feel like by creating a newsletter and writing essays, even those that will not be forced upon anyone unless you actively sign up to receive them, I am nonetheless imposing on your time and space (or at least that of your inbox), "Ope Pardon" just felt right.

More soon.

Shea