Meghan Daum
Quarantine Revelations, Free Speech YouTube, and The Art of Being Interesting
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Overcast | Google Play | Stitcher | YouTube
Intro
In this episode, Zach speaks with Meghan Daum, author of five books, current columnist for Medium’s GEN Magazine and podcaster. For more than a decade, she was an opinion columnist for The Los Angeles Times. Her work has also appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and Vogue. She is also an adjunct associate professor in the Graduate Writing Program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts (where she was once a student herself).
Key Takeaways
Last name frustrations
Zach and Meghan talk about pronunciation confusion and frustrations with their last names.
(8:45) “It is haunting me so I’m glad we were able to sort that out.”
(9:24) “I should have changed my name when I started writing.”
Quarantine revelations
Zach and Meghan share how they’ve responded to the quarantine.
(12:07) “I have realized how much I enjoy solitude.” -Meghan
(12:42) “Not that I would live this way all of the time by choice but it really suits me.”-Meghan
(14:07) “I realize I’m much more OK with being by myself than I thought I would...I wonder if I’ll have trouble going back when things are normal.” -Zach
Bret Weinstein, The Evergreen Scandal and Free Speech YouTube
Bret Weinstein and The Evergreen Scandal opened the door for conversations that we should be having.
(25:35) “For people like me who were onto this five years ago, it’s really gratifying to see people jump on board.” -Meghan
YouTube has become a valuable tool for free speech.
(27:17) “The tools on YouTube allow you to pierce the mainstream veil regardless of how many followers you have.” -Zach
(27:35) “The kind of conversations we’re able to have on YouTube are reminiscent of the conversations I had with my friends and peers all the time in the 90s and when I was in my 20s.” -Meghan
Zach and Megan discuss how to effectively handle being dragged through the media.
(32:06) “All of these forced apologies are diluting the effectiveness of an apology...we’re abusing apologies. They’ve rendered them meaningless...apologies are the worst thing you can do when you’ve been dragged” -Meghan
Value of Being Interesting
Zach shares his disappointment in fellow millennials aiming to be someone there not and the consequence.
(38:36) “We have a whole generation that has lost the art of being interesting and being themselves.” -Zach
(40:54) “If you’re going to do anything in your life, be interesting.” -Zach
(42:03) “When you’re obsessed with making yourself look like you have the moral high ground, it takes away your ability to be interesting.” -Zach
(47:40) “Being in the mushy middle will not get you very far...nobody will love you unless somebody hates you.” -Meghan
Trends in Publishing
Meghan shares the difference in her essay work 20 years ago vs. today.
(52:12) “People are ravenous for old school conversation. They are hungry for nuance.” -Meghan
(52:16) “I’ve never seen such a divide between the media’s sensibility and the public’s sensibility. It used to be that the media was more sophisticated.” -Meghan
Writing advice
Zach asks Meghan about her advice to aspiring writers.
(1:01:16) “Say the thing you really want to say...and do it in as energetic of a way as possible. Don’t worry about making people mad. Make your mark. Get people’s attention.” -Meghan
(1:02:09) “Don’t state the obvious. Articulate what everyone else is thinking but can’t say for whatever reason.” -Meghan
(1:04:04) “If I could do it again, I would develop a skill set and do that for a career and then write about that.”
Google Memo
Zach asks Meghan about a topic she enjoys that was taken out of her book.
(1:13:02) “It was the biggest case of media malpractice of our time.”
(1:14:00) “I ended up taking that section out of [my book] because that is the only section that people would have talked about.”
(1:15:26) “There was no attempt from anyone in the media to read the memo and understand what he was actually trying to say.”
(1:17:02) “We all work for Twitter now.”
Meghan’s Podcast- The Unspeakable Podcast
Zach asks Meghan to share about her new podcast.
(1:19:20) “I love interviewing people.”
(1:20:00) “The idea is conversations the way we used to have them.”
Full Transcript, Click Anywhere To Play
Follow Meghan Daum: https://twitter.com/meghan_daum
The Unspeakable Podcast: https://apple.co/3gPjZwJ
The Problem With Everything: https://amzn.to/3bnmxRu