Hi everybody, congratulations on making it to Friday. This newsletter is your reward.

New survey is here, also linked below.

Let’s get into it:

Survey Results

Q1: Taylor Swift - approve or disapprove?

Results:

Highlighted Free Responses:

• “...her sycophantic fanbase is convinced that is reason enough to demand everyone pretends her music is more than what is it - fun pop music with varying degrees of quality”

• “...now she’s only interested in making money which is really boring. She stands for nothing, which is really boring. Somehow she even makes her sham PR relationship with Travis Kelce boring. Do something interesting!”

• “...I do like some of her music and I think it’s impressive that she’s built an empire like she has. She is Temujin, the conqueror of pop music.”

• “She brings many women joy which seems like a net benefit to society”

• “...I am impressed by her success, especially in today’s world, but my disapproval of her is less about the music. I find a majority of her fanbase to be insufferable.”

• “I know for a fact Taylor only does it in missionary. Fuck the Chiefs.”

• “I do not feel this is a Taylor Swift safe space and will not waste my time defending my approval of her.”

• “... she girl-bossed so hard to move literal economies. Pretty impressive.”

• “She was mean to someone I know in middle school. I know people can grow and I should allow for second chances, but maybe I’m just not that great of a person 🤷🏻‍♀️”

• “...Given that she fills the Q-anon conspiratorial urge for certain classes of people it’s hard to have too much hate in her harm reduction, but by golly gee does her music ever suck.”

Commentary:

Whoever said that this is not a Taylor Swift safe space seems to be vindicated here. She’s got a higher disapproval percentage than Dave Portnoy! 

I came into this survey having a pretty neutral view of Taylor Swift. I like some of her early stuff, sure, but the more recent music isn’t really for me. I think her extreme levels of fame seems overhyped and a little unwarranted, but it doesn’t really make me upset in any way.¹ Much like astrology, I think hating on Taylor Swift too much is kind of lame and misogyny-coded.

And after reading more of these responses, I somehow feel compelled to be contrarian here and be defensive of her. 

I notice that most of the responses to this question don’t actually have to do with her music or personal behavior, but rather point to the Swifties to justify their negative feelings toward her. Say what you want about her, she is relatively free of scandal, controversy, crime, or any egregious wrong-doing besides dating Matty Healy I guess.

Is it fair to project hatred upon her because of her fanbase, despite how rabid and annoying and ubiquitous they may be? Maybe not or maybe so; we also project hatred onto the Lakers because of their fairweather supporters, or vitriol towards Marvel because of their dogmatic fanboys. I don’t know if any of that is “fair,” or “right,” but I do think we often conflate institutions with their supporters too eagerly. 

The other theme in the responses I notice is a begrudging acknowledgement of her success. Especially in today’s fragmented society, Taylor is one of the last vestiges we have of real monoculture. To stay this famous and successful for this long is legitimately a very rare and difficult thing to do. Like with the Kardashians last week, I feel like I have to respect that.

Now if I did want to rip into her, I would talk about how I find her direction of her evolution as an artist kind of boring, that I find the album re-releases to be a really pandering money-grab, that I still don’t think her relationship with Travis Kelce is totally real, that the football fan in me finds it annoying that she goes to Chiefs games for one season and they win the Super Bowl, and that I find her public persona to be overly pristine, risk-averse, and calculated. 

But you know, I think all that stuff is well-trodded territory and overall it’s pretty harmless and it doesn’t really upset me that much. We should all just relax.

Q2: Do you actively think about calories or macros (carbs, protein) in your diet?

Results:

Highlighted Free Responses:

• “I fear the damage MyFitness pal did to my relationship with food in middle school is irreversible.”

• “Protein bros everywhere, I’m begging you: please eat some veggies.”

• “...I just generally consider what is “healthy” and what isn’t but don’t give it much more thought.”

• “I’ve been trying to cut for 5 years but food is too good”

• “I wonder how many grams of protein are in a beautiful evening spent laughing with friends.”

• “I don’t track it too closely because as a woman I have been fed wayyyy too much ED-adjacent content to know that it’s a slippery slope.”

• “I prefer to think abstractly about food and nutrients”

• “Gotta get strong”

Commentary:

Although I am squarely on the yes side here, I’m glad to see a more reasonable mix in the responses here.

On aggregate, I think having greater societal awareness of nutrition facts and thinking more about what you put in your body is a good thing. The average American could certainly spend a little more time thinking about how many calories are in their daily jug of corn syrup.

On the other hand, there are the proteinmaxxers, the boy kibble enjoyers, the constant injection of protein into every single food or drink item imaginable.

As my girlfriend and our good friend Deborah Vance are fond of saying, these modern, male-coded, macro obsessions are just a new variety of eating disorders.

I have a friend who is very serious about his fitness and diet, which is great. He’s in fantastic shape. But his diet regularly consists of plain grilled chicken breast and rice. And by plain, I mean completely plain. Like, straight out of the package onto the grill. Even adding salt and pepper is not efficient enough for him.

I guess more power to him, but I honestly don’t think that’s any way to live. Carbs are awesome. Beer is good. Plain cheese pizza is fire. Me want food.

Q3: Are you interested in seeing the new Avengers movie this year?

Results:

Highlighted Free Responses:

• “will probably watch it if it’s coming out, but I doubt I’ll enjoy it. Iron man 1 was so peak”

• “Please daddy Disney, feed me more reheated marvel slop I’m so hungry”

• “While I think Marvel movies are like Taylor Swift (mediocre), it's hard to deny the cultural impact they had during their peak”

• “...I generally approve of superhero movies and Marvel bc I feel like we don’t have many blockbuster movie franchises anymore so it’s fun to see people get hype.”

• “...RDJ as Doom feels like Disney legit thinks their audience is comprised 90% of morons (they might be right).”

• “...Tbh I fell off the bandwagon after the last Spider man movie. They just don’t hit the same.”

• “Is going to the bowling alley good? Is getting a strike off two miller lite tall boys interesting? The cultural hold the MCU had died with End Game, and the last pile of dirt was added by Taika Waititi with Thor Love and Thunder. The space it holds now is a Saturday afternoon where none of your friends know what else to do. And like bowling, the strongest interest lies with people you wouldn’t want to go with anyway.”

• “Until recently I thought marvel and dc were the same universe…if that answers your question”

Commentary:

Boy, this doesn’t seem good for Marvel.

I think I feel the same as a lot of you -- pretty checked out and indifferent to the MCU in the last few years. Endgame, regardless of how you may feel about it and what it represents about movies, was definitely a fitting culmination to several years of build-up.

Seeing Endgame in a theater full of excited middle-school boys in London will forever be a memorable movie-going experience for me, even if they were constantly taking pictures on their phones and made a fart noise when Iron Man died.

With that kind of conclusion, how can Marvel expect audiences to get excited in the same way again?

Like one of you mentioned, we don’t get many moments like that as a culture anymore. In 2018 it felt like we could all find some common ground in Game of Thrones and/or Marvel. Nowadays, when you talk to your co-workers they’re like “have you seen this Apple TV show that only 100 people have heard of” or “did you see the new Yellowstone UFC Copaganda episode on Paramount Plus” and it feels like we’re all speaking different languages.

I’m not saying I want Marvel to return to its status as cultural hegemon. As the years have gone by, Martin Scorsese has proved to be more and more correct about those movies and their impact on cinematic culture. Despite their box office success, I do not believe they have been good for cinema.

It also doesn’t help that the quality and texture of those movies have gone so far downhill. Even if you go back and compare Iron Man 1 to some of the more recent Marvel entries, it’s hard not to see the new stuff as slop.

Movies used to feel more tactile, more real. These glossy, texture-less theme park rides just don’t have the same gravitas or staying power.

Maybe it’s good that Marvel is dying, or maybe just receding to a more natural place in movie culture. Hopefully that means we get something new out of it.

Q4: Ranch dressing: overrated or underrated?

Results:

Highlighted Free Responses:

• “If S*****r finds out I think ranch is overrated, it might be couch time for me - wait fuck!!!! No, I mean in the sense that…”

• “Middle of the pack sauce. Better than mayo and ketchup, worse than mustard and sriracha. It’s zest for white folk.”

• “I don’t like ranch. It’s always an intruder to me”

• “Ranch dressing? Far too commonplace. Bad on wings, weird with pizza crust, childish on salad.”

• “Recently I realized the ranch might be better than the wings. Also great with pizza”

• “If you eat wings with ranch you are a hedonist - blue cheese is the best and if you don't like it, you have the pallet of a toddler.”

• “The fact that ranch is the sauce (yes, calling it a sauce) that Americans created and that they actively enjoy says so much about American culture and cuisine. It’s very bland and unhealthy and kind of disgusting when you think too much about it. It was destined to be an American sauce.”

• “It can literally go on anything. So good. But I also barely use it because I know of its power to go on anything and I would be heavily addicted.”

Commentary:

I first need to address whoever said ranch is better than ketchup. That is an awful take. Ketchup is elite, regardless of how you feel about ranch.

Go dip your fries in mustard, you freak.

Given that we had so many polarizing opinions about ranch, I decided to look up what’s actually in it:

“a creamy, tangy, and herbaceous dressing made from a blend of fresh herbs (like parsley, basil, chives, and tarragon), a creamy base (mayonnaise, sour cream, or Greek yogurt), and acidic elements like lemon juice or vinegar, often with garlic and sometimes anchovies for umami”

Oh wait, sorry that’s actually a description of Green Goddess dressing. Ranch is actually:

“made from a base of buttermilk, mayonnaise, and sour cream, flavored with herbs like dill, chives, and parsley, plus garlic and onion powder.”

Not so different! Yet you probably have a totally different perception of these two dressings.

I make this comparison to say that I think ranch gets a bad rap from certain millennial-ish, coastal, foodie types, in the same way that mayo is also unfairly maligned. Aioli (in America) is usually just mayo with garlic and better PR. Ranch gets a similar bad rap while Green Goddess, Caesar, and Tzatziki do just fine. I bet if ranch was called something European-sounding like “le ranch-atouille” you suckers would eat it right up.

Yes, these emulsions are white and homogenous and gloopy (note: insert JD Vance joke here) but I think our stigmas towards them are also tied up in our cultural and generational biases towards “American” or “white people” food. 

I could honestly write a lot more about this topic and my thoughts on American food but what I’m trying to get at is that we tend to underrate the effect of our own perceptions and priors when it comes to how we enjoy food. If all it takes for you to enjoy ranch or mayo is a slight change in color and a different name, maybe the block is just mental, or stems from your deep-seated prejudices against middle America.

After all, don’t you like some mayo on your BLT? Don’t you like a little ranch on your buffalo chicken pizza?? Cool Ranch Doritos??? C’mon.

Q5: How many times a day do you poop, on average?

Results:

Highlighted Free Responses:

• “Adderall, Red Bull, no anxiety medication, and the 2nd floor gender neutral bathroom 🫶”

• “If I’m in the office I’m shitting 12 times a day. Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. Thats why I poop on company time.”

• “Those days where you don’t poop are very sad”

• “I’m fairly happy with my BM schedule. I don’t think it’s a question of how often, it’s a question of how solid!”

• “Real ones know that I led the league in Poop Maps with a record breaking 3.12 shits per day in my heyday.”

• “I may need more fiber”

• “Will not divulge more details on my bowel movements, but just from experience have learned that men poop/think about poop way more than women and idk why.”

• “With good fiber you can be regular and powerful”

• “This is such a Nathan Xiao question to ask.”

Commentary:

I honestly don’t have much to say here on this one, I just genuinely wanted to know what people’s frequencies are. It also seems that some of you don’t particularly like talking about this subject, for some reason.

I think we should be more poop positive as a society. We all do it, it’s no secret. In fact, I’d argue many of us don’t do it enough! Forget protein, fiber is what we really need more of.

It’s been a while since I’ve been active on Poop Maps, the app where you track your poops and share with friends. At the time though, I was probably north of 2 visits a day to the porcelain throne.

That’s probably too much of my life spent on the toilet, to be honest. But what can I say, I love to poop. 

Next Week’s Survey:

Find next week’s survey here.

One note: I’ve added an optional non-survey question at the bottom for those that would be interested in signing up for some kind of mobile notification system for surveys and round-ups. I haven’t quite determined what the right system is but I’m open to suggestions.

Programming Notes:

• I’ve heard that some of the emails are getting sorted into people’s Promotion folders. If you find yourself missing round-ups or survey reminders, might be worth taking a look to adjust those filters in your inbox.

Stuff I Liked:

Reading this NYT piece about the homogenization and flattening of sushi and omakase experiences makes me feel smart and cultured even though I do not eat enough high-end sushi to know if this is a reasonable take or not.

The NYT piece about the greatest living American songwriters was pretty well done, I thought they had pretty good coverage across genres and eras. Although I think Future should be on here.