culture Archives - Taylor Sloan

Hillbilly Elegy Is A Terrible Book

Published by Taylor on July 17, 2024

I suspect the only thing J.D. Vance and I have in common are that we both grew up in working class families in steel mill towns in the midwest, and we both have grandparents who moved there from Eastern Kentucky after World War 2. That—along with the fact that I hadn’t brought another book to read on my flight home—was enough to convince me to buy his newly-published book Hillbilly Elegy at a magazine stand in the San Francisco Airport.

What I quickly realized after beginning the book was that he and I had a very different understanding of what led his family to leave Appalachia, why it is that so many people there are struggling to get by, and what the value of personal responsibility means in contrast to the issues Appalachians (and all working class people) face in this country.

The Problem With [and Solution to] Twitter

Published by Taylor on November 18, 2022

I’ve been on Twitter for 14 years now, which is strange to think about. In that time I’ve connected with dozens of real-life friends and acquaintances, followed and been followed by hundreds more people, stayed informed and entertained, and been a part of countless conversations.

I’m not going to talk in extraordinary detail about what’s happening at Twitter right now in the aftermath of Elon Musk’s takeover. Suffice to say… laying off half of the staff, making it possible for anyone to pretend to be a verified individual or public entity, and mandating a host of bizarre/extreme new workplace policies don’t bode well for the platform.

The ’90s Fever Dream That is Chex Quest

Published by Taylor on April 2, 2016

Have you ever thought that maybe something existed when you were a kid, but as an adult you realized that it seems like it could have never really happened? And have you ever decided to look into it to see if maybe, just maybe it actually did exist? Such is the narrative of my recent fascination with a little-remembered cult-video game from 1996: Chex Quest.

I was seven years old in 1996, and my nascent love for video games was clashing slightly with my adult family members’ suspicion of violent video games. This was the ’90s after all, and a media sensationalization of video games‘ inspiring kids to do violent things was in its heyday. And that’s where Chex Quest was different.

Category: culture

Hillbilly Elegy Is A Terrible Book

The Problem With [and Solution to] Twitter

The ’90s Fever Dream That is Chex Quest